title: Sword of the Stranger

text: When Bai-Luan learns of Lord Akaike's betrayal, the Ming capture him and use him as a human shield at the fortress containing the altar to await the prophesied time. Itadori, an ambitious Akaike general, leads a small battalion of soldiers to rescue Lord Akaike. However, Itadori decides to kill Akaike and seizes the opportunity to take command. The troops now attack the fortress, but in the ensuing bloody battle, most of the Ming and Akaike soldiers are killed, including Itadori.


title: Sword of the Stranger

text: Nanashi finally arrives at the fortress, but is momentarily knocked unconscious. He recalls the incident years earlier when he was ordered to execute two children and he vowed to never unsheathe his sword. When Nanashi recovers and sees Kotaro about to be sacrificed, he draws his sword and fights his way to the altar, saving Kotaro. Bai-Luan attempts to shoot Nanashi, but Luo-Lang kills his master so that he can challenge Nanashi to a final duel. The two swordsmen engage in a tremendous sword fight, destroying the structure in the process. Despite suffering many injuries, Nanashi finally defeats Luo-Lang who slowly dies, somewhat shocked by his defeat. The next morning, Kotaro rides off on horseback carrying Tobimaru and the badly wounded and barely conscious Nanashi, talking about starting a new life together.


title: Sword of the Stranger

text: "Sword of the Stranger" was released to Japanese theaters on September 29, 2007. The DVD and Blu-ray were released in regular and limited editions on April 11, 2008. The film premiered in the United States on February 5, 2008. It was dubbed into English through Ocean Studios in Vancouver, British Columbia and released by Bandai Entertainment. The English-dub was released on DVD and Blu-ray on June 16, 2009. At Otakon 2016, Funimation announced at their panel that they picked up the rights for the movie, and that it was going to be released on a DVD and Blu-ray Disc combo pack on November 8, 2016.


title: Sword of the Stranger

text: "Sword of the Stranger" has so far appeared on a select number of cinema screens in the United States and reception has been positive.


title: Sword of the Stranger

text: Anime News Network reviewer Justin Sevakis gave the film an overall A− and labeled it as: "Breath-taking action scenes wrapped around a compelling story that actually makes sense." In her Anime News Network column entitled "Shelf Life," reviewer Bamboo Dong profiled the Blu-ray release as "a gorgeously animated, blood-soaked samurai romp that entertains for its full 102 minute run." Firefox News summarized their view on the dubbed and subbed versions of the film by saying: "With either version, though, you’re not apt to go wrong if you’re an anime or jidaigeki fan, let alone both."


title: Sword of the Stranger

text: The film was also positively received on its festival run in the European Union, receiving a rating of 4.07 out of 5 from viewers on average from Camera Japan and being well received at Oktoberfest, Sci-Fi London's anime all-nighter. The film has been ranked at #1 in JapanCinema.net's "Top 10 Anime Films of the Decade" list.


title: Sword of the Stranger

text: "Sword of the Stranger" has appeared at many international film festivals. The list of film festivals that the film has appeared at includes:


title: Sword of the Stranger

text: The film won the award for Best Animated Feature at FANTASPOA (International Fantastic Film Festival of Porto Alegre) in Brazil and was a nominee for Best Animated Feature Film at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards


title: Sword of the Stranger

text: The film was also submitted to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for consideration as a nominee for Best Animated Feature at the 81st Academy Awards.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: Leesburg is a town in the state of Virginia, and the county seat of Loudoun County. Settlement in the area began around 1740, which is named for the Lee family, early leaders of the town and ancestors of Robert E. Lee. Located in the far northeast of the state, in the War of 1812 it was a refuge for important federal documents evacuated from Washington, DC, and in the Civil War, it changed hands several times.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: Leesburg is west-northwest of Washington, D.C., along the base of Catoctin Mountain and close to the Potomac River. The town is the northwestern terminus of the Dulles Greenway, a private toll road that connects to the Dulles Toll Road at Washington Dulles International Airport. Its population was 48,250 as of the 2020 Census and an estimated 48,908 in 2021. It is Virginia's largest incorporated town within a county (rather than being an independent city).


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: Leesburg, like much of Loudoun County, has undergone considerable growth and development over the last 30 years, transforming from a small, rural, Piedmont town to a suburban bedroom community for commuters to the national capital. Growth in the town and its immediate area to the east (Lansdowne/Ashburn) concentrates along the Dulles Greenway and State Route 7, which roughly parallels the Potomac River between Winchester to the west and Alexandria to the east.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: Leesburg may have been named to honor the influential Thomas Lee or more generally for the Lee family. The name change was passed by an Act of Assembly in 1758. Francis Lightfoot Lee and Phillip Ludwell Lee, two of Thomas' sons, were early town trustees. The town is not named, as is sometimes thought, for Robert E. Lee (Thomas' great-grandnephew).


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: Prior to European settlement, the area around Leesburg was occupied by various Native American tribes. John Lederer (1670) testified that the entire Piedmont region had once been occupied by the "Tacci, alias Dogi", but that the Siouan tribes, driven from the northwest, had occupied it for 400 years. In 1699, the Algonquian Piscataway (Conoy) moved to an island in the Potomac in the environs of Leesburg, and were there when the first known Europeans visited what is now Loudoun County.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: What would become known as the Old Carolina Road (present day U.S. Route 15) was a major route of travel between north and south for Native tribes. According to local historians, a pitched battle was fought near present Leesburg between the warring Catawba and Lenape tribes, neither of whom lived in the area. A war party of Lenape had traveled from their home in New Jersey and neighboring regions, all the way to South Carolina to inflict a blow on their distant enemies, the Catawba. As they were returning northward, a party of Catawbas overtook them before they reached the Potomac, but were defeated in a pitched battle south of Leesburg. The surviving Lenape buried their dead in a huge burial mound, and early settlers reported that they would return to this mound to honor their dead on the anniversary of this battle for many years thereafter. The date of this conflict is unknown, but it seems the Lenape and Catawba were indeed at war in the 1720s and 1730s.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: European settlement near Leesburg began in the late 1730s as Tidewater planters moved into the area from the south and east, establishing large farms and plantations. Many of the First Families of Virginia were among those to settle in the area, including the Carters, Lees and Masons. The genesis of Leesburg occurred sometime before 1755 when Nicholas Minor acquired land around the intersection of the Old Carolina Road and the Potomac Ridge Road (present-day Route 7) and established a tavern there. Despite lack of growth around the tavern, upon Loudoun County's formation in 1757, Minor dubbed the sparse collection of buildings about his tavern "George Town" in honor of the reigning monarch of Great Britain. The village's prosperity changed the following year when the British Colonial Council ordered the establishment of the county courthouse at the crossroads. Accordingly, Minor had a town laid out on the traditional Virginia plan of six criss-cross streets. On October 12 of that year (1758) the Virginia General Assembly founded the town of Leesburg upon the that Minor laid out. Leesburg was renamed to honor the influential Thomas Lee and not, as is popular belief, his son Francis Lightfoot Lee who lived in Loudoun and brought up the bill to establish Leesburg. When the post office was established in Leesburg in 1803 the branch was named "Leesburgh"; the "h" persisted until 1894.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: During the War of 1812, Leesburg served as a temporary haven for the United States government and its archives (including the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution and portraits of early American leaders like Benjamin Franklin) when it was forced to flee Washington in the face of the British Army. Some websites have claimed that this resulted in Leesburg temporarily becoming the capital of the United States. However, these claims are not true, as none of the U.S. government bodies were present in Leesburg at the time. When reconstruction began on the Capitol, Potomac marble from quarries just south of Leesburg was used.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: Early in the American Civil War Leesburg was the site of the Battle of Ball's Bluff, a small but significant Confederate victory. The battlefield, along the Potomac River northeast of the town center, is marked by one of America's smallest national cemeteries. The town frequently changed hands over the course of the war as both armies traversed the area during the Maryland and Gettysburg campaigns. The Battle of Mile Hill was fought just north of the town prior to its occupation by Robert E. Lee in September 1862. Leesburg also served as a base of operations for Col. John S. Mosby and his partisan Raiders. Some people consider the local courthouse among the few courthouses in Virginia not burned during the Civil War (1861–1865); the present one was built in 1894. In 1889 a 14-year-old African-American Orion Anderson was killed by a white mob at the town's freight depot; his murder would be the second of three recorded lynchings in Loudoun County, Virginia, between 1880 and 1902.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: In the 20th century, Leesburg was the home of World War II General George C. Marshall, architect of the famous Marshall Plan that helped re-build Europe after the war, and radio personality Arthur Godfrey, who donated land for the town's first airport.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: Leesburg continues to serve as the center of government and commerce for Loudoun County. The town's Historic District was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970 and cited as one of the best preserved and most picturesque downtowns in Virginia. Downtown merchants have recently labeled themselves "Loudoun's Original Town Center", largely in response to the growing number of mixed-use shopping areas in proximity. Leesburg has served as the Loudoun county seat continuously since the county's formation in 1757.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: Leesburg is located northeast of the center of Loudoun County at (39.109, −77.558), It is part of the northern Virginia Piedmont and sits at the base of the easternmost chain of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Catoctin Mountain. The town lies in the Culpeper Basin (an inland sea during the Jurassic period) and is adjacent to the valley of the Potomac River, so that the local relief is less pronounced than in other Virginia Piedmont towns. Elevation in town ranges from about , with the ridge of Catoctin Mountain rising to just west of the town limits. The Town Branch of Tuscarora Creek passes through the center of town, flowing east to Goose Creek, a tributary of the Potomac.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , of which , or 0.54%, are water.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: Census estimates as of July 1, 2018, showed the population of Leesburg at 53,917 people. According to the 2010 census, there were 42,616 people including 14,441 households, and 10,522 families residing in the town. The population density was 3,673 people per square mile (1,418.2/km). There were 15,119 housing units at an average density of 1220.2 per square mile (471.1/km). The racial makeup of the town was 71.1% White, 9.5% African American, 0.4% Native American, 7.1% Asian, 0.0% Pacific Islander, 7.5% from other races, and 4.3% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 17.4% of the population.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: Of all households, 44.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 57.8% were married couples living together, 10.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 27.1% were non-families. 21.1% were made up of individuals, and 4.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.93 and the average family size was 3.42.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: By age, the population was 30.7% under the age of 18, 5.5% from 18 to 24, 32.9% from 25 to 44, 23.4% from 45 to 64, and 6.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 33.3 years. For every 100 females, there were 95.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 93.6 males.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: The median income of the households in the town was $68,861, and the median income of the families was $78,111 (these figures had risen to $87,346 and $105,260 respectively as of a 2007 estimate). Males had a median income of $51,267 versus $35,717 for females. The per capita income for the town was $30,116. About 2.4% of families and 3.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 3.8% of those under age 18 and 8.2% of those age 65 or over.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: Leesburg has four public high schools operated by the Loudoun County Public School system: Loudoun County High School, Heritage High School, Tuscarora High School, and Riverside High School.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: Leesburg is also served by several private schools, including Providence Academy, a K–8 non-denominational Christian school; Leesburg Christian School, a K–12 non-denominational Christian school; and pre-K-8 Loudoun Country Day School.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: The Leesburg Volunteer Fire Company provides fire protection services. The Loudoun County Volunteer Rescue Squad provides rescue and emergency medical services. Both the fire company and rescue squad are volunteer organizations supplemented with partial staffing from the Loudoun County Department of Fire, Rescue and Emergency Management. The fire company can trace its roots back to 1803; the rescue squad was formed in 1952.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: Leesburg is served by a town police department. The Leesburg Police Department (LPD) has an authorized strength of 90 sworn officers and provides 24/7 patrol service to the town, as well as handling criminal investigations, traffic control, and special operations within the town. The department is completely separate from the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office, which is Loudoun County's primary law enforcement agency and provides security for the courthouse in Leesburg. The LPD was formed in 1758.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: The "Loudoun Times-Mirror" is a Leesburg-based weekly newspaper serving Loudoun County. There are no longer any local radio stations after the former WAGE (now WCRW) was shut down in 2007. Leesburg is assigned to the Washington, D.C. media market, and is covered by its major television and radio stations; broadcasters from Baltimore, Frederick, and Winchester are also readily available.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: The primary highways serving Leesburg include U.S. Route 15, Virginia State Route 7 and Virginia State Route 267.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: US 15 enters Leesburg from the southwest, following King Street, then joins the Leesburg Bypass to pass southeast of downtown. It rejoins King Street as it leaves the bypass on the northeast end of town on its way toward Maryland. The old alignment of US 15 is now U.S. Route 15 Business. Via US 15, travelers can reach Warrenton to the southwest and Frederick, Maryland, to the northeast.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: SR 7 enters Leesburg from the west along Market Street and immediately joins the Leesburg Bypass to pass southwest of downtown. It rejoins Market Street as it leaves the bypass southeast of downtown. The old alignment of SR 7 is now Virginia State Route 7 Business. SR 7 west to Winchester and southeast to Alexandria.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: SR 267 enters Leesburg from the south along the Dulles Greenway and terminates at the Leesburg Bypass (US 15 and SR 7). SR 267 functions as a high speed bypass of SR 7 southeast of Leesburg, but is also a toll road.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: Leesburg operates the Leesburg Executive Airport at Godfrey Field, which serves Loudoun County with private and corporate aircraft operations. A designated reliever airport for Dulles International, the airport accounts for nearly $78 million per year in economic impact according to a 2011 study by the Virginia Department of Aviation. It is home (as of 2005) to over 240 aircraft, and hosts 20–30 jet operations per day. The airport was built in 1963 to replace the original Leesburg airport, which Arthur Godfrey owned and referred to affectionately as "The Old Cow Pasture" on his radio show. Godfrey, who, by the early 1950s, had purchased the Beacon Hill Estate west of Leesburg, used a DC-3 to commute from his farm to studios in New York City every Sunday night during the 1950s and 1960s. His DC-3 was so powerful and noisy that Godfrey built a new airport, funding it through the sale of the old field. Originally named Godfrey Field, it is now known as Leesburg Executive Airport at Godfrey Field.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: Also located near Leesburg is the National Conference Center, which the Xerox Corporation built in the 1970s. Government entities and private business use the Conference Center for meetings and conferences. Three main focal points connect this maze of underground buildings, one of which is currently the headquarters of Civilian Police International, a government sub-contract company.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: Market Station, located in the southeast portion of Leesburg's Historic District, contains a number of high-tech and legal offices, retail shops, and restaurants that are housed within seven restored historic buildings (a railroad freight station, a railroad stationmaster's house, a log house, two barns and two gristmills, some of which were reconstructed in or relocated to the site. A plaza on the east side of the site contains several structures painted in the yellow and green colors of the stations of the Washington and Old Dominion Railroad, which served the town until 1968.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: Iridium Communications Inc. (formerly Iridium Satellite LLC) system of satellites is "guided from the basement of a featureless two-story office building" located in Leesburg.


title: Leesburg, Virginia

text: According to Leesburg's FY 2019 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top employers in the town are:


title: Baked ziti

text: Baked ziti is a popular casserole with ziti pasta and a Neapolitan-style tomato-based sauce characteristic of Italian-American cuisine. It is a form of "pasta al forno".


title: Baked ziti

text: Typically, the pasta is first boiled separately until it is nearly, but not completely, done. The almost-cooked pasta is added to a tomato-based sauce. The tomato-coated pasta is then combined with cheese, typically a mixture of ricotta, mozzarella, and parmesan. Other ingredients can be added with the cheese, such as ground meat, sausage, mushrooms, peppers, and onions. The combined ingredients are placed in a baking dish, covered with mozzarella cheese, baked in the oven and served hot. If unavailable, ziti can be substituted with other tubular pastas such as penne or rigatoni.


title: Desiccation

text: Desiccation () is the state of extreme dryness, or the process of extreme drying. A desiccant is a hygroscopic (attracts and holds water) substance that induces or sustains such a state in its local vicinity in a moderately sealed container.


title: Desiccation

text: Desiccation is widely employed in the oil and gas industry. These materials are obtained in a hydrated state, but the water content leads to corrosion or is incompatible with downstream processing. Removal of water is achieved by cryogenic condensation, absorption into glycols, and absorption onto desiccants such as silica gel.


title: Desiccation

text: A desiccator is a heavy glass or plastic container, now somewhat antiquated, used in practical chemistry for drying or keeping small amounts of materials very dry. The material is placed on a shelf, and a drying agent or "desiccant", such as dry silica gel or anhydrous sodium hydroxide, is placed below the shelf.


title: Desiccation

text: Often some sort of humidity indicator is included in the desiccator to show, by color changes, the level of humidity. These indicators are in the form of indicator plugs or indicator cards. The active chemical is cobalt chloride (CoCl). Anhydrous cobalt chloride is blue. When it bonds with two water molecules, (CoCl•2HO), it turns purple. Further hydration results in the pink hexaaquacobalt(II) chloride complex [Co(HO)].


title: Desiccation

text: In biology and ecology, desiccation refers to the drying out of a living organism, such as when aquatic animals are taken out of water, slugs are exposed to salt, or when plants are exposed to sunlight or drought. Ecologists frequently study and assess various organisms' susceptibility to desiccation. For example, in one study the investigators found that "Caenorhabditis elegans" dauer is a true anhydrobiote that can withstand extreme desiccation and that the basis of this ability is founded in the metabolism of trehalose.


title: Desiccation

text: Several bacterial species have been shown to accumulate DNA damages upon desiccation. "Deinococcus radiodurans" is extremely resistant to ionizing radiation. The functions necessary to survive ionizing radiation are also necessary to survive prolonged desiccation. Radiation resistance is considered to be an incidental consequence of the organism's evolutionary adaptation to dehydration, a common physiological stress in nature. The chromosomal DNA from desiccated "D. radiodurans" revealed increased DNA double-strand breaks. DNA double-strand breaks are repaired principally by a RecA-dependent recombination process that requires the presence of two genome copies. By this process "D. radiodurans" can survive thousands of double-strand breaks per cell.


title: Desiccation

text: "Mycobacterium smegmatis" mutant strains that are deficient in the ability to repair double-strand breaks by the non-homologous enjoining (NHEJ) pathway are more sensitive to prolonged desiccation during stationary phase than wild-type strains. NHEJ appears to be the preferred pathway for repairing double-strand breaks caused by desiccation during stationary phase. NHEJ can repair double-strand breaks even when only one chromosome is present in a cell.


title: Desiccation

text: Upon exposure to extreme dryness, "Bacillus subtilis" endospores acquire DNA-double strand breaks and DNA-protein crosslinks.


title: Desiccation

text: In broadcast engineering, a desiccator may be used to pressurize the feedline of a high-power transmitter. Because it carries a large amount of energy from the transmitter to the antenna, the feedline must have low dielectric losses. Because it must also be lightweight so as not to overload the radio tower, air is often used as the dielectric. Since moisture can condense in these lines, desiccated air or nitrogen gas is pumped in. This pressure also keeps water or other dampness from coming in the line at any point along its length.


title: Liposome

text: A liposome is a small artificial vesicle, spherical in shape, having at least one lipid bilayer. Due to their hydrophobicity and/or hydrophilicity, biocompatibility, particle size and many other properties, liposomes can be used as drug delivery vehicles for administration of pharmaceutical drugs and nutrients, such as lipid nanoparticles in mRNA vaccines, and DNA vaccines. Liposomes can be prepared by disrupting biological membranes (such as by sonication).


title: Liposome

text: Liposomes are most often composed of phospholipids, especially phosphatidylcholine and cholesterol, but may also include other lipids, such as egg, phosphatidylethanolamine, as long as they are compatible with lipid bilayer structure. A liposome design may employ surface ligands for attaching to unhealthy tissue.


title: Liposome

text: The major types of liposomes are the multilamellar vesicle (MLV, with several lamellar phase lipid bilayers), the small unilamellar liposome vesicle (SUV, with one lipid bilayer), the large unilamellar vesicle (LUV), and the cochleate vesicle. A less desirable form are multivesicular liposomes in which one vesicle contains one or more smaller vesicles.


title: Liposome

text: Liposomes should not be confused with lysosomes, or with micelles and reverse micelles composed of monolayers.


title: Liposome

text: The word "liposome" derives from two Greek words: "lipo" ("fat") and "soma" ("body"); it is so named because its composition is primarily of phospholipid.


title: Liposome

text: Liposomes were first described by British haematologist Alec Douglas Bangham in 1961 (published 1964), at the Babraham Institute, in Cambridge. They were discovered when Bangham and R. W. Horne were testing the institute's new electron microscope by adding negative stain to dry phospholipids. The resemblance to the plasmalemma was obvious, and the microscope pictures served as the first evidence for the cell membrane being a bilayer lipid structure. Their integrity as a closed, bilayer structure, that could release its contents after detergent treatment (structure-linked latency) was established by Bangham, Standish and Weissmann in the next year. Weissmann - during a Cambridge pub discussion with Bangham - first named the structures "liposomes" after the lysosome, which his laboratory had been studying: a simple organelle the structure-linked latency of which could be disrupted by detergents and streptolysins. Liposomes can be easily distinguished from micelles and hexagonal lipid phases by negative staining transmission electron microscopy.


title: Liposome

text: Alec Douglas Bangham with colleagues Jeff Watkins and Malcolm Standish wrote the 1965 paper that effectively launched the liposome “industry”. Around this time he was joined at Babraham by Gerald Weissmann, an American physician with an interest in lysosomes. Now an emeritus professor at New York University School of Medicine, Weissmann recalls the two of them sitting in a Cambridge pub and reflecting on the role of lipid sheets in separating the interior of the cell from the exterior milieu. This insight, they felt, was to cell function what the discovery of the double helix had been to genetics. Bangham had called his lipid structures “multilamellar smectic mesophases” or sometimes “Banghasomes”. It was Weissmann who proposed the more user-friendly term liposome.


title: Liposome

text: A liposome has an aqueous solution core surrounded by a hydrophobic membrane, in the form of a lipid bilayer; hydrophilic solutes dissolved in the core cannot readily pass through the bilayer. Hydrophobic chemicals associate with the bilayer. A liposome can be hence loaded with hydrophobic and/or hydrophilic molecules. To deliver the molecules to a site of action, the lipid bilayer can fuse with other bilayers such as the cell membrane, thus delivering the liposome contents; this is a complex and non-spontaneous event, however, that does not apply to nutrients and drug delivery. By preparing liposomes in a solution of DNA or drugs (which would normally be unable to diffuse through the membrane) they can be (indiscriminately) delivered past the lipid bilayer. Liposomes are used as models for artificial cells. Liposomes can also be designed to deliver drugs in other ways. Liposomes that contain low (or high) pH can be constructed such that dissolved aqueous drugs will be charged in solution (i.e., the pH is outside the drug's pI range). As the pH naturally neutralizes within the liposome (protons can pass through some membranes), the drug will also be neutralized, allowing it to freely pass through a membrane. These liposomes work to deliver drug by diffusion rather than by direct cell fusion. However, the efficacy of this pH regulated passage depends on the physiochemical nature of the drug in question (e.g. pKa and having a basic or acid nature), which is very low for many drugs.


title: Liposome

text: A similar approach can be exploited in the biodetoxification of drugs by injecting empty liposomes with a transmembrane pH gradient. In this case the vesicles act as sinks to scavenge the drug in the blood circulation and prevent its toxic effect.


title: Liposome

text: Another strategy for liposome drug delivery is to target endocytosis events. Liposomes can be made in a particular size range that makes them viable targets for natural macrophage phagocytosis. These liposomes may be digested while in the macrophage's phagosome, thus releasing its drug. Liposomes can also be decorated with opsonins and ligands to activate endocytosis in other cell types.


title: Liposome

text: The use of liposomes for transformation or transfection of DNA into a host cell is known as lipofection.


title: Liposome

text: In addition to gene and drug delivery applications, liposomes can be used as carriers for the delivery of dyes to textiles, pesticides to plants, enzymes and nutritional supplements to foods, and cosmetics to the skin.


title: Liposome

text: Liposomes are also used as outer shells of some microbubble contrast agents used in contrast-enhanced ultrasound.


title: Liposome

text: Until recently, the clinical uses of liposomes were for targeted drug delivery, but new applications for the oral delivery of certain dietary and nutritional supplements are in development. This new application of liposomes is in part due to the low absorption and bioavailability rates of traditional oral dietary and nutritional tablets and capsules. The low oral bioavailability and absorption of many nutrients is clinically well documented. Therefore, the natural encapsulation of lypophilic and hydrophilic nutrients within liposomes would be an effective method of bypassing the destructive elements of the gastric system and small intestines allowing the encapsulated nutrient to be efficiently delivered to the cells and tissues.


title: Liposome

text: The term nutraceutical combines the words nutrient and pharmaceutical, originally coined by Stephen DeFelice, who defined nutraceuticals as “food or part of a food that provides medical or health benefits, including the prevention and/or treatment of a disease”. However, currently, there is no conclusive definition of nutraceuticals yet, to distinguish them from other food‐derived categories, such as food (dietary) supplements, herbal products, pre‐ and probiotics, functional foods, and fortified foods. Generally, this term is used to describe any product derived from food sources which is expected to provide health benefits additionally to the nutritional value of daily food. A wide range of nutrients or other substances with nutritional or physiological effects (EU Directive 2002/46/EC) might be present in these products, including vitamins, minerals, amino acids, essential fatty acids, fibres and various plants and herbal extracts. Liposomal nutraceuticals contain bioactive compounds with health-promoting effects. The encapsulation of bioactive compounds in liposomes is attractive as liposomes have been shown to be able to overcome serious hurdles bioactives would otherwise encounter in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract upon oral intake.


title: Liposome

text: It is important to note that certain factors have far-reaching effects on the percentage of liposome that are yielded in manufacturing, as well as the actual amount of realized liposome entrapment and the actual quality and long-term stability of the liposomes themselves. They are the following: (1) The actual manufacturing method and preparation of the liposomes themselves; (2) The constitution, quality, and type of raw phospholipid used in the formulation and manufacturing of the liposomes; (3) The ability to create homogeneous liposome particle sizes that are stable and hold their encapsulated payload. These are the primary elements in developing effective liposome carriers for use in dietary and nutritional supplements.


title: Liposome

text: Useful liposomes rarely form spontaneously. They typically form after supplying enough energy to a dispersion of (phospho)lipids in a polar solvent, such as water, to break down multilamellar aggregates into oligo- or unilamellar bilayer vesicles.


title: Liposome

text: Liposomes can hence be created by sonicating a dispersion of amphipatic lipids, such as phospholipids, in water. Low shear rates create multilamellar liposomes. The original aggregates, which have many layers like an onion, thereby form progressively smaller and finally unilamellar liposomes (which are often unstable, owing to their small size and the sonication-created defects). Sonication is generally considered a "gross" method of preparation as it can damage the structure of the drug to be encapsulated. Newer methods such as extrusion, micromixing and Mozafari method are employed to produce materials for human use. Using lipids other than phosphatidylcholine can greatly facilitate liposome preparation.


title: Liposome

text: Further advances in liposome research have been able to allow liposomes to avoid detection by the body's immune system, specifically, the cells of reticuloendothelial system (RES). These liposomes are known as "stealth liposomes". They were first proposed by G. Cevc and G. Blume and, independently and soon thereafter, the groups of L. Huang and V. Torchilin and are constructed with PEG (Polyethylene Glycol) studding the outside of the membrane. The PEG coating, which is inert in the body, allows for longer circulatory life for the drug delivery mechanism. Studies have also shown that PEGylated liposomes elicit anti-IgM antibodies, thus leading to an enhanced blood clearance of the liposomes upon re-injection, depending on lipid dose and time interval between injections. In addition to a PEG coating, some stealth liposomes also have some sort of biological species attached as a ligand to the liposome, to enable binding via a specific expression on the targeted drug delivery site. These targeting ligands could be monoclonal antibodies (making an immunoliposome), vitamins, or specific antigens, but must be accessible. Targeted liposomes can target certain cell type in the body and deliver drugs that would otherwise be systemically delivered. Naturally toxic drugs can be much less systemically toxic if delivered only to diseased tissues. Polymersomes, morphologically related to liposomes, can also be used this way. Also morphologically related to liposomes are highly deformable vesicles, designed for non-invasive transdermal material delivery, known as transfersomes.


title: Liposome

text: Certain anticancer drugs such as doxorubicin (Doxil) and daunorubicin may be administered via liposomes. Liposomal cisplatin has received orphan drug designation for pancreatic cancer from EMEA.


title: Liposome

text: Liposomes can be used on their own or in combination with traditional antibiotics as neutralizing agents of bacterial toxins. Many bacterial toxins evolved to target specific lipids of the host cells membrane and can be baited and neutralized by liposomes containing those specific lipid targets.


title: Liposome

text: A study published in May 2018 also explored the potential use of liposomes as "nano-carriers" of fertilizing nutrients to treat malnourished or sickly plants. Results showed that these synthetic particles "soak into plant leaves more easily than naked nutrients", further validating the utilization of nanotechnology to increase crop yields.


title: The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power

text: The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power is a 2015 direct-to-video sword and sorcery action adventure film. It was released on January 6, 2015, on home media. It is the fourth installment in "The Scorpion King" series and stars Victor Webster in the title role with supporting roles by Ellen Hollman, Lou Ferrigno, Rutger Hauer, Royce Gracie, Eve Torres, and Ian Whyte. This film continues the story of Mathayus, after the events in "".


title: The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power

text: Mathayus and his partner Drazen (who is under the Akkadian's tutelage) infiltrate the palace of Skizurra to find and acquire an artifact known as the Urn of Kings for King Zakkour of Al-Moraad. In the process, they are discovered and a short fight ensues, revealing Drazen to be a traitor who was really after the Urn.


title: The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power

text: Mathayus returns to Zakkour, who tells him that the Urn's inscription will show the way to use the powers of Lord Alcaman, a powerful sorcerer who once controlled the entire known world. Under the instructions of the King, Mathayus follows Drazen to the kingdom of Norvania in the Northern Forests to deliver a peace treaty. Drazen gives the Urn to his father King Yannick who shatters it to retrieve the Golden Key of Lord Alcaman, which has the true inscription written on it.


title: The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power

text: Mathayus arrives in Norvania and is accosted by the king's guards. The soldiers are unable to best Mathayus, who allows himself to be arrested so he can enter the King's castle. In jail, Mathayus meets another inmate, Valina Raskov, who convinces Mathayus to pay her to meet the king. She explains that she is a member of the original royal bloodline and Drazen wishes to cement his father's rise to power with her public execution. Drazen appears with guards and takes Mathayus to be tortured, suspecting his peace treaty is a pretense. However, King Yannick believes Mathayus, releases him, and invites him to a dinner banquet. Drazen assassinates his father with black scorpions and blames it on Mathayus. Before dying, Yannick gives the Key to Mathayus, who resists capture and flees with Valina, who has feigned an illness to escape her cell, using the ensuing chaos to leave the castle.


title: The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power

text: In the process, Mathayus suffers an arrow wound to the shoulder (as he did when fighting King Memnon). The pair go to Valina's father, Sorrell Raskov, an eccentric scholar and inventor who is unwilling to retake his place as ruler. Sorrell is able to read the inscription on the key, which says they must find a hidden palace in Glenrrossovia in order to find Alcaman's crown, which will let them rule the world. Drazen arrives, takes the key, sets the house on fire, and leaves them to die.


title: The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power

text: The heroes escape and go to Glenrrossovia, where Drazen is terrorizing the villagers to find the palace. After enlisting a local boy to steal the key, they take it to the Temple of the Goddess, presided over by High Priestess Feminina. They discover the Key inserts into a symbolic hole in a Goddess statue, located in the Temple's underground sanctuary. The sanctuary is pushed through the earth, revealing stained glass that reveals the next direction of the journey.


title: The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power

text: Valina finds her friend Roland from the dungeon, and he joins their party. They ask Gorak for a map of the Tugarin Forest in which Alcaman's palace is hidden in a mountain and guarded by a dragon. He gives it to them after Valina beats Chancara in a fight. On their way through the forest, they are captured by a pygmy tribe which has one giant member named Daun. Duan's brother Onus is the chief, who attempts to sacrifice them to the spider-like "creatures of the forest." But Mathayus' bellow causes the creatures to retreat, and the tribe to embrace them. Despite warnings of the beast, the heroes proceed towards the mountain, where they find the dragon is really a mechanical contraption.


title: The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power

text: Finally, they arrive at Alcaman's palace and open the hidden door into the mountain. Roland proves to be a traitor working for Drazen, whose men surround and fill the throne room of Alcaman. Mathayus and Valina fight the attackers, but Sorrell receives a mortal wound from Drazen. Armed with Sorrell's notes, Mathayus proceeds deeper into Alcaman's palace, rigged with traps that kill those with Drazen and finds the Crown of Alcaman believing its power to be the only hope of healing Sorrell. Putting it on, he is covered in fire, but does not burn. As he prepares to return to his comrades, Drazen overpowers him and takes the Crown. Drazen is judged unworthy and the Crown freezes him to death. Mathayus shatters Drazen's frozen body and uses the crown to revive Sorrell, who finally believes in magic.


title: The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power

text: The group leaves the mountain and seals the door with the Key and Crown inside, telling the remainder of Drazen's men that the power of Lord Alcaman was just a myth. Sorrell is crowned King once more, but gives his crown to Valina, who promises to build a kingdom based on "science and mathematics, truth and reason, and just a little bit of magic".


title: The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power

text: During the credits, Mathayus is relieved from his service to King Zakkour who allowed him to stay with Queen Valina in her service. Valina and Mathayus share a kiss as Gorak and Chancara are also present at the dinner.


title: The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power

text: A fifth film, titled "", was released in 2018. Zach McGowan replaced Victor Webster as Mathayus. The film featured an all-new cast including Pearl Thusi, Katy Saunders, Nathan Jones and Peter Mensah. The film was directed by Don Michael Paul.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: United States Army Europe and Africa (USAREUR-AF) is an Army Service Component Command (ASCC) /Theater Army responsible for directing United States Army operations throughout the U.S. European Command (EUCOM) and U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) area of responsibility.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: During the Cold War, it supervised ground formations primarily focused upon the Warsaw Pact to the east as part of NATO's Central Army Group. Since the revolutions of 1989, it has greatly reduced its size, dispatched U.S. forces to the Gulf Wars of 1990-91 and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Kosovo War, the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021) and increased security cooperation with other NATO land forces.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: In 2020, the Army announced that United States Army Africa would consolidate with U.S. Army Europe to form a new command, U.S. Army Europe and Africa. The two commands were consolidated on November 20, 2020.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: The European Theater of Operations, United States Army (ETOUSA) was a Theater of Operations responsible for directing United States Army operations throughout the European theatre of World War II from 1942 to 1945. It commanded Army Ground Forces, United States Army Air Forces, and Army Service Forces operations north of Italy and the Mediterranean coast. It was bordered to the south by the North African Theater of Operations, US Army (NATOUSA), which later became the Mediterranean Theater of Operations (MTOUSA).


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: When the war ended in Europe on 8 May 1945, the ETOUSA headquarters was located in Versailles, France, just outside Paris. As Eisenhower and his staff began to prepare for the occupation of Germany, the ETOUSA headquarters staff moved to Frankfurt, Germany. In Frankfurt the staff was co-located with the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces and the Office of Military Government, United States. ETOUSA was redesignated Headquarters, United States Forces European Theater (HQ USFET) on 1 July 1945, remaining in Frankfurt.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: At the end of the war, the total U.S. Army strength in Europe was 2.4 million: two Army groups (6th and 12th), five field armies (First, Third, Seventh, Ninth and Fifteenth), 13 corps headquarters, and 62 combat divisions (43 infantry, 16 armor, and 3 airborne). There were 11,000 tanks and armored fighting vehicles. Within a year rapid redeployments had brought the occupation forces down to fewer than 290,000 personnel, and many of the larger formations had departed or been inactivated.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: The Seventh Army headquarters remained in control of the western portion of the American zone, and the Third Army controlled the eastern portion. In November 1945, the two field army commanders organized district "constabularies" based on cavalry groups. The Seventh Army was inactivated in March 1946, in Germany. On 1 May 1946, the zone-wide United States Constabulary headquarters was activated at Bamberg. in mid-1946, the tactical units consisted of the Third Army (Heidelberg) with three infantry divisions (1st, 3rd and 9th) and several separate regiments (3rd, 14th, 29th and 508th Airborne). The 3rd Infantry Division was in the process of being redeployed back to the United States. Another separate infantry regiment - the 5th - was located in Austria but came under the control of US Forces in Austria. In 1947 Headquarters Third Army returned to the United States. From then until the early 1950s, the structure of the American occupation forces consisted of the 1st Infantry Division, a separate infantry regiment, and the U.S. Constabulary of 10 cavalry regiments.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: From c1947 to 1954, the 351st Infantry Regiment served as the main body of Trieste United States Troops, on the border of Yugoslavia.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: On 15 March 1947, United States Forces, European Theater (USFET) was "replaced by the army command known as European Command (EUCOM). ..The Army element of the joint European Command headquarters was initially called Headquarters, U.S. Ground and Service Forces, Europe."


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: On 15 March 1947, HQ USFET was formally redesignated Headquarters, European Command (HQ EUCOM) (not to be confused with the present joint command, "USEUCOM", which was formed on 1 August 1952). Between February and June 1948 the headquarters relocated to Campbell Barracks in Heidelberg, where it remained until June 2013. The Army element of the joint European Command headquarters was initially called Headquarters, U.S. Ground and Service Forces, Europe.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: On 15 November 1947, U.S. Ground and Service Forces, Europe, was renamed U.S. Army, Europe (USAREUR) to accord with the new Department of the Army nomenclature for such commands. USAREUR was a nonoperational, "paper" organization that provides the ground and service commander with the command functions required for administrative and logistical support. To it were assigned all ground and service units in the command except those assigned to the Office of Military Government, United States; to the Office of the Commander in Chief of European Command; to U.S. Air Forces Europe; to the U.S. Navy, Germany; and to a few exempted War Department agencies. The offices and personnel of the general and special staff divisions of EUCOM headquarters performed USAREUR's general and special staff duties. The principal function of the commanding general of USAREUR became the establishment and maintenance of high standards of discipline. General Huebner also became Commanding General, USAREUR.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: The Berlin Blockade began 24 June 1948 when the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway and road access to the sectors of Berlin under Allied control. Even though Allied forces in the city were outnumbered 50–1, General Lucius D. Clay, in charge of the US Occupation Zone in Germany, gave the order for the Berlin Airlift. Headquartered out of Wiesbaden Army Airfield, the Allies supplied almost 9,000 tons per day of supplies to the beleaguered city until the blockade was lifted on 12 May 1949.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: From 1948 to 1950, Cold War tensions grew, and the outbreak of hostilities in Korea in June 1950 heightened east–west tensions in Europe. The Seventh Army was reactivated at Vaihingen, Stuttgart in late November 1950. The two U.S. Army division sized units in the U.S. Occupation Zone of Germany, the First Infantry Division and the U.S. Constabulary, were assigned to the Seventh Army. Within a few weeks other assignments to the Seventh Army included the V and VII Corps. Due to President Truman's 10 December 1950 Declaration of a National Emergency as a result of circumstances in the Korean War, four CONUS based U.S. Army divisions were alerted to move to the U.S. Occupation Zone of Germany (these divisions were known as the augmentation force to the U.S. Army in Europe). A main concern was possible Soviet attempts to "take advantage" due to their numerical superiority in Germany during the Korean War. The first augmentation division to arrive overseas in Germany was the 4th Infantry Division in May 1951, followed by the 2nd Armored Division and the 43rd and 28th Infantry Divisions during summer and fall of 1951.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: On 24 November 1950 EUCOM activated HHC Seventh United States Army at Stuttgart to take over the command of the ground and service forces from USAREUR, while other USAREUR functions revert to EUCOM. General Eddy became CG of Seventh Army. HQ USAREUR continued to exist, without troops, to fulfilled certain legal requirements in connection with court-martial and other responsibilities.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: A new joint, multi-service United States European Command was established in Frankfurt, Germany on 1 August 1952. General Matthew B. Ridgway became commander and Gen. Thomas T. Handy deputy commander. On that day, the U.S. Army headquarters at Heidelberg, formerly known as EUCOM, became Headquarters, United States Army, Europe. It remained in Heidelberg under the temporary command of General Handy (who wore two hats in both USEUCOM and USAREUR for a while). As Cold War tensions continued to escalate in 1952, General Williston B. Palmer commanding the 2nd Armored Division authorized the founding of the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra in Vaihingen-Stuttgart under the direction of Samuel Adler in support of U.S. cultural diplomacy throughout Europe.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: In 1953, the Korean War Armistice was signed, and tensions began to ease in Europe. About 13,500 soldiers manned each of the USAREUR divisions. New equipment fielded at the time included the M48 tank, the M59 armored personnel carrier, and tactical nuclear weapons. On 25 October 1955, the Southern Europe Task Force (SETAF), a logistical command, was formally activated in Italy. The headquarters, commanded by Maj. Gen. John H. Michaelis, was temporarily established at Camp Darby, near Livorno, Italy with units additionally stationed in Vicenza and Verona. Shortly after activation, SETAF moved the headquarters to Caserma Passalacqua in Verona, Italy. An airborne battalion eventually joined SETAF.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: On 15 July 1958 USAREUR forces were ordered to assist the Lebanese government. Task Force 201, the Army component of Operation Blue Bat rapidly deployed more than 8,000 Soldiers from Europe to Beirut by air and sea. As the situation quickly stabilized, all U.S. forces redeployed from the country within 4 months.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: Although the Korean War – open East–West conflict – had ended, political tensions remained high in Europe. Particularly troublesome was the impasse over the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany, the former British, French and U.S. zones of occupation) and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany, the former Soviet zone of occupation). East Germany [the DDR] was considered by many countries over the years to be nothing more than the Soviet Zone of Occupation; this changed in 1973 with the UN recognition of both Germanies.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: Berlin posed an additional problem; it was surrounded by East Germany, but Great Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union all occupied sectors in the city. In the early years, travel between the sectors was unrestricted. At the time Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev announced in June 1961 that the Soviet Union was planning to conclude a peace treaty with the East German government, 3,000 East German refugees flowed daily into Berlin.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: Suddenly on the night of 12 August 1961, the Soviets closed the border crossing points and began to construct the Berlin Wall, isolating the three western sectors of the city both from East Germany and the Soviet sector, or East Berlin. In response, the United States deployed an additional armored cavalry regiment to Europe, along with additional support units. USAREUR strength reached a post-World War II high of 277,342 in June 1962 as the crisis deepened. That 1946–1991 Cold War maximum USAREUR troop record gradually reduced over time.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: The command dispatched a reinforced infantry battle group to Berlin to strengthen the existing garrison. The nuclear armed USAREUR did not go to DEFCON 3 during 22 Oct to 20 November 1962 Cuban Crisis due to political reasons. All other US Forces worldwide were at DEFCON 3 per JFK's 22 October speech and direction to the Pentagon; SAC went to DEFCON 2.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: The crisis cooled in Berlin from 1962 to 1963, and augmenting forces returned to the United States. Equipment modernization programs during this period included the M113 armored personnel carrier, the M14 rifle, the M60 machine gun, the OV-1 fixed wing observation aircraft, the UH-1B Huey helicopter, the M151 MUTT truck, and the M60 Patton tank. In late 1963 Operation BIG LIFT tested the use of prepositioned equipment through redeployment of the 2nd Armored Division to Europe via a single airlift.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: In 1966, France withdrew from the NATO Military Command Structure, and U.S. forces were withdrawn from France. The communications zone headquarters moved from Orleans, France, to Worms, Germany, (and later to Kaiserslautern, where as 21st Theater Support Command it remains today). USEUCOM moved to Stuttgart.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: On 1 December 1966, the separate Seventh Army headquarters was eliminated, and HQ USAREUR became Headquarters and Headquarters Company, U.S. Army Europe and Seventh Army.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: In January 1967, in accordance with Headquarters Department of the Army Msg NR DA796059 dated 9 January 1967, the USAREUR and Seventh Army staffs were combined to become U.S. Army Europe/Seventh Army. Nearly forty years later, Army Campaign Plan DP 58 (circa 2006) effectively dropped the Seventh Army title. Decisions that took effect in 2006 stated that the official designation would be "United States Army Europe" (USAREUR). The organization perpetuates the lineage and honors of the Seventh Army and authorized the display and wear of appropriate Seventh Army heraldic items.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: The first Redeployment of Forces from Germany took place in 1968, with the removal of about 28,000 military personnel from Germany. The units and personnel withdrawn remained committed to NATO and during REFORGER I – Return of Forces to Germany – conducted in January 1969, more than 12,000 soldiers returned to Germany for an exercise using pre-positioned equipment.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the needs of the war in Vietnam reduced USAREUR's assigned strength, sometimes drastically. As the war began to wane, forces began to return to Europe, and USAREUR adopted a new system based upon the community commander concept. In 1974, efforts to streamline the headquarters resulted in the termination of the U.S. Theater Army Support Command, and its replacement by a smaller organization, the 21st Theater Army Area Command, now known as 21st Theater Sustainment Command (TSC).


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: In the 1970s, USAREUR continued to improve its firepower when it received the new M16A1 rifle, the TOW anti-tank weapon, the OH-58 Kiowa observation helicopter, and the AH-1G Cobra helicopter.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: During the 1970s, force protection concerns grew as Palestinian groups brazenly conducted terror operations in Europe, such as the kidnapping of Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics, and the Red Army Faction and the Red Brigades targeted U.S. facilities and personnel with bombings, kidnapping and assassinations. In May 1972 bombs exploded at V Corps headquarters in Frankfurt, killing an Army lieutenant colonel, and in Heidelberg at Campbell Barracks, killing three Soldiers. U.S. installations were attacked sporadically throughout the remainder of the decade, including a failed 1977 attack on a U.S. Army post in Giessen.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: On 15 September 1981, an assassination attempt was made on USAREUR commander Gen. Frederick J. Kroesen and his wife as they were driving through Heidelberg—the automobile trunk lid deflected the RPG-7 anti-tank projectile. In 1985 Army Specialist Edward Pimental was lured out of a Wiesbaden nightclub and killed for his ID card which was then used to enter Rhein-Main Air Base the next day to plant a bomb that killed two. And in 1986 a bombing at a Berlin disco frequented by service members killed two Soldiers.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: With increased combat and support components in place, the command undertook a wide-ranging modernization in the decade of the 1980s. More than 400 new systems were introduced, including individual weapons, field rations, the M1A1 Abrams tank, the M2 and M3 Bradley series of infantry and cavalry fighting vehicles, the Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS), the MIM-104 Patriot air defense system, the UH-60 Black Hawk and the AH-64A Apache helicopters.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: In January 1967, in accordance with Headquarters Department of the Army Msg NR DA796059 dated 9 January 1967, the USAREUR and Seventh Army staffs were merged to become Headquarters and Headquarters Company, United States Army Europe and Seventh Army (HHC USAREUR 7A).


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: The dramatic events of the late 1980s – the opening of the Berlin Wall, German reunification, and the collapse of the Soviet Union – combined to change USAREUR again. Intermediate nuclear weapons of the 56th Field Artillery Command were withdrawn, chemical weapons were moved out of Europe, and units began to depart the European continent while others were inactivated.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: When Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, USAREUR began deploying units to the region. The first deployments from USAREUR to Saudi Arabia in August 1990 included the 45th Medical Company, an element of the 421st Medical Battalion (AA), and advance elements of 12th Aviation Brigade, which by September had deployed two Apache attack helicopter battalions, an OH-58 Kiowa scout helicopter company, a Black Hawk utility helicopter company, a CH-47 Chinook platoon, and associated support and maintenance units. These were quickly followed by intelligence specialists, chemical warfare experts, logistical personnel, many individual replacements, and finally almost the entire VII Corps.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: The command eventually deployed more than 75,000 personnel plus 1,200 tanks, 1,700 armored combat vehicles, more than 650 pieces of artillery, and more than 325 aircraft. When the war ended, many USAREUR soldiers remained to complete the logistical cleanup; others were deployed to northern Iraq or Turkey as part of Operation Provide Comfort to aid refugees. Upon their return to Europe, many also found that their units were in the process of either relocating to the Continental United States (CONUS) or inactivating.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: In 1992 alone, about 70,000 soldiers redeployed to CONUS with about 90,000 family members. The command shrank from 213,000 soldiers in 1990 to 122,000 in 1992. The VII Corps was inactivated. From 858 installations in 1990, USAREUR went down to only 415 in 1993 with more scheduled to close in the years ahead.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: After the Gulf War and the subsequent drawdowns, USAREUR faced a wholly different challenge in Europe. The command was engaged in humanitarian support operations, to include disaster relief and rescue and recovery, peacekeeping and non-combatant evacuations. Between 1990 and 1993 the command supported 42 deployments, which involved a total of 95,579 personnel.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: Conflict in the Balkans quickly became one of the United States Department of Defense's primary areas of focus, and peace enforcement in Bosnia was a harbinger of future military operations. From 1990 to 1995 USAREUR conducted mostly humanitarian operations in the area. In October 1992, USAREUR sent the 212th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) and personnel from the 7th Medical Command to Zagreb, Croatia to provide medical support for United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) casualties. Throughout 1993–1995, USAREUR's 5th Quartermaster Company, in conjunction with United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE), delivered humanitarian aid to the region.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: In June 1993, the command formed Task Force Able Sentry in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia with the headquarters at Camp Able Sentry near the capital Skopje. These forces, along with personnel from 26 other countries, were originally part of the UNPROFOR which in 1995 became the U.N. Preventative Deployment force (UNPREDEP) deterring the spread of armed conflict. Upon expiration of the initial UN mandate in February 1999, USAREUR renamed the U.S. Army organization Task Force Sabre, with the task to protect U.S. facilities and equipment. They were relieved in June 1999 by the U. S. national support element to Kosovo Force (KFOR)-Task Force Falcon (Rear). U.S. Soldiers left Camp Able Sentry in 2002, but it remained as a contractor operated logistics base until Aug. 2004 when all U.S. personnel departed and NATO assumed control of the camp.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: In Bosnia and Herzegovina, after the Dayton Peace Accords were reached in November 1995, USAREUR's 1st Armored Division began deploying there in December, with the first Lockheed C-130 Hercules landing in Tuzla in Bosnia, on 2 December, and the first trains departing Germany 8 December. One major barrier to the deployment of the 1st Armored Division was the bridge over the Sava River, which was destroyed during the four-year civil war. Construction of the longest assault float bridge in military history, 620 meters long, ribbon float (pontoon) bridge between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina began on 22 December.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: Despite melting snow that flooded the river and later, freezing temperatures, the bridge was completed on 31 December and the first M1A1 Abrams tank crossed the bridge at 10 am. The division, along with many Reserve Component support troops, formed Task Force Eagle as part of the NATO-led Implementation Force, under the overall command of British General Michael Walker. Task Force Eagle's mission was to implement and monitor the military aspects of the agreement, enforce the cease-fire, supervise the marking of boundaries and the zone of separation between the former warring factions, and enforce the withdrawal of the combatants to their barracks and the movement of heavy weapons to storage sites.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: It was the first time a NATO sponsored force had deployed operationally outside the NATO boundaries. IFOR was succeeded in December 1996 by a smaller, NATO-led Stabilisation Force (SFOR) (Operation Joint Guard) whose mission was to deter renewed hostilities. On 20 June 1998 the mission was renamed Operation Joint Forge, with USAREUR continuing to serve as the supervising Army Service Component Command. On 24 November 2004, Task Force Eagle officially disestablished and closed its base in Tuzla, with European Union forces assuming responsibility for the Bosnia mission.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: In early 1999, in response to growing ethnic tensions in Kosovo and military and paramilitary forces in daily conflict resulting in the more than 1,500 Kosovar Albanian deaths and 400,000 refugees, USAREUR formed Task Force Falcon, with the 1st Infantry Division as the core element. On 9 June 1999, after an inconclusive air campaign, Task Force Falcon deployed forces in the largest combined air-rail-sea-road movement since Operation Desert Storm, entering Kosovo on 12 June 1999, as part of Operation Joint Guardian, a NATO-led peacekeeping force with a UN mandate to separate warring factions, oversee the withdrawal of Serb forces and interdict the flow of arms to insurgents.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: On 17 February 2008, the Kosovo Assembly declared Kosovo independent. Currently, the U.S. Army, with approx. 800 Soldiers, has the lead for Multinational Battle Group East (MNBG-E) in the eastern region, headquartered near Uroševac at Camp Bondsteel as part of KFOR. Contributing nations include Greece, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Ukraine. The majority of U.S. Soldiers come from U.S. Army National Guard units, with a different state taking over the lead for each rotation of approximately nine months.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: The 11 September 2001 attacks did not directly affect the Seventh Army. However, the campaign in Iraq in 2003 did. The headquarters of V Corps was deployed to Iraq, as did 173rd Airborne Brigade, and after the campaign, 1st Armored Division followed for occupation duties. With parts of 1st Infantry Division also deployed in Iraq, and others on peacekeeping duties in the Balkans, Seventh Army was virtually stripped of combat formations. The return of 173rd Brigade, V Corps and 1st Armored Division in early 2004 was followed by the deployment of the rest of 1st Infantry Division for occupation duties. V Corps began a rotational deployment in 2009 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: The U.S. Army's reorganization plans from 2005 called for the formation's major subordinate units – 1st Armored Division and 1st Infantry Division – to be relocated to the continental United States – Fort Bliss, Texas, and Fort Riley, Kansas, respectively. The 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, converted to a Stryker Brigade, and the 12th Aviation Brigade, replaced them. The Seventh Army, having been merged with US Army Europe since 1967, remained merged, as was confirmed with the release of unit designations for the modular force in mid 1996.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: HQ USAREUR and V Corps were planned to merge and the process started until the decision was made to retain a Corps Headquarters within USAREUR, and V Corps was once again separated from HQ USAREUR. It was then decided that V Corps would deactivate after a final deployment to Afghanistan.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: In September 2005, it was expected that the finalised force in Europe would consist of USAREUR HQ, V Corps, aviation and combat service support, and two maneuver brigades: the 2nd Cavalry Regiment in Vilseck, Germany, the 173rd Airborne Brigade, which will eventually expand to three airborne battalions, in Italy. Joint Task Force East provided from forces rotating from continental United States though bases in Bulgaria and Romania, was initially intended to be provided by a rotating US-based brigade.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: Two bases at Constanța, Romania were developed, apparently with the main facility at Mihail Kogălniceanu International Airport. Initially however, Joint Task Force East was to have been provided by a rotational 2nd Cavalry Regiment Stryker squadron. The Task Force was originally planned to be called the Eastern Europe Task Force. However, since the stresses of the Iraq and Afghan deployments, the army provision of Joint Task Force East has been replaced by a Marine force known as the Black Sea Rotational Force.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: Army Campaign Plan DP 58 (circa 2006) effectively dropped the Seventh Army title from U.S. Army Europe. Decisions that took effect in 2006 stated that the official designation would be Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion, United States Army Europe. The organization perpetuates the lineage and honors of the Seventh Army and authorized the display and wear of appropriate Seventh Army heraldic items.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: From 2008 to 2012–13, the two to three brigades listed above were augmented by the 170th Infantry Brigade and the 172nd Infantry Brigade, 'reflagged' former V Corps/1st Armored Division formations. Thus from 2008 to 2013, the force was expected to consist of two heavy brigades combat teams, the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, and the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: On 3 December 2008 in Rome, Italy, an official announcement by the U.S. and Italian governments stated that the Southern Europe Task Force would become U.S. Army Africa (USARAF), and one week later on 9 December 2008 USARAF was established as the Army Service Component Command of AFRICOM. According to the Army Times, this marked the end of the airborne chapter of SETAF's history and the beginning of its new role as the Army component of AFRICOM.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: On 25 October 2009, in a ceremony at the Parade Field on Daenner Kaserne, the 7th US Army Reserve Command, United States Army Reserve, was inactivated and redesignated the 7th Civil Support Command (CSC). In September 2015 the 7th CSC became the 7th Mission Support Command.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: On 26 January 2012, Chief of Staff of the United States Army General Raymond Odierno announced that two Army heavy infantry brigades would be withdrawn from Europe and inactivated. As the 170th Brigade was one of only two such heavy infantry brigades in Europe at the time, it was believed that it was one of the units slated to be inactivated in the wake of large cuts in the U.S. defense budget


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: In 2013, further reductions of U.S. forces in Europe were announced, that would reduce U.S. Army Europe to 30,000 soldiers in two brigade combat teams. These reductions include unit deactivations and facilities closures at Warner Barracks, Bamberg and Schweinfurt. Military police units were reduced: 202nd MP Group and the 1002nd MP Battalion were disbanded on 24 June 2013. In February 2013, it was announced that V Corps would be inactivated in June 2013.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: In a ceremony on 12 June 2013, V Corps was awarded the Army Superior Unit Award and Meritorious Unit Citation and formally inactivated. In April 2013, the last of U.S. Army's main battle tanks left Europe due to the departure of the U.S. Army's last two Germany-based heavy brigades: the 170th out of Baumholder and the 172nd at Grafenwöhr.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: On 11 February 2020, the United States Department of the Army announced the reactivation of V Corps Headquarters. The HQ was to have approximately 635 soldiers, with approximately 200 who would support an operational command post in Europe. Army Chief of Staff James C. McConville announced that V Corps forward headquarters would be established in Poland after 1 October 2020. 200 of the expected 630 headquarters staff members would be stationed in Poznan on a rotational basis.


title: United States Army Europe and Africa

text: On 7 March 2022 the V Corps main headquarters element deployed to Germany, joining the forward element already in Europe, to "provide additional command and control of U.S. Army forces in Europe." The headquarters is also tasked to "provide a more robust presence in Europe and enable the Corps to synchronize current contingency operations, support the ongoing mission to reinforce NATO’s eastern flank and coordinate multinational exercises across the continent." This deployment is in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.


title: Ghazi (warrior)

text: A ghazi (, , plural "ġuzāt") is an individual who participated in ghazw (, ""), meaning military expeditions or raiding. The latter term was applied in early Islamic literature to expeditions led by the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and later taken up by Turkic military leaders to describe their wars of conquest.


title: Ghazi (warrior)

text: In the context of the wars between Russia and the Muslim peoples of the Caucasus, starting as early as the late 18th century's Sheikh Mansur's resistance to Russian expansion, the word usually appears in the form "gazavat" ().


title: Ghazi (warrior)

text: In English-language literature, the "ghazw" often appears as "razzia", a borrowing through French from Maghrebi Arabic.


title: Ghazi (warrior)

text: In modern Turkish, "gazi" is used to refer to veterans, and also as a title for Turkic Muslim champions such as Ertuğrul and Osman I.


title: Ghazi (warrior)

text: In pre-Islamic Bedouin culture, ghazw[a] was a form of limited warfare verging on brigandage that avoided head-on confrontations and instead emphasized raiding and looting, usually of livestock (see cattle raiding). The Umayyad-period Bedouin poet al-Kutami wrote the oft-quoted verses: "Our business is to make raids on the enemy, on our neighbor and our own brother, in the event we find none to raid but a brother." William Montgomery Watt hypothesized that Muhammad found it useful to divert this continuous internecine warfare toward his enemies, making it the basis of his war strategy; according to Watt, the celebrated battle of Badr started as one such razzia. As a form of warfare, the "razzia" was then mimicked by the Christian states of Iberia in their relations with the taifa states; rough synonyms and similar tactics are the Iberian "cavalgada" and the Anglo-French "chevauchée".


title: Ghazi (warrior)

text: The word "razzia" was used in French colonial context particularly for raids to plunder and capture slaves from among the people of Western and Central Africa, also known as "rezzou" when practiced by the Tuareg. The word was adopted from "ġaziya" of Algerian Arabic vernacular and later became a figurative name for any act of pillage, with its verb form "razzier".


title: Ghazi (warrior)

text: "Ghazi" (, "") is an Arabic word, the active participle of the verb "ġazā", meaning 'to carry out a military expedition or raid'; the same verb can also mean 'to strive for' and "Ghazi" can thus share a similar meaning to Mujahid or "one who struggles". The verbal noun of "ġazā" is "ġazw" or "ġazawān", with the meaning 'raiding'. A derived singulative in "ġazwah" refers to a single battle or raid. The term "ghāzī" dates to at least the Samanid period, where he appears as a mercenary and frontier fighter in Khorasan and Transoxiana. Later, up to 20,000 of them took part in the Indian campaigns of Mahmud of Ghazni.


title: Ghazi (warrior)

text: "Ghāzī" warriors depended upon plunder for their livelihood, and were prone to brigandage and sedition in times of peace. The corporations into which they organized themselves attracted adventurers, zealots and religious and political dissidents of all ethnicities. In time, though, soldiers of Turkic ethnicity predominated, mirroring the acquisition of Mamluks, Turkic slaves in the Mamluk retinues and guard corps of the caliphs and emirs and in the ranks of the "ghazi" corporation, some of whom would ultimately rise to military and later political dominance in various Muslim states.


title: Ghazi (warrior)

text: In the west, Turkic "ghāzīs" made continual incursions along the Byzantine frontier zone, finding in the akritai (akritoi) their Greek counterparts. After the Battle of Manzikert these incursions intensified, and the region's people would see the "ghāzī" corporations coalesce into semi-chivalric fraternities, with the white cap and the club as their emblems. The height of the organizations would come during the Mongol conquest when many of them fled from Persia and Turkistan into Anatolia.


title: Ghazi (warrior)

text: As organizations, the "ghazi" corporations were fluid, reflecting their popular character, and individual "ghāzī" warriors would jump between them depending upon the prestige and success of a particular emir, rather like the mercenary bands around western condottiere. It was from these Anatolian territories conquered during the "ghazw" that the Ottoman Empire emerged, and in its legendary traditions it is said that its founder, Osman I, came forward as a "ghāzī" thanks to the inspiration of Shaikh Ede Bali.


title: Ghazi (warrior)

text: In later periods of Islamic history the honorific title of "ghāzī" was assumed by those Muslim rulers who showed conspicuous success in extending the domains of Islam, and eventually the honorific became exclusive to them, much as the Roman title imperator became the exclusive property of the supreme ruler of the Roman state and his family.


title: Ghazi (warrior)

text: The Ottomans were probably the first to adopt this practice, and in any case the institution of "ghazw" reaches back to the beginnings of their state:


title: Ghazi (warrior)

text: A Ghazi is the instrument of the religion of Allah, a servant of God who purifies the earth from the filth of polytheism. The Ghazi is the sword of God, he is the protector and the refuge of the believers. If he becomes a martyr in the ways of God, do not believe that he has died, he lives in beatitude with Allah, he has eternal life.


title: Ghazi (warrior)

text: The first nine Ottoman chiefs all used Ghazi as part of their full throne name (as with many other titles, the nomination was added even though it did not fit the office), and often afterwards. However, it never became a formal title within the ruler's formal style, unlike "Sultan ul-Mujahidin", used by Sultan Murad Khan II Khoja-Ghazi, 6th Sovereign of the House of Osman (1421–1451), styled 'Abu'l Hayrat, Sultan ul-Mujahidin, Khan of Khans, Grand Sultan of Anatolia and Rumelia, and of the Cities of Adrianople and Philippolis.


title: Ghazi (warrior)

text: Because of the political legitimacy that would accrue to those bearing this title, Muslim rulers vied amongst themselves for preeminence in the "ghāziya", with the Ottoman Sultans generally acknowledged as excelling all others in this feat:


title: Ghazi (warrior)

text: "Ghazi" was also used as a title of honor in the Ottoman Empire, generally translated as the Victorious, for military officers of high rank, who distinguished themselves in the field against non-Moslem enemies; thus it was conferred on Osman Pasha after his famous defence of Plevna in Bulgaria and on Mustafa Kemal Pasha (later known as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk) for leading the defense against the Gallipoli campaign.


title: Ghazi (warrior)

text: "Ghazwah", which literally means "campaigns", is typically used by biographers to refer to all the Prophet's journeys from Medina, whether to make peace treaties and preach Islam to the tribes, to go on "ʽumrah", to pursue enemies who attacked Medina, or to engage in the nine battles.


title: Ghazi (warrior)

text: Muhammad participated in 27 Ghazwa. The first Ghazwa he participated in was the Invasion of Waddan in August 623, he ordered his followers to attack a Quraysh caravan.


title: Ghazi (warrior)

text: When performed within the context of Islamic warfare, the "ghazw"'s function was to weaken the enemy's defenses in preparation for his eventual conquest and subjugation. Because the typical "ghazw" raiding party often did not have the size or strength to seize military or territorial objectives, this usually meant sudden attacks on weakly defended targets (e.g. villages) with the intent of demoralizing the enemy and destroying material which could support their military forces. Though Islam's rules of warfare offered protection to non-combatants such as women, monastics and peasants in that they could not be slain, their property could still be looted or destroyed, and they themselves could be abducted and enslaved ("Cambridge History of Islam", p. 269):


title: Ghazi (warrior)

text: A good source on the conduct of the traditional "ghazw" raid are the medieval Islamic jurists, whose discussions as to which conduct is allowed and which is forbidden in the course of warfare reveal some of the practices of this institution. One such source is Averroes' "Bidāyat al-Mujtahid wa-Nihāyat al-Muqtasid" (translated in Peters, "Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam: A Reader", Chapter 4).


title: Ghazi (warrior)

text: In the 19th century, Muslim fighters in North Caucasus who were resisting the Russian military operations declared a "gazawat" (understood as holy war) against the Russian Orthodox invasion. Although uncertain, it is believed that Dagestani Islamic scholar Muhammad Yaragskii was the ideologist of this holy war. In 1825, a congress of ulema in the village of Yarag declared "gazawat" against the Russians. Its first leader was Ghazi Muhammad; after his death, Imam Shamil would eventually continue it.


title: Ghazi (warrior)

text: After the terrorist attacks on Paris in November 2015, the Islamic State group is said to have referred to its actions as "ghazwa".


title: Ghazi (warrior)

text: In modern Turkey, gazi is used to refer to veterans. 19 September is celebrated as Veterans Day in Turkey.


title: Humectant

text: A humectant is a hygroscopic (water-absorbing) substance used to keep things moist. They are used in many products, including food, cosmetics, medicines and pesticides. When used as a food additive, a humectant has the effect of keeping moisture in the food. Humectants are sometimes used as a component of antistatic coatings for plastics.


title: Humectant

text: A humectant attracts and retains the moisture in the air nearby via absorption, drawing the water vapor into or beneath the organism's or object's surface. This is the opposite use of a hygroscopic material where it is used as a desiccant used to draw moisture away.


title: Humectant

text: In pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, humectants can be used in topical dosage forms to increase the solubility of a chemical compound's active ingredients, increasing the active ingredients' ability to penetrate skin, or its activity time. This hydrating property can also be needed to counteract a dehydrating active ingredient (e.g., soaps, corticoids, and some alcohols), which is why humectants are common ingredients in a wide range of cosmetic and personal care products that make moisturization claims (e.g., hair conditioners, body lotions, face or body cleansers, lip balms, and eye creams).


title: Humectant

text: A humectant is often a molecule with several hydrophilic groups, most often hydroxyl groups; however, amines and carboxyl groups, sometimes esterified, can be encountered as well (its affinity to form hydrogen bonds with molecules of water is the crucial trait).


title: Humectant

text: A humectant is a substance that is used to keep products moisturized and affects the preservation of items, which can be used in cosmetic products, food and tobacco. A


title: Humectant

text: humectant-rich formulation contains simple alcoholic sugar that can increase skin hydration and helps to remove and reduce thickness of skin.


title: Humectant

text: Some common humectants used in food are honey and glucose syrup both for their water absorption and sweet flavor. Glucose syrup also helps to retain the shape of the product better than other alternatives, for a longer period of time. In addition, some humectants are recognized in different countries as good food additives because of the increase in nutritional value that they provide, such as sodium hexametaphosphate.


title: Humectant

text: In order to gauge a compound's humectancy, scientists will put it through a series of tests, often involving water absorption. In tests involving toothpaste, the process is also coupled with a sweetness test and a crystallization test. When humectancy is being assessed in different products, testers will compare the results to other humectants that are already used in those products, in order to evaluate efficiency.


title: Humectant

text: Some of these humectants are seen in non-ionic polyols like sucrose, glycerin or glycerol and its triester (triacetin). These humectant food additives are used for the purpose of controlling viscosity and texture. Humectants also add bulk, retain moisture, reduce water activity, and improve softness. A main advantage of humectant food additives is that, since they are non-ionic, they are not expected to influence any variation of the pH aqueous systems.


title: Humectant

text: Glycerol or glycerin humectants undergo a pretreatment process using saponification, bleaching, ion exchange exclusion, both cationic and ionic ion exchanges, vacuum flash evaporation, thin film distillation, and heating to produce a 100% pure glycerol.


title: Humectant

text: Humectants are used in stabilization of food products and lengthening shelf life through food and moisture control. The available moisture determines microbial activity, physical properties, sensory properties and the rate of chemical changes, that if not controlled, are the cause of reduced shelf life. Examples are dry cereal with semi-moist raisins, ice cream in a cone, chocolate, hard candy with liquid centers and cheese. Humectants are used to stabilize the moisture content of foodstuffs and are incorporated as food additives. Humectants are also used in military technology for the use of MREs and other military rations.


title: Humectant

text: A number of food items always need to be moist. The use of humectants reduces the available water, thus reducing bacterial activity. They are used for safety issues, for quality, and to have a longer shelf-life in food products.


title: Humectant

text: An example of where humectants are used to keep food moist is in products like toothpaste as well as certain kinds of cookies. Regional kinds of cookies often use humectants as a binding agent in order to keep moisture locked into the center of the cookie rather than have it evaporate out. Humectants are favored in food products because of their ability to keep consumable goods moist and increase shelf-life.


title: Humectant

text: Humectants are frequently used in cosmetics as a way of increasing and maintaining moisture in the skin and hair, in products including shampoo, conditioner, frizz serum, lotions, creams, lip treatments, cleansers, after-sun lotion, and some soaps or body lotions. As hygroscopic moisturizers, humectants work by attracting water to the upper layer of the skin (stratum corneum). All humectants have common hydroxyl groups which allow them to participate in hydrogen bonding and attract water. This process attracts moisture from the outer layer of the skin or, in high humidity, from the atmosphere. The moisture is then trapped against the epidermis or the shaft of the hair, depending on where the humectant is applied. Various humectants have different ways of behaving because they differ in water binding capacity at different humidities.


title: Humectant

text: Humectants used in cosmetics include triethylene glycol, tripropylene glycol, propylene glycol, and PPGs. Other popular humectants in cosmetics include glycerin, sorbitol (sugar alcohol), hexylene and butylene glycol, urea, and collagen. Glycerin is one of the most popular humectants used because it produces the desired result fairly frequently and is low in cost. A category of humectants called nanolipidgels allow skin to retain moisture, but also possess antifungal properties. Scientists are also working to discover different types of humectants; a study published in 2011 concluded that extracts from wine cakes have the potential to be used as a humectant in cosmetics.


title: Humectant

text: Humectants have been added to skin moisturizing products to treat xerosis. Some moisturizers tend to weaken the skin barrier function, but studies on xerosis have proven that moisturizers containing humectants increase desired moisturizing effects on the affected area without damage to the skin barrier function. In this xerosis treatments study, some "smarting and stinging" was also reported from the use of humectant-rich treatment products.


title: Humectant

text: When the humectant glycerol was added to soaps for the cleansing of wounds, similar effects were found. There was an increase in moisture in the areas that the soap was applied, however, "further consideration of conditioning the use of glycerol to improve the absorption of exudates from wounds for an advanced wound healing is needed." The healing properties of humectants are therefore uncertain.


title: Humectant

text: Humectants are also added to toothpaste (dentifrice) to stop the product drying out and cracking in the tube. Sorbitol is commonly used as this also contributes a sweet flavour to the toothpaste without contributing to tooth decay.


title: Humectant

text: Humectants are used in the manufacturing of some tobacco products, such as cigarettes, e-cigarettes, and self-rolled tobacco. They are used to control and maintain the moisture content of the cut tobacco filler and add flavor. Humectants are vital to the creation of cigarettes. In an examination of waterpipe smoking, researchers worked to identify substances such as formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, and acrolein in the smoke of a waterpipe, discovering that the value of formaldehyde detected in one smoking session was five times higher than that of a regular cigarette. This data demonstrated that increasing amounts of humectants in the unburned tobacco lowered the temperature in the waterpipe head during smoking, so that considerable amounts of toxic substances were present. Further, e-cigarettes produce aerosol by heating a humectant containing nicotine without burning tobacco. Those "vaping" then inhale the aerosol and receive nicotine.


title: Humectant

text: The main health concern regarding e-cigarettes is that their production is not regulated, and there is immense uncertainty of quality control during manufacturing. Self-rolled tobacco contains more humectants, which are added to tobacco to make it taste better and keep from drying out. As the humectants burn, they unleash chemicals such as acrolein. Humectants are found in most cigarettes and are considered one of the most dangerous chemicals found in tobacco.


title: Humectant

text: However, there have been conflicting claims about the degree to which these products warrant a health concern. In a literary study of e-cigarette health risks, 388 different symptoms were reported; mouth and throat concerns generated more negative symptoms than any other group. There are not enough studies or sufficient evidence to suggest that products, particularly the contaminants of the aerosol in e-cigarettes, produce health risks at a concerning level. More research is currently being conducted to find the true dangers of the use of humectants in cigarettes.


title: Raising Sand

text: Raising Sand is a collaborative studio album by rock singer Robert Plant and bluegrass-country singer Alison Krauss. It was released in October 2007 by Rounder Records. "Raising Sand" won Album of the Year at the 2008 Americana Music Honors & Awards and at the 2009 Grammy Awards.


title: Raising Sand

text: The album met with critical acclaim, earning an average score of 87 from reviews compiled by Metacritic. It ranked at #24 on "Rolling Stone"'s December 17, 2007 listing of the year's top 50 albums. "Being There" called it "one of the year’s very best". Allmusic hailed it "one of the most effortless-sounding pairings in modern popular music", but stated that some songs "(felt) like (they were) tossed off".


title: Raising Sand

text: JamBase called the album "subtle, focused and full of life" and said that it was "highly recommended". "Village Voice" described it as "powerfully evocative" and "utterly foreign, oddly familiar, and deeply gratifying."


title: Raising Sand

text: The songs on "Raising Sand" were handpicked by producer T Bone Burnett. "Entertainment Weekly" described the selection as "eclectic", while "Village Voice" said, "Burnett flaunts his typical curatorial genius with a whole set of 'have we met before?' tunes."


title: Raising Sand

text: The musical quality was also praised. The BBC described Krauss's fiddle as "coruscating" and "raw", while "The Music Box" said Krauss "exceeds all expectations". The BBC said the musicians "make this a stunning, dark, brooding collection, comparable in tone to Daniel Lanois' masterful job on Dylan's "Time Out of Mind"."


title: Raising Sand

text: Critics praised Krauss and Plant's vocals; one critic saying that the "key to the magic is the delicious harmony vocals of the unlikely duo". Various critics described Krauss's vocals as "spellbinding", "honey-sweet", "weepy", "saccharine", and "haunting". Plant's vocals were described as "orgasmic" and "slithering".


title: Raising Sand

text: "Gone, Gone, Gone (Done Moved On)" was released as a single and won the Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals at the 50th Grammy Awards and was nominated for the Americana Award for "Song of the Year". The song "Killing the Blues" was #51 on "Rolling Stone"s list of the 100 Best Songs of 2007.


title: Raising Sand

text: On February 8, 2009, the album won all five awards for which it was nominated at the 51st Grammy Awards: Album of the Year; Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album; Record of the Year (for "Please Read the Letter"); Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals (for "Rich Woman"); and Best Country Collaboration with Vocals (for "Killing the Blues"). "Raising Sand" was the second of four country albums to win Album of the Year, following Dixie Chicks's "Taking the Long Way" and preceding Taylor Swift's "Fearless" and Kacey Musgraves' "Golden Hour".


title: Raising Sand

text: In December 2009, "Rhapsody" ranked the album #2 on its "Country’s Best Albums of the Decade" list. The online music service also called it one of their favorite cover albums of all time.


title: Raising Sand

text: ""Raising Sand" is my album of the century," said singer Lily Allen. "I love the whole folky and bluegrass sound. There's one track called 'Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us', which sounds like an epic funeral march: it's haunting and spooky, and Alison Krauss's voice can just make you shiver. Then there's 'Please Read the Letter', which just has such an honest and open sentiment, it's disarming. I'd love to do an album like that."


title: Raising Sand

text: The album debuted at number two on the "Billboard" 200, selling about 112,000 copies in its first week, the highest chart position for either artists' solo work, although Plant had previously reached #1 several times with Led Zeppelin. "Raising Sand" was certified platinum by the RIAA on March 4, 2008. After the album's success at the 2009 Grammy Awards, the album topped the "Billboard" Top Rock Albums chart and Top Internet Albums chart for the first time on the week of February 28, 2009. The album also hit the top of Canadian Top Country Albums, and also peaked at #2 in "Billboard" Top Country Albums, being stuck behind part of 35 weeks non-consecutive chart topping "Fearless" by country singer Taylor Swift. Selling 77,000 copies on a 715% increase, "Raising Sand" jumped 69–2 on the "Billboard" 200.


title: Raising Sand

text: According to Ken Irwin of Rounder Records, and producer Burnett, the duo started work on a second album in 2009.


title: Raising Sand

text: "To be 61 and faced with the 'difficult second album' is quite a phenomenon…" Plant observed in 2009. "We'd finished everything in ten days in Nashville, and I rented a car and went down the Natchez Trace to Oxford, Mississippi, across to Clarksdale and down into Helena, Arkansas, looking for those ghosts… and thought to myself, 'How can this be? I've just been with complete strangers, recorded 12 amazing tracks, had a fantastic time, and now I'm headed for the Mississippi Delta.'"


title: Front 242

text: Front 242 is a Belgian electronic music group that came into prominence during the 1980s. Pioneering the style they called electronic body music, they are a profound influence on the electronic and industrial music genres.


title: Front 242

text: Front 242 were formed in 1981 in Aarschot, near Leuven, Belgium, by Daniel Bressanutti and Dirk Bergen, who wanted to create music and graphic design using emerging electronic tools. Prior to forming Front 242, Bressanutti worked on a music project called Prothese that had already produced several one-off tracks. The "front" part of the name comes from the idea of an organized popular uprising and the fact that the word can be translated in many languages while retaining the same meaning. The number "242" was chosen because it's "just sort of a design work". The first single by the duo, "Principles", with b-side "Body To Body," was released in 1981.