title: Gladys Berejiklian

text: She joined the Liberal Party in 1993 and was president of the New South Wales Young Liberals from 1997 to 1998, being the third female president in its history. She also served as a Delegate to State Council (1996–2003), Urban Representative of the NSW Liberal Party State Executive (1997–2003), Campaign Director for State seat of Willoughby (1999) and Chair of Convention Committee (2002). Berejiklian also worked for Peter Collins and Senator Helen Coonan and the Commonwealth Bank as general manager, Youth Retail Banking and Government & Industry Affairs.


title: Gladys Berejiklian

text: Berejiklian won Liberal preselection for Willoughby in 2003 when former Opposition Leader Peter Collins, who had represented the Willoughby area since 1981, decided to retire. Willoughby has historically been a comfortably safe Liberal seat even by northern Sydney standards; counting its time as Middle Harbour, it has been held by the Liberals, their predecessors or a conservative independent for all but one term since 1927. However, she faced a spirited challenge from Pat Reilly, the longtime mayor of the City of Willoughby, who nearly took the seat on Labor preferences. Ultimately, Berejiklian won by 144 votes, with the Liberals suffering a swing of 10.9 points. The swing was large enough to drop the Liberal margin over Labor to 7.2 percent, the closest "traditional" two-party margin in the seat or its predecessors since 1984. However, Berejiklian easily saw off a rematch with Reilly after picking up a healthy swing of 14.5 points, enough to revert Willoughby to its traditional status as a comfortably safe Liberal seat.


title: Gladys Berejiklian

text: Berejiklian joined the front bench in 2005 as Shadow Minister for Mental Health and was appointed to the opposition front bench portfolio of Transport by Peter Debnam in 2006. Following the 2007 State election, she was given the shadow portfolio of Citizenship by Opposition Leader O'Farrell in his Shadow Ministry.


title: Gladys Berejiklian

text: Following the election of the O'Farrell government at the 2011 state election, Berejiklian was appointed Transport Minister on 3 April 2011. The major achievements in her term as Minister for Transport include the extension of the Sydney Light Rail Dulwich Hill Line from to ; the phased introduction of the Opal card; and commencement of construction of the North West Rail Link. She was also Transport Minister at the time the NSW government stopped trains running to Newcastle Station, which now terminate at Wickham. She also ended Transit Officers as a railway law enforcement agency abolishing the function and transferring responsibility to the NSW Police. The former rail corridor has now been re-zoned by Newcastle City Council and a proportion of that land is expected to be sold.


title: Gladys Berejiklian

text: Despite receiving the support of Barry O'Farrell to succeed him, and despite having the numbers to win the premiership in a partyroom ballot, Berejiklian chose not to run for the leadership of the New South Wales Liberal Party. On 17 April 2014, Mike Baird was elected Leader of the New South Wales Liberal Party, and hence Premier, following O'Farrell's resignation, with Berejiklian elected as Baird's deputy. In a subsequent ministerial reshuffle, in addition to her existing responsibilities, on 23 April 2014 Berejiklian was sworn in as the Minister for the Hunter.


title: Gladys Berejiklian

text: Berejiklian was appointed as Treasurer of New South Wales and Minister for Industrial Relations following a cabinet reshuffle announced on 1 April 2015 by Premier Baird, after the 2015 state election. As Treasurer, Berejiklian oversaw New South Wales's return to surplus. This was the first time New South Wales had been declared debt-free in more than 20 years. She also oversaw the part-privatisation of the state's electricity network.


title: Gladys Berejiklian

text: Following the resignation of Mike Baird as NSW Liberal leader and Premier on 19 January 2017, Berejiklian announced her intention to succeed him as the leader of the Liberal Party, and hence to become the 45th Premier of New South Wales. Baird endorsed Berejiklian as his successor, declaring that she would be "an outstanding Premier... No doubt about it." A deal was struck between the moderate, centre-right, and right factions of the Liberal Party, facilitating the moderate Berejiklian's rise to the leadership, with conservative Dominic Perrottet as her deputy. The next day, ministers Andrew Constance and Rob Stokes—Berejiklian's only serious leadership challengers—decided not to contest the leadership, and instead opted to endorse Berejiklian. This left Berejiklian to take the leadership unopposed at the ensuing leadership contest held on 23 January. She was duly sworn in as Premier later that day, becoming the second woman to hold the post. The first was Labor's Kristina Keneally, who served in the position from 2009 to 2011.


title: Gladys Berejiklian

text: In October 2018, Berejiklian permitted advertising for The Everest stakes to be projected onto the sails of the Sydney Opera House (a move spearheaded by radio broadcaster Alan Jones), drawing widespread condemnation and criticism from many in the community, with a poll declaring that 80% of respondents opposed this decision.


title: Gladys Berejiklian

text: Berejiklian led the Coalition into the 2019 state election, becoming the third woman to take a major party into an election in the state. With polls showing the race at a knife-edge, the Coalition suffered a swing of six seats, cutting its numbers down to 48 seats, a majority of two. This made Berejiklian the third woman to lead a party to a victory at a state election in Australia, after Anna Bligh and Annastacia Palaszczuk from Queensland, and the first non-Labor woman to lead a party to a state election victory in Australia.


title: Gladys Berejiklian

text: In September 2019, Berejiklian expressed support for the "Reproductive Health Care Reform Bill", a private member's bill aimed to decriminalise abortion in New South Wales. Berejiklian allowed a conscience vote on the bill in her party. Many conservative parliamentarians of the Liberal Party opposed the bill. Three of these parliamentarians, MP Tanya Davies and Legislative Council members Matthew Mason-Cox and Lou Amato, "expressed dissatisfaction with Berejiklian's handling of the bill". They had repeatedly asked Berejiklian to "intervene to stop the "fast-tracking" of the bill and establish a joint select committee into the legislation reform". However, their requests were rejected by Berejiklian. On 16 September 2019, the trio announced they would hold a party leadership spill motion against Berejiklian the following day. Senior ministers, including conservative ministers who opposed the bill, backed Berejiklian and condemned the actions of the trio. The right-wing faction of the party also clarified that they did not sanction the spill. The trio called off the spill the next morning, after the trio claimed to have received "further concessions" on amendments to the bill, meaning their amendments would be considered in the debate in the Legislative Council. The bill eventually passed Parliament with amendments on 26 September 2019 and came into force as the "Abortion Law Reform Act 2019" on 2 October 2019.


title: Gladys Berejiklian

text: In October 2020, as part of her evidence to an Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) inquiry, Berejiklian admitted that she had been in a "close personal relationship" with Daryl Maguire from 2015 until August 2020. Maguire had been a fellow Liberal MP until a previous inquiry had heard that he had sought inappropriate payments, leading to his resignation in 2018. As a result, a vote of no-confidence was taken in parliament. She survived the vote in the lower house with 47–38, and in the upper house with 21–20, after a deciding vote from the Liberal president.


title: Gladys Berejiklian

text: Berejiklian faced scrutiny for her actions during the COVID-19 pandemic in New South Wales in 2021, which some have argued had an impact on the pandemic across Australia. In June 2021, Berejiklian resisted calls to enact a lockdown in Sydney, which, according to some media outlets, resulted in wide community transmission and over 20,000 cases of the highly transmissible Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 in the community. Subsequent plans to reopen when 50% of the eligible population were vaccinated against COVID-19 were highly criticised by the public and did not go ahead. The decision to not prevent residents of Sydney regional and interstate travel resulted in the spread of COVID-19 to other states, including the Northern Territory, Western Australia and Queensland. It has been suggested that the Berejiklian government provided little clarity about which businesses can remain open and failed to answer questions if Louis Vuitton stores were essential and therefore could remain open. After public pressure and increasing coronavirus cases, the government released a list of authorised workers. On the day the authorised workers list was released the Local Government Areas (LGAs) of concern which already had the toughest restrictions in NSW had further restrictions such as night curfew put in place. The discrepancy in enforcement between different suburbs in the LGAs of concern attracted controversy, with some suggesting the restrictions were unrelated to the levels of transmission and rather, population demographics. Berejiklian also faced criticism when she stopped attending daily press briefings as COVID-19 cases, hospitalisations and deaths were predicted to peak.


title: Gladys Berejiklian

text: On 1 October 2021, New South Wales' ICAC announced an investigation into whether Berejiklian breached public trust or encouraged corrupt behaviour during her relationship with Daryl Maguire. With the ICAC announcement, Berejiklian announced her intention to resign as Premier and as a member of the Legislative Assembly. Her supporters started petitions to keep her as premier, with one receiving nearly 40,000 signatures in 48 hours and eventually totalling more than 70,000 names. Berejiklian stayed on as Premier until her treasurer Dominic Perrottet was elected as party leader and Premier at a party room meeting on 5 October 2021. She later announced she would be "spending her last days in office addressing local concerns" before officially resigning as member of the Legislative Assembly on 30 December 2021. A by-election for Berejiklian's seat of Willoughby was held on 12 February 2022, where Liberal Member Tim James secured the seat.


title: Gladys Berejiklian

text: In December 2021, after speculation that she might contest in the 2022 federal election, Berejiklian confirmed that she would instead work in the private sector and looked forward to "a much less public life".


title: Gladys Berejiklian

text: Berejiklian was a member of the moderate faction of the Liberal Party and also supports the Australian republican movement.


title: Gladys Berejiklian

text: Berejiklian regularly attends events of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Since June 2021, she has been dating lawyer Arthur Moses who represented her at a corruption hearing into her former boyfriend Daryl Maguire.


title: Spiel des Jahres

text: The Spiel des Jahres (, "Game of the Year") is an award for board and card games, created in 1978 with the purpose of rewarding family-friendly game design, and promoting excellent games in the German market. It is thought that the existence and popularity of the award was one of the major drivers of the quality of games coming out of Germany, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s. A Spiel des Jahres nomination can increase the typical sales of a game from 500 to 3,000 copies to around 10,000; and the winner can usually expect to sell to as large as 500,000 copies.


title: Spiel des Jahres

text: The award is given by a jury of German-speaking board game critics from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, who review games released in Germany in the preceding twelve months. The games considered for the award are family-style games. War games, role-playing games, collectible card games, and other complicated, highly competitive, or hobbyist games are outside the scope of the award. Since 1989, there has been a separate award for children's games. The jury is not subject to public scrutiny and members of the public are not offered the opportunity to influence the voting.


title: Spiel des Jahres

text: On occasion, the jury has awarded a special prize for more complex games, such as Agricola in 2008 or World Without End in 2010. Prior to 2011, this award was an exceptional award which was not necessarily awarded annually. In 2011, however, this practice was formalized when the jury created a new category for more complex games called Kennerspiel des Jahres. Along with the nominations, the jury also gives a list of recommended games, and occasionally gives out special prizes for games which will not be considered for the main award. The criteria on which a game is evaluated are:


title: Spiel des Jahres

text: The jury does not release its scoring system or provide insight into how the categories are weighted.


title: Spiel des Jahres

text: Along with the nominations, the jury also assigned two special prizes for games which it felt were too demanding to count as 'family style' games.


title: Spiel des Jahres

text: The nominations for the 2011 awards were announced on May 23, 2011, and the winners on June 27, 2011. This was the first year the Connoisseur-gamer Game of the Year award was given, an award for more complex games.


title: Spiel des Jahres

text: The nominations for the 2013 awards were announced on May 21, 2013, and the Spiel and Kennerspiel winners were announced on July 8, 2013. The Kinderspiel (Children's) Game of the Year was announced on June 12, 2013.


title: Spiel des Jahres

text: The nominations for the 2014 awards were announced on May 19, 2014. The Children's Game of the Year was announced on June 23, and the Game of the Year and Connoisseur's Game of the Year were announced on July 14.


title: Spiel des Jahres

text: The nominations for the 2015 awards were announced on May 18, 2015. The Kinderspiel des Jahres winner were announced on Monday, June 8, 2015, and the Spiel and Kennerspiel winners were announced on Monday, July 6, 2015.


title: Spiel des Jahres

text: The nominations for the 2016 awards were announced on May 23, 2016, and the winners on Monday July 18, 2016.


title: Spiel des Jahres

text: The nominations for the 2017 award were announced on May 22, 2017. The winner for Children's Game of the Year was announced on June 19, 2017. The winners for Game of the Year and Connoisseur-gamer Game of the Year were announced on July 17, 2017.


title: Spiel des Jahres

text: The nominations and the special prize for the 2018 award were announced on May 14, 2018. The winner for Children's Game of the Year was announced on June 11, 2018. The winners for Game of the Year and Connoisseur-gamer Game of the Year were announced on July 23, 2018.


title: Spiel des Jahres

text: The nominations for the 2019 award were announced on May 20, 2019. The winner for Children's Game of the Year was announced on June 24, 2019


title: Spiel des Jahres

text: The nominations for the 2020 award were announced on May 18, 2020. The award for Children's Game of the Year was announced on June 15, 2020. The winners were announced on July 20, 2020.


title: Plough Lane

text: Plough Lane – named The Cherry Red Records Stadium for sponsorship reasons – is a football stadium in Wimbledon, south-west London, which has been the home of AFC Wimbledon since 3 November 2020. A groundshare with rugby league side London Broncos began in 2022.


title: Plough Lane

text: Wimbledon F.C. played its matches at the original Plough Lane stadium from 1912 until 1991. AFC Wimbledon's new stadium lies approximately 200 yards further east. After 1991 Wimbledon F.C. began a ground-share with Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park, with the intention of moving to a new all-seater stadium elsewhere at a later date due to the original Plough Lane stadium being considered unsuitable for conversion into a modern all-seater stadium. Numerous locations within and beyond the borders of Merton were considered for a possible new stadium, but none of these came to fruition, and in 2003 the original Wimbledon club relocated 70 miles north to Milton Keynes, being rebranded as Milton Keynes Dons the following year.


title: Plough Lane

text: In 2002 a phoenix club, AFC Wimbledon, was formed by a section of the club's supporters after the Football Association gave Wimbledon F.C. permission to move to Milton Keynes. In the meantime, AFC Wimbledon played at Kingsmeadow, at that time the home of Kingstonian.


title: Plough Lane

text: Since its inception, AFC Wimbledon stated that one of its primary aims was to return to Merton, with a new stadium close to what it regards as its "spiritual home" of the original Plough Lane. This aim formed the basis of a project to create a new purpose-built stadium on the site of the Wimbledon Greyhound Stadium, located approximately 200 yards from the original Plough Lane football stadium, where the original Wimbledon side played for 80 years.


title: Plough Lane

text: Plans to develop the greyhound stadium site as either a multi-purpose stadium or as a football stadium were publicised frequently by the club and the media prior to 2013. In 2013 AFC Wimbledon announced that discussions were underway with Merton Council over a joint bid for the greyhound stadium and the surrounding land, in cooperation with developer Galliard Homes, to build a new football stadium, 600 residential properties and a range of community facilities.


title: Plough Lane

text: Construction proceeded with the permanent west stand initially, with main entry from the south off Plough Lane. This is a four-storey structure with general admission access from the first floor, and hospitality above. This structure seats 4,267 spectators; semi-permanent stands on the other three sides brings initial capacity to 9,215. Among the semi-permanent seating, the most vocal home fans will be in the south, which will include a safe standing area; a family area along the east; and away fans will be in the north stand, which is isolated with its own entry. A secondary entrance for home fans in the south and east stands is located on the easterly pedestrian-only street, Greyhound Parade.


title: Plough Lane

text: The plans for the football stadium were approved unanimously by Merton Council on 10 December 2015. Clearance of the site in preparation for the new football stadium and housing was begun on 16 March 2018. The stadium's opening was initially planned for summer 2019, but did not take place until 3 November 2020. The land's freehold was transferred to an AFC Wimbledon subsidiary on 24 December 2018, among other transactions that also formally transferred ownership of Kingsmeadow to Chelsea.


title: Plough Lane

text: The club thus purchased and cleared the site of the former Wimbledon Greyhound Stadium in anticipation of construction. In 2019 it was announced that a minimum of £2 million in crowdfunding would be needed to construct a scaled-down version of the original design with a single permanent stand and an initial capacity of 9,000; as of August 2019, the £2 million mark had been raised through Seedrs. In November 2019 it emerged that financing of a final £11m needed to complete the ground as envisioned was not forthcoming; the club's fan ownership initially considered scaling down the project, or accepting outside investment into the club by relinquishing ownership to meet the shortfall. However, alternate financing was quickly raised by club supporters by way of a bond issue which raised over £5 million. In May 2020, the final remaining financing needed to sign all construction contracts was confirmed following key investment from local businessman Nick Robertson.


title: Plough Lane

text: AFC Wimbledon played their first match at the ground on 3 November 2020 against Doncaster Rovers - a 2–2 draw, with the first ever goal at the new stadium scored by Wimbledon's Joe Pigott in the 18th minute of that match. There were no fans in attendance though due to COVID-19 restrictions. The first game at the new stadium with fans was on 18 May 2021 when 2,000 people watched the Dons play Liverpool's under-23 side in a test match. AFC Wimbledon's first home league match in the 2021-22 season was watched by 7,728 fans, in a 3-3 draw against Bolton Wanderers.


title: Plough Lane

text: In December 2020, the Dons Trust announced that they were discussing a potential groundshare agreement with Rugby League side London Broncos. A vote by the Trust membership in March 2021 resulted in 91.7% of those voting in favour. It was subject to revised planning permission which had been opposed by a group of residents but these issues were resolved before the 2022 season.


title: Plough Lane

text: On 25 March 2021, an NHS COVID-19 vaccination centre opened in the stadium's event space; a number of the first to be vaccinated were club supporters.


title: Plough Lane

text: On 16 September 2021, the club agreed a further three year deal with their Kingsmeadow stadium sponsor Cherry Red Records and thus Plough Lane was renamed the Cherry Red Records Stadium.


title: Plough Lane

text: The first match to take place at the ground with a capacity crowd was AFC Wimbledon's 3–3 draw against Bolton Wanderers on 14 August 2021. The largest attendance at Plough Lane of 8,568 on 15 October 2022 for a League Two match against Sutton United.


title: Plough Lane

text: On 30 January 2022, the London Broncos played their first match at Plough Lane against the Widnes Vikings.


title: Plough Lane

text: On 5 March 2022, the FA Women's Continental League Cup Final between Chelsea Women and Manchester City Women was staged there.


title: Plough Lane

text: The stadium as a whole is sponsored by Cherry Red Records since 16 September 2021; the company had previously been stadium sponsors at Kingsmeadow.


title: Hemiparesis

text: Hemiparesis, or unilateral paresis, is weakness of one entire side of the body ("hemi-" means "half"). Hemiplegia is, in its most severe form, complete paralysis of half of the body. Hemiparesis and hemiplegia can be caused by different medical conditions, including congenital causes, trauma, tumors, or stroke.


title: Hemiparesis

text: Depending on the type of hemiparesis diagnosed, different bodily functions can be affected. Some effects are expected (e.g., partial paralysis of a limb on the affected side). Other impairments, though, can at first seem completely non-related to the limb weakness but are, in fact, a direct result of the damage to the affected side of the brain.


title: Hemiparesis

text: People with hemiparesis often have difficulties maintaining their balance due to limb paralysis leading to an inability to properly shift body weight. This makes performing everyday activities such as dressing, eating, grabbing objects, or using the bathroom more difficult. Hemiparesis with origin in the lower section of the brain creates a condition known as ataxia, a loss of both gross and fine motor skills, often manifesting as staggering and stumbling. Pure Motor Hemiparesis, a form of hemiparesis characterized by sided weakness in the leg, arm, and face, is the most commonly diagnosed form of hemiparesis.


title: Hemiparesis

text: Pusher syndrome is a clinical disorder following left or right brain damage in which patients actively push their weight away from the nonhemiparetic side to the hemiparetic side. In contrast to most stroke patients, who typically prefer more weight-bearing on their nonhemiparetic side, this abnormal condition can vary in severity and leads to a loss of postural balance. The lesion involved in this syndrome is thought to be in the posterior thalamus on either side, or multiple areas of the right cerebral hemisphere.


title: Hemiparesis

text: With a diagnosis of pusher behaviour, three important variables should be seen, the most obvious of which is spontaneous body posture of a longitudinal tilt of the torso toward the paretic side of the body occurring on a regular basis and not only on occasion. The use of the nonparetic extremities to create the pathological lateral tilt of the body axis is another sign to be noted when diagnosing for pusher behaviour. This includes abduction and extension of the extremities of the non-affected side, to help in the push toward the affected (paretic) side. The third variable that is seen is that attempts of the therapist to correct the pusher posture by aiming to realign them to upright posture are resisted by the patient.


title: Hemiparesis

text: In patients with acute stroke and hemiparesis, the disorder is present in 10.4% of patients. Rehabilitation may take longer in patients that display pusher behaviour. The Copenhagen Stroke Study found that patients that presented with ipsilateral pushing used 3.6 weeks more to reach the same functional outcome level on the Barthel Index, than did patients without ipsilateral pushing.


title: Hemiparesis

text: Pushing behavior has shown that perception of body posture in relation to gravity is altered. Patients experience their body as oriented "upright" when the body is actually tilted to the side of the brain lesion. In addition, patients seem to show no disturbed processing of visual and vestibular inputs when determining subjective visual vertical. In sitting, the push presents as a strong lateral lean toward the affected side and in standing, creates a highly unstable situation as the patient is unable to support their body weight on the weakened lower extremity. The increased risk of falls must be addressed with therapy to correct their altered perception of vertical.


title: Hemiparesis

text: Pusher syndrome is sometimes confused with and used interchangeably as the term hemispatial neglect, and some previous theories suggest that neglect leads to pusher syndrome. However, another study had observed that pusher syndrome is also present in patients with left hemisphere lesions, leading to aphasia, providing a stark contrast to what was previously believed regarding hemispatial neglect, which mostly occurs with a right hemisphere lesion.


title: Hemiparesis

text: Karnath summarizes these two conflicting views, as they conclude that both neglect and aphasia are highly correlated with pusher syndrome possibly due to the close proximity of relevant brain structures associated with these two respective syndromes. However, the article goes on to state that it is imperative to note that both neglect and aphasia are not the underlying causes of pusher syndrome.


title: Hemiparesis

text: Physical therapists focus on motor learning strategies when treating these patients. Verbal cues, consistent feedback, practicing correct orientation and weight shifting are all effective strategies used to reduce the effects of this disorder. Having a patient sit with their stronger side next to a wall and instructing them to lean towards the wall is an example of a possible treatment for pusher behaviour.


title: Hemiparesis

text: A new (2003) physical therapy approach for patients with pusher syndrome suggests that the visual control of vertical upright orientation, which is undisturbed in these patients, is the central element of intervention in treatment. In sequential order, treatment is designed for patients to realize their altered perception of vertical, use visual aids for feedback about body orientation, learn the movements necessary to reach proper vertical position, and maintain vertical body position while performing other activities.


title: Hemiparesis

text: Individuals who present with pusher syndrome or lateropulsion, as defined by Davies, vary in their degree and severity of this condition and therefore appropriate measures need to be implemented in order to evaluate the level of "pushing". There has been a shift towards early diagnosis and evaluation of functional status for individuals who have had a stroke and presenting with pusher syndrome in order to decrease the time spent as an in-patient at hospitals and promote the return to function as early as possible. Moreover, in order to assist therapists in the classification of pusher syndrome, specific scales have been developed with validity that coincides with the criteria set out by Davies' definition of "pusher syndrome". In a study by Babyar "et al.", an examination of such scales helped determine the relevance, practical aspects and clinimetric properties of three specific scales existing today for lateropulsion. The three scales examined were the Clinical Scale of Contraversive Pushing, Modified Scale of Contraversive Pushing, and the Burke Lateropulsion Scale. The results of the study show that reliability for each scale is good; moreover, the Scale of Contraversive Pushing was determined to have acceptable clinimetric properties, and the other two scales addressed more functional positions that will help therapists with clinical decisions and research.


title: Hemiparesis

text: The most common cause of hemiparesis and hemiplegia is stroke. Strokes can cause a variety of movement disorders, depending on the location and severity of the lesion. Hemiplegia is common when the stroke affects the corticospinal tract. Other causes of hemiplegia include spinal cord injury, specifically Brown-Séquard syndrome, traumatic brain injury, or disease affecting the brain. A permanent brain injury that occurs during the intrauterine life, during delivery or early in life can lead to hemiplegic cerebral palsy. As a lesion that results in hemiplegia occurs in the brain or spinal cord, hemiplegic muscles display features of the upper motor neuron syndrome. Features other than weakness include decreased movement control, clonus (a series of involuntary rapid muscle contractions), spasticity, exaggerated deep tendon reflexes and decreased endurance.


title: Hemiparesis

text: The incidence of hemiplegia is much higher in premature babies than term babies. There is also a high incidence of hemiplegia during pregnancy and experts believe that this may be related to either a traumatic delivery, use of forceps or some event which causes brain injury. There is tentative evidence of an association with undiagnosed celiac disease and improvement after withdrawal of gluten from the diet.


title: Hemiparesis

text: Other causes of hemiplegia in adults include trauma, bleeding, brain infections and cancers. Individuals who have uncontrolled diabetes, hypertension or those who smoke have a higher chance of developing a stroke. Weakness on one side of the face may occur and may be due to a viral infection, stroke or a cancer.


title: Hemiparesis

text: Movement of the body is primarily controlled by the pyramidal (or corticospinal) tract, a pathway of neurons that begins in the motor areas of the brain, projects down through the internal capsule, continues through the brainstem, decussates (or cross midline) at the lower medulla, then travels down the spinal cord into the motor neurons that control each muscle. In addition to this main pathway, there are smaller contributing pathways (including the anterior corticospinal tract), some portions of which do not cross the midline.


title: Hemiparesis

text: Because of this anatomy, injuries to the pyramidal tract above the medulla generally cause contralateral hemiparesis (weakness on the opposite side as the injury). Injuries at the lower medulla, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves result in ipsilateral hemiparesis.


title: Hemiparesis

text: Hemiplegia is identified by clinical examination by a health professional, such as a physiotherapist or doctor. Radiological studies like a CT scan or magnetic resonance imaging of the brain should be used to confirm injury in the brain and spinal cord, but alone cannot be used to identify movement disorders. Individuals who develop seizures may undergo tests to determine where the focus of excess electrical activity is.


title: Hemiparesis

text: Hemiplegia patients usually show a characteristic gait. The leg on the affected side is extended and internally rotated and is swung in a wide, lateral arc rather than lifted in order to move it forward. The upper limb on the same side is also adducted at the shoulder, flexed at the elbow, and pronated at the wrist with the thumb tucked into the palm and the fingers curled around it.


title: Hemiparesis

text: There are a variety of standardized assessment scales available to physiotherapists and other health care professionals for use in the ongoing evaluation of the status of a patient's hemiplegia. The use of standardized assessment scales may help physiotherapists and other health care professionals during the course of their treatment plant to:


title: Hemiparesis

text: The FMA is often used as a measure of functional or physical impairment following a cerebrovascular accident (CVA). It measures sensory and motor impairment of the upper and lower extremities, balance in several positions, range of motion, and pain. This test is a reliable and valid measure in measuring post-stroke impairments related to stroke recovery. A lower score in each component of the test indicates higher impairment and a lower functional level for that area. The maximum score for each component is 66 for the upper extremities, 34 for the lower extremities, and 14 for balance. Administration of the FMA should be done after reviewing a training manual.


title: Hemiparesis

text: This test is a reliable measure of two separate components evaluating both motor impairment and disability. The disability component assesses any changes in physical function including gross motor function and walking ability. The disability inventory can have a maximum score of 100 with 70 from the gross motor index and 30 from the walking index. Each task in this inventory has a maximum score of seven except for the 2 minute walk test which is out of two. The impairment component of the test evaluates the upper and lower extremities, postural control and pain. The impairment inventory focuses on the seven stages of recovery from stroke from flaccid paralysis to normal motor functioning. A training workshop is recommended if the measure is being utilized for the purpose of data collection.


title: Hemiparesis

text: The STREAM consists of 30 test items involving upper-limb movements, lower-limb movements, and basic mobility items. It is a clinical measure of voluntary movements and general mobility (rolling, bridging, sit-to-stand, standing, stepping, walking and stairs) following a stroke. The voluntary movement part of the assessment is measured using a 3-point ordinal scale (unable to perform, partial performance, and complete performance) and the mobility part of the assessment uses a 4-point ordinal scale (unable, partial, complete with aid, complete no aid). The maximum score one can receive on the STREAM is a 70 (20 for each limb score and 30 for mobility score). The higher the score, the better movement and mobility is available for the individual being scored.


title: Hemiparesis

text: Treatment for hemiparesis is the same treatment given to those recovering from strokes or brain injuries. Health care professionals such as physical therapists and occupational therapists play a large role in assisting these patients in their recovery. Treatment is focused on improving sensation and motor abilities, allowing the patient to better manage their activities of daily living. Some strategies used for treatment include promoting the use of the hemiparetic limb during functional tasks, maintaining range of motion, and using neuromuscular electrical stimulation to decrease spasticity and increase awareness of the limb.


title: Hemiparesis

text: At the more advanced level, using constraint-induced movement therapy will encourage overall function and use of the affected limb. Mirror Therapy (MT) has also been used early in stroke rehabilitation and involves using the unaffected limb to stimulate motor function of the hemiparetic limb. Results from a study on patients with severe hemiparesis concluded that MT was successful in improving motor and sensory function of the distal hemiparetic upper limb. Active participation is critical to the motor learning and recovery process, therefore it's important to keep these individuals motivated so they can make continual improvements.


title: Hemiparesis

text: Treatment should be based on assessment by the relevant health professionals, including physiotherapists, doctors and occupational therapists. Muscles with severe motor impairment including weakness need these therapists to assist them with specific exercise, and are likely to require help to do this.


title: Hemiparesis

text: Drugs can be used to treat issues related to the Upper Motor Neuron Syndrome. Drugs like Librium or Valium could be used as a relaxant. Drugs are also given to individuals who have recurrent seizures, which may be a separate but related problem after brain injury.


title: Hemiparesis

text: Intra-muscular injection of Botulinum toxin A is used to treat spasticity that is associated with hemiparesis both in cerebral palsy children and stroke in adults. It can be injected into a muscle or more commonly muscle groups of the upper or lower extremities. Botulinum toxin A induces temporary muscle paralysis or relaxation. The main goal of Botulinum toxin A is to maintain the range of motion of affected joints and to prevent the occurrence of fixed joint contractures or stiffness. A randomized trial pointed out that individualized homeopathic medication in addition to the standard physiotherapy might have some effect in post-stroke hemiparesis.


title: Hemiparesis

text: Surgery may be used if the individual develops a secondary issue of contracture, from a severe imbalance of muscle activity. In such cases the surgeon may cut the ligaments and relieve joint contractures. Individuals who are unable to swallow may have a tube inserted into the stomach. This allows food to be given directly into the stomach. The food is in liquid form and instilled at low rates. Some individuals with hemiplegia will benefit from some type of prosthetic device. There are many types of braces and splints available to stabilize a joint, assist with walking and keep the upper body erect.


title: Hemiparesis

text: Rehabilitation is the main treatment of individuals with hemiplegia. In all cases, the major aim of rehabilitation is to regain maximum function and quality of life. Both physical and occupational therapy can significantly improve the quality of life.


title: Hemiparesis

text: Physical therapy (PT) can help improve muscle strength & coordination, mobility (such as standing and walking), and other physical function using different sensorimotor techniques. Physiotherapists can also help reduce shoulder pain by maintaining shoulder range of motion, as well as using Functional electrical stimulation. Supportive devices, such as braces or slings, can be used to help prevent or treat shoulder subluxation in the hopes to minimize disability and pain. Although many individuals with stroke experience both shoulder pain and shoulder subluxation, the two are mutually exclusive. A treatment method that can be implemented with the goal of helping to regain motor function in the affected limb is constraint-induced movement therapy. This consists of constraining the unaffected limb, forcing the affected limb to accomplish tasks of daily living.


title: Hemiparesis

text: Occupational therapists may specifically help with hemiplegia with tasks such as improving hand function, strengthening hand, shoulder and torso, and participating in activities of daily living (ADLs), such as eating and dressing. Therapists may also recommend a hand splint for active use or for stretching at night. Some therapists actually make the splint; others may measure your child's hand and order a splint. OTs educate patients and family on compensatory techniques to continue participating in daily living, fostering independence for the individual - which may include, environmental modification, use of adaptive equipment, sensory integration, etc.


title: Hemiparesis

text: Orthotic devices are one type of intervention for relieving symptoms of hemiparesis. Commonly called braces, orthotics range from 'off the shelf' to custom fabricated solutions, but their main goal is alike, to supplement diminished or missing muscle function and joint laxity. A wide range of orthotic treatment can be designed by a Certified Orthotist (C.O.) or Certified Prosthetist Orthotist (C.P.O). Orthotics may be made of metal, plastic, or composite material (such as fiberglass, dyneema (HMWPE,) carbon fiber; etc.) and design may be changed to address many different conditions.


title: Hemiparesis

text: Hemiplegia is not a progressive disorder, except in progressive conditions like a growing brain tumour. Once the injury has occurred, the symptoms should not worsen. However, because of lack of mobility, other complications can occur. Complications may include muscle and joint stiffness, loss of aerobic fitness, muscle spasms, bed sores, pressure ulcers and blood clots.


title: Hemiparesis

text: Sudden recovery from hemiplegia is very rare. Many of the individuals will have limited recovery, but the majority will improve from intensive, specialised rehabilitation. Potential to progress may differ in cerebral palsy, compared to adult acquired brain injury. It is vital to integrate the hemiplegic child into society and encourage them in their daily living activities. With time, some individuals may make remarkable progress.


title: Swarm intelligence

text: Swarm intelligence (SI) is the collective behavior of decentralized, self-organized systems, natural or artificial. The concept is employed in work on artificial intelligence. The expression was introduced by Gerardo Beni and Jing Wang in 1989, in the context of cellular robotic systems.


title: Swarm intelligence

text: SI systems consist typically of a population of simple agents or boids interacting locally with one another and with their environment. The inspiration often comes from nature, especially biological systems. The agents follow very simple rules, and although there is no centralized control structure dictating how individual agents should behave, local, and to a certain degree random, interactions between such agents lead to the emergence of "intelligent" global behavior, unknown to the individual agents. Examples of swarm intelligence in natural systems include ant colonies, bee colonies, bird flocking, hawks hunting, animal herding, bacterial growth, fish schooling and microbial intelligence.


title: Swarm intelligence

text: The application of swarm principles to robots is called "swarm robotics" while "swarm intelligence" refers to the more general set of algorithms. "Swarm prediction" has been used in the context of forecasting problems. Similar approaches to those proposed for swarm robotics are considered for genetically modified organisms in synthetic collective intelligence.


title: Swarm intelligence

text: Boids is an artificial life program, developed by Craig Reynolds in 1986, which simulates flocking was published in 1987 in the proceedings of the ACM SIGGRAPH conference.


title: Swarm intelligence

text: The name "boid" corresponds to a shortened version of "bird-oid object", which refers to a bird-like object.


title: Swarm intelligence

text: As with most artificial life simulations, Boids is an example of emergent behavior; that is, the complexity of Boids arises from the interaction of individual agents (the boids, in this case) adhering to a set of simple rules. The rules applied in the simplest Boids world are as follows:


title: Swarm intelligence

text: Self-propelled particles (SPP), also referred to as the "Vicsek model", was introduced in 1995 by Vicsek "et al." as a special case of the boids model introduced in 1986 by Reynolds. A swarm is modelled in SPP by a collection of particles that move with a constant speed but respond to a random perturbation by adopting at each time increment the average direction of motion of the other particles in their local neighbourhood. SPP models predict that swarming animals share certain properties at the group level, regardless of the type of animals in the swarm. Swarming systems give rise to emergent behaviours which occur at many different scales, some of which are turning out to be both universal and robust. It has become a challenge in theoretical physics to find minimal statistical models that capture these behaviours.


title: Swarm intelligence

text: Evolutionary algorithms (EA), particle swarm optimization (PSO), differential evolution (DE), ant colony optimization (ACO) and their variants dominate the field of nature-inspired metaheuristics. This list includes algorithms published up to circa the year 2000. A large number of more recent metaphor-inspired metaheuristics have started to attract criticism in the research community for hiding their lack of novelty behind an elaborate metaphor. For algorithms published since that time, see List of metaphor-based metaheuristics.


title: Swarm intelligence

text: Metaheuristics lack a confidence in a solution. When appropriate parameters are determined, and when sufficient convergence stage is achieved, they often find a solution that is optimal, or near close to optimum – nevertheless, if one does not know optimal solution in advance, a quality of a solution is not known. In spite of this obvious drawback it has been shown that these types of algorithms work well in practice, and have been extensively researched, and developed. On the other hand, it is possible to avoid this drawback by calculating solution quality for a special case where such calculation is possible, and after such run it is known that every solution that is at least as good as the solution a special case had, has at least a solution confidence a special case had. One such instance is Ant inspired Monte Carlo algorithm for Minimum Feedback Arc Set where this has been achieved probabilistically via hybridization of Monte Carlo algorithm with Ant Colony Optimization technique.


title: Swarm intelligence

text: First published in 1989 Stochastic diffusion search (SDS) was the first Swarm Intelligence metaheuristic. SDS is an agent-based probabilistic global search and optimization technique best suited to problems where the objective function can be decomposed into multiple independent partial-functions. Each agent maintains a hypothesis that is iteratively tested by evaluating a randomly selected partial objective function parameterised by the agent's current hypothesis. In the standard version of SDS such partial function evaluations are binary, resulting in each agent becoming active or inactive. Information on hypotheses is diffused across the population via inter-agent communication. Unlike the stigmergic communication used in ACO, in SDS agents communicate hypotheses via a one-to-one communication strategy analogous to the tandem running procedure observed in Leptothorax acervorum. A positive feedback mechanism ensures that, over time, a population of agents stabilise around the global-best solution. SDS is both an efficient and robust global search and optimisation algorithm, which has been extensively mathematically described. Recent work has involved merging the global search properties of SDS with other swarm intelligence algorithms.


title: Swarm intelligence

text: Ant colony optimization (ACO), introduced by Dorigo in his doctoral dissertation, is a class of optimization algorithms modeled on the actions of an ant colony. ACO is a probabilistic technique useful in problems that deal with finding better paths through graphs. Artificial 'ants'—simulation agents—locate optimal solutions by moving through a parameter space representing all possible solutions. Natural ants lay down pheromones directing each other to resources while exploring their environment. The simulated 'ants' similarly record their positions and the quality of their solutions, so that in later simulation iterations more ants locate for better solutions.


title: Swarm intelligence

text: Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is a global optimization algorithm for dealing with problems in which a best solution can be represented as a point or surface in an n-dimensional space. Hypotheses are plotted in this space and seeded with an initial velocity, as well as a communication channel between the particles. Particles then move through the solution space, and are evaluated according to some fitness criterion after each timestep. Over time, particles are accelerated towards those particles within their communication grouping which have better fitness values. The main advantage of such an approach over other global minimization strategies such as simulated annealing is that the large number of members that make up the particle swarm make the technique impressively resilient to the problem of local minima.


title: Swarm intelligence

text: Artificial Swarm Intelligence (ASI) is method of amplifying the collective intelligence of networked human groups using control algorithms modeled after natural swarms. Sometimes referred to as Human Swarming or Swarm AI, the technology connects groups of human participants into real-time systems that deliberate and converge on solutions as dynamic swarms when simultaneously presented with a question ASI has been used for a wide range of applications, from enabling business teams to generate highly accurate financial forecasts to enabling sports fans to outperform Vegas betting markets. ASI has also been used to enable groups of doctors to generate diagnoses with significantly higher accuracy than traditional methods. ASI has been used by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations to help forecast famines in hotspots around the world.


title: Swarm intelligence

text: Swarm Intelligence-based techniques can be used in a number of applications. The U.S. military is investigating swarm techniques for controlling unmanned vehicles. The European Space Agency is thinking about an orbital swarm for self-assembly and interferometry. NASA is investigating the use of swarm technology for planetary mapping. A 1992 paper by M. Anthony Lewis and George A. Bekey discusses the possibility of using swarm intelligence to control nanobots within the body for the purpose of killing cancer tumors. Conversely al-Rifaie and Aber have used stochastic diffusion search to help locate tumours. Swarm intelligence has also been applied for data mining and cluster analysis. Ant based models are further subject of modern management theory.


title: Swarm intelligence

text: The use of swarm intelligence in telecommunication networks has also been researched, in the form of ant-based routing. This was pioneered separately by Dorigo et al. and Hewlett Packard in the mid-1990s, with a number of variants existing. Basically, this uses a probabilistic routing table rewarding/reinforcing the route successfully traversed by each "ant" (a small control packet) which flood the network. Reinforcement of the route in the forwards, reverse direction and both simultaneously have been researched: backwards reinforcement requires a symmetric network and couples the two directions together; forwards reinforcement rewards a route before the outcome is known (but then one would pay for the cinema before one knows how good the film is). As the system behaves stochastically and is therefore lacking repeatability, there are large hurdles to commercial deployment. Mobile media and new technologies have the potential to change the threshold for collective action due to swarm intelligence (Rheingold: 2002, P175).


title: Swarm intelligence

text: The location of transmission infrastructure for wireless communication networks is an important engineering problem involving competing objectives. A minimal selection of locations (or sites) are required subject to providing adequate area coverage for users. A very different-ant inspired swarm intelligence algorithm, stochastic diffusion search (SDS), has been successfully used to provide a general model for this problem, related to circle packing and set covering. It has been shown that the SDS can be applied to identify suitable solutions even for large problem instances.


title: Swarm intelligence

text: Airlines have also used ant-based routing in assigning aircraft arrivals to airport gates. At Southwest Airlines a software program uses swarm theory, or swarm intelligence—the idea that a colony of ants works better than one alone. Each pilot acts like an ant searching for the best airport gate. "The pilot learns from his experience what's the best for him, and it turns out that that's the best solution for the airline," Douglas A. Lawson explains. As a result, the "colony" of pilots always go to gates they can arrive at and depart from quickly. The program can even alert a pilot of plane back-ups before they happen. "We can anticipate that it's going to happen, so we'll have a gate available," Lawson says.


title: Swarm intelligence

text: Artists are using swarm technology as a means of creating complex interactive systems or simulating crowds.


title: Swarm intelligence

text: "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy made use of similar technology, known as Massive (software), during battle scenes. Swarm technology is particularly attractive because it is cheap, robust, and simple.


title: Swarm intelligence

text: "" was the first movie to make use of swarm technology for rendering, realistically depicting the movements of groups of fish and birds using the Boids system.


title: Swarm intelligence

text: Tim Burton's "Batman Returns" also made use of swarm technology for showing the movements of a group of bats.


title: Swarm intelligence

text: Airlines have used swarm theory to simulate passengers boarding a plane. Southwest Airlines researcher Douglas A. Lawson used an ant-based computer simulation employing only six interaction rules to evaluate boarding times using various boarding methods.(Miller, 2010, xii-xviii).


title: Swarm intelligence

text: Networks of distributed users can be organized into "human swarms" through the implementation of real-time closed-loop control systems. Human swarming allows the collective intelligence of interconnected groups of people online to be harnessed. The collective intelligence of the group often exceeds the abilities of anyone member of the group.


title: Swarm intelligence

text: Stanford University School of Medicine published in 2018 a study showing that groups of human doctors, when connected together by real-time swarming algorithms, could diagnose medical conditions with substantially higher accuracy than individual doctors or groups of doctors working together using traditional crowd-sourcing methods. In one such study, swarms of human radiologists connected together were tasked with diagnosing chest x-rays and demonstrated a 33% reduction in diagnostic errors as compared to the traditional human methods, and a 22% improvement over traditional machine-learning.


title: Swarm intelligence

text: The University of California San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine released a preprint in 2021 about the diagnosis of MRI images by small groups of collaborating doctors. The study showed a 23% increase in diagnostic accuracy when using Artificial Swarm Intelligence (ASI) technology compared to majority voting.


title: Swarm intelligence

text: Swarm grammars are swarms of stochastic grammars that can be evolved to describe complex properties such as found in art and architecture. These grammars interact as agents behaving according to rules of swarm intelligence. Such behavior can also suggest deep learning algorithms, in particular when mapping of such swarms to neural circuits is considered.


title: Swarm intelligence

text: In a series of works, al-Rifaie et al. have successfully used two swarm intelligence algorithms—one mimicking the behaviour of one species of ants ("Leptothorax acervorum") foraging (stochastic diffusion search, SDS) and the other algorithm mimicking the behaviour of birds flocking (particle swarm optimization, PSO)—to describe a novel integration strategy exploiting the local search properties of the PSO with global SDS behaviour. The resulting hybrid algorithm is used to sketch novel drawings of an input image, exploiting an artistic tension between the local behaviour of the 'birds flocking'—as they seek to follow the input sketch—and the global behaviour of the "ants foraging"—as they seek to encourage the flock to explore novel regions of the canvas. The "creativity" of this hybrid swarm system has been analysed under the philosophical light of the "rhizome" in the context of Deleuze's "Orchid and Wasp" metaphor.


title: Swarm intelligence

text: A more recent work of al-Rifaie et al., "Swarmic Sketches and Attention Mechanism", introduces a novel approach deploying the mechanism of 'attention' by adapting SDS to selectively attend to detailed areas of a digital canvas. Once the attention of the swarm is drawn to a certain line within the canvas, the capability of PSO is used to produce a 'swarmic sketch' of the attended line. The swarms move throughout the digital canvas in an attempt to satisfy their dynamic roles—attention to areas with more details—associated with them via their fitness function. Having associated the rendering process with the concepts of attention, the performance of the participating swarms creates a unique, non-identical sketch each time the 'artist' swarms embark on interpreting the input line drawings. In other works, while PSO is responsible for the sketching process, SDS controls the attention of the swarm.


title: Swarm intelligence

text: In a similar work, "Swarmic Paintings and Colour Attention", non-photorealistic images are produced using SDS algorithm which, in the context of this work, is responsible for colour attention.


title: Swarm intelligence

text: The "computational creativity" of the above-mentioned systems are discussed in through the two prerequisites of creativity (i.e. freedom and constraints) within the swarm intelligence's two infamous phases of exploration and exploitation.


title: Swarm intelligence

text: Michael Theodore and Nikolaus Correll use swarm intelligent art installation to explore what it takes to have engineered systems to appear lifelike.


title: Team Trees

text: Team Trees, stylized as #TEAMTREES, is a collaborative fundraiser that raised 20 million U.S. dollars before the start of 2020 to plant 20 million trees. The initiative was started by American YouTubers MrBeast and Mark Rober, and was mostly supported by YouTubers. All donations go to the Arbor Day Foundation, a tree planting organization that pledges to plant one tree for every U.S. dollar donated. The Arbor Day Foundation began planting in January 2020 and plans to end "no later than December 2022". It is estimated that 23 million trees would take up of land, absorb around 1.6 million tons of carbon and remove 116 thousand tons of pollutants from the atmosphere.


title: Team Trees

text: By November 2022, the project had raised more than $24 million, exceeding the fundraiser's goal to plant 20 million trees. As anticipated, more than 20 million trees have been planted.<ref name="12/26"></ref>


title: Team Trees

text: The idea started on May 24, 2019, when a fan suggested on Reddit that MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson) should plant 20 million trees to celebrate reaching 20 million subscribers on YouTube. The idea spread across YouTube, Reddit, and Twitter, mostly in the form of memes. The idea may have been related to the 2019 Amazon rainforest wildfires. American YouTuber, engineer, and inventor Mark Rober partnered directly with Donaldson to launch the fundraiser. On October 25, 2019, Donaldson uploaded a YouTube video explaining his plan, which claimed the top spot on YouTube's trending page, and caused numerous YouTubers to join the movement.


title: Team Trees

text: Notable YouTubers who have donated include PewDiePie, Rhett & Link, Marshmello, iJustine, Marques Brownlee, The Slow Mo Guys, Ninja, Simone Giertz, Jacksepticeye, Smarter Every Day, Mark Rober, Simply Nailogical, The King of Random, Dude Perfect, The Try Guys, Alan Becker, Alan Walker, TheOdd1sOut Linus Tech Tips, Jeffree Star MinuteEarth, and Jaiden Animations. Entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk, Tobias Lütke, Marc Benioff, Susan Wojcicki, Jack Dorsey, and Jean-Michel Lemieux have also donated and promoted the campaign.


title: Team Trees

text: The trees will be planted "in a variety of forests on public and private lands in areas of great need" starting in January 2020. The goal is to have them planted "no later than December 2022".


title: Team Trees

text: Many YouTubers created content to capitalize on the growing trend of Team Trees; despite the Arbor Day Foundation reaching out to only a few hundred creators, Team Trees is now featured in over 80,000 videos from over 4200 global creators. Across Instagram and Twitter over 556,001 posts have garnered more than 4.6 billion views. Creators were able to uniquely inspire their audience to become donors and supporters of Team Trees through their relationships with their fans.


title: Team Trees

text: In addition to social media influencers, large corporations made large donations including Verizon, EA, Salesforce (Marc Benioff), Shopify (CEO Tobias Lütke and CTO Jean-Michel Lemieux) and Tesla (Elon Musk).


title: Team Trees

text: Discovery Channel made a documentary called "#TeamTrees" about the campaign which aired on December 3, 2019, coupled with a donation of USD $100,203 the next day.


title: Team Trees

text: Eike Lüdeling, the department head of horticultural sciences at the University of Bonn, stated, "It turns out that many of these seedlings, if you don't do this well or if people do it who don’t really care about those trees, then they all just die quickly. Sometimes it’s probably a better idea to plant fewer trees and really take care of them." Danny Cohn, the director of public relations for the Arbor Day Foundation, addressed these concerns in saying that "the partners who work with the organization are all required to have plans to help their trees thrive."


title: Team Trees

text: On October 29, 2021, MrBeast and Mark Rober teamed up again to launch Team Seas, a successor to the project that aimed to help clean up marine debris. As with the Team Trees campaign, many influencers had also joined in spreading the message to help the project be a success. While the project is international, MrBeast and Mark Rober had traveled to the Dominican Republic to help clean up there and address issues with trash collection in underdeveloped and underserved areas.


title: Parable of the Mustard Seed

text: The Parable of the Mustard Seed is one of the shorter parables of Jesus. It appears in Matthew (13:31–32), Mark (4:30–32), and Luke (13:18–19). In the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, it is immediately followed by the Parable of the Leaven, which shares this parable's theme of the Kingdom of Heaven growing from small beginnings. It also appears in the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas (verse 20).


title: Parable of the Mustard Seed

text: The plant referred to here (Greek , ) is generally considered to be black mustard, a large annual plant up to tall, but growing from a proverbially small seed (this smallness is also used to refer to faith in Matthew 17:20 and Luke 17:6). According to rabbinical sources, Jews did not grow the plant in gardens, and this is consistent with Matthew's description of it growing in a field. Luke tells the parable with the plant in a garden instead; this is presumably recasting the story for an audience outside the Levant.


title: Parable of the Mustard Seed

text: I. Howard Marshall writes that the parable "suggests the growth of the kingdom of God from tiny beginnings to worldwide size." The Parable of the Leaven (which in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke immediately follows) shares this theme of large growth from small beginnings. As with the Parable of the Sower, which in "Matthew" and "Mark" occurs earlier in the same chapter, the man sowing the seed represents Jesus, and the plant is the Kingdom of God.


title: Parable of the Mustard Seed

text: New Testament scholar Adolf Jülicher viewed the parable of the mustard seed as a similitude, or an extended simile/metaphor, that has three parts: a picture part (), a reality part (), and a point of comparison ("tertium comparationis"). The picture part is the mustard seed that grows into a large plant, the reality part is the kingdom of God, and the point of comparison is the growth of the kingdom from small beginnings.


title: Parable of the Mustard Seed

text: The nesting birds may refer to Old Testament texts which emphasize the universal reach of God's empire, such as Daniel 4:12. However, a real mustard plant is unlikely to attract nesting birds, so that "Jesus seems deliberately to emphasize the notion of astonishing extravagance in his analogy." Other commentators have suggested that the birds represent Gentiles seeking refuge with Israel or the "sinners" and tax collectors with whom Jesus was criticised for associating. A few commentators view the birds negatively, as representing false teachers invading the church.


title: Parable of the Mustard Seed

text: Some have identified a "subversive and scandalous" element to this parable, in that the fast-growing nature of the mustard plant makes it a "malignant weed" with "dangerous takeover properties". Pliny the Elder, in his "Natural History" (published around AD 78) writes that "mustard... is extremely beneficial for the health. It grows entirely wild, though it is improved by being transplanted: but on the other hand when it has once been sown it is scarcely possible to get the place free of it, as the seed when it falls germinates at once."


title: Parable of the Mustard Seed

text: Ben Witherington notes that Jesus could have chosen a genuine tree for the parable, and that the mustard plant demonstrates that "Though the dominion appeared small like a seed during Jesus' ministry, it would inexorably grow into something large and firmly rooted, which some would find shelter in and others would find obnoxious and try to root out."


title: Parable of the Mustard Seed

text: Chrysostom: "Seeing the Lord had said above that three parts of the seed perish, and one only is preserved, and of that one part there is much loss by reason of the tares that are sown upon it; that none might say, Who then and how many shall they be that believe; He removes this cause of fear by the parable of the mustard seed: therefore it is said, Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like unto a grain of mustard seed."


title: Parable of the Mustard Seed

text: Jerome: "The kingdom of heaven is the preaching of the Gospel, and the knowledge of the Scriptures which leads to life, concerning which it is said to the Jews, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you. (Mat. 21:43.) It is the kingdom of heaven thus understood which is likened to a grain of mustard seed."


title: Parable of the Mustard Seed

text: Augustine: " A grain of mustard seed may allude to the warmth of faith, or to its property as antidote to poison. It follows; Which a man took and sowed in his field."


title: Parable of the Mustard Seed

text: Jerome: "The man who sows is by most understood to be the Saviour, who sows the seed in the minds of believers; by others the man himself, who sows in his field, that is, in his own heart. Who indeed is he that soweth, but our own mind and understanding, which receiving the grain of preaching, and nurturing it by the dew of faith, makes it to spring up in the field of our own breast? Which is the least of all seeds. The Gospel preaching is the least of all the systems of the schools; at first view it has not even the appearance of truth, announcing a man as God, God put to death, and proclaiming the offence of the cross. Compare this teaching with the dogmas of the Philosophers, with their books, the splendour of their eloquence, the polish of their style, and you will see how the seed of the Gospel is the least of all seeds."


title: Parable of the Mustard Seed

text: Chrysostom: "Or; The seed of the Gospel is the least of seeds, because the disciples were weaker than the whole of mankind; yet forasmuch as there was great might in them, their preaching spread throughout the whole world, and therefore it follows, But when it is grown it is the greatest among herbs, that is among dogmas."


title: Parable of the Mustard Seed

text: Jerome: "For the dogmas of Philosophers when they have grown up, show nothing of life or strength, but watery and insipid they grow into grasses and other greens, which quickly dry up and wither away. Brit the Gospel preaching; though it seem small in its beginning, when sown in the mind of the hearer, or upon the world, comes up not a garden herb, but a tree, so that the birds of the air (which we must suppose to be either the souls of believers or the Powers of God set free from slavery) come and abide in its branches. The branches of the Gospel tree which have grown of the grain of mustard seed, I suppose to signify the various dogmas in which each of the birds (as explained above) takes his rest. Let us then take the wings of the dove, that flying aloft we may dwell in the branches of this tree, and may make ourselves nests of doctrines, and soaring above earthly things may hasten towards heavenly. (Ps. 55:6.)"


title: Parable of the Mustard Seed

text: Hilary of Poitiers: "Or; The Lord compares Himself to a grain of mustard seed, sharp to the taste, and the least of all seeds, whose strength is extracted by bruising."


title: Parable of the Mustard Seed

text: Gregory the Great: " Christ Himself is the grain of mustard seed, who, planted in the garden of the sepulchre, grew up a great tree; He was a grain of seed when He died, and a tree when He rose again; a grain of seed in the humiliation of the flesh, a tree in the power of His majesty."


title: Parable of the Mustard Seed

text: Hilary of Poitiers: "This grain then when sown in the field, that is, when seized by the people and delivered to death, and as it were buried in the ground by a sowing of the body, grew up beyond the size of all herbs, and exceeded all the glory of the Prophets. For the preaching of the Prophets was allowed as it were herbs to a sick man; but now the birds of the air lodge in the branches of the tree. By which we understand the Apostles, who put forth of Christ’s might, and overshadowing the world with their boughs, are a tree to which the Gentiles flee in hope of life, and having been long tossed by the winds, that is by the spirits of the Devil, may have rest in its branches."


title: Parable of the Mustard Seed

text: Gregory the Great: " The birds lodge in its branches, when holy souls that raise themselves aloft from thoughts of earth on the wings of the virtues, breathe again from the troubles of this life in their words and comfortings."


title: Neptunium

text: Neptunium is a chemical element with the symbol Np and atomic number 93. A radioactive actinide metal, neptunium is the first transuranic element. Its position in the periodic table just after uranium, named after the planet Uranus, led to it being named after Neptune, the next planet beyond Uranus. A neptunium atom has 93 protons and 93 electrons, of which seven are valence electrons. Neptunium metal is silvery and tarnishes when exposed to air. The element occurs in three allotropic forms and it normally exhibits five oxidation states, ranging from +3 to +7. It is radioactive, poisonous, pyrophoric, and capable of accumulating in bones, which makes the handling of neptunium dangerous.


title: Neptunium

text: Although many false claims of its discovery were made over the years, the element was first synthesized by Edwin McMillan and Philip H. Abelson at the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory in 1940. Since then, most neptunium has been and still is produced by neutron irradiation of uranium in nuclear reactors. The vast majority is generated as a by-product in conventional nuclear power reactors. While neptunium itself has no commercial uses at present, it is used as a precursor for the formation of plutonium-238, and in radioisotope thermal generators to provide electricity for spacecraft. Neptunium has also been used in detectors of high-energy neutrons.


title: Neptunium

text: The longest-lived isotope of neptunium, neptunium-237, is a by-product of nuclear reactors and plutonium production. It, and the isotope neptunium-239, are also found in trace amounts in uranium ores due to neutron capture reactions and beta decay.


title: Neptunium

text: Neptunium is a hard, silvery, ductile, radioactive actinide metal. In the periodic table, it is located to the right of the actinide uranium, to the left of the actinide plutonium and below the lanthanide promethium. Neptunium is a hard metal, having a bulk modulus of 118 GPa, comparable to that of manganese. Neptunium metal is similar to uranium in terms of physical workability. When exposed to air at normal temperatures, it forms a thin oxide layer. This reaction proceeds more rapidly as the temperature increases. Neptunium melts at 639±3 °C: this low melting point, a property the metal shares with the neighboring element plutonium (which has melting point 639.4 °C), is due to the hybridization of the 5f and 6d orbitals and the formation of directional bonds in the metal. The boiling point of neptunium is not empirically known and the usually given value of 4174 °C is extrapolated from the vapor pressure of the element. If accurate, this would give neptunium the largest liquid range of any element (3535 K passes between its melting and boiling points).


title: Neptunium

text: Neptunium is found in at least three allotropes. Some claims of a fourth allotrope have been made, but they are so far not proven. This multiplicity of allotropes is common among the actinides. The crystal structures of neptunium, protactinium, uranium, and plutonium do not have clear analogs among the lanthanides and are more similar to those of the 3d transition metals.


title: Neptunium

text: α-neptunium takes on an orthorhombic structure, resembling a highly distorted body-centered cubic structure. Each neptunium atom is coordinated to four others and the Np–Np bond lengths are 260 pm. It is the densest of all the actinides and the fifth-densest of all naturally occurring elements, behind only rhenium, platinum, iridium, and osmium. α-neptunium has semimetallic properties, such as strong covalent bonding and a high electrical resistivity, and its metallic physical properties are closer to those of the metalloids than the true metals. Some allotropes of the other actinides also exhibit similar behaviour, though to a lesser degree. The densities of different isotopes of neptunium in the alpha phase are expected to be observably different: α-Np should have density 20.303 g/cm; α-Np, density 20.389 g/cm; α-Np, density 20.476 g/cm.


title: Neptunium

text: β-neptunium takes on a distorted tetragonal close-packed structure. Four atoms of neptunium make up a unit cell, and the Np–Np bond lengths are 276 pm. γ-neptunium has a body-centered cubic structure and has Np–Np bond length of 297 pm. The γ form becomes less stable with increased pressure, though the melting point of neptunium also increases with pressure. The β-Np/γ-Np/liquid triple point occurs at 725 °C and 3200 MPa.


title: Neptunium

text: Due to the presence of valence 5f electrons, neptunium and its alloys exhibit very interesting magnetic behavior, like many other actinides. These can range from the itinerant band-like character characteristic of the transition metals to the local moment behavior typical of scandium, yttrium, and the lanthanides. This stems from 5f-orbital hybridization with the orbitals of the metal ligands, and the fact that the 5f orbital is relativistically destabilized and extends outwards. For example, pure neptunium is paramagnetic, NpAl is ferromagnetic, NpGe has no magnetic ordering, and NpSn behaves fermionically. Investigations are underway regarding alloys of neptunium with uranium, americium, plutonium, zirconium, and iron, so as to recycle long-lived waste isotopes such as neptunium-237 into shorter-lived isotopes more useful as nuclear fuel.


title: Neptunium

text: One neptunium-based superconductor alloy has been discovered with formula NpPdAl. This occurrence in neptunium compounds is somewhat surprising because they often exhibit strong magnetism, which usually destroys superconductivity. The alloy has a tetragonal structure with a superconductivity transition temperature of −268.3 °C (4.9 K).


title: Neptunium

text: Neptunium has five ionic oxidation states ranging from +3 to +7 when forming chemical compounds, which can be simultaneously observed in solutions. It is the heaviest actinide that can lose all its valence electrons in a stable compound. The most stable state in solution is +5, but the valence +4 is preferred in solid neptunium compounds. Neptunium metal is very reactive. Ions of neptunium are prone to hydrolysis and formation of coordination compounds.


title: Neptunium

text: A neptunium atom has 93 electrons, arranged in the configuration <nowiki>[</nowiki>Rn<nowiki>]</nowiki> 5f 6d 7s. This differs from the configuration expected by the Aufbau principle in that one electron is in the 6d subshell instead of being as expected in the 5f subshell. This is because of the similarity of the electron energies of the 5f, 6d, and 7s subshells. In forming compounds and ions, all the valence electrons may be lost, leaving behind an inert core of inner electrons with the electron configuration of the noble gas radon; more commonly, only some of the valence electrons will be lost. The electron configuration for the tripositive ion Np is [Rn] 5f, with the outermost 7s and 6d electrons lost first: this is exactly analogous to neptunium's lanthanide homolog promethium, and conforms to the trend set by the other actinides with their [Rn] 5f electron configurations in the tripositive state. The first ionization potential of neptunium was measured to be at most in 1974, based on the assumption that the 7s electrons would ionize before 5f and 6d; more recent measurements have refined this to 6.2657 eV.


title: Neptunium

text: 24 neptunium radioisotopes have been characterized with the most stable being Np with a half-life of 2.14 million years, Np with a half-life of 154,000 years, and Np with a half-life of 396.1 days. All of the remaining radioactive isotopes have half-lives that are less than 4.5 days, and the majority of these have half-lives that are less than 50 minutes. This element also has at least four meta states, with the most stable being Np with a half-life of 22.5 hours.


title: Neptunium

text: The isotopes of neptunium range in atomic weight from 219.032 u (Np) to 244.068 u (Np), though Np and Np have not yet been reported. Most of the isotopes that are lighter than the most stable one, Np, decay primarily by electron capture although a sizable number, most notably Np and Np, also exhibit various levels of decay via alpha emission to become protactinium. Np itself, being the beta-stable isobar of mass number 237, decays almost exclusively by alpha emission into Pa, with very rare (occurring only about once in trillions of decays) spontaneous fission and cluster decay (emission of Mg to form Tl). All of the known isotopes except one that are heavier than this decay exclusively via beta emission. The lone exception, Np, exhibits a rare (>0.12%) decay by isomeric transition in addition to beta emission. Np eventually decays to form bismuth-209 and thallium-205, unlike most other common heavy nuclei which decay into isotopes of lead. This decay chain is known as the neptunium series. This decay chain had long been extinct on Earth due to the short half-lives of all of its isotopes above bismuth-209, but is now being resurrected thanks to artificial production of neptunium on the tonne scale.


title: Neptunium

text: The isotopes neptunium-235, -236, and -237 are predicted to be fissile; only neptunium-237's fissionability has been experimentally shown, with the critical mass being about 60 kg, only about 10 kg more than that of the commonly used uranium-235. Calculated values of the critical masses of neptunium-235, -236, and -237 respectively are 66.2 kg, 6.79 kg, and 63.6 kg: the neptunium-236 value is even lower than that of plutonium-239. In particular, Np also has a low neutron cross section. Despite this, a neptunium atomic bomb has never been built: uranium and plutonium have lower critical masses than Np and Np, and Np is difficult to purify as it is not found in quantity in spent nuclear fuel and is nearly impossible to separate in any significant quantities from its parent Np.


title: Neptunium

text: Since all isotopes of neptunium have half-lives that are many times shorter than the age of the Earth, any primordial neptunium should have decayed by now. After only about 80 million years, the concentration of even the longest-lived isotope, Np, would have been reduced to less than one-trillionth (10) of its original amount. Thus neptunium is present in nature only in negligible amounts produced as intermediate decay products of other isotopes.


title: Neptunium

text: Trace amounts of the neptunium isotopes neptunium-237 and -239 are found naturally as decay products from transmutation reactions in uranium ores. In particular, Np and Np are the most common of these isotopes; they are directly formed from neutron capture by uranium-238 atoms. These neutrons come from the spontaneous fission of uranium-238, naturally neutron-induced fission of uranium-235, cosmic ray spallation of nuclei, and light elements absorbing alpha particles and emitting a neutron. The half-life of Np is very short, although the detection of its much longer-lived daughter Pu in nature in 1951 definitively established its natural occurrence. In 1952, Np was identified and isolated from concentrates of uranium ore from the Belgian Congo: in these minerals, the ratio of neptunium-237 to uranium is less than or equal to about 10 to 1.


title: Neptunium

text: Most neptunium (and plutonium) now encountered in the environment is due to atmospheric nuclear explosions that took place between the detonation of the first atomic bomb in 1945 and the ratification of the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963. The total amount of neptunium released by these explosions and the few atmospheric tests that have been carried out since 1963 is estimated to be around 2500 kg. The overwhelming majority of this is composed of the long-lived isotopes Np and Np since even the moderately long-lived Np (half-life 396 days) would have decayed to less than one-billionth (10) its original concentration over the intervening decades. An additional very small amount of neptunium, created by neutron irradiation of natural uranium in nuclear reactor cooling water, is released when the water is discharged into rivers or lakes. The concentration of Np in seawater is approximately 6.5 × 10 millibecquerels per liter: this concentration is between 0.1% and 1% that of plutonium.


title: Neptunium

text: Once in the environment, neptunium generally oxidizes fairly quickly, usually to the +4 or +5 state. Regardless of its oxidation state, the element exhibits much greater mobility than the other actinides, largely due to its ability to readily form aqueous solutions with various other elements. In one study comparing the diffusion rates of neptunium(V), plutonium(IV), and americium(III) in sandstone and limestone, neptunium penetrated more than ten times as well as the other elements. Np(V) will also react efficiently in pH levels greater than 5.5 if there are no carbonates present and in these conditions it has also been observed to readily bond with quartz. It has also been observed to bond well with goethite, ferric oxide colloids, and several clays including kaolinite and smectite. Np(V) does not bond as readily to soil particles in mildly acidic conditions as its fellow actinides americium and curium by nearly an order of magnitude. This behavior enables it to migrate rapidly through the soil while in solution without becoming fixed in place, contributing further to its mobility. Np(V) is also readily absorbed by concrete, which because of the element's radioactivity is a consideration that must be addressed when building nuclear waste storage facilities. When absorbed in concrete, it is reduced to Np(IV) in a relatively short period of time. Np(V) is also reduced by humic acid if it is present on the surface of goethite, hematite, and magnetite. Np(IV) is absorbed efficiently by tuff, granodiorite, and bentonite; although uptake by the latter is most pronounced in mildly acidic conditions. It also exhibits a strong tendency to bind to colloidal particulates, an effect that is enhanced when in soil with high clay content. The behavior provides an additional aid in the element's observed high mobility.


title: Neptunium

text: When the first periodic table of the elements was published by Dmitri Mendeleev in the early 1870s, it showed a " — " in place after uranium similar to several other places for then-undiscovered elements. Other subsequent tables of known elements, including a 1913 publication of the known radioactive isotopes by Kasimir Fajans, also show an empty place after uranium, element 92.


title: Neptunium

text: Up to and after the discovery of the final component of the atomic nucleus, the neutron in 1932, most scientists did not seriously consider the possibility of elements heavier than uranium. While nuclear theory at the time did not explicitly prohibit their existence, there was little evidence to suggest that they did. However, the discovery of induced radioactivity by Irène and Frédéric Joliot-Curie in late 1933 opened up an entirely new method of researching the elements and inspired a small group of Italian scientists led by Enrico Fermi to begin a series of experiments involving neutron bombardment. Although the Joliot-Curies' experiment involved bombarding a sample of Al with alpha particles to produce the radioactive P, Fermi realized that using neutrons, which have no electrical charge, would most likely produce even better results than the positively charged alpha particles. Accordingly, in March 1934 he began systematically subjecting all of the then-known elements to neutron bombardment to determine whether others could also be induced to radioactivity.


title: Neptunium

text: After several months of work, Fermi's group had tentatively determined that lighter elements would disperse the energy of the captured neutron by emitting a proton or alpha particle and heavier elements would generally accomplish the same by emitting a gamma ray. This latter behavior would later result in the beta decay of a neutron into a proton, thus moving the resulting isotope one place up the periodic table. When Fermi's team bombarded uranium, they observed this behavior as well, which strongly suggested that the resulting isotope had an atomic number of 93. Fermi was initially reluctant to publicize such a claim, but after his team observed several unknown half-lives in the uranium bombardment products that did not match those of any known isotope, he published a paper entitled "Possible Production of Elements of Atomic Number Higher than 92" in June 1934. In it he proposed the name ausonium (atomic symbol Ao) for element 93, after the Greek name "Ausonia" (Italy).


title: Neptunium

text: Several theoretical objections to the claims of Fermi's paper were quickly raised; in particular, the exact process that took place when an atom captured a neutron was not well understood at the time. This and Fermi's accidental discovery three months later that nuclear reactions could be induced by slow neutrons cast further doubt in the minds of many scientists, notably Aristid von Grosse and Ida Noddack, that the experiment was creating element 93. While von Grosse's claim that Fermi was actually producing protactinium (element 91) was quickly tested and disproved, Noddack's proposal that the uranium had been shattered into two or more much smaller fragments was simply ignored by most because existing nuclear theory did not include a way for this to be possible. Fermi and his team maintained that they were in fact synthesizing a new element, but the issue remained unresolved for several years.


title: Neptunium

text: Although the many different and unknown radioactive half-lives in the experiment's results showed that several nuclear reactions were occurring, Fermi's group could not prove that element 93 was being created unless they could isolate it chemically. They and many other scientists attempted to accomplish this, including Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner who were among the best radiochemists in the world at the time and supporters of Fermi's claim, but they all failed. Much later, it was determined that the main reason for this failure was because the predictions of element 93's chemical properties were based on a periodic table which lacked the actinide series. This arrangement placed protactinium below tantalum, uranium below tungsten, and further suggested that element 93, at that point referred to as eka-rhenium, should be similar to the group 7 elements, including manganese and rhenium. Thorium, protactinium, and uranium, with their dominant oxidation states of +4, +5, and +6 respectively, fooled scientists into thinking they belonged below hafnium, tantalum, and tungsten, rather than below the lanthanide series, which was at the time viewed as a fluke, and whose members all have dominant +3 states; neptunium, on the other hand, has a much rarer, more unstable +7 state, with +4 and +5 being the most stable. Upon finding that plutonium and the other transuranic elements also have dominant +3 and +4 states, along with the discovery of the f-block, the actinide series was firmly established.


title: Neptunium

text: While the question of whether Fermi's experiment had produced element 93 was stalemated, two additional claims of the discovery of the element appeared, although unlike Fermi, they both claimed to have observed it in nature. The first of these claims was by Czech engineer Odolen Koblic in 1934 when he extracted a small amount of material from the wash water of heated pitchblende. He proposed the name bohemium for the element, but after being analyzed it turned out that the sample was a mixture of tungsten and vanadium. The other claim, in 1938 by Romanian physicist Horia Hulubei and French chemist Yvette Cauchois, claimed to have discovered the new element via spectroscopy in minerals. They named their element sequanium, but the claim was discounted because the prevailing theory at the time was that if it existed at all, element 93 would not exist naturally. However, as neptunium does in fact occur in nature in trace amounts, as demonstrated when it was found in uranium ore in 1952, it is possible that Hulubei and Cauchois did in fact observe neptunium.


title: Neptunium

text: Although by 1938 some scientists, including Niels Bohr, were still reluctant to accept that Fermi had actually produced a new element, he was nevertheless awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in November 1938 ""for his demonstrations of the existence of new radioactive elements produced by neutron irradiation, and for his related discovery of nuclear reactions brought about by slow neutrons"". A month later, the almost totally unexpected discovery of nuclear fission by Hahn, Meitner, and Otto Frisch put an end to the possibility that Fermi had discovered element 93 because most of the unknown half-lives that had been observed by Fermi's team were rapidly identified as those of fission products.


title: Neptunium

text: Perhaps the closest of all attempts to produce the missing element 93 was that conducted by the Japanese physicist Yoshio Nishina working with chemist Kenjiro Kimura in 1940, just before the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941: they bombarded U with fast neutrons. However, while slow neutrons tend to induce neutron capture through a (n, γ) reaction, fast neutrons tend to induce a "knock-out" (n, 2n) reaction, where one neutron is added and two more are removed, resulting in the net loss of a neutron. Nishina and Kimura, having tested this technique on Th and successfully produced the known Th and its long-lived beta decay daughter Pa (both occurring in the natural decay chain of U), therefore correctly assigned the new 6.75-day half-life activity they observed to the new isotope U. They confirmed that this isotope was also a beta emitter and must hence decay to the unknown nuclide 93. They attempted to isolate this nuclide by carrying it with its supposed lighter congener rhenium, but no beta or alpha decay was observed from the rhenium-containing fraction: Nishina and Kimura thus correctly speculated that the half-life of 93, like that of Pa, was very long and hence its activity would be so weak as to be unmeasurable by their equipment, thus concluding the last and closest unsuccessful search for transuranic elements.


title: Neptunium

text: As research on nuclear fission progressed in early 1939, Edwin McMillan at the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory of the University of California, Berkeley decided to run an experiment bombarding uranium using the powerful 60-inch (1.52 m) cyclotron that had recently been built at the university. The purpose was to separate the various fission products produced by the bombardment by exploiting the enormous force that the fragments gain from their mutual electrical repulsion after fissioning. Although he did not discover anything of note from this, McMillan did observe two new beta decay half-lives in the uranium trioxide target itself, which meant that whatever was producing the radioactivity had not violently repelled each other like normal fission products. He quickly realized that one of the half-lives closely matched the known 23-minute decay period of uranium-239, but the other half-life of 2.3 days was unknown. McMillan took the results of his experiment to chemist and fellow Berkeley professor Emilio Segrè to attempt to isolate the source of the radioactivity. Both scientists began their work using the prevailing theory that element 93 would have similar chemistry to rhenium, but Segrè rapidly determined that McMillan's sample was not at all similar to rhenium. Instead, when he reacted it with hydrogen fluoride (HF) with a strong oxidizing agent present, it behaved much like members of the rare earths. Since these elements comprise a large percentage of fission products, Segrè and McMillan decided that the half-life must have been simply another fission product, titling the paper "An Unsuccessful Search for Transuranium Elements".


title: Neptunium

text: However, as more information about fission became available, the possibility that the fragments of nuclear fission could still have been present in the target became more remote. McMillan and several scientists, including Philip H. Abelson, attempted again to determine what was producing the unknown half-life. In early 1940, McMillan realized that his 1939 experiment with Segrè had failed to test the chemical reactions of the radioactive source with sufficient rigor. In a new experiment, McMillan tried subjecting the unknown substance to HF in the presence of a reducing agent, something he had not done before. This reaction resulted in the sample precipitating with the HF, an action that definitively ruled out the possibility that the unknown substance was a rare-earth metal.


title: Neptunium

text: Shortly after this, Abelson, who had received his graduate degree from the university, visited Berkeley for a short vacation and McMillan asked the more able chemist to assist with the separation of the experiment's results. Abelson very quickly observed that whatever was producing the 2.3-day half-life did not have chemistry like any known element and was actually more similar to uranium than a rare-earth metal. This discovery finally allowed the source to be isolated and later, in 1945, led to the classification of the actinide series. As a final step, McMillan and Abelson prepared a much larger sample of bombarded uranium that had a prominent 23-minute half-life from U and demonstrated conclusively that the unknown 2.3-day half-life increased in strength in concert with a decrease in the 23-minute activity through the following reaction:


title: Neptunium

text: This proved that the unknown radioactive source originated from the decay of uranium and, coupled with the previous observation that the source was different chemically from all known elements, proved beyond all doubt that a new element had been discovered. McMillan and Abelson published their results in a paper entitled "Radioactive Element 93" in the "Physical Review" on May 27, 1940. They did not propose a name for the element in the paper, but they soon decided on the name "neptunium" since Neptune is the next planet beyond Uranus in our solar system. McMillan and Abelson's success compared to Nishina and Kimura's near miss can be attributed to the favorable half-life of Np for radiochemical analysis and quick decay of U, in contrast to the slower decay of U and extremely long half-life of Np.


title: Neptunium

text: It was also realized that the beta decay of Np must produce an isotope of element 94 (now called plutonium), but the quantities involved in McMillan and Abelson's original experiment were too small to isolate and identify plutonium along with neptunium. The discovery of plutonium had to wait until the end of 1940, when Glenn T. Seaborg and his team identified the isotope plutonium-238.


title: Neptunium

text: In 1942, Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, and independently Kurt Starke, reported the confirmation of element 93 in Berlin. Hahn's group did not pursue element 94, likely because they were discouraged by McMillan and Abelson's lack of success in isolating it. Since they had access to the stronger cyclotron at Paris at this point, Hahn's group would likely have been able to detect element 94 had they tried, albeit in tiny quantities (a few becquerels).