title: Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic

text: This decline in percentage was especially severe among the urban and young populations. Within 11 years between 1959 and 1970 the proportion of Estonians in Tallinn declined by as much as 4%, from 60% to 56% of the total population. Population growth throughout the existence of the Estonian SSR was mainly due to immigration from other regions of the Soviet Union. Although the percentage of Estonians in the total population of the Estonian SSR declined due to Soviet migration policies, the total number of ethnic Estonians increased over the Soviet period as a whole. This was due to a positive natural growth rate of some 1 or 2 thousand per year. As an example, in 1970, the number of live births of Estonians was 14,429 and the number of deaths was 12,356, giving natural increase of 2,073 ethnic Estonians.


title: Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic

text: In 1940–1941 and 1944–1951 during the Soviet deportations from Estonia tens of thousands of Estonian citizens were forcibly resettled to Siberia. During the first year of occupation, 1940–1941, alone, an estimated 43,900 lives were irrecoverably lost, not counting refugees. The following three-year Nazi occupation brought with it a loss of 32,740 lives, again not counting refugees. Another 16,000 deaths were caused through Soviet repressions in the years following 1944.


title: Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic

text: During the first year of Soviet occupation (1940–1941) over 8,000 people, including most of the country's leading politicians and military officers, were arrested. About 2,200 of the arrested were executed in Estonia, while most others were moved to prison camps in Russia, from where very few were later able to return.


title: Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic

text: On July 19, 1940, the Commander-in-chief of the Estonian Army Johan Laidoner was captured by the NKVD and deported together with his wife to Penza, RSFSR. Laidoner died in the Vladimir Prison Camp, Russia on March 13, 1953. The President of Estonia, Konstantin Päts was arrested and deported to Ufa on July 30. He died in a psychiatric hospital in Kalinin (currently Tver) in Russia in 1956.


title: Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic

text: 800 Estonian officers, about half of the total, were executed, arrested or starved to death in prison camps.


title: Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic

text: A total of 59,732 people is estimated to have been deported from Estonia during the period between July 1940 and June 1941. This included 8 former heads of state and 38 ministers from Estonia, 3 former heads of state and 15 ministers from Latvia, and the then president, 5 prime ministers and 24 other ministers from Lithuania.


title: Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic

text: The Soviet 1940 occupation of Estonia decimated the local economy, as Moscow began nationalizing private industries and collectivizing smallholding farms. Most of the larger businesses and half of Estonia's housing were nationalised. Savings were destroyed with an imposed artificially low exchange rate for the Estonian kroon to the Soviet rouble.


title: Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic

text: According to Sergei Isakov, almost all societies, newspapers, organizations of ethnic Russians in Estonia were closed and their activists persecuted.


title: Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic

text: Other ethnic Russians in Estonia arrested and executed by different Soviet War Tribunals in 1940–1941:


title: Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic

text: Ivan Salnikov, Mihhail Arhipo, Vassili Belugin, Vladimir Strekoytov, Vasili Zhilin, Vladimir Utekhin, Sergei Samennikov, Ivan Meitsev, Ivan Yeremeyev, Konstantin Bushuyev, Yegor Andreyev, Nikolai Sausailov, Aleksandr Serpukhov, Konstantin Nosov, Aleksandr Nekrasov, Nikolai Vasilev-Muroman, Aleksei Sinelshikov, Pyotr Molonenkov, Grigory Varlamov, Stepan Pylnikov, Ivan Lishayev, Pavel Belousev, Nikolai Gusev, Leonid Sakharov, Aleksander Chuganov, Fyodor Dobrovidov, Lev Dobek, Andrei Leontev, Ivan Sokolov, Ivan Svetlov, Vladimir Semyonov, Valentin Semenov-Vasilev, Vasili Kamelkov, Georgi Lokhov, Aleksei Forlov, Ivan Ivanov, Vasili Karamsin, Aleksandr Krasilnikov, Aleksandr Zhukov, etc.


title: Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic

text: Immediately after the war, major immigration projects were undertaken, labeled "brotherly aid under Stalinist nationality policies". For postwar reconstruction, hundreds of thousands of Russophones were relocated into Estonia, mainly the cities. During the years 1945–1950, the total urban population count grew from 267,000 to 516,000; over 90% of the increase being fresh immigrants.


title: Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic

text: In the year 1950, the major problems meriting medical research were declared to be tuberculosis, traumatism, occupational diseases and dysentery. In comparison to the war years, birth rate had increased, mortality (including infant mortality) decreased, and the birth rate again exceeded the death rate. Despite the immense needs for research, the Faculty of Medicine at the Tartu State University (now University of Tartu) suffered from major purges, culminating after March 1950. Altogether, 56 staff of the university were purged; in the Faculty of Medicine, 12 professors of 17 were removed from their positions. They were replaced with less skilled but politically reliable staff.


title: Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic

text: Tallinn was selected as host of the sailing events of the 1980 Olympics which led to controversy since Western countries had not "de jure" recognized ESSR as part of USSR. During preparations to the Olympics, sports buildings were built in Tallinn, along with other general infrastructure and broadcasting facilities. This wave of investment included Tallinn TV Tower, Pirita Yachting Centre, Linnahall, hotel "Olümpia" and the new Main Post Office building.


title: Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic

text: While views diverge on history of Estonia, the core of the controversy lies in the varying interpretation of historical events and agreements during and after World War II.


title: Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic

text: During the time of glasnost and the reassessment of Soviet history in the USSR, the USSR condemned the 1939 secret protocol between Nazi Germany and itself that had led to the invasion and occupation of the three Baltic countries. The collapse of the Soviet Union led to the restoration of the Republic of Estonia's sovereignty.


title: Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic

text: According to the European Court of Human Rights, Government of Estonia, European Union, United States Estonia remained occupied by the Soviet Union until restoration of its independence in 1991 and the 48 years of Soviet occupation and annexation is not rendered legal by most international governments.


title: Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic

text: An article in "The Wall Street Journal" claims that Russian reconsideration of the Soviet annexation of the Baltic states raised concerns among "some historians" that "Kremlin is—quite literally—trying to rewrite history in a way that risks breeding ultranationalism and whitewashing the darkest chapters of Russia's past."


title: Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic

text: The Russian government maintains that the Soviet annexation of the Baltic states was legitimate and that the Soviet Union annexed those countries due to the Nazi threat at that time. It is commonly stated that the Soviet troops had entered the Baltics in 1940 following the agreements and with the consent of the then governments of the Baltic republics. They state that the USSR was not in a state of war and was not waging any combat activities on the territory of the three Baltic states against them, and the word 'occupation' cannot be used.


title: Solow–Swan model

text: The Solow–Swan model or exogenous growth model is an economic model of long-run economic growth. It attempts to explain long-run economic growth by looking at capital accumulation, labor or population growth, and increases in productivity largely driven by technological progress. At its core, it is an aggregate production function, often specified to be of Cobb–Douglas type, which enables the model "to make contact with microeconomics". The model was developed independently by Robert Solow and Trevor Swan in 1956, and superseded the Keynesian Harrod–Domar model.


title: Solow–Swan model

text: Mathematically, the Solow–Swan model is a nonlinear system consisting of a single ordinary differential equation that models the evolution of the "per capita" stock of capital. Due to its particularly attractive mathematical characteristics, Solow–Swan proved to be a convenient starting point for various extensions. For instance, in 1965, David Cass and Tjalling Koopmans integrated Frank Ramsey's analysis of consumer optimization, thereby endogenizing the saving rate, to create what is now known as the Ramsey–Cass–Koopmans model.


title: Solow–Swan model

text: The Solow–Swan model was an extension to the 1946 Harrod–Domar model that dropped the restrictive assumption that only capital contributes to growth (so long as there is sufficient labor to use all capital). Important contributions to the model came from the work done by Solow and by Swan in 1956, who independently developed relatively simple growth models. Solow's model fitted available data on US economic growth with some success. In 1987 Solow was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work. Today, economists use Solow's sources-of-growth accounting to estimate the separate effects on economic growth of technological change, capital, and labor.


title: Solow–Swan model

text: The Solow model is also one of the most widely used models in economics to explain economic growth. Basically, it asserts that outcomes on the "total factor productivity (TFP) can lead to limitless increases in the standard of living in a country."<ref name="doi_10.5038/2326-3652.7.2.4879"></ref>


title: Solow–Swan model

text: Solow extended the Harrod–Domar model by adding labor as a factor of production and capital-output ratios that are not fixed as they are in the Harrod–Domar model. These refinements allow increasing capital intensity to be distinguished from technological progress. Solow sees the fixed proportions production function as a "crucial assumption" to the instability results in the Harrod-Domar model. His own work expands upon this by exploring the implications of alternative specifications, namely the Cobb–Douglas and the more general constant elasticity of substitution (CES). Although this has become the canonical and celebrated story in the history of economics, featured in many economic textbooks, recent reappraisal of Harrod's work has contested it. One central criticism is that Harrod's original piece was neither mainly concerned with economic growth nor did he explicitly use a fixed proportions production function.


title: Solow–Swan model

text: A standard Solow model predicts that in the long run, economies converge to their steady state equilibrium and that permanent growth is achievable only through technological progress. Both shifts in saving and in populational growth cause only level effects in the long-run (i.e. in the absolute value of real income per capita).


title: Solow–Swan model

text: An interesting implication of Solow's model is that poor countries should grow faster and eventually catch-up to richer countries. This convergence could be explained by:


title: Solow–Swan model

text: Baumol attempted to verify this empirically and found a very strong correlation between a countries' output growth over a long period of time (1870 to 1979) and its initial wealth. His findings were later contested by DeLong who claimed that both the non-randomness of the sampled countries, and potential for significant measurement errors for estimates of real income per capita in 1870, biased Baumol's findings. DeLong concludes that there is little evidence to support the convergence theory.


title: Solow–Swan model

text: The key assumption of the Solow–Swan growth model is that capital is subject to diminishing returns in a closed economy.


title: Solow–Swan model

text: In the Solow–Swan model the unexplained change in the growth of output after accounting for the effect of capital accumulation is called the Solow residual. This residual measures the exogenous increase in total factor productivity (TFP) during a particular time period. The increase in TFP is often attributed entirely to technological progress, but it also includes any permanent improvement in the efficiency with which factors of production are combined over time. Implicitly TFP growth includes any permanent productivity improvements that result from improved management practices in the private or public sectors of the economy. Paradoxically, even though TFP growth is exogenous in the model, it cannot be observed, so it can only be estimated in conjunction with the simultaneous estimate of the effect of capital accumulation on growth during a particular time period.


title: Solow–Swan model

text: The model can be reformulated in slightly different ways using different productivity assumptions, or different measurement metrics:


title: Solow–Swan model

text: In a growing economy, capital is accumulated faster than people are born, so the denominator in the growth function under the MFP calculation is growing faster than in the ALP calculation. Hence, MFP growth is almost always lower than ALP growth. (Therefore, measuring in ALP terms increases the apparent capital deepening effect.) MFP is measured by the "Solow residual", not ALP.


title: Solow–Swan model

text: The textbook Solow–Swan model is set in continuous-time world with no government or international trade. A single good (output) is produced using two factors of production, labor (formula_1) and capital (formula_2) in an aggregate production function that satisfies the Inada conditions, which imply that the elasticity of substitution must be asymptotically equal to one.


title: Solow–Swan model

text: where formula_4 denotes time, formula_5 is the elasticity of output with respect to capital, and formula_6 represents total production. formula_7 refers to labor-augmenting technology or “knowledge”, thus formula_8 represents effective labor. All factors of production are fully employed, and initial values formula_9, formula_10, and formula_11 are given. The number of workers, i.e. labor, as well as the level of technology grow exogenously at rates formula_12 and formula_13, respectively:


title: Solow–Swan model

text: The number of effective units of labor, formula_16, therefore grows at rate formula_17. Meanwhile, the stock of capital depreciates over time at a constant rate formula_18. However, only a fraction of the output (formula_19 with formula_20) is consumed, leaving a saved share formula_21 for investment. This dynamic is expressed through the following differential equation:


title: Solow–Swan model

text: where formula_23 is shorthand for formula_24, the derivative with respect to time. Derivative with respect to time means that it is the change in capital stock—output that is neither consumed nor used to replace worn-out old capital goods is net investment.


title: Solow–Swan model

text: Since the production function formula_25 has constant returns to scale, it can be written as "output per effective unit of labour" formula_26, which is a measure for wealth creation:


title: Solow–Swan model

text: The main interest of the model is the dynamics of capital intensity formula_28, the capital stock per unit of effective labour. Its behaviour over time is given by the key equation of the Solow–Swan model:


title: Solow–Swan model

text: The first term, formula_30, is the actual investment per unit of effective labour: the fraction formula_31 of the output per unit of effective labour formula_32 that is saved and invested. The second term, formula_33, is the “break-even investment”: the amount of investment that must be invested to prevent formula_28 from falling. The equation implies that formula_35 converges to a steady-state value of formula_36, defined by formula_37, at which there is neither an increase nor a decrease of capital intensity:


title: Solow–Swan model

text: at which the stock of capital formula_2 and effective labour formula_8 are growing at rate formula_41. Likewise, it is possible to calculate the steady-state of created wealth formula_42 that corresponds with formula_36:


title: Solow–Swan model

text: By assumption of constant returns, output formula_45 is also growing at that rate. In essence, the Solow–Swan model predicts that an economy will converge to a balanced-growth equilibrium, regardless of its starting point. In this situation, the growth of output per worker is determined solely by the rate of technological progress.


title: Solow–Swan model

text: Therefore, at the equilibrium, the capital/output ratio depends only on the saving, growth, and depreciation rates. This is the Solow–Swan model's version of the golden rule saving rate.


title: Solow–Swan model

text: Since formula_49, at any time formula_50 the marginal product of capital formula_51 in the Solow–Swan model is inversely related to the capital/labor ratio.


title: Solow–Swan model

text: If productivity formula_53 is the same across countries, then countries with less capital per worker formula_54 have a higher marginal product, which would provide a higher return on capital investment. As a consequence, the model predicts that in a world of open market economies and global financial capital, investment will flow from rich countries to poor countries, until capital/worker formula_54 and income/worker formula_56 equalize across countries.


title: Solow–Swan model

text: Since the marginal product of physical capital is not higher in poor countries than in rich countries, the implication is that productivity is lower in poor countries. The basic Solow model cannot explain why productivity is lower in these countries. Lucas suggested that lower levels of human capital in poor countries could explain the lower productivity.


title: Solow–Swan model

text: so that formula_60 is the fraction of income appropriated by capital. Thus, the Solow–Swan model assumes from the beginning that the labor-capital split of income is constant.


title: Solow–Swan model

text: N. Gregory Mankiw, David Romer, and David Weil created a human capital augmented version of the Solow–Swan model that can explain the failure of international investment to flow to poor countries. In this model output and the marginal product of capital (K) are lower in poor countries because they have less human capital than rich countries.


title: Solow–Swan model

text: where formula_62 is the stock of human capital, which depreciates at the same rate formula_18 as physical capital. For simplicity, they assume the same function of accumulation for both types of capital. Like in Solow–Swan, a fraction of the outcome, formula_64, is saved each period, but in this case split up and invested partly in physical and partly in human capital, such that formula_65. Therefore, there are two fundamental dynamic equations in this model:


title: Solow–Swan model

text: The balanced (or steady-state) equilibrium growth path is determined by formula_68, which means formula_69 and formula_70. Solving for the steady-state level of formula_28 and formula_72 yields:


title: Solow–Swan model

text: Klenow and Rodriguez-Clare cast doubt on the validity of the augmented model because Mankiw, Romer, and Weil's estimates of formula_76 did not seem consistent with accepted estimates of the effect of increases in schooling on workers' salaries. Though the estimated model explained 78% of variation in income across countries, the estimates of formula_76 implied that human capital's external effects on national income are greater than its direct effect on workers' salaries.


title: Solow–Swan model

text: Theodore Breton provided an insight that reconciled the large effect of human capital from schooling in the Mankiw, Romer and Weil model with the smaller effect of schooling on workers' salaries. He demonstrated that the mathematical properties of the model include significant external effects between the factors of production, because human capital and physical capital are multiplicative factors of production. The external effect of human capital on the productivity of physical capital is evident in the marginal product of physical capital:


title: Solow–Swan model

text: He showed that the large estimates of the effect of human capital in cross-country estimates of the model are consistent with the smaller effect typically found on workers' salaries when the external effects of human capital on physical capital and labor are taken into account. This insight significantly strengthens the case for the Mankiw, Romer, and Weil version of the Solow–Swan model. Most analyses criticizing this model fail to account for the pecuniary external effects of both types of capital inherent in the model.


title: Solow–Swan model

text: The exogenous rate of TFP (total factor productivity) growth in the Solow–Swan model is the residual after accounting for capital accumulation. The Mankiw, Romer, and Weil model provide a lower estimate of the TFP (residual) than the basic Solow–Swan model because the addition of human capital to the model enables capital accumulation to explain more of the variation in income across countries. In the basic model, the TFP residual includes the effect of human capital because human capital is not included as a factor of production.


title: Solow–Swan model

text: The Solow–Swan model augmented with human capital predicts that the income levels of poor countries will tend to catch up with or converge towards the income levels of rich countries if the poor countries have similar savings rates for both physical capital and human capital as a share of output, a process known as conditional convergence. However, savings rates vary widely across countries. In particular, since considerable financing constraints exist for investment in schooling, savings rates for human capital are likely to vary as a function of cultural and ideological characteristics in each country.


title: Solow–Swan model

text: Since the 1950s, output/worker in rich and poor countries generally has not converged, but those poor countries that have greatly raised their savings rates have experienced the income convergence predicted by the Solow–Swan model. As an example, output/worker in Japan, a country which was once relatively poor, has converged to the level of the rich countries. Japan experienced high growth rates after it raised its savings rates in the 1950s and 1960s, and it has experienced slowing growth of output/worker since its savings rates stabilized around 1970, as predicted by the model.


title: Solow–Swan model

text: The per-capita income levels of the southern states of the United States have tended to converge to the levels in the Northern states. The observed convergence in these states is also consistent with the conditional convergence concept. Whether absolute convergence between countries or regions occurs depends on whether they have similar characteristics, such as:


title: Solow–Swan model

text: Econometric analysis on Singapore and the other "East Asian Tigers" has produced the surprising result that although output per worker has been rising, almost none of their rapid growth had been due to rising per-capita productivity (they have a low "Solow residual").


title: Carriers (film)

text: Carriers is a 2009 American post-apocalyptic film written and directed by Àlex and David Pastor. It stars Lou Taylor Pucci, Chris Pine, Piper Perabo, and Emily VanCamp as four survivors of a viral pandemic attempting to stay alive amid the looming threat of becoming infected. Filmed in 2006, it received a limited release in the United States on September 4, 2009, following Pine's breakout performance in "Star Trek" earlier that year. It received positive reviews from critics and grossed $5.8 million.


title: Carriers (film)

text: A highly infectious virus has spread worldwide, killing most of the population. Brothers Brian and Danny, along with Brian's girlfriend Bobby and Danny's friend Kate, plot a trip to take shelter at Turtle Beach, the brothers' childhood vacation home. To help them survive, they follow a set of rules created by Brian.


title: Carriers (film)

text: On their way to the beach, the group encounter survivor Frank and his infected daughter Jodie, whose vehicle has run out of fuel. The four escape from Frank when he attacks them, but after their car breaks down, they are forced to help Frank and Jodie to use his vehicle. At Frank's insistence, they travel to a nearby high school where a serum for the pandemic is rumored to have been developed. Upon arriving, Frank, Brian, Danny, and Kate discover that the serum does not work and the last remaining doctor is preparing to euthanize a group of infected children and himself. Meanwhile, Bobby catches the virus from Jodie, which she hides from the others. Frank is later forced to bring Jodie to a portable toilet, giving Brian the opportunity to leave them behind and take their vehicle.


title: Carriers (film)

text: The group stops at a hotel, unaware that it is occupied by armed survivalists. When the survivalists return, they force the women to accompany them until they uncover Bobby's infection and order the group away. Brian subsequently forces Bobby to leave the group.


title: Carriers (film)

text: As the group runs low on fuel, Brian kills two women to siphon their vehicle, but suffers a gunshot wound. While treating his brother's injury, Danny discovers that Brian is infected. Danny attempts to leave Brian behind that night, but Brian takes the keys to their vehicle. Refusing to surrender the keys, Brian goads Danny into killing him so he will not die alone from the virus. Danny and Kate arrive at Turtle Beach the next morning, but Danny realizes that without his brother, the place that seemed special to them as children is now desolate.


title: Carriers (film)

text: Additionally, Josh Berry, Tim D. Janis, Dale Malley, and Dylan Kenin portray the survivalists. LeAnne Lynch and Jan Cunningham play the women who encounter the group while low on fuel.


title: Carriers (film)

text: Filmed in New Mexico and Texas in late 2006, "Carriers" was not released by Paramount Vantage until September 2009, following the success of Pine's appearance as James T. Kirk in "Star Trek", released earlier in 2009.


title: Carriers (film)

text: "Carriers" was released on September 4, 2009, in United States cinemas. The DVD followed on December 29, 2009.


title: Carriers (film)

text: "Carriers" received mixed to positive reviews and holds a 66% 'Fresh' rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 38 reviews. The film was praised for its story, theme and acting performances, with criticism focused towards its ending.


title: Carriers (film)

text: Rob Nelson of "Variety" wrote, "Put into extremely limited release by Paramount Vantage after spending years in studio lockdown, "Carriers" has moments of genuinely communicable horror and thus deserves better than a de facto theatrical quarantine." Paul Chambers from CNN Radio said, "A little more realistic than a zombie flick. Some renegade virus could make the world a 'survival of the fittest' ordeal. A very interesting story with some nice reveals". Charles Cassady from Common Sense Media said: "Gloom, not thrills, in sci-fi drama of worldwide plague."


title: Carriers (film)

text: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the film received a positive retrospective analysis from Chris Sawin of Screen Rant.


title: Carriers (film)

text: Kiernan Shipka was nominated for 'Best Performance in a Feature Film – Supporting Young Actress' at the Young Artist Awards (2010).


title: Speedcubing

text: Speedcubing (also known as speedsolving, or cubing) is a competitive sport involving solving a variety of combination puzzles, the most famous being the 3x3x3 puzzle or Rubik's Cube, as quickly as possible. An individual who practices solving twisty puzzles is known as a speedcuber (when solved specifically focusing on speed), or a cuber. For most puzzles, solving involves performing a series of moves or sequences that alters a scrambled puzzle into a solved state, in which every face of the puzzle is a single, solid color.


title: Speedcubing

text: Competitive speedcubing is mainly regulated by the World Cube Association (WCA). The WCA recognizes 17 speedcubing events: the cubic puzzles from the 2x2-7x7, the Pyraminx, Megaminx, and, Rubik's Clock, as well as 3x3 Blindfolded, 3x3 One-handed, 3x3 Fewest Moves, 4x4 Blindfolded, and 5x5 Blindfolded.


title: Speedcubing

text: The Rubik's Cube was invented in 1974 by Hungarian professor of architecture Ernő Rubik (Born 13 July 1944). In 1979, Ernő Rubik partnered with Ideal Toy company to garner widespread international interest in the cube, which soon developed into a global trend. On June 5, 1982, the first world championship was held in Budapest, Hungary. Nineteen people competed in the event and the American Minh Thai won with a single solve time of 22.95 seconds, which was, at the time, the fastest Rubik's Cube solve ever recorded in competition. Other notable attendees include Jessica Fridrich and Lars Petrus, both people who later became influential in the development of solving methods and the speedcubing community. The Rubik's Cube waned in popularity after 1983, but with the advent of the Internet, sites began to surface to discuss the cube. With these websites facilitating the renewed popularity of the cube, it ushered in a new generation of cubers, creating a growing international community of people dedicated to the sport of speedsolving.


title: Speedcubing

text: Those prominent in the online community such as Ron van Bruchem, Tyson Mao, Chris Hardwick, and Ton Dennenbroek eventually wanted to create a place where cubers from around the world can meet and compete. In 2003 they organized a second championship in Toronto, Ontario followed by another competition in the Netherlands later that same year. This revival of competition sparked a new wave of organized speedcubing events, which include regular national and international competitions. There were twelve competitions in 2004, 58 more from 2005 to 2006, over 100 in 2008, and over 1150 in 2018. Since Budapest's 1982 competition, there have been nine further World Championships traditionally held every other year, the most recent in Melbourne, Australia. This new wave of speedcubing competitions have been and still are organized by the World Cube Association (WCA).


title: Speedcubing

text: Since speedcubing's rise in popularity, numerous entrepreneurial ventures have sprung up, specializing in either the making or selling of speedcubes, creating international competition between these brands and Rubik's. Dozens of cube manufacturers have begun improving the cube's technology to allow for smoother turning and faster solving. This has helped to facilitate the eventual rise of the Rubik's Cube as not just a toy, but also a lucrative business.


title: Speedcubing

text: The standard 3x3x3 can be solved using a number of methods, not all of which are intended for speedcubing. Although some speedsolving methods (such as CFOP) employ a layer-by-layer system in tandem with algorithms, other significant (though less widely used) methods include corners-first methods and the Roux method. CFOP, Roux, and ZZ are known as the "Big 3" methods, as they are the most popular and can be used to achieve the fastest times. The "Big 3" used to be a "Big 4", previously including the Petrus method, but this method has waned in popularity in recent years. The CFOP method is used by the majority of today's speedcubers.


title: Speedcubing

text: The CFOP (Abbreviation for Cross – F2L – OLL – PLL) method, also known as the Fridrich method, was named after one of its inventors, Jessica Fridrich, who finished second in the 2003 Rubik's Cube World Championships. Although it is known as the Fridrich method, its origins are actually credited to David Singmaster, who was one of the first to publish a layer by layer method of solving in 1980, and Guus Razoux Schultz, who built upon this and developed a more efficient system for the first two layers (F2L). Jessica Fridrich then finished developing the method and published it online in 1997, an event that was very influential in the revival of competitive speedcubing. The first step of the method is to solve a cross-shaped arrangement of edge pieces on the first layer. The remainder of the first layer and all of the second layer are then solved together in what are referred to as "corner-edge pairs", or slots. Finally, the last layer is solved in two steps – first, all of the pieces in the layer are oriented to form a solid color (but without the individual pieces always being in their correct places on the cube). This step is referred to as orientation and is usually performed with a single set of algorithms known as OLL (Orientation of Last Layer). Then, all of those pieces are permuted to their correct spots. This is also usually performed as a single set of algorithms known as PLL (Permutation of Last Layer). OLL and PLL uses 57 algorithms and 21 algorithms, respectively.


title: Speedcubing

text: The CFOP method can be used as a less advanced method by dividing the steps into more steps, reducing the number of algorithms that needs to be learned but sacrificing time. Most people start learning CFOP with 4LLL (Four-Look Last Layer), which is the less advanced, slower, and algorithm-reducing (from 78 algorithms to 16) way to learn CFOP. The 4 steps are divided into Edge Orientation, Corner Orientation, Corner Permutation, and Edge Permutation (can be called as EO, CO, CP and EP). Later on, full OLL which has 57 Algorithms, and full PLL, which has 21 Algorithms, can be learned. An average CFOP solve with Full OLL and PLL along with an efficient cross (which takes 8 moves at maximum) and efficient F2L (takes almost 30 moves) consists of 55-60 moves, which means that it has a higher move count than Roux and ZZ. However, finger tricks and Algorithms are more researched with CFOP than any other method which explains why the majority of the fastest speedcubers use CFOP as their main speedcubing method.


title: Speedcubing

text: The CFOP method is the most widely used speedsolving method. It is a more efficient version of the Layer-By-Layer method (also known as the beginner's method). It is very popular due to the vast amount of resources that teach and improve upon the CFOP method. Many fast speedcubers, including two-time World Champion Feliks Zemdegs and world record holder Max Park learn additional sets of algorithms for the last slot and layer, such as Corners of Last Layer (COLL), which orients and permutes the corners when the edges are oriented, or Winter Variation (WV), which finishes OLL while inserting the last pair and ZBLL, which combines the solving process of OLL and PLL in only 1 Algorithm.


title: Speedcubing

text: The Roux method was invented by French speedcuber Gilles Roux. The first step of the Roux method is to form a 3×2×1 block usually placed in the lower portion of the left layer. The second step is to create another 3×2×1 on the opposite side, such that each block is sharing a bottom color. The creation of these blocks is commonly known as "blockbuilding". The remaining four corners are then solved using a set of algorithms known as CMLL (Corners of the Last Layer, without regard to the M-slice), which leaves six edges and four centers that are solved in the last step, L6E or LSE (Last Six Edges).


title: Speedcubing

text: This method is not as dependent on algorithm memorization as the CFOP method since all but the third step is done with intuition as opposed to predefined sets of algorithms. Because of the frequent use of M moves, the Roux method can be performed without any rotations (unlike the CFOP method) which means it is easier to look ahead (solving a collection of pieces while at the same time looking for the solution to the next step) while solving. It is also considered one of the most efficient speedsolving methods with its average move count being between 45 and 50 moves for experienced solvers. However, the Roux method of speedcubing has been criticized over the years because, unlike CFOP, ZZ or Petrus, Roux requires M (middle) slices to solve the LSE. Using M slice moves makes it harder to achieve higher TPS (turns per second) because the fingertricks are almost always flicks, but high TPS is achievable through training. Because of its low move count it is often considered one of the best speedsolving methods.


title: Speedcubing

text: One of the users of this method, Kian Mansour, had broken the one-handed (OH) world-record average with the time of 9.54 seconds. Sean Patrick Villanueva is the first Roux user to achieve a Sub-6 average of five in competition, and is ranked eighth in the world by 3x3 average. He also podiumed in 3x3 at the WCA World Championship 2019 (2nd Place).


title: Speedcubing

text: The ZZ method (short for "Zbigniew Zborowski") is a modern speedcubing method originally proposed by Zbigniew Zborowski in 2006. The method was designed specifically to achieve high turning speed by focusing on move ergonomics, and is the combination of a block-building method and a layer-by-layer method. The initial pre-planned step is called EOLine, and is the most distinctive hallmark of the ZZ method. It involves orienting all edges while placing two oppositely placed down-face edges aligned with the correspondingly colored center. It is also common to build an EOCross, where all edges are oriented and the four bottom edges are put in their place, similar to CFOP. The next step solves the remaining first two layers using only left, right, top and bottom face turns, one of the advantages of ZZ. On completion of the first two layers, the last layer's edges are all correctly oriented because of edge pre-orientation during EOLine. The last layer may be completed using a number of techniques including those used in the CFOP method. An expert variant of this method, ZBLL (Zborowski-Bruchem Last Layer) allows the last layer to be completed in a single step with an average of just over 12 moves, but requires a total of 493 algorithms to be learned. Due to the ergonomics of ZZ, rotating when solving will never be needed, unlike in the CFOP method. The ZZ method has fewer moves than CFOP, with ZZ averaging 45-55 compared to CFOP's 55-60 moves. Because ZZ uses EO and block building, it is very move-efficient, these techniques are used in FMC (Fewest Move Challenge). However, EOLine is considered by many to be more difficult than F2L, with only two edges solved (the front and back bottom edges), which can hinder lookahead and TPS (turns per second), making ZZ much slower than CFOP.


title: Speedcubing

text: Corners-first methods involve solving the corners then finishing the edges with slice turns. Corners-first solutions were common in the 1980s, and was one of the most popular methods that 1982 world champion Minh Thai used. Currently, corners-first solutions are rarely used among speedsolvers. Dutch cuber Marc Waterman created a corners-first method in the cube craze, and averaged 18 seconds in the mid-late 1980s.


title: Speedcubing

text: At the highest level, there typically is not a standard method used for Fewest Moves solving. Rather, competitors attempt to solve the cube intuitively using solving techniques such as blockbuilding, Normal-Inverse-Scramble-Swap (NISS), commutator insertions, and Domino Reduction after its rise to popularity in 2019. Most solves utilize multiple of these techniques in order to generate a solution.


title: Speedcubing

text: In 2003, when the first blindfolded competitions were organized, world record solvers would use the 3OP (3-Cycle Orientation Permutation) Method, which orients and then permutes pieces using 3 cycles. As of today, methods such as 3-Style and M2 are among the fastest and most popular blind solving methods. The Old Pochmann Method, which is a method that solves one piece at a time, is a method typically used by beginner blindsolvers. Blindfolded solvers use letter patterns to help memorize sequences of moves in order to solve the cube.


title: Speedcubing

text: The lettering scheme that blindfolded solvers use is called the Speffz lettering scheme, and each sticker or individual color is given a letter. The way letters are assigned is starting on the top edge of the top face, go clockwise starting with A. The top edge of the top face is A, the right edge is B, the bottom edge is C, and the left edge is D. The same process is done on the other sides in the order top, left, front, right, back, bottom to get every edge lettered from A to X. The same process is applied to all of the corners, starting with the top left corner and going clockwise in the same face order. A cycle of piece swaps is then used with the letter E being used as a buffer location for corners and D commonly being used for edges in the Old Pochmann method.


title: Speedcubing

text: Speedcubing competitions have been held every year since 2003. The World Cube Association (WCA) was formed in 2004 to govern all official competitions. For a competition to be official, it must be approved by the WCA and follow the WCA regulations. Included in the regulations is the necessity of having one or more WCA delegate in attendance. A delegate's main role is to ensure all regulations are followed during the competition. Once the competition is finished, results are uploaded to the WCA website. judges over see the round delegates help the judge runners give the scrambled or solved cube to the competitor or a scrambler scrambles the cube


title: Speedcubing

text: The majority of puzzle competitions are held using a trimmed mean of five format. This involves the competitor executing five solves in the round in question, after which the fastest and slowest solve are disregarded and the mean of the remaining three is used. The 6×6×6 and 7×7×7 events are ranked by straight mean of three — only three solves, none of which are disregarded. In 3×3×3 blindfolded and 3×3×3 fewest moves challenges, either straight mean of 3 or best of 3 is used, while 4×4×4 blindfolded, 5×5×5 blindfolded, and multiple blindfolded challenges are ranked using best of 1, 2 or 3, depending on the competition.


title: Speedcubing

text: When a round begins, competitors hand in the puzzle they will use. Puzzles are scrambled using a computer-generated scramble. Each round, five, three or one (depending on the format, mentioned above) scrambles are used. Every competitor in the round will receive each scramble once. Before starting a solve, a competitor has up to 15 seconds to inspect the puzzle (inspection is removed for blindfolded events). This is monitored by a judge with a stopwatch. Once the solve is complete, the judge records the time on the competitor's scorecard and it is signed by both. If the puzzle is unsolved and the timer is stopped, the time is recorded as "DNF" (Did Not Finish). There are also numerous reasons why the solve can receive a two-second addition to the solve time, such as a face being more than 45 degrees off, or the competitor going over the allowed inspection time. A competitor can also receive an extra solve to replace the one just completed, for example in the case of a timer malfunction or a duplicate scramble.


title: Speedcubing

text: The official timer used in competitions is the StackMat timer. This device has touch-sensitive pads that are triggered by the user lifting one or both of their hands to start the time and placing both their hands back on the pads after releasing the puzzle to stop the timer.


title: Speedcubing

text: The WCA organizes the Rubik's Cube World Championship as the main international competition once every two years. The latest championship was held in Melbourne, Australia from 11 to 14 July 2019.


title: Speedcubing

text: Note: For averages of 5 solves, the best time and the worst time are dropped, and the mean of the remaining 3 solves is taken. When only 3 solves are done, the mean of all 3 is taken.


title: Speedcubing

text: Members of the cubing community lubricate their cubes to allow them to be manipulated faster, easier, smoother, and more reliable than a non-lubricated cube. The WCA allows lubrication for official competitions.


title: Speedcubing

text: A lubricant’s MSDS indicates potential cube-damaging properties. Cube lubricants normally belong to the silicone family of lubrications because these are less likely to damage the cube.


title: Speedcubing

text: There are also water-based lubes which usually dry out faster but sometimes can be faster. Also, there are plant based lubes, they can also be fast, but its advised to use them faster, because they can spoil.


title: Speedcubing

text: Below are some definitions of words generally used by the speedcubing community. For a more complete list of speedcubing terminology, see the cubefreak.net glossary.


title: John Benjamin Hickey

text: John Benjamin Hickey (born June 25, 1963) is an American actor with a career in stage, film and television. He won the 2011 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play for his performance as Felix Turner in "The Normal Heart".


title: John Benjamin Hickey

text: Hickey was born in Plano, Texas, and graduated from Plano Sr. High School in 1981. He attended Texas State University - San Marcos from 1981–1983, where he was active in the theater department. He earned his bachelor's degree in English at Fordham University in 1985.


title: John Benjamin Hickey

text: On Broadway, he originated the role of Arthur in Terrence McNally's play "Love! Valour! Compassion!" in 1995, a role he recreated for the 1997 film version.


title: John Benjamin Hickey

text: He played supporting roles in a number of films including "The Ice Storm" (1997) and "The Anniversary Party" (2001). He has also appeared in "Flightplan", "Flags of Our Fathers", "Freedom Writers", "Then She Found Me", "", "The Bet" and "".


title: John Benjamin Hickey

text: He played Clifford Bradshaw in the 1998 Broadway revival of "Cabaret", which won the Tony for Best Revival of a Musical. In that same year, he played the lead in the independent film "Finding North".


title: John Benjamin Hickey

text: Hickey played American novelist and playwright Jack Dunphy in the 2006 Truman Capote biopic "Infamous". Hickey played Philip Stoddard on the short-lived gay-themed sitcom "It's All Relative". Since "It's All Relative", Hickey has appeared on "Alias", "Law & Order", "Brothers & Sisters", "Stacked", "Heartland", "In Plain Sight", "", and "Modern Family".


title: John Benjamin Hickey

text: He appeared in the 2011 Broadway revival of "The Normal Heart", for which he won the Tony Award, Featured Actor in a Play. He was in the Broadway revival of "Mary Stuart" in 2009, as the Earl of Leicester.


title: John Benjamin Hickey

text: From 2010 to 2013, he appeared on "The Big C" and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for the final season of the series, subtitled "Hereafter". Hickey starred as scientist Frank Winter on the TV series "Manhattan", which concluded on December 15, 2015 after two seasons and 23 episodes.


title: John Benjamin Hickey

text: In 2015, he appeared Off-Broadway at the Mitzi Newhouse Theatre in the play "Dada Woof Papa Hot" by Peter Parnell.


title: John Benjamin Hickey

text: In 2018 he appeared in the world premiere of Matthew Lopez's new play "The Inheritance", inspired by E.M. Forster's novel "Howards End", creating the role Henry Wilcox at London's Young Vic and then transferring to the West End.


title: John Benjamin Hickey

text: On September 30, 2021, Hickey was cast as Father Callahan in the adaptation of Stephen King's "Salem's Lot" for Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema.


title: Dhikr

text: Dhikr (, , also spelled Zikr, Thikr, Zekr, or Zikar, literally meaning "remembrance, reminder" or "mention") is a form of Islamic meditation in which phrases or prayers are repeatedly chanted in order to remember God. It plays a central role in Sufi Islam, and each Sufi order has usually adopted a specific dhikr, typically accompanied by specific posture, breathing, and movement. In Sufi Islam, dhikr refers to both the act of this remembrance as well as the prayers used in these acts of remembrance. Dhikr can be performed in solitude or as a collective group. It can be counted on a set of prayer beads ("Misbaha" ) or through the fingers of the hand. A person who recites the Dhikr is called a "Dhakir (, )", literally "he who remembers." The content of the prayers includes the names of God, or a "dua" (prayer of supplication) taken from the hadiths or the Quran.


title: Dhikr

text: There are several verses in the Quran that emphasize the importance of remembering the will of God by saying phrases such as "God willing" "God knows best," and "If it is your will.' This is the basis for dhikr. Surah al-Kahf (18), Ayah 24 states a person who forgets to say, "God willing", should immediately remember God by saying, "Maybe my Lord will guide me to [something] more akin to rectitude than this." Other verses include Surah al-Ahzab (33), Ayah 41, "O you who have faith! Remember Allah with frequent remembrance", and Surah ar-Ra'd (13), Ayah 28, "those who have faith, and whose hearts find rest in the remembrance of Allah.' Look! The hearts find rest in Allah's remembrance!"


title: Dhikr

text: Muslims believe dhikr is one of the best ways to enter the higher level of Heaven and to glorify the Monotheistic Oneness of God.


title: Dhikr

text: To Sufis, dhikr is seen as a way to gain spiritual enlightenment and achieve union ("visal") or annihilation ("fana") in God. All Muslim sects endorse individual rosaries as a method of meditation, the goal of which is to obtain a feeling of peace, separation from worldly values (dunya), and, in general, strengthen Iman (faith).


title: Dhikr

text: It is mentioned in hadith that where people are oblivious to dhikir, remembrance of Allah is like being steadfast in jihad when others are running away (Targhib, p. 193, vol. 3 ref. Bazar and Tibrani).


title: Dhikr

text: The Islamic Prophet Muhammad is reported to have taught his daughter Fatimah bint Rasul Allah a special manner of Dhikr which is known as the "Tasbih of Fatimah". This consists of:


title: Dhikr

text: Known also as "Tasbih", these are usually "Misbaha" (prayer beads) upon a string, 33, 99, or 100 in number, which correspond to the names of God in Islam and other recitations. The beads are used to keep track of the number of recitations that make up the dhikr.


title: Dhikr

text: When the dhikr involves the repetition of particular phrases a specific number of times, the beads are used to keep track so that the person performing dhikr can turn all of their focus on what is actually being said - as it can become difficult to concentrate simultaneously on the number and phrasing when one is doing so a substantial number of times.


title: Dhikr

text: In the United States, Muslim inmates are allowed to utilize prayer beads for therapeutic effects. In Alameen v. Coughlin, 892 F. Supp. 440 (E.D.N.Y 1995), Imam Hamzah S. Alameen, a/k/a Gilbert Henry, and Robert Golden brought suit against Thomas A. Coughlin III, etc., et alia (Head of the Department of Corrections) in the State of New York pursuant to 42 USC Section 1983. The plaintiffs argued that prisoners have a First Amendment Constitutional right to pursue Islamic healing therapy called KASM (قاسَمَهُ | qaasama | taking an oath ) which uses prayer beads. The rosary of oaths, which Alameen developed, was used to successfully rehabilitate inmates suffering from co-occurring mental health challenges and substance abuse issues during the 1990s. All people, including Muslims and Catholics, were allowed to use prayer beads inside prisons, lest their freedom of religion be violated when the prison administration forbade their possession as contraband in the penal system. The practice of carrying prayer beads became controversial when gang-members began carrying specific colors of prayer beads to identify themselves.


title: Dhikr

text: A "dhakir" () or "Zaker" (literally "mentioner"' a speaker who refers to something briefly/incidentally), or reminder, is considered a maddah who reminds the remembering of Allah (and His Dhikr) for people, and he himself should also be reciter of dhikhr; namely, not only he ought to be a recital of Dhikr, but also he should put the audience in the situation of dhikr reminding (of Allah and likewise Ahl al-Bayt). Idiomatically the term means "praiser of God" or "professional narrator of the tragedies of Karbala (and Ahl al-Bayt)". To some extent, it can mean Maddah/panegyrist too.


title: Dhikr

text: The root of the word "Dhakir" () is "Dhikr" () which means remembering/praising; and the word "Dhakiri" () is the act which is done by Dhakir, i.e. mentioning the Dhikr (of Allah, the Ahl al-Bayt, etc.) by observing its specific principles/manners.


title: Dhikr

text: Followers of Sufism often engage in ritualized dhikr ceremonies, the details of which vary between Sufi orders or "tariqah". Each order, or lineage within an order, has one or more forms for group dhikr, the liturgy of which may include recitation, singing, music, dance, costumes, incense, "muraqaba" (meditation), ecstasy, and trance. Common terms for the forms of litany employed include "hizb" ("pl." "ahzab"), "wird" ("pl." "awrad") and durood. An example of a popular work of litany is Dala'il al-Khayrat. Another type of group dhikr ceremony that is most commonly performed in Arab countries is called the haḍra ("lit". presence). A haḍra can draw upon secular Arab genres and typically last for hours. Finally, sama` ("lit". audition) is a type of group ceremony that consist mostly of recited spiritual poetry and Quranic recitation.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: This is a list of resources of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), the police department of the city of Los Angeles, California. The LAPD's resources include the department's divisions, vehicles, communications, and technology.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: The LAPD's deployment of officers has reflected the growth and changes of Los Angeles since the late 19th century. The earliest LAPD police station (or "division" as the early ones were known, originating from the "Patrol Division") was Central Division, located in Downtown Los Angeles on the southeast corner of 1st and Hill. This station opened in 1896 and was the department's first dedicated police station (another had been located at 2nd and Spring, but was possibly a leased or rented storefront type of set-up). The Central Jail was located directly south of it. "Old Central", as it came to be known, housed not only Central Division but also many of the department's headquarters units until its closure in about 1955 in favor of Parker Center and Central Community Police Station.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: The city's largest growth period was from approximately the late 19th century through the 1930s when the city grew at a geometric rate. Approximately 100 smaller portions were added to the original five square mile pueblo. Of these, about 90 were formerly unincorporated areas. The remaining ten portions had been their own incorporated cities, and included the cities of Watts, Venice, Hollywood, San Pedro, Wilmington, Barnes, Hyde Park, Eagle Rock, Sawtelle, and Tujunga. When the city consolidated another existing city, its police officers became LAPD officers with corresponding ranks and titles at the LAPD, per the city charter. The LAPD would then create a new division named after the city that had been consolidated and would continue using the former city's police station, usually replacing these facilities with larger renamed police stations within a few years.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: To patrol the of the city of Los Angeles, the police department utilizes a number of different types of vehicles:


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: The Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor is one of three sedans used often in the department fleet, the others being the Dodge Charger Pursuit (pre-2015 only) and the Ford Police Interceptor Sedan. Chevrolet Impala 9C1s were also purchased in small numbers in the 2000s. In recent years, with the Ford Crown Victoria being discontinued in 2011 and the Ford Taurus being discontinued in 2019, the LAPD has been purchasing primarily Ford Police Interceptor Utility crossovers. The LAPD also uses a small number of Chevrolet Tahoe SUVs, though they are gradually decommissioning them due to their poor gas mileage.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: LAPD vehicles are ordered painted in black clearcoat with the roof, doors, and pillars painted white from the factory, though some vehicles assigned to special divisions, such as K-9 or the bomb squad, may be painted all-white or all-black. Options available from Ford ordered by the LAPD today include dual pillar-mounted Unity spotlights, 16-inch heavy duty steel wheels with chrome center caps, and ballistic panels within the two front doors. Most LAPD patrol cars bear at least two rear bumper stickers: one reading "There's NO Excuse - For Domestic Violence" and another for "Watch The Road - Operation Traffix". On the rear side panel is a black and white sticker that reads "EMERGENCY DIAL 9-1-1 Fire Police Medical." The front doors bear the seal of the city of Los Angeles, the department slogan "to protect and to serve", and the citywide five-digit "shop number" and city department name ("POLICE"). The last three numbers of the shop number (used to identify all vehicles operated by the city) are reprinted on the roof to help air units visually identify cars. On the trunk is a number that identifies which division the unit belongs to (e.g., a 25 would be "South Traffic Division" or a 3 would be "Southwest Area"). The LAPD has used the same black-and-white paint scheme and markings since roughly 1940 with minimal modifications.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: The LAPD has many unmarked vehicles, primarily used by special units such as gang units, detectives, SWAT, and some traffic units. They are usually assigned Ford Crown Victorias, Ford Explorers, Dodge Chargers, Chevrolet Impalas, and Chevrolet Tahoes.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: Certain investigative units, such as detectives, vice, special investigations, homicide units, may be assigned civilian vehicles that are not normally used for police work, ranging from civilian models of cruisers (such as Ford Crown Victorias or Ford Explorers) to common civilian vehicles (such as Honda Civics and Chevrolet Silverados). These differentiate from traditional unmarked cruisers due to their prevalence among regular civilian traffic and their lack of police equipment.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: The LAPD SWAT operates a fleet of unmarked Chevrolet Suburbans and Chevrolet Tahoes alongside regular unmarked cruisers. They also operate a fleet of armored vehicles, primarily Lenco BearCats and possibly also a Cadillac Gage Commando, which are designated as "Rescue" vehicles. As well as specialized variant M113 APCs.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: The bomb squad and the K-9 unit both operate a mix of all-white cruisers and pickup trucks (the bomb squad also operates all-black vehicles as well), such as the Ford Police Interceptor Utility and the GMC Sierra. The bomb squad also operated a custom Peterbilt 367 with a Total Containment Vessel until June 2021, when it was destroyed after illegal fireworks accidentally detonated while being stored in the truck.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: The LAPD uses various trucks, including a Peterbilt used to move a mobile command center trailer, and several retired military flatbeds acquired from the 1033 Program. At least two modified Pierce rescue trucks are used by SWAT and the bomb squad. The LAPD also uses several vans, with white Ford E-Series, Ford Transit, Chevrolet Express, and Chevrolet Astro vans being used for transport, administrative, and special purposes. The LAPD Honor Guard is transported in a white Ford Transit.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: The LAPD briefly had a Lamborghini Gallardo with a black-and-white livery and patrol-specification lighting. The Gallardo was loaned to the department in 2014 and was used to promote the Air Support Division at several promotional events. As it was on loan and has not made any further appearances, it is likely no longer used by the department. Other vehicles the LAPD uses to promote recruitment include the Hummer H3 and the GMC Yukon.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: On September 11, 2015, the Mayor of Los Angeles announced a plan to lease 160 battery electric vehicles and 128 plug-in hybrids for city department use. In 2016, the LAPD leased a Tesla Model S and a BMW i3 for testing purposes, and decided to purchase 100 BMW i3s for administrative and non-emergency duties. However, they were almost never used due to concerns over their low mileage, and were decommissioned and sold in bulk for $19,000 each in 2020.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: A cruiser with 1-Adam-12 markings is used by Central Division to reward officers for "outstanding duty performance". It was activated in 2003. It is unknown if the vehicle is still used. A 2001 Ford Crown Victoria with an older Federal Signal Aerodynic lightbar, used by the LAPD before the adoption of the Ford Crown Victoria, is used by officers assigned to patrol Panorama Mall; despite its visible age, it is still in service as of November 2020.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: Kawasaki police motorcycles have historically represented the majority of the motorcycle vehicles in the LAPD's motor pool. In recent years, the LAPD has shifted to using Harley-Davidson FL and BMW R1200RT motorcycles. LAPD motorcycles are painted black and white and carry a radio, emergency lights, a long arm, police equipment, and police documentation. The LAPD also operates a smaller fleet of electric motorcycles and electric scooters. Motorcycle units are not deployed during rainy or inclement weather, during which all traffic units patrol in cruisers.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: The LAPD Air Support Division maintains 21 helicopters and 1 fixed-wing aircraft. Older helicopters were painted silver and blue; newer models use the traditional black-and-white paint schemes, similar to patrol cars. The letters "LAPD" appear on the top side of the aircraft in blue, capital letters. LAPD air units (known as "Airships") use Eurocopter AS350B2 AStars, Bell 206B-IIIs, and the Bell 412. They are equipped with a wide variety of electronics and equipment that include a 30 million candlepower Nightsun spotlight, optical FLIR cameras and electronically stabilized binoculars, a LoJack signal receiver, and police radios. The Air Support Division operates from LAPD Hooper Heliport in downtown Los Angeles, and Van Nuys Airport.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: Two officers with at least three years of patrol car service fly in each air unit; they are armed and able to land and make arrests in areas not accessible by other means. Air units provide information with regards to barricaded suspects, suspects fleeing on foot or in a vehicle, violent incidents involving large numbers of individuals, and then some. Air units are automatically requested when initiating a traffic stop on a Code 5 vehicle, or suspect with known wants or warrants that are a felony, to limit the potential for a vehicle pursuit.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: Air units do not fly during poor or inclement weather (particularly dense fog) due to aviation safety procedures.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: Occasionally, police bicycle units patrol, usually in large numbers and especially during special events to provide fast and easy access to police assistance. Bicycle units may go on patrols lasting between 10 and 25 miles during any given beat. Bicycle units train rigorously in the hills of Elysian Park near Academy Road and Dodger Stadium. The bicycles used by the Los Angeles Police Department are manufactured by Giant.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: Metropolitan Division also has a Mounted Unit that consists of approximately 40 police horses. These are normally used for riots and special events. Specially trained officers also wear their uniform along with boots and a Stetson hat with the same police shield as the one worn on the brim of the traditional police hat. Equestrian units normally appear in the city only on special occasions. Metro Division is also responsible for the K-9 units, making Metro Division responsible for not only police horses, but also for police dogs (which also wear ballistic vests). Narcotics and Bomb K-9 units belong to different divisions. The reason the police force uses Mounted Police is the added height and visibility that the horses give their riders allows officers to observe a wider area and be easier to spot in a crowd.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: Inspired by a contest in 1924, Police Chief R. Lee Heath ordered his staff to investigate the use of radio communications to "more quickly dispatch officers to where they are needed." It was not until Police Chief Roy E. Steckel, however, that the department was assigned its first Federal Communications Commission license. On May 1, 1931, KGPL, the LAPD's dedicated radio callsign, began broadcasting at 1712 kHz, just above the commercial radio broadcasting frequencies; this was later changed to 1730 kHz. Any citizen could monitor outgoing police radio traffic on their home sets. The system was "one way" until the mid-1930s when mobile transmitters were installed in patrol units. In 1949, the FCC changed KGPL's callsign to KMA367. This was later changed again at an unspecified point in time; the LAPD's current primary radio callsign is KJC625. Other frequencies are also used for varying divisions and purposes, such as WPLQ343 for talkaround (direct unit-to-unit communications), WPRJ338 for detectives, and WIL868 for tactical operations. KMA367 is still used by a handful of LAPD divisions, but it is no longer the primary radio callsign for a majority of the department.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: Emergency calls for police service are handled by the Communications Division. First, an Emergency Board Operator answers calls placed to 911 (with a lower number of operators assigned to the non-emergency 1-877-ASK-LAPD). A call for service is assigned an incident number, which resets to the number 1—citywide—at midnight each night. Upon receiving the call for service, the Radio Telephone Operator (RTO) will go on the air to broadcast to the division (with the option to simulcast on bureau-wide, geographically adjacent or citywide frequencies).


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: A fictitious example of an LAPD dispatch radio transmission would be:Any available Central unit, a 211 just occurred at 714 South Broadway Street. Suspect is a male, white, six-foot seven, approximately 280 pounds; shaved head, black eyes, white shirt, blue jeans. Vehicle is a dark grey late-model Chevrolet Malibu. Weapon used was a semi-automatic handgun. Monitor comments for additional. Units to handle Code 3, identify. Incident number 171 in RD 193.Without using jargon, this radio transmission reports an armed robbery at 714 South Broadway Street, followed by the suspect's physical description, vehicle description, and weapon, an order to read information in the MDT, and a request for the responding units to identify themselves using their callsign and respond to the scene with emergency lights and sirens, ending with the call's daily incident number, the 171st call of the day.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: A unit that responds Code 3 must state their starting location (e.g. intersection or street address), after which the RTO broadcasts a Code 3 notification, announcing the unit number is responding Code 3 from that starting location to the location of the distress call.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: Typical radio traffic (usually not simulcast citywide) includes the activity generated from traffic stops. A patrol unit may radio control that they are Code 6 on a traffic stop, to which Control will acknowledge. Additional broadcasts will be requests for information on "Cal IDs", or "CalOps" (the numbers that appear at the top of California Department of Motor Vehicle driver licenses) or on vehicle license plates, the result of which provides all of the expected details about the subject plus important details such as whether or not the licensee has any wants or warrants, FTAs (failure to appear in court) or FTPs (failure to pay a fine), etc. In the case of a vehicle, this information can help check whether or not it is Code 37. Off the air and via MDT, officers can check to whom the vehicle is registered.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: In the event a Code 6-Charles is broadcast, the unit in question must verify their location, advise if they are Code 4 and the nature of the Code 4 (e.g. suspect in custody, common name, information only or wrong suspect.)


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: A noticeable characteristic of police broadcasts is the expedited nature of crime broadcasts; due to the number of broadcasts that need to be made at any given moment of the day, each transmission is necessarily as brief as possible. As a standard of police professionalism, RTOs are trained to use a tone that is strictly business-like.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: From the perspective of control, each unit is represented by an LAPD-specific callsign. Typically, a callsign is made up of three elements: the division number, the unit type and the "beat" number. For example, division 1 is Central Division (or, now, "Central Area"), an "A" is patrol unit with two officers and their patrol area number can be a number like 12. Such a unit would identify themselves as 1A12 (or 1-Adam-12, using the LAPD phonetic alphabet). There are several types of units, designated by a letter:


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: The immediate supervisor of any patrol officer is called a field supervisor, which typically have beats that end in zero beginning from 2 through 7 (for example, 7-L-60 for a Wilshire Area supervisor). The watch commander is a usually a lieutenant I at a geographic division. Their radio code always ends in Lincoln-10 (e.g., the watch commander at division 6 or Hollywood Area station is always 6-L-10). The watch commander is responsible for the geographic area (e.g. "Southwest Area") and reports to the area patrol captain I.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: Officers out of their cars are able to communicate over the air using portable Motorola radios nicknamed ROVERs ("Remote Out of Vehicle Emergency Radios"). These hand-held radios are currently a mix of the new Motorola APX-8000 and Motorola XTS-5000 models, with some older Motorola Astro digital SABRE models still being used by very few officers and some still inside older police vehicles. ROVERs are normally gun belt-mounted. For convenience, smaller, corded, hand-held speaker-microphones can be plugged into these radios and then clipped to parts of the uniform shirt such as a front pocket or shoulder loop.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: Originally, Motorola MX-series analog handheld units were used when the transition from VHF to UHF "T-band" dispatch/tactical frequencies was made in the early 1980s. Prior to that, portable 2-way radios (known in LAPD jargon then as "CC units") were either VHF or UHF, mainly Motorola HT-200s and HT-220s, stocked in small quantities, and used mainly by specialized units such as Metropolitan division, SWAT (Special Weapons & Tactics), SIS (Special Investigations Section) and Narcotics divisions as stakeout tools. Another use was for foot patrol units, mainly in Central Division, in the late 1970s and early 1980s.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: After the parade in Los Angeles celebrating the Los Angeles Lakers 2001 NBA championship title, the LAPD switched from analog frequencies to digital frequencies. This ended a long-lasting era of the public having easy listening access to police broadcasts that started when the department had initially set up agreements with a local, commercial AM radio station to interrupt regularly scheduled programming for a crime broadcast. Officers were tuned to a specific radio station. However, as the amount of broadcasting needed increased, the department established its first transmission tower in Elysian Park and eventually began broadcasting over dozens of frequencies in the 400 MHz and 500 MHz ("T-band") ranges. These digital transmissions can be monitored on a proper Uniden Bearcat or Radio Shack digital scanner.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: ‡ As detectives are considered specialists within the LAPD, they are normally considered to be separate from the uniformed line of command. The senior-most detective is therefore permitted to take charge of an incident when it is necessary for investigative purposes, superseding the chain of command of other higher-ranking officers in attendance.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: Predictive Policing is an approach to policing that uses algorithms to predict when future crimes are most likely to occur. Through artificial intelligence, data is gathered and used to identify suspicious patterns, locations, activity, and individuals. The technology is based on network models and risk models. Network models predict specific types of crime using information based on time and location to predict when and where to look for crimes. The prediction model utilizes geo-spatiality to provide information on crimes. In 2008, then-Chief William Bratton began working with federal agencies to assess the use of a more predictive approach to policing. Though certain cities such as Santa Cruz, Oakland, and New Orleans banned predictive policing over concerns surrounding its disproportional effects on racialized communities, the practice continues in the LAPD.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: The Los Angeles’ Strategic Extraction and Restoration Program (LASER) began in 2011 and is a strategy that includes location-based and offender-based models. It began in 2011 and was funded by the Smart Policing Initiative. This program uses a point based system where individuals are assigned a LASER score, which is later used to evaluate their potential risk. This system was created with the intention of targeting individuals who are most likely to commit a crime based on data around crime history. Points are designed based on gang membership, violent crimes committed, and “quality” interaction with the police. Through this system, when individuals scored a high enough LASER score, they were put on a “chronic offenders bulletin” which was available to LAPD officers. After a report in 2018 found that 84% of the 233 people with high enough LASER scores to be labeled a "chronic offender" were Black and Latino, the LAPD shut down LASER.


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: The LAPD started using PredPol, a predictive policing software, in 2012. PredPol uses an algorithm to analyze data from LAPD record management systems and predict future crimes. It uses the near repeat model, which suggests that once there is a crime in a location, the surrounding area is immediately at increased risk for more crimes. Three aspects of offender behavior are incorporated into the algorithm that is informed by a decade of research on criminal patterns:


title: Los Angeles Police Department resources

text: Palantir is a platform where the LAPD uses data to send out reports to officers. The platform works by merging data from crime and arrest reports, automated license plate reader (ALPR), rap sheets and other sources. This platform uses “tagging,” which allows officers to tag people, vehicles, addresses, phone numbers, documents, incidents, citations, calls for service, ALPR, and field interview cards of interest. Through having Palantir on their cell phones, officers are automatically notified of warrants or events that involve the tagged entities.


title: Spider-Man: No Way Home (soundtrack)

text: Spider-Man: No Way Home (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the film score to the Columbia Pictures / Marvel Studios film "" composed by Michael Giacchino. The soundtrack album was released by Sony Classical on December 17, 2021.


title: Spider-Man: No Way Home (soundtrack)

text: "" (2017) and "" (2019) composer Michael Giacchino was confirmed to score "No Way Home" in November 2020. On December 9, a single titled "Arachnoverture" was released, with "Exit Through the Lobby" being released the following day. The soundtrack also features music from previous "Spider-Man" soundtracks by other film composers including Hans Zimmer, James Horner and Danny Elfman, as well as Giacchino's theme for "Doctor Strange" (2016).


title: Spider-Man: No Way Home (soundtrack)

text: "I Zimbra" by Talking Heads, "Native New Yorker" by Odyssey, "Scraper" by Liquid Liquid, "No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn" by Beastie Boys, "Concerto for 2 Violins in G major, RV 516" by Antonio Vivaldi, "Deck the Halls" by Thomas Oliphant, and "The Magic Number" by De La Soul are featured in the film. "Bailando Cumbia" by Danny Osuna is featured in the mid-credits scene. Numerous tracks from the score of previous Spider-Man films are references in the film, including Danny Elfman's "Main Title" and "Enter the Goblin" from "Spider-Man" (2002), Elfman's "Doc Ock is Born" from "Spider-Man 2" (2004), James Horner's "Main Title – Young Peter" from "The Amazing Spider-Man" (2012), and Hans Zimmer's "I'm Electro" from "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" (2014).


title: Tron (cryptocurrency)

text: TRON is a decentralized, open-source blockchain-based operating system with smart contract functionality, proof-of-stake principles as its consensus algorithm and a cryptocurrency native to the system, known as Tronix (TRX). It was established in March 2014 by Justin Sun and since 2017 has been overseen and supervised by the TRON Foundation, a non-profit organization in Singapore, established in the same year. It was originally an Ethereum-based ERC-20 token, which switched its protocol to its own blockchain in 2018. TRC20 has a fee of 5 trones per 1 USDT coin for the transfer.


title: Tron (cryptocurrency)

text: TRON was founded by Justin Sun in 2017. The TRON Foundation was established in July 2017 in Singapore. The TRON Foundation raised $70 million in 2017 through an initial coin offering shortly before China outlawed the digital tokens. The testnet, Blockchain Explorer, and Web Wallet were all launched by March 2018. TRON Mainnet launched shortly afterward in May 2018, marking the Odyssey 2.0 release as a technical milestone for TRON. In June 2018, TRON switched its protocol from an ERC-20 token on top of Ethereum to an independent peer-to-peer network. On 25 July 2018, the TRON Foundation announced it had finished the acquisition of BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer file sharing service. With this, TRON declared its independence with the creation of the Genesis block, along with July 2018 acquisition of BitTorrent. Upon this acquisition, in August 2018, BitTorrent Founder Bram Cohen also disclosed that he was leaving the company to found Chia, an alternative to bitcoin created to be a less energy-intensive cryptocurrency.


title: Tron (cryptocurrency)

text: By January 2019, TRON had a total market cap of about $1.6 billion. Despite this market performance, some authors viewed TRON as a typical case of the complex and disordered nature of cryptocurrencies. In February 2019, after being acquired by Tron Foundation, BitTorrent started its own token sale based on the TRON network.


title: Tron (cryptocurrency)

text: TRON adopts a 3-layer architecture divided into storage layer, core layer, and application layer. The TRON protocol adheres to Google protocol buffers, which intrinsically supports multi-language extension.


title: Tron (cryptocurrency)

text: The TRON protocol, maintained primarily by the TRON Foundation, distributes computing resources equally among TRX holders with internal pricing mechanisms such as bandwidth and energy. TRON provides a decentralized virtual machine, which can execute a program using an international network of public nodes. The network has zero transaction fees and conducts approximately 2,000 transactions per second.


title: Tron (cryptocurrency)

text: The implementations of TRON require minimal transaction fees in order to prevent malicious users from performing DDoS attacks for free. In this respect, EOS.IO and TRON are quite similar, due to the negligible fees, high transactions per second, and high reliability, and as such are regarded as a new generation of blockchain systems. Michael Borkowski, Marten Sigwart, Philipp Frauenthaler, Taneli Hukkinen and Stefan Schulte defined TRON as an Ethereum clone, with no fundamental differences. The transactions per second rate on Tron's blockchain was questioned because it was far below its theoretical claim.


title: Tron (cryptocurrency)

text: In January 2018, via a Tweet, Juan Benet, the CEO at Protocol Labs, revealed that the white paper of TRON copied portions of the white papers from IPFSbot and MineFilecoin, without a single reference. Researchers from Digital Asset Research (DAR) discovered multiple instances of code copied from other projects in the Tron code base. It is also accused of violating the GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0 (LGPL) because the project does not mention that its client was derived from EthereumJ, a Java implementation of Ethereum. These accusations were denied by the TRON Foundation, the organization behind the design of the system.


title: Tron (cryptocurrency)

text: In May 2019, the cyber-security testing service HackerOne revealed that just one computer could have brought TRON's entire blockchain to a halt. The revelation showed that a barrage of requests sent by a single PC could be used to squeeze the power of the blockchain's CPU, overload the memory, and perform a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.


title: Tron (cryptocurrency)

text: On 13 June 2022, Tron's algorithmic stablecoin, USDD, lost its peg to the US Dollar, trading at 0.96 per dollar for about a month.


title: Agave americana

text: Agave americana, common names century plant, maguey, or American aloe, is a species of flowering plant in the family Asparagaceae, native to Mexico and the United States in Texas. It is cultivated worldwide as an ornamental plant, and has been naturalized in many regions, including parts of the West Indies, South America, Mediterranean Basin, Africa, Canary Islands, India, China, Thailand, and Australia.


title: Agave americana

text: Despite the common name "American aloe", it is not in the same family as aloe, though it is in the same order, Asparagales.


title: Agave americana

text: Although it is called the century plant, it typically lives only 10 to 30 years. It has a spread around with gray-green leaves of long, each with a prickly margin and a heavy spike at the tip that can pierce deeply. Near the end of its life, the plant sends up a tall, branched stalk, laden with yellow blossoms, that may reach a total height up to .


title: Agave americana

text: Its common name derives from its semelparous nature of flowering only once at the end of its long life. The plant dies after flowering, but produces adventitious shoots from the base, which continue its growth.


title: Agave americana

text: "A. americana" was one of the many species described by Carl Linnaeus in the 1753 edition of "Species Plantarum", with the binomial name that is still used today.


title: Agave americana

text: "A. americana" is cultivated as an ornamental plant for the large dramatic form of mature plants—for modernist, drought-tolerant, and desert-style cactus gardens—among many planted settings. It is often used in hot climates and where drought conditions occur. The plants can be evocative of 18th-19th-century Spanish colonial and Mexican provincial areas in the Southwestern United States, California, and xeric Mexico. It is also a popular landscape plant in dry beach gardens in Florida and coastal areas of the Southeastern United States.


title: Agave americana

text: When grown as a house plant, "A. americana" is tolerant of light levels ranging from direct sunlight to shade and requires little watering. It does require a winter resting period at temperatures around . It should be grown in a very porous, sandy potting soil, allowed to dry out between waterings, and repotted every spring.


title: Agave americana

text: Two subspecies and two varieties of "A. americana" are recognized by the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families:


title: Agave americana

text: (those marked , as well as the parent species, have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit).


title: Agave americana

text: If the flower stem is cut before flowering, a sweet liquid called "aguamiel" ("honey water") gathers in the hollowed heart of the plant. This can be fermented to produce the alcoholic drink called "pulque" or "octli" in pre-Columbian Mexico.


title: Agave americana

text: In the tequila-producing regions of Mexico, agaves are called "mezcales". The high-alcohol product of fermented agave distillation is called "mezcal"; "A. americana" is one of several agaves used for distillation. A mezcal called "tequila" is produced from "Agave tequilana", commonly called "blue agave". The many different types of mezcal include some which may be flavored with the very pungent mezcal worm. "Mezcal" and "tequila", although also produced from agave plants, are different from "pulque" in their technique for extracting the sugars from the heart of the plant, and in that they are distilled spirits. In "mezcal" and "tequila" production, the sugars are extracted from the "piñas" (or hearts) by heating them in ovens, rather than by collecting "aguamiel" from the plant's cut stalk. Thus, if one were to distill "pulque", it would not be a form of "mezcal", but rather a different drink.


title: Agave americana

text: Agaves are also found throughout Latin America, and are used similarly. In Ecuador, the analog of "pulque" is "guarango", and more recently this has been distilled as miske.


title: Agave americana

text: Agave nectar is marketed as a natural form of sugar with a low glycemic index that is due to its high fructose content.


title: Agave americana

text: The leaves yield fibers, known as "pita", which are suitable for making rope, nets, bags, sacks, matting, or coarse cloth. They are also used for embroidery of leather in a technique known as "piteado". Both pulque and maguey fiber were important to the economy of pre-Columbian Mexico.


title: Agave americana

text: "Agave americana" contains agavose, a sugar with the same chemical formula of sucrose (CHO), but with only 0.32 of its sweetening power, as well as agavasaponins and agavosides. It is used in traditional medicine to treat several ailments, and as a laxative, diuretic and diaphoretic, although a systematic review did not find enough data to support its effectiveness or safety. "A. americana" is known to be able to cause severe allergic dermatitis.


title: Agave americana

text: The plant figures in the coat of arms of Don Diego de Mendoza, a Native American governor of the village of Ajacuba, Hidalgo.


title: Agave americana

text: The Aztecs pulped the leaves of "A. americana" to create paper—the Humboldt fragments were made in this way.


title: Radioactive contamination

text: Radioactive contamination, also called radiological pollution, is the deposition of, or presence of radioactive substances on surfaces or within solids, liquids, or gases (including the human body), where their presence is unintended or undesirable (from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) definition).


title: Radioactive contamination

text: Such contamination presents a hazard because the radioactive decay of the contaminants, produces ionizing radiation (namely alpha, beta, gamma rays and free neutrons). The degree of hazard is determined by the concentration of the contaminants, the energy of the radiation being emitted, the type of radiation, and the proximity of the contamination to organs of the body. It is important to be clear that the contamination gives rise to the radiation hazard, and the terms "radiation" and "contamination" are not interchangeable.


title: Radioactive contamination

text: The sources of radioactive pollution can be classified into two groups: natural and man-made. Following an atmospheric nuclear weapon discharge or a nuclear reactor containment breach, the air, soil, people, plants, and animals in the vicinity will become contaminated by nuclear fuel and fission products. A spilled vial of radioactive material like uranyl nitrate may contaminate the floor and any rags used to wipe up the spill. Cases of widespread radioactive contamination include the Bikini Atoll, the Rocky Flats Plant in Colorado, the area near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the area near the Chernobyl disaster, and the area near the Mayak disaster.


title: Radioactive contamination

text: Radioactive contamination can be due to a variety of causes. It may occur due to the release of radioactive gases, liquids or particles. For example, if a radionuclide used in nuclear medicine is spilled (accidentally or, as in the case of the Goiânia accident, through ignorance), the material could be spread by people as they walk around.


title: Radioactive contamination

text: Radioactive contamination may also be an inevitable result of certain processes, such as the release of radioactive xenon in nuclear fuel reprocessing. In cases that radioactive material cannot be contained, it may be diluted to safe concentrations. For a discussion of environmental contamination by alpha emitters please see actinides in the environment.


title: Radioactive contamination

text: Nuclear fallout is the distribution of radioactive contamination by the 520 atmospheric nuclear explosions that took place from the 1950s to the 1980s.


title: Radioactive contamination

text: In nuclear accidents, a measure of the type and amount of radioactivity released, such as from a reactor containment failure, is known as the source term. The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission defines this as "Types and amounts of radioactive or hazardous material released to the environment following an accident."


title: Radioactive contamination

text: Contamination does not include residual radioactive material remaining at a site after the completion of decommissioning. Therefore, radioactive material in sealed and designated containers is not properly referred to as contamination, although the units of measurement might be the same.


title: Radioactive contamination

text: Containment is the primary way of preventing contamination from being released into the environment or coming into contact with or being ingested by humans.


title: Radioactive contamination

text: Being within the intended Containment differentiates radioactive "material" from radioactive "contamination". When radioactive materials are concentrated to a detectable level outside a containment, the area affected is generally referred to as "contaminated".


title: Radioactive contamination

text: There are a large number of techniques for containing radioactive materials so that it does not spread beyond the containment and become contaminated. In the case of liquids, this is by the use of high integrity tanks or containers, usually with a sump system so that leakage can be detected by radiometric or conventional instrumentation.


title: Radioactive contamination

text: Where the material is likely to become airborne, then extensive use is made of the glovebox, which is a common technique in hazardous laboratory and process operations in many industries. The gloveboxes are kept under slight negative pressure and the vent gas is filtered in high-efficiency filters, which are monitored by radiological instrumentation to ensure they are functioning correctly.


title: Radioactive contamination

text: A variety of radionuclides occur naturally in the environment. Elements like uranium and thorium, and their decay products, are present in rock and soil. Potassium-40, a primordial nuclide, makes up a small percentage of all potassium and is present in the human body. Other nuclides, like carbon-14, which is present in all living organisms, are continuously created by cosmic rays.


title: Radioactive contamination

text: These levels of radioactivity pose little danger but can confuse measurement. A particular problem is encountered with naturally generated radon gas which can affect instruments that are set to detect contamination close to normal background levels and can cause false alarms. Because of this skill is required by the operator of radiological survey equipment to differentiate between background radiation and the radiation which emanates from contamination.


title: Radioactive contamination

text: Naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) can be brought to the surface or concentrated by human activities like mining, oil and gas extraction, and coal consumption.


title: Radioactive contamination

text: Radioactive contamination may exist on surfaces or in volumes of material or air, and specialized techniques are used to measure the levels of contamination by detection of the emitted radiation.


title: Radioactive contamination

text: Contamination monitoring depends entirely upon the correct and appropriate deployment and utilisation of radiation monitoring instruments.


title: Radioactive contamination

text: Surface contamination may either be fixed or "free". In the case of fixed contamination, the radioactive material cannot by definition be spread, but its radiation is still measurable. In the case of free contamination, there is the hazard of contamination spread to other surfaces such as skin or clothing, or entrainment in the air. A concrete surface contaminated by radioactivity can be shaved to a specific depth, removing the contaminated material for disposal.


title: Radioactive contamination

text: For occupational workers, controlled areas are established where there may be a contamination hazard. Access to such areas is controlled by a variety of barrier techniques, sometimes involving changes of clothing and footwear as required. The contamination within a controlled area is normally regularly monitored. Radiological protection instrumentation (RPI) plays a key role in monitoring and detecting any potential contamination spread, and combinations of hand held survey instruments and permanently installed area monitors such as Airborne particulate monitors and area gamma monitors are often installed. Detection and measurement of surface contamination of personnel and plant are normally by Geiger counter, scintillation counter or proportional counter. Proportional counters and dual phosphor scintillation counters can discriminate between alpha and beta contamination, but the Geiger counter cannot. Scintillation detectors are generally preferred for hand-held monitoring instruments and are designed with a large detection window to make monitoring of large areas faster. Geiger detectors tend to have small windows, which are more suited to small areas of contamination.


title: Radioactive contamination

text: The spread of contamination by personnel exiting controlled areas in which nuclear material is used or processed is monitored by specialised installed exit control instruments such as frisk probes, hand contamination monitors and whole body exit monitors. These are used to check that persons exiting controlled areas do not carry contamination on their bodies or clothes.


title: Radioactive contamination

text: In the United Kingdom, HSE has issued a user guidance note on selecting the correct portable radiation measurement instrument for the application concerned. This covers all radiation instrument technologies and is a useful comparative guide for selecting the correct technology for the contamination type.


title: Radioactive contamination

text: The UK NPL publishes a guide on the alarm levels to be used with instruments for checking personnel exiting controlled areas in which contamination may be encountered.


title: Radioactive contamination

text: Surface contamination is usually expressed in units of radioactivity per unit of area for alpha or beta emitters. For SI, this is becquerels per square meter (or Bq/m). Other units such as picoCuries per 100 cm or disintegrations per minute per square centimeter (1 dpm/cm = 167 Bq/m) may be used.


title: Radioactive contamination

text: The air can be contaminated with radioactive isotopes in particulate form, which poses a particular inhalation hazard. Respirators with suitable air filters or completely self-contained suits with their own air supply can mitigate these dangers.


title: Radioactive contamination

text: Airborne contamination is measured by specialist radiological instruments that continuously pump the sampled air through a filter. Airborne particles accumulate on the filter and can be measured in a number of ways:


title: Radioactive contamination

text: Commonly a semiconductor radiation detection sensor is used that can also provide spectrographic information on the contamination being collected.


title: Radioactive contamination

text: A particular problem with airborne contamination monitors designed to detect alpha particles is that naturally occurring radon can be quite prevalent and may appear as contamination when low contamination levels are being sought. Modern instruments consequently have "radon compensation" to overcome this effect.


title: Radioactive contamination

text: Radioactive contamination can enter the body through ingestion, inhalation, absorption, or injection. This will result in a committed dose.