title: General surgery

text: In Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States general surgery is a five to seven year residency and follows completion of medical school, either MD, MBBS, MBChB, or DO degrees. In Australia and New Zealand, a residency leads to eligibility for Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. In Canada, residency leads to eligibility for certification by and Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, while in the United States, completion of a residency in general surgery leads to eligibility for board certification by the American Board of Surgery or the American Osteopathic Board of Surgery which is also required upon completion of training for a general surgeon to have operating privileges at most hospitals in the United States.


title: General surgery

text: In the United Kingdom, surgical trainees enter training after five years of medical school and two years of the Foundation Programme. During the two to three-year core training programme, doctors will sit the Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS) examination. On award of the MRCS examination, surgeons may hold the title 'Mister' or 'Miss/Ms./Mrs' rather than doctor. This is a tradition dating back hundreds of years in the United Kingdom from when only physicians attended medical school and surgeons did not, but were rather associated with barbers in the Barber Surgeon's Guild. The tradition is also present in many Commonwealth countries including New Zealand and some states of Australia. Trainees will then go onto Higher Surgical Training (HST), lasting a further five to six years. During this time they may choose to subspecialise. Before the end of HST, the examination of Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (FRCS) must be taken in general surgery plus the subspeciality. Upon completion of training, the surgeon will become a consultant surgeon and will be eligible for entry on the GMC Specialist Register and may work both in the NHS and independent sector as a consultant general surgeon. The implementation of the European Working Time Directive limited UK surgical residents to a 48-hour working week. The introduction of a sub-consultant grade to enable those who have recently received a UK Certificate of Completion of Training may be necessary.


title: Diana Bang

text: Diana Bang is a Canadian actress and writer. She played Park Sook-yin in the 2014 film "The Interview". Bang has had regular roles on television in "Away" and "The Astronauts" (2020), "" (2021) and most recently in "Resident Alien".


title: Diana Bang

text: Bang (born 1981) attended Burnaby North Secondary School, in British Columbia, Canada. Bang's sister, Andrea, is also an actress and writer. Their parents were Korean immigrants to Canada, initially found it "distressing" that their girls had chosen to pursue acting for their careers, but have since been fully supportive.


title: Diana Bang

text: Bang started her career in the Vancouver sketch comedy group Assaulted Fish before becoming an actress. In 2014, Bang played Sook-yin Park, a North Korean chief propagandist, in "The Interview".


title: Ford Festiva

text: The Ford Festiva is a subcompact car that was designed and manufactured by Mazda for Ford between 1986 and 2002. Festiva was sold in Japan, the Americas, and Australia. The name "Festiva" is derived from the Spanish word for "festive". It was not related to the similarly sized and named Ford Fiesta, and was not replaced by the Ford Ka, which is smaller.


title: Ford Festiva

text: Designed by Mazda using the DA platform and B series inline-four engines, the Festiva continued the trend of Fords built and designed by Mazda for the Asia-Pacific market such as the Laser and Telstar.


title: Ford Festiva

text: South Korean first generation sales began in 1987 under the name Kia Pride, assembled by Kia under license. Australasia and Europe received the first version between 1987 and 1991 as the "Mazda 121". After 1991, Australasian sales occurred under the "Ford Festiva" name, while European sales continued under the name "Kia Pride". Kia ended production of the Pride in 2000. This ongoing production has been in parallel to the second generation Festiva introduced in 1993, sold as the Ford Aspire in North America and Kia Avella in South Korea and other markets. Although these second generation models were withdrawn in 2000, a third generation was sold between 1996 and 2002 in Japan as a badge-engineered version of the Mazda Demio.


title: Ford Festiva

text: The first generation Ford Festiva was designed by Mazda in Japan at the request of parent company Ford. The Mazda-designed and built three-door hatchback was launched in Japan in February 1986 under the name "Ford Festiva", with the 1.1 and 1.3-liter engines. Festiva utilized the front-wheel drive layout, and its mechanicals consisted of rack and pinion steering, independent front suspension with struts, coil springs and sway bar, and a torsion beam rear suspension. The Festiva was facelifted in 1989, receiving a redesigned grille insert and tail lamp lenses. In Japan at launch, the Festiva three-door was offered in L, L Special, S, Ghia, and Canvas Top specification levels. Ford retailed the Japanese market Festiva via the "Autorama" dealership network. At the 1986 Tokyo Motor Show, the sporty GT and GT-X models were shown, with a unique twin-cam 1.3-liter engine (BJ). It has a special body kit and a prominent bonnet bulge, and went on sale on 1 December 1986. By then, the Festiva Cargo L (commercial version) had also been added to the lineup, in either a two- or a five-seat version.


title: Ford Festiva

text: Beginning in 1989, Autorama also began selling left-hand drive, Korean-assembled five-door hatchbacks (and later the four-door sedan as well). The Hatchback was sold as the Ford Festiva 5, while the four-door sedan was called the Festiva β. Neither version sold particularly well in Japan. 973 cars were brought in during 1989, with the aim of selling 2,000 the following year. Production of the Japanese market Ford Festiva ended in December 1992, with sales from stock continuing for another month.


title: Ford Festiva

text: In mid-1986, another Ford partner, Kia Motors in South Korea began production of the Festiva under license as the "Kia Pride". Starting from late 1987 for the 1988 model year, Kia began exports to the United States under the "Ford Festiva" name. Canadian sales began in January 1989, with the car being sold through Ford as well as Mercury dealerships. Ford offered a single 1.3-liter "B3" four-cylinder engine and three trim levels: L, L Plus, and LX. The two base models featured a four-speed manual overdrive transmission, with the LX upgraded to a five-speed unit. A tachometer and tilt steering wheel also featured on the LX trim, as did alloy wheels, remote mirrors, cloth interior seating, and an AM/FM cassette radio.


title: Ford Festiva

text: Ford released a minor facelift in North America for the 1990 model year. At the same time, the engine's fuel delivery system transitioned from carburetor to fuel injection, and transmission choices were revised with a standard five-speed manual transmission and optional three-speed automatic. Ford also replaced the manual front seat belts with motorized versions (Canadian market models kept the manual front seat belts), and fitted manual rear seat belts as standard. For the 1991 model year, the L Plus and LX models were combined into a single GL trim. Optional power steering was deleted for 1992, and the GL gained alloy wheels and the availability of a "sport" package. The final 1993 model year brought no changes. Over the life of the Festiva in the United States, Kia exported roughly 350,000 units. The agreement with Ford materialized in accordance with Kia's strategy implemented in the mid-1980s to progressively fill the void at the low-cost end of the market slowly being abdicated by the Japanese brands pursuing more expensive models with higher profit margins. Compared to rival automakers in Japan, and also Europe and North America, Kia's main competitive advantage was its lower-paid South Korean workforce—which translated into lower-priced cars.


title: Ford Festiva

text: The 2008 edition of Monash University's "Used Car Safety Ratings" (UCSR), found that the first generation Festiva provides a "worse than average" (two out of five stars) level of safety in the event of an accident, in a comparison to other "light cars". The safety rating was not calculated solely on the basis of the protection of the vehicle's occupants, with protection for "cyclists, pedestrians and drivers of other vehicles" included to give a "better guide to the total community impact of vehicle safety."


title: Ford Festiva

text: In 1990, two Ford-engineers built the Festiva Shogun. These cars were powered by a mid-mounted Yamaha V6 sourced from the first generation Ford Taurus SHO, producing 220 horsepower. The Festiva Shogun was not an official Ford product and only seven cars were built.


title: Ford Festiva

text: Mazda began producing the Festiva as the "Mazda 121" for Australia (and Europe) in 1987, but this model was never retailed in Japan. The 121 ended production in 1990, and was officially discontinued by Mazda Australia in February 1991. From October 1991, Ford Australia began importing the car as the "Ford Festiva" from Kia's South Korean production facility. Where the Mazda was sold as a three-door hatchback, the Ford was sold initially as a five-door only. From January 1993, a Festiva three-door, badged "Festiva Trio" was launched in Australia. Both versions were powered by the overhead camshaft carbureted 1.3-liter "B3" engine with the five-speed manual transmission; a three-speed automatic was optional for the five-door. Standard equipment in Australia included an AM/FM radio, tachometer, intermittent windscreen wipers, remote releases for the rear door and fuel tank filler door, with air-conditioning available as an option. Ford discontinued the WA Festiva in the Australian market in March 1994 in way for the WB Festiva.


title: Ford Festiva

text: Ford Australia's action was paralleled in Europe where Kia started exporting three- and five-door hatchback, four-door sedan, and five-door wagon variants of the Kia Pride in 1991 under their own name. These additional sedan and five-door hatchback body variants were also imported from South Korea to Japan in left-hand drive form (Japan officially being a right-hand drive market) as the "Ford Festiva 5" (from May 1991) and "Festiva β", respectively.


title: Ford Festiva

text: In Taiwan, it was assembled using complete knock-down kits from 1989 via the local joint venture Ford Lio Ho.


title: Ford Festiva

text: Mazda began selling the 121 as a single three-door hatchback body variant in 1987 to sit below the larger 323 model. Despite being manufactured there, the 121 was not sold in Japan under the "Mazda" brand. Australian specification 121s were fitted with the 1.3-liter "B3" engine, mated to a five-speed manual transmission. European markets also received the 1.1-liter "B1" engine with a four-speed manual transmission.


title: Ford Festiva

text: The 121 was sold in Australia from March 1987. It featured a sliding rear bench seat, which increased cargo space by as much as . Levels of trim in Australia comprised the base-line "deluxe", the "super deluxe", and the "fun top" (based on the super deluxe), featuring a large electric sliding canvas sunroof. From October 1988, the super deluxe was discontinued and replaced by the "shades" trim. The European premiere for the 121 was at the Geneva Auto Salon in March 1988. The 1.1-liter version was added in July 1989. Trim levels were L and LX, with an SR version also available in the UK. In Europe, the car's ventilation system, developed with American consumers in mind, was notable for its refinement for the class. An interesting design feature was that the rear seat back could be reclined somewhat, and the seat could be moved longitudinally, adding up to of space to the otherwise very small luggage compartment.


title: Ford Festiva

text: Mazda issued an update for the 121 (released in October 1989 for the Australian market) with a new grille insert, body-hued exterior trim, redesigned instrumentation and interior seats and trim. The Mazda variant was discontinued in 1991, being replaced by a new generation Mazda 121, based on the Japanese market Autozam Revue.


title: Ford Festiva

text: The Kia Pride badged version of the Festiva was manufactured in South Korea by Kia Motors from March 1987 to January 2000. Prior to its South Korean market release, exports as the Festiva had begun in December 1986 to Japan and the United States. The Pride was sold in four-door sedan form (in LX, GTX, and β trim levels), as well as three- and five-door hatchback forms (the CD-5) and five-door wagon body styles. The original Pride was only available as a three-door hatchback, while the five-door was added in June 1988. The four-door sedan model, the Pride Beta, arrived in November 1990, and the range was completed by the three-door van and five-door wagon in February 1992. In November 1993 the Pride received a minor facelift and production was also moved to Kia's Asia Motors subsidiary's Gwangju plant as Kia focused on the new Avella (Ford Aspire/WB Festiva). Until the Mazda 121 was replaced in late 1990, Kia-badged cars were only exported to certain tertiary markets. The Pride was replaced by the Rio beginning in 1999.


title: Ford Festiva

text: The Pride launched in the United Kingdom in June 1991, fitted with either the 1.1- "B1" or 1.3-litre "B3" engines. The 1.1 was only available as a three-door in the basic L trim (whitewall tyres were a commonplace feature on them). There was also a panel van two-seater version in the UK and some other markets. Fuel injection appeared on the 1.3-litre-engined models in November 1994, referred to as the "1.3i". At this time, the 1.1-litre version was deleted. December 1995 saw the Start 1.3i three-door replace the L, and the Pride was then briefly discontinued in the UK in January 1999. In June 1999, it was relaunched in an entry-level three-door now called S with the higher-level three- and five-doors known as the SX. Sales of the relaunched model ended in June 2000.


title: Ford Festiva

text: SAIPA has built the Kia Pride in Iran under license since 1993 and using up to 85 percent local parts as the SAIPA Pride from 2001 to 2005. Since 2003, SAIPA has produced a new five-door liftback model based on the Pride called the SAIPA 141, while continuing to sell the Iranian version of the Pride under the names SAIPA Saba GLXi (four-door sedan), SAIPA Nasim Safari (five-door wagon) and SAIPA Nasim DMi (five-door hatchback). Compared to these versions, the SAIPA 141 features revised rear styling with a longer liftback tail, and different interior design. Beginning in 2007, the SAIPA 141 was assembled and sold in Venezuela under the name Venirauto Turpial. The plan was to reach 92 percent local parts content, but this was generally regarded as unrealistic and Venirauto's total annual production generally hovered around 2,000 cars.


title: Ford Festiva

text: Another variant, known as the SAIPA 132 began production in 2008 and differs from the Saba with its revised front and rear styling. The company introduced a coupe utility body style in 2008 under the name SAIPA 151, with a payload. The platform/engine of the Kia Pride also formed the basis for the Iranian P.K (2000 to 2005) and New P.K (2005 to 2007) models, which utilize Renault 5 bodies. In Iran, the Pride continues to be the most common car with approximately 40 percent of vehicles in the country being a Pride-derived SAIPA.


title: Ford Festiva

text: The Kia Pride firstly involved in a joint venture in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province with automobile company Guangtong Motors, where they were producing cars under a licence. The batch of cars would firstly be imported into China where parts are brought in later and the company would assemble the finished product. Jiangsu Yueda Auto Works (later Yueda Kia Motors, currently Dongfeng Yueda Kia Motors) began assembly of the Pride in 1997. The sedan was called the Yueda Kia Pride YQZ6390, the hatchback either YQZ6370 or YQZ7141. Chinese production ended in December 2003.


title: Ford Festiva

text: The second model Ford Festiva, launched in 1993, was jointly developed between Kia and Ford, retaining most of the drivetrain of the previous model with a more rounded body style. This new Festiva was slightly longer, wider, more aerodynamic, and suspended by MacPherson struts in the front and a torsion beam axle in the rear. While it was sold in certain markets as a second generation Festiva, Ford renamed it the "Aspire" in North American markets, where the five-door model was offered for the first time. In South Korea, the car was badged "Kia Avella". The sedan version was mainly restricted to the South Korean market, although it was also available with Festiva badging in Taiwan.


title: Ford Festiva

text: Depending on the market, some retained the SOHC, throttle-body injected motor, while others received an engine with a DOHC cylinder head and MPI also designed by Mazda. These engines were:


title: Ford Festiva

text: Transmission options comprised a 5-speed manual transmission, although all models could be optioned with a 4-speed automatic. Australian and U.S. models were equipped with a 3-speed automatic.


title: Ford Festiva

text: In 1997, the Festiva received a new front bumper with an oval grille, reshaped headlamps, and other minor changes. The Aspire was dropped from the Ford range in the United States after 1997.


title: Ford Festiva

text: The second generation Festiva continued to be sold in Australia until 2000 when it was replaced by the Ford Ka. Australian second-generation Festivas have U.S. side marker light cut-outs on each side of the vehicle (driver-side and passenger-side) at the front and rear. Instead of housing orange reflectors/lights at the front sides and red reflectors/lights at the rear sides, there are non-lit orange reflectors at all four locations. These redundant reflectors, coupled with the orange side indicator repeater (which is not required in the U.S., and was not included on the Aspire) make for a unique side profile.


title: Ford Festiva

text: Kia developed their following model, the Kia Rio, completely independently, and finished their relationship with Ford.


title: Ford Festiva

text: Like the first generation, the 2008 edition of the "Used Car Safety Ratings" (UCSR) by Monash University in Australia found the second series Festiva to provide a "worse than average" (two out of five stars) safety protection level in the event of an accident. In the 2010 edition, the scoring was downgraded to "very poor" (equivalent to one of five stars, or the "significantly worse than average" terminology used in 2008).


title: Ford Festiva

text: The Ford Aspire was sold in North America from 1994 until 1997. It was the replacement for the Ford Festiva. It was the first car in its class to have dual airbags standard and anti-lock brakes optional. It came in two and four door body styles, both hatchbacks. The 2-door was available in base and SE trim while the 4-door was only available in base trim. The SE model offered a sporting package that consisted of fog lights, rear spoiler, alloy wheels, blue face instrument cluster with tachometer, and upgraded interior trim. The Aspire had very few options for the base model: cassette player, automatic transmission, rear defrost and wiper, alloy wheels, and a comfort and convenience package that had several minor interior upgrades. Due to slow sales the SE model was dropped after 1995 along with all of its optional equipment. The base model also lost its optional alloy wheels and rear wiper. The performance with the automatic was slower than the manual, with 0–60 mph times of 16.2 seconds. Power steering was only available with the 5-door automatic. The Aspire was given a facelift in 1997 with redesigned front and rear bumpers, a new radio, and new seat facings. The Aspire was discontinued after 1997, due to slow sales.


title: Ford Festiva

text: The version of the Festiva sold in Korea, from March 1994, was badged "Kia Avella". "Avella" was a made-up portmanteau word, combining "aveo" (Latin for "desire") and "ella" (Spanish for "she"). Available in sedan (Avella Delta), three-door and five-door hatchback body styles. Sales of the Kia Avella totalled 115,576 between 1994 and 1995 but dropped to only 27,850 in 1998. The Avella was primarily intended for export markets carrying Ford badging, as South Korean customers tended to prefer sedans over hatchbacks. It was sold in a very few export markets with Kia badging, such as Malta. The Kia Avella was discontinued in 1999 although production for some export markets continued until 2000; it and the Pride (first generation Festiva) were collectively replaced by the Kia Rio in 1999.


title: Ford Festiva

text: All Avellas came standard with 13 inch wheels, a four-speaker stereo, heated rear glass, anti-lock brakes (ABS), driver's side airbag, and door impact beams. Optional equipment included air conditioning, power locks, power mirrors, power windows, folding rear seats, dimming interior mirror, a tachometer, and aluminum wheels. The Avella was the first South Korean car in its class to offer dual airbags and ABS-brakes. The Delta version received a slightly reworked front end from its hatchback siblings.


title: Ford Festiva

text: While the standard Avellas received the 1.3 liter Mazda B3 engine, higher spec versions were available both with an SOHC and a more powerful DOHC version of the 1.5 liter B5 engine. The DOHC version was only available in the four-door Avella Delta. Five-speed manuals as well as three- or four-speed automatic transmissions were available.


title: Ford Festiva

text: Sales of the second generation Festiva ended in 1996 for the Japanese market, being replaced by generation three—a badge engineered Mazda Demio (DW). Known as the "Ford Festiva Mini Wagon", the Japanese-only model range consisted of a single five-door hatchback body style available with either a 1.3- or 1.5-liter engine. Transmission options were a three-speed or four-speed automatic and a five-speed manual. Production continued until Mazda ceased manufacture of the equivalent Demio in 2002.


title: Inu-Oh

text: "Inu-Oh" premiered at the 78th Venice International Film Festival in September 2021, with the film releasing in Japan in May 2022.


title: Inu-Oh

text: A withered biwa player narrates a tale of how 900 years ago, the Genji clan sought the Imperial Regalia to unite the emperor's throne. They defeat the rival Heike clan at the Battle of Dan-no-ura, wherein the child emperor drowns while carrying the Grasscutter Sword. Three hundred years later, agents of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu hire young Tomona and his father to retrieve a box from a Heike shipwreck. They find a sword inside the box. Not realizing that it is the Grasscutter Sword, Tomona's father unsheathes the sword, letting loose a blade of energy that cuts him in half and blinds Tomona. Tomona then goes on a years long journey to find answers for what happened, with the ghost of his father accompanying him. He meets a member of a whole troupe of blind biwa players, and decides to learn the biwa and join the troupe. Tomona changes his name to "Tomoichi", but the name change makes it difficult for his father's spirit to find him.


title: Inu-Oh

text: At the same time, a Noh dance troupe leader dons a demonic mask. A series of murders of biwa players follow, and then the leader's third son is born with three stubby limbs, a very elongated right arm, skin covered in scales, and a hideously deformed face. The troupe leader has such contempt for his deformed son that he forces him to always wear and treats him like a dog. But one day, the deformed son sees his father try to teach Noh dancing to his other sons. The deformed son practices along with them, and his dance magically restores his legs. The deformed son soon meets Tomoichi. He bonds with Tomoichi as he can't see his deformity, and so he reveals to him that he has chosen the name "Inu-Oh" for himself. Tomoichi tells Inu-Oh about how he can see his father's spirit, and he then notices that many spirits of Heike warriors surround Inu-Oh, telling him their stories. This vision inspires the two to form a new performing troupe, with Tomoichi now renaming himself "Tomoari". Soon after, a long-haired Tomoari debuts the new act on a bridge, performing his song in a style resembling modern hair metal.Below the bridge, Inu-Oh dances to the music, telling a story of how the Heike soldiers tied their arms to their ships but then lost all the arms when their ships sank. At the end of the song, both of Inu-Oh's arms change to normal length. Their act is an instant hit, and Tomoari and Inu-Oh become huge celebrities. In their next performance, about the Heike warriors waiting for a "whale that never arrived", the scales on Inu-Oh's skin disappear. But the new troupe arouses the attention of Ashikaga, who only wants his clan's version of the Heike stories told. He sends agents to Inu-Oh's now envious father, offering fame if he sabotages his son's act.


title: Inu-Oh

text: The troupe's next act reveals the truth behind Inu-Oh's origin: his father made a deal with the demon mask for fame. The demon mask demanded the lives of biwa players, and the innocence of his unborn son. So it was Inu-Oh's father who brought the curse that deformed him, and who murdered the players. The murders released the spirits of Heike soldiers that followed the players, but the spirits went to Inu-Oh instead of his father, helping him win fame and undo his curse. His father demands the mask kill Inu-Oh, even though he gave Inu-Oh to the mask. Outraged, the mask kills Inu-Oh's father instead. At the end of the performance, Inu-Oh's face is restored. However, Ashikaga cracks down on the troupe, forcing Tomoari to stop playing. Ashikaga himself demands that Inu-Oh perform only the official version of Heike history, or else he will behead Tomoari. Inu-Oh concedes. However, Tomoari continues to perform and speak out against the Ashikaga clan, and so the clan's men behead him nonetheless. Inu-Oh goes on to more years of fame as a Noh dancer, but he is forgotten after his death. The narrator turns out to be Tomoari's spirit, who has remained on Earth up to modern times, and now uses his original name "Tomona". Inu-Oh's spirit appears, explaining that it took 600 years to find Tomona since he changed his name. Inu-Oh restores Tomona to his youthful form, and reverts to his deformed version. The two then perform again.


title: Inu-Oh

text: Hideo Furukawa's novel "Tales of the Heike: INU-OH" was published in Japan in 2017. In adapting this story about ancient times, director Masaaki Yuasa described the film as a tale with parallels and relevance to the modern day, a story which asks "whether to align with fate and fashion to seize glory, or to forgo reward to live according to your beliefs." The film was scored by composer and multi-instrumentalist Otomo Yoshihide. The soundtrack to the film was released on May 25, and features original songs performed in character by Avu-chan and Moriyama, as well as instrumental interstitial music performed by Otomo. The original songs were written by Avu-chan, Otomo, director Masaaki Yuasa and soundtrack musician Yohei Matsui.


title: Inu-Oh

text: "Inu-Oh" had its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival on September 9, 2021. The film was the first Japanese hand-drawn animated film to screen in competition in the festival's Horizons category. The film subsequently screened at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival, where it made its North American debut. "Inu-Oh" held its Japanese premiere at the Tokyo International Film Festival on November 3, 2021. The film received a wide theatrical release in Japan in May 28, 2022, with Asmik Ace and Aniplex serving as co-distributors.


title: Inu-Oh

text: In North America, the film has been licensed for theatrical and home-video distribution by GKIDS (through their exclusive distribution partner Universal Pictures Home Entertainment), with theatrical exhibition set to begin August 12, 2022 while Anime Limited has licensed distribution in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The film is slated to receive a theatrical release in the UK in the summer of 2022. Outside of these territories and Asia, sales agency Fortissimo Films has acquired international rights and will represent the film to distributors.


title: Inu-Oh

text: Upon its premiere at the Venice International Film Festival, "Inu-Oh" received immediate critical acclaim. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 90% approval rating based on 51 reviews, with an average rating of 7.70/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Masaaki Yuasa fans will come to "Inu-Oh" expecting a visual feast - and this musical animated extravaganza won't leave them disappointed." On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 77 out of 100 based on 16 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Inu-Oh

text: William Bibbiani of "TheWrap" noted that ""Inu-Oh" is a story about using art to speak truth to power... It’s a story about why some stories go untold, and why some people tell them anyway, no matter what the cost," and praised the film as "a siren scream of a musical: angry and beautiful, rapturously animated and highly infectious." Writing for "IndieWire", David Ehrlich rated the film a B+, highlighted the film's "affection for the marginalized and misunderstood," and noted that "not since 1973’s "Belladonna of Sadness" has an anime feature reimagined ancient history in such hypnotically psychedelic fashion." Wendy Ide of "Screen Daily" called the work a "singular piece of filmmaking" with "an originality of approach which should set it apart within the anime landscape."


title: Grand Grimoire

text: The Grand Grimoire is a black magic grimoire. Different editions date the book to 1521, 1522 or 1421, but it was probably written during the early 19th century. Owen Davies suggests 1702 is when the first edition may have been created and a "Bibliothèque bleue" version (a popular edition, similar to a chapbook) of the text may have been published in 1750. The "introductory chapter" was authored by someone named Antonio Venitiana del Rabina who supposedly gathered his information from original writings of King Solomon. Much of material of this grimoire derives from the "Key of Solomon" and the "Lesser Key of Solomon", pseudepigraphical grimoires attributed to King Solomon. Also known as Le Dragon Rouge or The Red Dragon, this book contains instructions purported to summon Lucifer or Lucifuge Rofocale, for the purpose of forming a Deal with the Devil. The 19th century French occultist Éliphas Lévi (author of "Dogme et rituel de la haute magie") claimed the contemporary edition of "Le Dragon Rouge" to be a counterfeit of a true, older Grand Grimoire.


title: Grand Grimoire

text: The work is divided into two books. The first book contains instructions for summoning a demon and for the construction of tools with which to force the demon to do one's bidding. The second book is divided further into two parts: the "Sanctum Regnum" and "Secrets, de L'Art Magique du Grand Grimoire" ("Secrets, of the magic art of the Grand Grimoire"). The "Sanctum Regnum" contain instructions for making a pact with the demon, allowing one to command the spirit without the tools required by book one, but at greater risk. "Secrets" contains simple spells and rituals one can employ after having performed the ritual of the first book. Some editions contain a short text between these two parts, "Le Secret Magique, où le Grand Art de pouvoir parler aux Morts" ("The Magic Secret, or the Grand Art of being able to speaking with the dead"), dealing with necromancy.


title: Grand Grimoire

text: The book describes several demons as well as the rituals to summon them in order to make a pact with them. It also details several spells for winning a lottery, talking to spirits, being loved by a girl, making oneself invisible, etc.


title: Grand Grimoire

text: This book mentions three greater demons. These demons are similarly prioritized in "Grimorium Verum". Although, for Tarl Warwick's English translation of the work, the "demons" are referenced by the more generic term of "spirits".


title: Grand Grimoire

text: Fantasy author Lin Carter uses the word "karcist" as a synonym for "magician" or "sorcerer" in several of his works, citing the Grand Grimoire as a source. In his novel "Thongor in the City of Magicians", Carter's "karcist" is a mage requested to serve as "controller" of a magic ritual enacted by a cabal of his colleagues.


title: Grand Grimoire

text: For the video game "Final Fantasy Tactics Advance", the Grand Grimoire is a magical book that survived the Flood on Noah's Ark, but the value of which was forgotten. The book is found later by one of the game's main characters, Mewt Randell, in a used book shop. The book's power transports the game's protagonists to Ivalice, a fictional universe used as a setting for other Final Fantasy games as well.


title: Grand Grimoire

text: For the 1989 motion picture "Warlock", actor Julian Sands plays a warlock trying to find the three "Grand Grimoires", which when combined purportedly contain the name of God. In the movie the book has supernatural properties, and is therefore separated into three sets of pages to prevent its evil power from being abused.


title: Grand Grimoire

text: In James H. Brennan's literary series "Sagas of the Demonspawn", Lucifuge Rofocale is the name of the demon incarnated in the sword named Doom Bringer. According to the "Grand Grimoire", Lucifuge Rofocale is the demon in charge of Hell's government.


title: Grand Grimoire

text: In its second season, the Fox TV series "Sleepy Hollow" presents the "Grand Grimoire" as once owned by occultist John Dee and coveted by an evil warlock named Solomon Kent. It became possessed by one of the series' antagonists, Henry Parrish, and helped cause the demise of protagonist Katrina Crane.


title: Grand Grimoire

text: For the 2012 video game "", a book named the Grand Grimoire contains all of the black magic within the town of Labyrinthia, and is used by Phoenix Wright to reveal contradictions and illogic of accusations of witchcraft.


title: Grand Grimoire

text: The killer of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman in Kingsbury, London in 2020, had invoked Lucifuge Rofocale prior to the killings. He hoped that by sacrificing their lives to the demon, he would win a lottery.


title: Grand Grimoire

text: American rock music band Coven referenced the hierarchy of demons presented in the Grand Grimoire in their 1969 song "Dignitaries of Hell." The song, part of their controversial album "Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls", has lyrics that include a brief summary of each demon's respective job in hell.


title: Grand Grimoire

text: The novel "God's Demon" by Wayne Barlowe features most of the Grand Grimoire's named demons as characters, including Sargatanas as its protagonist.


title: Grand Grimoire

text: In "Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup", "Grand Grimoire" is used as the name of a spellbook containing high-level summoning spells.


title: Susan Anspach

text: Susan Florence Anspach (; November 23, 1942 – April 2, 2018) was an American stage, film and television actress, who was best known for her roles in films during the 1970s and 1980s such as "Five Easy Pieces" (1970), "Play It Again, Sam" (1972), "Blume in Love" (1973), "Montenegro" (1981), "Blue Monkey" (1987), and "Blood Red" (1989).


title: Susan Anspach

text: Anspach was born and raised in Queens, New York City. Her mother was Gertrude (), a secretary and singer. Her father was Renald Anspach, a World War II Army veteran and later factory worker, who was of German-Jewish and English descent. The couple met at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Anspach's grandfather had disapproved of the marriage and disowned his daughter. Anspach was raised by her great aunt until Anspach was six, when her aunt died. She went back to live with her parents in what grew to be an abusive home; she left at age 15. With the help of a Roman Catholic organization, she moved in with a family in Harlem.


title: Susan Anspach

text: Anspach graduated from William Cullen Bryant High School in Long Island City in 1960. She received a full scholarship to the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. She studied music and drama. Anspach made her professional debut in Thornton Wilder's one-act play "Pullman Car Hiawatha" at a summer theater in Maryland. After college, she moved back to New York City.


title: Susan Anspach

text: Anspach starred in several Broadway and off-Broadway shows, including as the female lead (Sheila) in the musical "Hair". The musical ran for 45 performances at the Cheetah Theatre. She was in a play with Al Pacino while at the Actors Studio. Anspach first came to prominence in the 1970 film "Five Easy Pieces", directed by Bob Rafelson and starring Jack Nicholson. Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" called her "one of America's most charming and talented actresses". She followed this with a supporting role in Woody Allen's "Play It Again, Sam" (1972) and a more prominent role in Paul Mazursky's romantic comedy "Blume in Love" (1973), alongside George Segal and Kris Kristofferson.


title: Susan Anspach

text: Anspach originally was cast in the role of country singer Barbara Jean in the 1975 film "Nashville", but her salary request exceeded the ensemble film's budget; she was replaced by Ronee Blakley.


title: Susan Anspach

text: She starred off-Broadway in 1965 in "A View from the Bridge" with Robert Duvall, Jon Voight, and Dustin Hoffman.


title: Susan Anspach

text: In her film career, Anspach starred in 19 features and eight television movies and also was featured in two series, "The Yellow Rose" and "The Slap Maxwell Story" (with Dabney Coleman). She guest-starred in the NBC romantic anthology series "Love Story" in 1973, in the episode "All My Tomorrows".


title: Susan Anspach

text: Anspach was Roman Catholic. She said that the church and her psychoanalyst were her "parents" for close to 10 years of her youth.


title: Susan Anspach

text: Anspach had a daughter, Catherine Curry (born October 15, 1968) with fellow "Hair" cast member Steve Curry. She had a son, Caleb Goddard (born September 26, 1970), whom she claimed was fathered by actor Jack Nicholson. She married actor Mark Goddard in June 1970 and divorced him in October 1978. Goddard adopted both children. Anspach married musician Sherwood Ball (son of musician-entrepreneur Ernie Ball) in 1982 and divorced him in 1988.


title: Susan Anspach

text: Anspach marched with United Farm Workers head Cesar Chavez. She protested the racist apartheid system of South Africa. Anspach also advocated for human rights in Central America.


title: Georgia Rule

text: Georgia Rule is a 2007 American comedy-drama film directed by Garry Marshall, written by Mark Andrus, and starring Jane Fonda, Lindsay Lohan, Felicity Huffman, Dermot Mulroney, Cary Elwes, and Garrett Hedlund. The original score was composed by John Debney.


title: Georgia Rule

text: "Georgia Rule" was theatrically released by Universal Pictures on May 11, 2007, and received generally negative reviews from critics, but the lead cast (Fonda, Lohan and Huffman) was praised for their performances.


title: Georgia Rule

text: Rachel is a promiscuous, heavy-drinking teenager, whose drug addiction and rebellious ways are starting to spiral out of control. With her latest car crash, she has violated the final rule in her mother Lily's San Francisco home. With nowhere else to take her, Lily hauls her to the one place she swore she would never return to: her grandmother Georgia's house in Idaho.


title: Georgia Rule

text: Georgia lives life by a few definitive rules—God comes first and hard work reigns—and whoever is under her roof must do the same. Saddled with her granddaughter for the summer, she needs great patience to understand her fury. Georgia gets her a receptionist job for Dr. Simon Ward, the local veterinarian, who also treats people. His nephews, Sam and Ethan, are often at Georgia's.


title: Georgia Rule

text: As Simon does not show interest in Rachel or other women, she thinks he is gay. However, his sister Paula tells her he is mourning the death of his wife and son, killed in a car collision three years earlier. He refuses to have sex with Rachel even when she tries to seduce him, but retains some feelings for her mother Lily, who he once dated.


title: Georgia Rule

text: Rachel performs oral sex on Harlan Wilson, not yet married and still a virgin because of his LDS (Mormon) religion. He confesses to his girlfriend, June, who is shocked. Later, a team of LDS girls spy on Harlan and Rachel to make sure he does not have sex again. After chasing them with Harlan's truck, Rachel explains to them that what happened was over and they can go back to having their summer fun.


title: Georgia Rule

text: They agree, but tell Rachel to go home, leading her to threaten them by saying if they have anything to do with her and Harlan again, she will find all of their boyfriends and "fuck them stupid". That is when they stop insulting her and spying on them.


title: Georgia Rule

text: While trying to make a point to Simon about survival, Rachel bluntly says that her stepfather, Arnold, sexually molested her from 12 until she turned 14. Seeing the effect of her revelation, Rachel tries to convince him she lied. However, Simon tells Georgia about the abuse, and in turn, Georgia tells Lily, who thinks she is lying.


title: Georgia Rule

text: Heartbroken, Lily comes to believe her daughter. She begins to drink heavily and asks Arnold for a divorce. When he arrives, Georgia tells him to leave, refusing to let him in the house, she hits him with a baseball bat, and finally threatens his new red Ferrari. Rachel sees that Lily cannot accept the truth, so lies to her about being molested.


title: Georgia Rule

text: At the motel where Arnold is staying, Rachel tells him that she has a video tape of them having sex when she was 14 and he seems worried. She demands $10 million if he does not keep Lily happy and admits to him she lied about him molesting her to Lily because she does not want her to be upset anymore. On the way back to San Francisco, when Arnold tells Lily that he is giving Rachel his Ferrari, she realizes he is guilty.


title: Georgia Rule

text: Lily starts a raging argument/attack and Arnold finally admits to having molested Rachel, saying she seduced him, Lily's alcoholism drove him to it, and that Rachel enjoyed it. Arnold drives off and leaves her to walk back. Georgia, Simon, Rachel, and Harlan catch up with her in Harlan's pick-up, and a tearful Rachel apologizes to her mother for her behavior. Harlan tells Georgia that he is in love with Rachel, and plans to marry her when he returns from his two-year mission.


title: Georgia Rule

text: Ostensibly set in Idaho, per the ending credits and DVD extras, the film was actually shot in Southern California, and much of the scenery was created with CGI.


title: Georgia Rule

text: The production of the film came to media attention when a warning letter from Morgan Creek Productions CEO James G. Robinson to Lindsay Lohan was leaked online on The Smoking Gun; in it, he criticized her heavy partying and lateness on set, calling her "discourteous, irresponsible and unprofessional", comparing her to a "spoiled child."


title: Georgia Rule

text: "Georgia Rule" received generally negative reviews from critics. The film earned a "Rotten" rating on the website Rotten Tomatoes, with a score of 19% from 118 reviews. The site's consensus states: "Comedic and dramatic in all the wrong places, "Georgia Rule" is a confused dramedy that wastes the talents of its fine cast." The film also had a low rating on Metacritic with a score of 25, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B-" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Georgia Rule

text: "Georgia Rule" was rated the #2 worst movie of 2007 by AOL. The film received "two thumbs down" from "Ebert and Roeper", with the guest critic calling it "Lindsay Lohan's "Gigli"" (many critics would compare Lohan's following star vehicle, "I Know Who Killed Me", to "Gigli") and "a sitcom about sexual abuse".


title: Georgia Rule

text: "Georgia Rule" was released on DVD on September 4, 2007. The Blu-ray was released by the Shout! Factory, under their Shout Select label, on July 12, 2022.


title: Georgia Rule

text: The film received two nominations at the 2007 Teen Choice Awards, for "Choice Movie – Chick Flick" and "Choice Actress – Drama" for Lohan's performance. Felicity Huffman received a Prism Award nomination for "Best Performance in a Feature Film", with the movie winning "Best Feature Film".


title: Michel Aflaq

text: Michel Aflaq (, , 9 January 1910 – 23 June 1989) was a Syrian philosopher, sociologist and Arab nationalist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of Ba'athism and its political movement; he is considered by several Ba'athists to be the principal founder of Ba'athist thought. He published various books during his lifetime, the most notable being "The Battle for One Destiny" (1958) and "The Struggle Against Distorting the Movement of Arab Revolution" (1975).


title: Michel Aflaq

text: Born into a middle-class family in Damascus, Syria, Aflaq studied at the Sorbonne, where he met his future political companion Salah al-Din al-Bitar. He returned to Syria in 1932, and began his political career in communist politics. Aflaq became a communist activist, but broke his ties with the communist movement when the Syrian–Lebanese Communist Party supported colonial policies through the Popular Front under the French Mandate of Syria. Later in 1940 Aflaq and al-Bitar established the Arab Ihya Movement (later renaming itself the "Arab Ba'ath Movement", taking the name from Zaki al-Arsuzi's group by the same name). The movement proved successful, and in 1947 the Arab Ba'ath Movement merged with al-Arsuzi's Arab Ba'ath organisation to establish the Arab Ba'ath Party. Aflaq was elected to the party's executive committee and was elected "'Amid" (meaning the party's leader).


title: Michel Aflaq

text: The Arab Ba'ath Party merged with Akram al-Hawrani's Arab Socialist Party to establish the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party in 1952; Aflaq was elected the party's leader in 1954. During the mid-to-late 1950s the party began developing relations with Gamal Abdel Nasser, the President of Egypt, which eventually led to the establishment of the United Arab Republic (UAR). Nasser forced Aflaq to dissolve the party, which he did, but without consulting with party members. Shortly after the UAR's dissolution, Aflaq was reelected as Secretary General of the National Command of the Ba'ath Party. Following the 8th of March Revolution, Aflaq's position within the party was weakened to such an extent that he was forced to resign as the party's leader in 1965. Aflaq was ousted during the 1966 Syrian coup d'état, which led to a schism within the Ba'ath Party. He escaped to Lebanon, but later went to Iraq. In 1968 Aflaq was elected Secretary General of the Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party; during his tenure he held no "de facto" power. He held the post until his death on 23 June 1989.


title: Michel Aflaq

text: Aflaq's theories about society, economics, and politics, which are collectively known as Ba'athism, hold that the Arab world needs to be unified into one Arab Nation in order to achieve an advanced state of development. He was critical of both capitalism and communism, and critical of Karl Marx's view of dialectical materialism as the only truth. Ba'athist thought placed much emphasis on liberty and Arab socialism – a socialism with Arab characteristics, which was not part of the international socialist movement as defined by the West. Aflaq believed in the separation of state and religion, and was a strong believer in secularisation, but was against atheism. Although a Christian, he believed Islam to be proof of "Arab genius". In the aftermath of the 1966 Ba'ath Party split, the Syrian-led Ba'ath Party accused Aflaq of stealing al-Arsuzi's ideas, and called him a "thief". The Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party rejects this, and does not believe that al-Arsuzi contributed to Ba'athist thought.


title: Michel Aflaq

text: Born on 9 January 1910 in Damascus to a middle class Orthodox Christian family, his father, Joseph, working as a grain merchant. Aflaq was first educated in the westernized schools of the French Mandate of Syria. In 1929, he left Syria to study philosophy abroad at the Sorbonne in Paris. During his stay Aflaq was influenced by the works of Henri Bergson, and met his longtime collaborator Salah al-Din al-Bitar, a fellow Syrian nationalist. Aflaq founded an Arab Student Union at the Sorbonne, and discovered the writings of Karl Marx. He returned to Syria in 1932, and became active in communist politics, but left the movement when the government of Léon Blum, supported by the French Communist Party (FCP), continued France's old politics towards its colonies. Aflaq, and others, had believed that the FCP followed pro-independence policies towards the French colonies. It had not helped that the Syrian–Lebanese Communist Party (SLCP) supported the FCP's decision. From then on Aflaq saw the communist movement as a tool of the Soviet Union. He was impressed by the organisation and ideology of Antun Saadeh's Syrian Social Nationalist Party.


title: Michel Aflaq

text: Upon their return to Syria, Aflaq and al-Bitar became teachers at Tajhiz all'-Ula, "the most prestigious secondary school in Syria". Aflaq taught history, while al-Bitar taught math and physics. By 1940, Aflaq and al-Bitar had managed to set up a student circle, which usually met on Fridays. That year, the Arab Ihya Movement, a political party, was established by Aflaq and al-Bitar. They used most of their spare time in 1941 to agitate for the party. It was in 1942 that Aflaq showed his skills as "a compelling speaker" who was able to utilize the "theatrical pause" to great effect. The party changed its name to "Arab Ba'ath Movement" to signify the radical changes which were sweeping the Middle East; Rashid Ali al-Gaylani, the Prime Minister of Iraq, had challenged Britain's domination over Iraq. The replacement of the word "Revival" with "Ba'ath" (, literally means "resurrection"/"rebirth") signified that Arab revival had been replaced ideologically by the need for an Arab rebirth. The change of name led to Zaki al-Arsuzi, leader of the Arab Ba'ath Party, to accuse Aflaq and al-Bitar of stealing his party's name from him. Though both men were promoting a party platform based on an Arab nationalist stance, Aflaq and al-Arsuzi became bitter rivals.


title: Michel Aflaq

text: On 24 October 1942, both Aflaq and al-Bitar resigned from their teaching positions, now determined to devote themselves fully to the political struggle. In 1941 the Syrian Committee to Help Iraq was established to support the Iraqi Government led by Rashid Ali al-Gaylani against the British invasion during the Anglo–Iraqi War. Al-Arsuzi, the leader of the other Arab Ba'ath movement, was skeptical of the new committee, and opposed helping the Iraqis on the ground that they would lose anyway. In 1941 the movement began publishing documents under the name the "Arab Ihya Movement". Later, in 1945, Aflaq and al-Bitar asked the French Mandate authorities to grant the movement a party license. The Arab Ba'ath movement did not become an official party until 1947, when it merged with al-Arsuzi's Arab Ba'ath Movement to found the Arab Ba'ath Party. The Arab Ba'ath Movement, led by Aflaq and al-Bitar, drew supporters from al-Arsuzi's Ba'ath Movement; during the 1940s, al-Arsuzi started to seclude himself from the public eye, he developed a deep distrust of others and became, according to some of his associates, paranoid. When the two Ba'ath movements merged and established the Arab Ba'ath Party in 1947, the only subject discussed was how much socialism to include; Wahib al-Ghanim and Jalal al-Sayyid from the al-Arsuzi led Ba'ath movement wanted Aflaq and al-Bitar to adopt more radical socialist policies.


title: Michel Aflaq

text: The Arab Ba'ath Party's first congress was held in Damascus in 1947. Aflaq took the pre-eminent position of "Amid", sometimes translated as 'doyen' or as 'leader'; and was elected to a four-member executive committee. Under the constitution adopted at the congress, this made him effective leader of the party, with sweeping powers within the organisation; al-Bitar was elected Secretary General of the National Command. Zaki al-Arsuzi, the leader of the Arab Ba'ath, was not given any position, or membership in the party. Aflaq as "Amid" was responsible for ideological affairs and became the party's mentor, while al-Bitar controlled the party's day-to-day management. The merger would prove problematic, several members of the al-Arsuzi-led Ba'ath Party were more left-leaning, and would become, later in Aflaq's tenure as leader, highly critical of his leadership.


title: Michel Aflaq

text: In the late 1940s, Aflaq and al-Bitar gave free lessons on Ba'athist thought, and in 1948 they established the newspaper "al-Ba'ath" (English: "rebirth"/"resurrection"). Aflaq tested the Ba'ath Party's strength during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War after early Syrian defeats – he led several demonstrations against the government led by President Shukri al-Quwatli. He personally led demonstrations, and claimed that al-Quwatli, a landowner, was a corrupt and capitalistic politician, who was to blame for the Syrians army's defeat. Aflaq called for al-Quwatli's resignation, and wrote several "al-Ba'ath" articles criticising his presidency and his prime minister, Jamil Mardam Bey. Aflaq was later arrested on the orders of al-Quwatli's prime minister Bey. Al-Quwali's government was brought down in a coup d'état led by military officer Husni al-Za'im. Al-Za'im banned all parties, claiming that Syria was not ready to establish a liberal democracy yet. Aflaq, who had been set free, was rearrested during al-Zai'm's presidency and sent to the notorious Mezzeh Prison. Al-Za'im's rule did not last for long, and in August 1949, he was toppled, and Hashim al-Atassi, who was democratically elected, took his place. Al-Atassi established a national unity government, and Aflaq was appointed to the post of Minister of Education, the only government post he would ever hold; he held it from August to December 1949. Al-Attasi's presidency did not last for very long either, and in 1951 Adib Shishakli took power in a military coup.


title: Michel Aflaq

text: Aflaq at first extended his support to the new government, believing that he and the Ba'ath Party could collaborate with Shishakli because they shared the same Arab nationalist sentiments. His analysis of Shishakli proved to be wrong, and one of Shishakli's first decisions as ruler was to ban all political parties, including the Ba'ath Party. The Ba'ath Party leadership, and several leading members, escaped to Lebanon in the wake of increased government repression. In Lebanon Aflaq and al-Bitar agreed to a merger of the Arab Ba'ath Party and the Arab Socialist Party (ASP), led by Akram al-Hawrani, to establish the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party in 1952. The newly formed party worked as a base of operation against Shishali's rule – Aflaq and the rest cooperated with non-Ba'athist opposition forces too. Shishakli was toppled in February 1954.


title: Michel Aflaq

text: Following the overthrow of al-Shishakli, Syria held its first democratic elections in five years. The Ba'ath Party, led by Aflaq, al-Bitar and al-Hawrani, had 22 members elected to parliament. This increase in influence can largely be attributed to al-Hawrani – several old ASP strongholds voted for the Ba'ath Party because of al-Hawrani's presence. By this time Aflaq was losing much of his power to al-Hawrani and his supporters, who were in a majority in the party. A proof of this was the decision of the Ba'ath Party to collaborate openly with the Syrian Communist Party (SCP), a move Aflaq opposed. Aflaq was elected the party's Secretary General of the newly established National Command, a title equivalent to 'party leader', by the party's Second National Congress.


title: Michel Aflaq

text: When, under the United Arab Republic (UAR), Aflaq was forced by Nasser to dissolve the party, he disbanded the party by himself, instead of convening a congress on the matter. The UAR proved to be disastrous for the Ba'ath Party – the party was sidelined to a great extent by Nasser's government. The Ba'ath movement, which was on the verge in 1958 of becoming the dominant Arab nationalist movement, found itself in disarray after three years of Nasserist rule. Only a handful of Ba'athists were given public office in the UAR's government, al-Hawrani became vice president and al-Bitar became Minister of Culture and Guidance. Several members, mostly young, blamed Aflaq for this situation; it was he who dissolved the party in 1958 without consulting the National Congress. Hafez al-Assad and Salah Jadid amongst others, eventually established the Military Committee to save the Syrian Ba'ath movement from annihilation. The party's Third National Congress in 1959 supported Aflaq's decision to dissolve the party, but a 1960 National Congress, in which Jadid was a delegate representing the then-unknown Military Committee, reversed the decision and called for the Ba'ath Party's reestablishment. The Congress also decided to improve relations with Nasser by democratising the UAR from within. A faction within the party, led by al-Hawrani, called for Syria's secession. When the UAR broke up in 1961, some members applauded the dissolution, among them was al-Bitar.


title: Michel Aflaq

text: The Ba'ath Party captured 20 seats, down from 22, in the 1961 election. In 1962, after four years, Aflaq convened the Fifth Congress in Homs. Al-Hawrani was not invited; cells that had stayed active and defied Aflaq's orders, and Ba'athists who become Nasserists during the period of the UAR, were not invited to the congress. Aflaq was reelected the National Command's secretary general, and ordered the reestablishment of the Syrian-regional Ba'ath organisation. During the congress, Aflaq and the Military Committee, through Muhammad Umran, made contact for the first time; the committee asked for permission to initiate a coup d'état; Aflaq supported the conspiracy. Following the success of the February 1963 Iraqi coup d'état, led by the Ba'ath Party's Iraqi Regional Branch, the Military Committee hastily convened to hatch a coup against Nazim al-Kudsi's presidency. The 8th of March Revolution, a military coup launched in 1963, proved successful, and a Ba'athist government in Syria was established. The plotters first order was to establish the National Council of the Revolutionary Command (NCRC), consisting entirely of Ba'athists and Nasserists, and controlled by military personnel rather than civilians from the very beginning.


title: Michel Aflaq

text: The relationship between the Ba'athists and the Nasserists were at best, uncomfortable. The Ba'ath Party's rise to power in Iraq and Syria put Nasser, as he put it, "between the hammer and the anvil". The establishment of a union between Iraq and Syria would weaken his credentials as a pan-Arab leader. Nasser started launching bitter propaganda attacks against the party; Aflaq was dismissed as an ineffectual theorist who was mocked as a puppet "Roman emperor" and accused of being a "Cypriot Christian". In several Ba'ath Party meetings Aflaq responded with pure anger, and became an anti-Nasserist. Because of the position he took, Aflaq had a falling out with al-Bitar who still believed there was a chance to reestablish good ties with Nasser.


title: Michel Aflaq

text: The break with Nasser weakened the original leaders of the Ba'ath Party, which in turn gave the Military Committee room to expand. After taking power, the Military Committee looked for theoretical guidance, but instead of going to Aflaq to solve problems (which was usual before), they contacted the party's Marxist faction led by Hammud al-Shufi. At the Syrian Ba'athist Regional Congress, the Military Committee "proved" that it was rebelling equally against Aflaq and the traditional leadership, as against their moderate social and economic policies. The Military Committee was bent on removing Aflaq from a position of power, believing that he had become old and frail.


title: Michel Aflaq

text: At the Sixth National Congress held in October 1963, Aflaq was barely able to hold on to his post as Secretary General – the Marxist factions led by al-Shufi and Ali Salih al-Sa'di, in Syria and Iraq respectively, were the majority group. Another problem facing Aflaq was that several of his colleagues were not elected to party office, for instance al-Bitar was not reelected to a seat in the National Command. Instead of the traditional civilian leadership, a new leadership consisting of military officers was gradually growing; Jadid and Amin al-Hafiz from Syria and Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and Salih Mahdi Ammash from Iraq were elected to the National Command. While the Military Committee was in fact taking control over the Ba'ath Party from the civilian leadership, they were sensitive to such criticism, and stated, in an ideological pamphlet, that civilian-military symbiosis was of major importance, if socialist reconstruction was to be achieved. To the outside world Aflaq seemed to be in charge. As the Tunisian newspaper "" put it; "The philosopher who made two coups [Iraqi and Syrian coups] in a month".


title: Michel Aflaq

text: The Ba'ath movement was not running as smoothly as the rest of the world believed; the Iraqi Regional Branch was already starting to lose membership. The Iraqi military and the party's militant arm, the National Guard, detested each other. Al-Sadi, the Regional Secretary of the Iraqi Regional Branch, was eventually exiled to Madrid, Spain on 11 November by several military officers and moderate Ba'athists. An anxious Aflaq hastily traveled from Syria and dissolved the Regional Command of the Iraqi Regional Branch, exclaiming that the National Command would rule Iraq in its place until a new Regional Command was elected. This was not greeted warmly by the majority of Iraqi military officers and Ba'athists – the idea that a Christian was to rule over a Muslim country was considered "insensitive".


title: Michel Aflaq

text: The situation in Iraq did not improve, Abdul Salam Arif, the President of Iraq and a Nasserist, plotted a coup against the Ba'ath Party on 18 November, which succeeded. The dream of cornering Nasser's pan-Arab project was over; instead, it was Nasser and the Nasserists who were cornering the Ba'ath movement. On hearing the news, Aflaq and several Ba'athists fled Iraq for Syria.


title: Michel Aflaq

text: After a falling out with the Military Committee, of which he was a member, Muhammad Umran told Aflaq about the committee's secret plans to oust the civilian leadership, led by Aflaq, and take over the Ba'ath Party. Shortly after, Umran was sent into exile as Ambassador to Spain for supporting the Aflaq faction. Aflaq responded to the threat posed to his leadership by invoking his office as secretary general, and calling for the National Command to dissolve the Regional Command. He was forced to withdraw his request, when the majority of Ba'ath Party members proved to oppose such a move. A contest for power, between Aflaq and the Military Committee, ensued in the open; but it was a struggle Aflaq was losing. It was plain from the very beginning that the initiative lay with the anti-Aflaq forces. To counter the military threat, Aflaq invoked party rules and regulations against them. To counter this, the Military Committee befriended a staunchly anti-Aflaq civilian faction calling themselves the "Regionalists" – this group had not dissolved their party organisations as ordered by Aflaq in the 1950s.


title: Michel Aflaq

text: The Regional Congress of the Syrian Regional Branch, in March 1965, devolved power from the center, the National Command, to the Regional Command. From then on, the Regional Secretary of the Regional Command was considered Syria's "ex officio" head of state. The Regional Secretary had the power to appoint the Prime Minister, the cabinet, the chief of staff and top military commanders. Aflaq was unsettled by the way things were moving, and in May he convened the Eighth National Congress to get a showdown between his followers and those of the Military Committee. However, this never came to fruition. Several civilian members of the National Command, such as the Lebanese Jibran Majdalani and the Saudi Ali Ghannam, advised caution, believing that if he pressed the Military Committee too hard the military would take over the Syrian Regional Branch, and then the Ba'ath Party—as had happened in Iraq following the ousting of the Iraqi Regional Branch.


title: Michel Aflaq

text: Because of their concerns, Aflaq kept quiet. But to his astonishment, keeping quiet caused him to lose his post as Secretary General – Aflaq was succeeded as Secretary General of the National Command by Munif al-Razzaz, a Jordanian of Syrian origin. However, the power between the two camps was unexpectedly reshuffled when Amin al-Hafiz defected to Aflaq's camp. In contrast to other military officers al-Hafiz had very little influence within or outside the party. Al-Hafiz's defection led to a resurgence of activity within Aflaq's faction, al-Bitar and Umran were brought back from Spain to form a new government.


title: Michel Aflaq

text: Al-Razzaz, Aflaq's successor as secretary general, came from the pro-Aflaq faction. With the defection of al-Hafez, he ordered that the National Command was the "de jure" ruling body of the Ba'ath Party. He appointed al-Bitar Prime Minister, Umran defence minister, Mansur al-Atrash as Chairman of the National Council of the Revolutionary Command and al-Hafiz retained his post as President of Syria. Salah Jadid, the Military Committee's strongman, responded by arresting several Umran supporters. Umran responded by dismissing a handful of pro-Jadid officials. The most important of these dismissals was the removal of Ahmad Suwaydani from the post of head of the country's military intelligence to head of the Officer Administration. On 23 February a coup d'état led by Jadid and Hafez al-Assad overthrew the Syrian Government and the Ba'ath Party leadership. Aflaq was exiled from Syria, and ordered never to return his homeland. Members of the party's other factions fled; Aflaq was captured and detained, along with other pro-Aflaq supporters, in a government guest house. When the new rulers launched a purge in August that year, Aflaq managed to make his escape, with the help of Nasim Al Safarjalani and Malek Bashour, both closely trusted friends and colleagues, and hence was able to flee to Beirut, Lebanon, and later to Brazil.


title: Michel Aflaq

text: Aflaq's downfall caused a split within the Ba'ath Party; the party was "de facto" dissolved and two Ba'ath Parties were established, one Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party and one Syrian-led Ba'ath Party. The Syrian-led party was led by Jadid and his supporters and hailed Zaki al-Arsuzi, the founder of the Arab Ba'ath in 1940, as the father of Ba'athist thought, while the Iraqi-led party led by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and Saddam Hussein, still proclaimed Aflaq to be the founder of Ba'athist thought. In February 1966 at the Ninth National Congress, held after the coup which ousted the pro-Aflaq faction, the Iraqi delegation split with the Syrian Ba'athists. The Iraqis held the "true" Ninth National Congress in February 1968 in Beirut, and elected Aflaq as Secretary General of the National Command. Aflaq's election to the secretary generalship also proved to be his final break with al-Bitar; before the congress convened al-Bitar announced that he had left the Ba'ath Party and given up on the Ba'athist movement as a whole.


title: Michel Aflaq

text: Aflaq moved to Baghdad following his reelection to the secretary generalship in February 1968. He stayed there until 1970, when Black September happened, he criticized the Ba'ath leadership of doing too little to help the Palestine Liberation Organisation during the conflict. During the conflict, Aflaq lobbied extensively for Yasser Arafat and the PLO. Aflaq wanted Iraqi intervention; al-Bakr, however, refused to get Iraq involved in such a conflict. Because of this, Aflaq returned to Lebanon in self-imposed exile. The government of Hafez al-Assad, the President of Syria, condemned Aflaq to death in absentia in 1971.


title: Michel Aflaq

text: After four years of self-imposed exile Aflaq returned to Iraq in 1974, a year before the Lebanese Civil War broke out. He refrained from taking part in Iraqi politics. He published several works during this period, the most notable being "The Struggle Against Distorting the Movement of Arab Revolution" in 1975. Aflaq regained some of his influence when he befriended Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq from 1979 until 2003. During the Iran–Iraq War the Iranian leadership accused Hussein of being under the control of a Christian, and Aflaq himself was labelled "a Christian infidel". Effectively, throughout his tenure as secretary general in Iraq, Aflaq was given all due honour as the founder of the Ba'ath movement, but on policy-making, he was ignored.


title: Michel Aflaq

text: Saddam Hussein claimed that Aflaq converted to Islam before his death. According to anonymous Western diplomats, Aflaq's own family disagreed with that claim - however, Aflaq's son, Iyad, confirmed that his father thought about conversion in 1980. Upon his disputed conversion, he supposedly adopted "Ahmad" as a first name. According to the German orientalists Martin Robbe and Gerhard Höpp, the conversion happened before 1988. Regardless of the disagreements about his religion, he was given an Islamic funeral. According to the Berkley Center, anonymous members of Aflaq's family claimed that Aflaq's conversion was a lie made up by Saddam Hussein which he used as a tool to distance Ba'athism from Christianity. The tomb constructed on the orders of Hussein was later used as a military barrack by American soldiers after the 2003 American invasion of Iraq for troops stationed within the Green Zone. Aflaq's family reported that the tomb was badly damaged during the invasion.


title: Michel Aflaq

text: Upon his death in 1989 he was given a state funeral. A large tomb and mausoleum were erected to form a shrine for him. The tomb, widely regarded as a work of great artistic merit, designed by Iraqi architect Chadagee, was located on the western grounds of the Ba'ath Party Pan-Arab Headquarters, at the intersection of Al-Kindi street and the Qādisiyyah Expressway overpass. Although there were rumors and accusations that his tomb was destroyed during the 2003 Iraq War, the burial chamber and building above it were left untouched. Its blue-tiled dome can be seen above the concrete T-walls surrounding the Camp's perimeter.


title: Michel Aflaq

text: The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party slogan "Unity, liberty, socialism" is the key tenet of Aflaq's and Ba'athist thought. Unity meant the unification of the Arab people into one nation, the Arab Nation. The creation of an Arab Nation would have direct implications on Arab development. The establishment of this new state would lead to an Arab Ba'ath (literally meaning "Renaissance"). The Arab nations of his time could only progressively "decline" if not unified; these nations had various ailments – "feudalism, sectarianism, regionalism, intellectual reactionism". The only way to "cure" the Arab nations was, according to Aflaq, through a revolutionary movement. Aflaq was influenced by Marxism in that he saw the need for a vanguard party to rule the Arab Nation for an indefinite period of time (the period would be a transition from the old to the new).


title: Michel Aflaq

text: The need for liberty was one of the defining features of Ba'athism, however, liberty not in the sense used by liberal democracies. Aflaq was a strong believer in pluralism of thought, but paradoxically, against pluralism in the form of votes. In theory, the Ba'ath Party would rule, and guide the people, in a transitional period of time without consulting the people because the party knew what was right.


title: Michel Aflaq

text: The last tenet, 'socialism', did not mean socialism as it is defined in the West, but rather a unique form of Arab socialism. Aflaq coined the word Arab socialism for his variant of socialism. Socialism, in its original form in the Arab world had, according to Aflaq, first come into being under the rule of Muhammad. The point of Arab socialism was not to answer questions such as: how much state control was necessary, or economic equality; but instead Arab socialism was a system that freed the Arab people from oppression and enslavement, which in turn created independent individuals.


title: Michel Aflaq

text: Aflaq opposed Marx's view that dialectical materialism was the only truth, but believed that the "importance of material economic conditions in life" was one of the greatest discoveries in modern history. Even so, Aflaq was critical of both capitalism and communism, and did not want either of the two power blocs to collapse during the Cold War – believing that the Cold War was a sort of check and balance on their power.


title: Michel Aflaq

text: What Aflaq saw in Islam was a revolutionary movement. In contrast to other nationalities, the Arab awakening and expansion was attributed to a religious message. Because of this, Aflaq believed that the Arabs' spirituality was directly linked to Islam, therefore, one could never take Islam out of the equation of what is essentially, and essentially is not, Arab. Arab nationalism, just as Islam had been during the lifetime of Muhammad, was a spiritual revolutionary movement, leading the Arabs towards a new renaissance: Arab nationalism was the second revolution to appear in the Arab world. All Arab religious communities should, according to Aflaq, respect and worship the spirituality of Islam, even if they did not worship Islam in a religious sense – Aflaq was a Christian who worshipped Islam. Aflaq did not believe it was necessary to worship Muhammad, but believed that all Arabs should strive to emulate Muhammad. In the words of Aflaq himself, Arabs "belong to the nation that gave birth to a Muhammad; or rather, because this Arab individual is a member of the community which Muhammad put all his efforts into creating […] Muhammad was all the Arabs; let us today make all the Arabs Muhammad." The Muslim of Muhammad's days were, according to Aflaq, synonymous with Arabs – the Arabs were the only ones to preach the message of Islam during Muhammad's lifetime. In contrast to Jesus, who was a religious leader, but not a political leader, Muhammad was both – the first leader of Islam and of the Arab world. Therefore, secularisation could not take the same shape in the Arab world as it did in the West.


title: Michel Aflaq

text: Aflaq called on all Arabs, both Muslim and non-Muslim alike, to admire the role Islam had played in creating the Arab character. But his view on Islam was purely spiritual, and Aflaq emphasised that Islam "should not be imposed" on state and society. Time and again Aflaq emphasised that the Ba'ath party was against atheism, but also equally against fundamentalism. For him, any fundamentalism represented a "shallow, false faith." According to Ba'athist ideology, all religions were equal. Despite his anti-atheist stance, Aflaq was a strong supporter of secular government, and stated that a Ba'athist state would replace religion with a state "based on a foundation – Arab nationalism, and a moral – freedom."


title: Michel Aflaq

text: Fouad Ajami criticised Aflaq for a lack of real substance, stating, "Nearly three hundred pages of text yield no insight, on his part, into what went wrong and what needed to be done; there is only the visible infatuation with words" and "Aflaq summons the party to renounce power and go back to its 'pure essence'". There is some truth in this critique. Aflaq spent much time and energy writing optimistically about the future, and the past, of the Arab Nation, and of how the Arab World could be unified. As Kanan Makiya, the author of "Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq", notes: for "Aflaq, reality is confined to the inner world of the party." In contrast to other philosophers, such as Karl Marx or John Locke, Aflaq's ideological view of the world makes no clear stand on the materialistic or socioeconomic behavior of humanity. While other philosophers make distinctions between what is real and what is not real, that is between prescriptive and descriptive analysis, Aflaq did not as a rule define what "is" and what "ought" to be. In his thought both are molded into the same category: that which is "attainable".


title: Michel Aflaq

text: In contrast to his longtime friend and colleague Salah al-Din al-Bitar, who was more practical when it came to politics, Aflaq was a "visionary, the dreamer rather unfitted for political life". Aflaq was described by his associates as an "ascetic, shy and intense figure living a simple and unpretentious life." He has been accused of seeking help from other people instead of fulfilling his goal by himself or with others he led; Aflaq collaborated with Gamal Abdel Nasser, Abd al-Karim Qasim and Abdul Rahman Arif in 1958, to Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and Ali Salih al-Sadi in 1963 and finally in the 1970s to Saddam Hussein. There are several Ba'athists, mostly from the Syrian-led Ba'ath Party, who believe Aflaq stole Ba'athist ideology from its original founder, Zaki al-Arsuzi. These individuals have denounced, and labelled, Aflaq as a "thief".


title: Michel Aflaq

text: In his writings Aflaq had been stridently in favor of free speech and other human rights and aid for the lower classes. During the Military Committee's gradual take over of power in Syria, Aflaq rallied against what he saw as the establishment of a military dictatorship, instead of the democracy for which Aflaq had planned. These ideals were never realized by the governments that used his ideology. Most scholars see the Assad government in Syria and Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq to have only employed Aflaq's ideology as a pretense for dictatorship.


title: Short-term memory

text: Short-term memory (or "primary" or "active memory") is the capacity for holding a small amount of information in an active, readily available state for a short interval. For example, short-term memory holds a phone number that has just been recited. The duration of short-term memory (absent rehearsal or active maintenance) is estimated to be on the order of seconds. The commonly cited capacity of 7 items, found in Miller's Law, has been superseded by 4±1 items. In contrast, long-term memory holds information indefinitely.


title: Short-term memory

text: Short-term memory is not the same as working memory, which refers to structures and processes used for temporarily storing and manipulating information.


title: Short-term memory

text: The idea of separate memories for short-term and long-term storage originated in the 19th century. A model of memory developed in the 1960s assumed that all memories are formed in one store and transfer to others store after a small period of time. This model is referred to as the "modal model", most famously detailed by Shiffrin. The model states that memory is first stored in sensory memory, which has a large capacity but can only maintain information for milliseconds. A representation of that rapidly decaying memory is moved to short-term memory. Short-term memory does not have a large capacity like sensory memory, but holds information for seconds or minutes. The final storage is long-term memory, which has a very large capacity and is capable of holding information possibly for a lifetime.


title: Short-term memory

text: The exact mechanisms by which this transfer takes place, whether all or only some memories are retained permanently, and even to have the existence of a genuine distinction between stores, remain controversial.


title: Short-term memory

text: One form of evidence cited in favor of the existence of a short-term store comes from anterograde amnesia, the inability to learn new facts and episodes. Patients with this form of amnesia have an intact ability to retain small amounts of information over short time scales (up to 30 seconds) but have little ability to form longer-term memories (illustrated by patient HM). This is interpreted as showing that the short-term store is spared from damage and diseases.


title: Short-term memory

text: Other evidence comes from experimental studies showing that some manipulations impair memory for the 3 to 5 most recently learned words of a list (it is presumed that they are held in short-term memory). Recall for words from earlier in the list (it is presumed, stored in long-term memory) are unaffected. Other manipulations (e.g., semantic similarity of the words) affect only memory for earlier list words, but do not affect memory for the most recent few words. These results show that different factors affect short-term recall (disruption of rehearsal) and long-term recall (semantic similarity). Together, these findings show that long-term memory and short-term memory can vary independently of each other.


title: Short-term memory

text: Not all researchers agree that short- and long-term memory are separate systems. The alternative Unitary Model proposes that short-term memory consists of temporary activations of long term representations (that there is one memory that behaves variously over all time scales, from milliseconds to years). It has been difficult to identify a sharp boundary between short-term and long-term memory. For instance, Tarnow reported that the recall probability vs. latency curve is a straight line from 6 to 600 seconds, with the probability of failure to recall only saturating after 600 seconds. If two different stores were operating in this time domain, it is reasonable to expect a discontinuity in this curve. Other research has shown that the detailed pattern of recall errors looks remarkably similar to recall of a list immediately after learning (it is presumed, from short-term memory) and recall after 24 hours (necessarily from long-term memory).


title: Short-term memory

text: Further evidence for a unified store comes from experiments involving continual distractor tasks. In 1974, Bjork and Whitten presented subjects with word pairs to remember; before and after each word pair, subjects performed a simple multiplication task for 12 seconds. After the final word-pair, subjects performed the multiplication distractor task for 20 seconds. They reported that the recency effect (the increased probability of recall of the last items studied) and the primacy effect (the increased probability of recall of the first few items) was sustained. These results are incompatible with a separate short-term memory as the distractor items should have displaced some of the word-pairs in the buffer, thereby weakening the associated strength of the items in long-term memory.


title: Short-term memory

text: Tzeng (1973) reported an instance where the recency effect in free recall did not seem to result from a short-term memory store. Subjects were presented with four study-test periods of 10 word lists, with a continual distractor task (20-second period of counting-backward). At the end of each list, participants had to free-recall as many words as possible. After recall of the fourth list, participants were asked to recall items from all four lists. Both the initial and final recall showed a recency effect. These results violated the predictions of a short-term memory model, where no recency effect would be expected.


title: Short-term memory

text: Koppenaal and Glanzer (1990) attempted to explain these phenomena as a result of the subjects' adaptation to the distractor task, which allowed them to preserve at least some short-term memory capabilities. In their experiment the long-term recency effect disappeared when the distractor after the last item differed from the distractors that preceded and followed the other items (e.g., arithmetic distractor task and word reading distractor task). Thapar and Greene challenged this theory. In one of their experiments, participants were given a different distractor task after every study item. According to Koppenaal and Glanzer's theory, no recency effect would be expected as subjects would not have had time to adapt to the distractor; yet such a recency effect remained in place in the experiment.


title: Short-term memory

text: One proposed explanation for recency in a continual distractor condition, and its disappearance in an end-only distractor task is the influence of contextual and distinctive processes. According to this model, recency is a result of the similarity of the final items' processing context to the processing context of the other items and the distinctive position of the final items versus intermediate items. In the end distractor task, the processing context of the final items is no longer similar to that of the other list items. At the same time, retrieval cues for these items are no longer as effective as without the distractor. Therefore, recency recedes or vanishes. However, when distractor tasks are placed before and after each item, recency returns, because all the list items have similar processing context.


title: Short-term memory

text: Various researchers have proposed that stimuli are coded in short-term memory using transmitter depletion. According to this hypothesis, a stimulus activates a spatial pattern of activity across neurons in a brain region. As these neurons fire, the available neurotransmitters are depleted..This depletion pattern represents stimulus information and functions as a memory trace. The memory trace decays over time as a consequence of neurotransmitter reuptake mechanisms that restore neurotransmitters to prior levels.


title: Short-term memory

text: The relationship between short-term memory and working memory is described by various theories, but the two concepts are generally considered distinct. Neither holds information for long, but short-term memory is a simple store, while working memory allows it to be manipulated. Short-term memory is part of working memory, but is not the same thing.


title: Short-term memory

text: Working memory refers to structures and processes used for temporarily storing and manipulating information. Working memory has been termed "working attention". Working memory and attention together play a major role in the thought process. Short-term memory in general refers to the short-term storage of information, and it does not encompass memory manipulation or organization. Thus, while short-term memory components appear in working memory models, the concept of short-term memory is distinct from other concepts.


title: Short-term memory

text: Within Baddeley's influential 1986 model of working memory two short-term storage mechanisms appear: the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketchpad. Most of the above research involves the phonological loop, because most of the work on short-term memory uses verbal material. Since the 1990s, however, research on visual short-term memory and spatial short-term memory has expanded.


title: Short-term memory

text: The limited duration of short-term memory (~18 seconds without rehearsal) suggests that its contents spontaneously decay over time. The decay assumption is part of many theories of short-term memory. The most notable one is Baddeley's model of working memory. The decay assumption is usually paired with the idea of rapid covert rehearsal: to retain information for longer, information must be periodically repeated or rehearsed, either by articulating it out loud or by mental simulation. Another type of rehearsal that can improve short-term memory is attention-based rehearsal. Information is mentally searched in a particular sequence. Once recalled, the information re-enters short-term memory and is then retained for a further period.


title: Short-term memory

text: Nairn and Lewandosky et. al. dispute that spontaneous decay plays any significant role in short-term forgetting, and the evidence is not conclusive.


title: Short-term memory

text: One alternative asserts that several elements (such as digits, words, or pictures, or logos) are held in short-term memory simultaneously, their representations compete with each other for recall, degrading each other. Thereby, new content gradually replaces older content, unless the older content is actively protected.


title: Short-term memory

text: Whatever the cause(s) of short-term forgetting, consensus asserts that it limits the amount of retained new information short term. This limit is referred to as the finite capacity of short-term memory. Short-term memory capacity is often called memory span, in reference to a common measurement procedure. In a memory span test, the experimenter presents a list of items (e.g. digits or words) of increasing length. An individual's span is determined as the longest list length that he or she can recall correctly in the given order on half or more trials.


title: Short-term memory

text: In an early and influential article, "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two", Miller suggested that human short-term memory has a forward memory span of approximately seven plus or minus two items and that that was well known at the time (apparently originating with Wundt). Later research reported that this "magical number seven" is roughly accurate for college students recalling lists of digits, but memory span varies widely across populations and material. For example, the ability to recall words in order depends on characteristics of those words: fewer words can be recalled when the words have longer spoken duration; this is known as the "word-length effect", or when their speech sounds are similar to each other; this is called the "phonological similarity effect". More words can be recalled when the words are highly familiar or occur frequently in speech. Recall performance is better when all of the words are taken from a single semantic category (such as games) than when the words are chosen randomly. A later estimate of short-term memory capacity reported that the capacity was about four pieces, or "chunks", of information. Other notable theories argue against measuring capacity in terms of the number of elements.


title: Short-term memory

text: In the visual domain, several studies report no fixed capacity limit in terms of total number of items that can be retained. Instead, some investigators have argued for a limited resource that can be flexibly shared between items held in short-term memory, with some items (in the focus of attention) being allocated more resource and being recalled with greater fidelity. Many of these experiments have used delayed response tasks that have a continuous, analogue response space, rather than using a binary (correct/incorrect) recall method as is often used in change detection tasks. Instead of asking people to report whether a change occurred between the memory and probe array, delayed reproduction tasks require participants to reproduce the precise quality of a visual feature, e.g. an object’s orientation or colour.


title: Short-term memory

text: Rehearsal is the process of repeating information to be retained, ostensibly keeping it in short-term memory. Each repetition reenters the information into short-term memory, thus keeping that information for another 10 to 20 seconds (the average storage time for short-term memory).


title: Short-term memory

text: Chunking is a technique that allows memory to remember more things. Chunking involves organizing material into meaningful groups. Chunking can greatly increase recall capacity. For example, in recalling a phone number, chunking the digits into three groups (area code, prefix, and extension). This method of remembering phone numbers is far more effective than attempting to remember a string of 10 digits.


title: Short-term memory

text: Practice and the usage of existing information in long-term memory can lead to additional improvements in chunking. In one testing session, an American cross-country runner was able to recall a string of 79 digits after hearing them only once by chunking them into groups the size of a running time.


title: Short-term memory

text: Diseases that cause neurodegeneration, such as Alzheimer's disease, can damage short-term as well as long-term memory. Damage to certain sections of the brain due to this disease causes a shrinkage in the cerebral cortex, which impairs the ability to think and recall.


title: Short-term memory

text: Short-term memory performance is influenced by diet. More intake of blueberries was reported to improve short-term memory after continuous use whereas alcohol decreases short-term memory performance.


title: Short-term memory

text: Memory loss is a natural aging process. Research has reported short-term memory decreases with age. The decline appears to be constant and continuous beginning in the twenties.


title: Short-term memory

text: One study used data from a previous study that compiled normative French data for three short-term memory tasks (verbal, visual and spatial). They found impairments in participants between the ages of 55 and 85 years of age.


title: Short-term memory

text: Advanced age is also associated with decrements in episodic memory. The associated deficit is that differences in recognition memory reflect difficulty in binding components of a memory episode and bound units. A previous study used mixed and blocked test designs and reported an associative deficit for older adults.


title: Short-term memory

text: Even absent neurological diseases and disorders, progressive and gradual loss of some intellectual functions become evident in later years. Several tests assess the psychophysical characteristics of the elderly, such as the functional reach (FR) test and the mini–mental state examination (MMSE). FR is an index of the aptitude to maintain balance in an upright position, while the MMSE test is a global index of cognitive abilities. These tests were used by Costarella et al. to evaluate the psychophysical characteristics of older adults. They found a loss of physical performance (FR, related to height) as well as a loss of cognitive abilities (MMSE).


title: Short-term memory

text: Memory distortion in Alzheimer's disease is a disorder common in older adults. One study compared patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease versus age matched healthy adults. Alzheimer's patients had more severely reduced short-term memory. Visual short-term memory is also impaired in sporadic, late-onset as well as familial Alzheimer’s disease, when assessed using delayed reproduction tasks. These studies point to a deficit in visual feature binding as an important component of the deficit. Episodic memory and semantic abilities deteriorate early in Alzheimer's disease. Since the cognitive system includes interconnected and reciprocally influenced neuronal networks, one study hypothesized that stimulation of lexical-semantic abilities may benefit semantically structured episodic memory. They found that Lexical-Semantic stimulation treatment could improve episodic memory.


title: Short-term memory

text: Aphasias commonly occur after left-hemisphere stroke or with neurodegenerative conditions such as primary progressive aphasias. Patients with left temporoparietal focal lesions may suffer a deficit of verbal short-term memory, which may also be a feature of logopenic primary progressive aphasia.


title: Short-term memory

text: Many language-impaired patients complain about short-term memory deficits. Family members confirm that patients have trouble recalling previously known names and events. These signals are supported by studies reporting that many aphasics also have trouble with visual-memory required tasks.


title: Short-term memory

text: Core symptoms of schizophrenia patients have been linked to cognitive deficits. One neglected factor that contributes to those deficits is the comprehension of time.


title: Short-term memory

text: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with altered processing of emotional material with strong attentional bias toward trauma-related information. It interferes with cognitive processing. Aside from trauma processing specificities, a range of cognitive impairments have been associated with PTSD state, including attention and verbal memory deficits.


title: Short-term memory

text: Few studies have been done on the relationship between short-term memory and intelligence. One study examined whether people with PTSD had equivalent levels of short-term, non-verbal memory on the Benton Visual Retention Test (BVRT), and whether they had equivalent levels of intelligence on the Raven Standard Progressive Matrices (RSPM). They found that people with PTSD had worse short-term, non-verbal memory on the BVRT, despite having comparable levels of intelligence on the RSPM, concluding impairments in memory influence intelligence assessments in the subjects.


title: Meghalaya Legislative Assembly

text: Constituted as a directly elected body in 1972, it has 60 members, filled through direct elections held every five years. Like other Indian states, Meghalaya has a parliamentary system of government. The executive branch of the Meghalaya Government is derived from the Legislative Assembly.