title: Pat (Saturday Night Live)

text: Julia Sweeney wrote, "Christine Zander and I wrote this sketch about Pat – personally I think this is the very best one of all the Pat sketches. Pat goes into a barbershop to get a haircut and the barber is confused – is it going to be a man's cut or a woman's?"


title: Pat (Saturday Night Live)

text: Aired on October 12, 1991 (Season 17, Episode 3). Co-workers Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Phil Hartman, and Kevin Nealon give Pat a surprise birthday party. As they chat, Nealon asks whether Pat has a biological clock; Siobhan says, "I think you'd make a really great moth... fath... role model," but Pat tells them about a dysfunctional family and unhappy childhood. Hartman makes the next attempt: "Pat, would you say that you are more like your mother or your father?", but they reply, "I'm a perfect combination of both!" One of their estranged parents (Kirstie Alley), also androgynous and named Francis or Frances, comes into the party; when Nealon asks about Pat's birth, again there are only ambiguous answers, as well as the parent saying "I had to be both mother and father to you ever since (Jean or Gene) ran off with...that thing". The co-workers start to sing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow", but have to change "he's" to "Pat's." Chris Rock had a minor role as a messenger.


title: Pat (Saturday Night Live)

text: Aired November 16, 1991 (Season 17, Episode 6). Linda Hamilton was the host in this episode, in which Pat decides to join a gym. Gym employee Andrea (Hamilton) cannot figure out their sex, so, filling in the application form, she asks for "age? ... height? ... sex?" and looks up hopefully. Pat says, "'Yes, please!' [stuttery laugh] That's my little joke." When they are asked for a middle name, the eager audience then finds out that the middle name is "O'Neill," again continuing the joke. (Pat never uses the middle name, as it is "embarrassing".) Andrea keeps trying: "Would you say that you're in good health? Do you have regular periods..." When Pat stares at her, Andrea hurriedly finishes, "... of activity?" Andrea tries again: "What kind of body are you going for? I mean, do you want a muscular V-shape?" (That would suggest Pat is male.) "Or something a little more curvy?" They reply, "Well, I just saw the movie "Return to the Blue Lagoon". I'd sure like a body like that!" Andrea does not know whether they are referring to Milla Jovovich or Brian Krause. Andrea and fellow gym employee Ron (Tim Meadows) ask Pat which of them they would be more attracted to; Pat objects to the question; they suggest that Pat should go to the locker room. Just as the audience is about to see whether they enter either the men's or the women's, Kevin Nealon as a TV news anchor on "Weekend Update" interrupts with a Special Report alert. Upon returning to the Pat sketch, Andrea and Ron are laughing, with Andrea saying, "I guess our question is finally answered!", but only the studio audience might have seen which door Pat entered; the television viewer is still in the dark.


title: Pat (Saturday Night Live)

text: Aired on January 11, 1992 (Season 17, Episode 10) with Sweeney playing alongside Kevin Nealon as Bill, host Rob Morrow as Frank, Victoria Jackson as Dina, Dana Carvey and Mike Myers as guests, and Phil Hartman as the Narrator.


title: Pat (Saturday Night Live)

text: Aired April 11, 1992 (Season 17, Episode 17). In honor of having Sharon Stone as the host, Pat is brought in for a "Basic Instinct" interrogation process. The interrogators are played by Chris Farley, Dana Carvey, and Phil Hartman. The questions are sexual in nature: "Did you and Chris play any kind of games in bed?" Pat replies, "Role reversal! We felt it kept the relationship alive!" When asked, "Which one of you put on the condom?", Pat says, "We put it on together." Hartman asks, "if you were a baby, what color would your Pampers be, pink or blue?" Pat sounds surprised: "Diapers were all white back then!" Interrogator #2 (Carvey, who usually played Chris) begins to rant: "You're lying, Pat, you're lying! You're not telling the truth, and by God I'm gonna find out! You're not telling the truth, Pat, I'm gonna figure you out! I'm gonna figure you out!"


title: Pat (Saturday Night Live)

text: Aired October 10, 1992 (Season 18, Episode 3). The "SNL" cast wrote a spoof of the 1992 film "Single White Female", in which Melanie Hutsell as Hedra, using a wig to look androgynous, plays a new roommate who becomes obsessed with wanting to look like and be like Pat. Other characters are played by David Spade as a prospective tenant who flees, Joe Pesci as Graham Knox, and Dana Carvey as Pat's love interest Chris.


title: Pat (Saturday Night Live)

text: Graham tries to warn Pat about Hedra, but they cannot understand why anyone would obsess. "Well, maybe she's in love with you. Maybe she's gay. Or, or straight. Or bi." Hedra enters, wearing the same clothes, glasses, and short curly hair as Pat's. Graham says, "Just look at the two of you. You look like bro... sist... twins."


title: Pat (Saturday Night Live)

text: Aired October 24, 1992 (Season 18, Episode 4). Pat is hired by a new firm. Carl (Walken), an account executive, has returned to work from needing a leave for psychiatric problems. As the co-workers gather in the office, he expresses his extreme perplexity and discomfort around Pat to Phil Hartman. At last he is driven insane by the enigma of Pat and dives out the window.


title: Pat (Saturday Night Live)

text: Aired January 16, 1993 (Season 18, Episode 11). Harvey Keitel plays a shipwrecked sailor on a desert island, who has grown lonesome is then greeted by another castaway, who turns out to be Pat. Pat gives Pat's typical ambiguity, telling of the situation where Pat was on a luxury cruise playing shuffleboard "The battle of the sexes, and we won!" when the ship was attacked by a violent storm and Pat was thrashed overboard and ended up on the sailor's island. Although Keitel was made up to have some ambiguity such as long hair, it was obvious he was male as he wrote in his journal "I miss the intimacy of a woman, or at least some good male companionship". Later, the sailor asks Pat what sex is Pat. When Pat is about to speak, Adam Sandler is in the audience, breaking the fourth wall. He tells Pat that NBC is going through hard times with the departure of David Letterman and if Pat spoils the joke then "Saturday Night Live" will be ruined because NBC will be bereft of all comedy.


title: Pat (Saturday Night Live)

text: Quentin Tarantino told "Playboy" in 1994, "There was only one sketch that Julia Sweeney, the actress who plays Pat did on "Saturday Night Live" that gave a clue to what Pat is. It was the sketch that Pat did with Harvey Keitel. And the thing is, they kissed in it. At one point they were thinking of taking the kiss out of the sketch. But Harvey, being Harvey, demanded they keep it in, that there'd be no integrity without the kiss. So that was the first time we'd seen Pat in an intimate situation – a smooch. There is a certain way that you hold your head, the way you come in for a kiss. And sitting there, watching it, I thought that Pat didn't kiss like a guy. Pat kissed like a girl."


title: Pat (Saturday Night Live)

text: Aired March 20, 1993 (Season 18, Episode 16). In a spoof of the movie "The Crying Game", Pat sings the title song.


title: Pat (Saturday Night Live)

text: Aired on May 14, 1994 (Season 19, Episode 20). Pat appears at the end of the episode, alongside other recurring characters, singing "So Long, Farewell".


title: Pat (Saturday Night Live)

text: A writer for "Splitsider" wrote, "While she brought plenty of squeaky energy to her four-year stint at "SNL", Julia Sweeney is known best for creating the most unnerving character in the show's history, the sex-unspecific nerd Pat. With fourteen "SNL" appearances, not to mention an Emmy Awards ceremony cameo and 1994 feature film, the grating, whiny, yet perennially enigmatic Pat continues to be hailed as one of the show's most annoying — and oddly groundbreaking — recurring characters. In fact, "SNL"'s recurring character mold, as well as male/female cast member divide, would have gone largely untested without Pat's existence. And for a featured player whose first year was spent in an overcrowded cast with 13 men and a mere 3 women, perhaps Sweeney sensed that a joke on the sex issue was the best way to get around it. Whatever the case, Pat's smarmy, pleading face will, for better or worse, remain the thing on "SNL" for which Sweeney is most remembered... Pat was a creepy yet instant recurring character hit..."


title: Pat (Saturday Night Live)

text: Pat was selected as #17 of "The 30 Best "Saturday Night Live" Characters" by "Paste" magazine in 2012: "Pat is probably a woman, but that doesn't really matter. Call her Patrick, call him Patricia. Just don't mistake him for the coach of a professional basketball team—or ask her middle name or any sex identifying questions for that matter. It won't affect Pat, it'll just drive you crazy."


title: Pat (Saturday Night Live)

text: Years after the sketches aired, Joey Soloway said they felt the premise and character were painful to non-binary and transgender people. Responding to Soloway's comments in 2019, Sweeney acknowledged that today "you would not make fun of somebody for being that way" and that the character was a bygone of "a whole other world."


title: Pat (Saturday Night Live)

text: The 2019 Showtime television show "Work in Progress" has suggested that the character was troublesome to non-binary and transgender people.


title: Pat (Saturday Night Live)

text: The character's popularity gave rise to a feature-length 1994 film called "It's Pat" (from the lyrics of the character's theme song on "Saturday Night Live"). Quentin Tarantino did an uncredited rewrite of the script. The film was a critical and commercial bomb.


title: Pat (Saturday Night Live)

text: Julia Sweeney wrote on her "Pat" website, "I wrote "It's Pat" with Jim Emerson and Steve Hibbert. We had a great time writing and a lot of fun making the film. The movie didn't do well at the box office, not by a long shot. In fact, "It's Pat" became a popular example of a film so despised that it got a zero percent Rotten Tomatoes rating! I guess in that way, it's sort of a badge of honor.But I can't help it, I love this film. It has so many people in it who I love, and loved. Many are dead: Charlie Rocket, who played Kyle, and Julie Hayden who played his wife (who died of cancer a couple of years after the film premiered,) my dad who played the priest who married us, and my brother Mike who had one line at the wedding shower of Pat and Chris. And there are so many good friends in the film too: Kathy Griffin and Dave Foley and Kathy Najimy and Tim Stack and Tim Meadows. And the band Ween! We had so much fun together."


title: Pat (Saturday Night Live)

text: Pat meets Chris, another sexually-ambiguous character, played by Dave Foley. (On "SNL", Chris had been played by Dana Carvey.) They quickly fall in love, and they propose to each other at exactly the same time. Before the wedding, Chris breaks up with Pat due to Pat's arrogance and lack of direction in life; Pat has a brief stint in a rock band, and Pat starts to believe that they are going to be an overnight celebrity. Meanwhile, Pat has become an object of obsession of a neighbor (Charles Rocket), who is so determined to discover Pat's sex that he goes insane. Pat's sex is never revealed in the film. At the end of the film, Pat and Chris are reunited, and, in an epilogue, they marry.


title: Pat (Saturday Night Live)

text: Sweeney helped co-write "It's Pat!: My Life Exposed", a book which coincided with the film's release. Pat's sex is not revealed within its 96 pages.


title: Pat (Saturday Night Live)

text: The character has been described as "hermaphroditic" in the book "The Guide to United States Popular Culture". The book "Creating Contexts for Learning and Self-authorship: Constructive-developmental Pedagogy", states that the character's "gender is never revealed". Sweeney herself has not confirmed Pat's sex and denies that Pat is transgender.


title: Pat (Saturday Night Live)

text: Norm Macdonald said that after he joined the show, on the night the cast watched the debut of "Late Night with Conan O'Brien", Farley "said 'I gotta tell you a secret about "SNL" ... He secreted me into this room, he locked it, made sure it wasn't bugged and everything ... I was very honored to have this. And then his secret was, he said, 'This doesn't go past these walls. "Pat ... is a woman!"'"


title: Kairouan

text: Kairouan (, ), also spelled El Qayrawān or Kairwan ( , ), is the capital of the Kairouan Governorate in Tunisia and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city was founded by the Umayyads around 670, in the period of Caliph Mu'awiya (reigned 661–680); this is when it became an important centre for Sunni Islamic scholarship and Quranic learning, attracting Muslims from various parts of the world, next only to Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. The Mosque of Uqba is situated in the city.


title: Kairouan

text: The name ( "al-Qayrawān") is an Arabic word meaning "military group" or "caravan", borrowed early on from the Middle Persian word "kārawān" (modern Persian "kârvân"), meaning "military column" ("kâr" "people/military" + "vân" "outpost") or "caravan" (see caravanserai). In Berber, the city used to be called "Tikirwan", thought to be an adaptation of the Arabic name.


title: Kairouan

text: Kairouan, the capital of Kairouan Governorate, lies south of Sousse, from the east coast, from Monastir and from Tunis.


title: Kairouan

text: The foundation of Kairouan dates to about the year 670 when the Arab general Uqba ibn Nafi of Caliph Mu'awiya selected a site in the middle of a dense forest, then infested with wild beasts and reptiles, as the location of a military post for the conquest of the West. Formerly, the city of Kamounia was located where Kairouan now stands. It had housed a Byzantine garrison before the Arab conquest, and stood far from the sea – safe from the continued attacks of the Berbers who had fiercely resisted the Arab invasion. Berber resistance continued, led first by Kusaila, whose troops killed Uqba at Biskra about fifteen years after the establishment of the military post, and then by a Berber woman called Al-Kahina who was killed and her army defeated in 702. Subsequently, there occurred a mass conversion of the Berbers to Islam. Kharijites or Islamic "outsiders" who formed an egalitarian and puritanical sect appeared and are still present on the island of Djerba.


title: Kairouan

text: In October, 741, in the course of the Great Berber Revolt in the Maghreb, the Ifriqiyan army, along with a Syrian force dispatched by the caliph, was destroyed by the Berbers at the Battle of Bagdoura. The governor Kulthum ibn Iyad al-Qasi perished in the field, his nephew and successor Balj ibn Bishr al-Qushayri was holed up with the remnant of the army in Spain, leaving the whole of Ifriqiya open to the advance of the Berber rebels. Not having any more forces at his disposal, the Umayyad Caliph Hisham quickly appointed Handhala ibn Safwan as governor of Ifriqiya, with supervisory authority over all the Maghreb (North Africa west of Egypt) and al-Andalus (Spain), and instructed him to take whatever forces he could gather to defend Ifriqiya and quash the Berber rebellion. Leaving Egypt in the hand of Hafs ibn al-Walid ibn Yusuf al-Hadrami, Handhala set out westwards in February 742, picking up additional forces from Barqa (Cyrenaica) and Tripoli (Tripolitana). He arrived in Kairouan around April, 742. The qadi of Ifriqiya, Abd al-Rahman ibn Oqba al-Ghaffari, had been managing the defense of Kairouan, and succeeded in fending off an attack by the Berber rebel army raised in southern Tunisia by the Sufrite leader Oqasha ibn Ayub al-Fezari. Handhala ibn Safwan arrived in Kairouan just as Oqasha was said to be mounting a new attack, in coordination with another large Berber army coming in from the west, led by Abd al-Wahid ibn Yazid al-Hawwari. The Berber rebel armies were to make junction in front of Kairouan, before launching their final attack on the city. Wasting no time, Handhala dispatched a cavalry force to slow down Abd al-Wahid's progress, and threw the bulk of his forces south, defeating Oqasha in a bloody battle at El-Qarn and taking him prisoner. But Handhala had taken a lot of losses himself, and now faced the unhappy prospect of Abd al-Wahid's gigantic army, said to be some 300,000, ostensibly the largest Berber army ever seen. Hurrying back, Handhala is said to have put the entire population of Kairouan under arms to bolster his ranks, before setting out again. In perhaps the bloodiest encounter in the Berber wars, Handhala ibn Safwan defeated the great Berber army of Abd al-Wahid ibn Yazid at El-Asnam in May 742 (perhaps a little later), just three miles outside of Kairouan. Some 120,000–180,000 Berbers, including Abd al-Wahid, fell in the field of battle in that single encounter.


title: Kairouan

text: In 745, Kharijite Berbers captured Kairouan, which was already at that time a developed city with luxuriant gardens and olive groves. Power struggles continued until Ibrahim ibn al-Aghlab recaptured Kairouan at the end of the 8th century.


title: Kairouan

text: In 800 Caliph Harun ar-Rashid in Baghdad confirmed Ibrahim as Emir and hereditary ruler of Ifriqiya. Ibrahim ibn al-Aghlab founded the Aghlabid dynasty which ruled Ifriqiya between 800 and 909. The new Emirs embellished Kairouan and made it their capital. It soon became famous for its wealth and prosperity, reaching the levels of Basra and Kufa and giving Tunisia one of its golden ages long sought after the glorious days of Carthage.


title: Kairouan

text: The Aghlabites built the great mosque and established in it a university that was a centre of education both in Islamic thought and in the secular sciences. Its role can be compared to that of the University of Paris in the Middle Ages. In the 9th century, the city became a brilliant focus of Arab and Islamic cultures attracting scholars from all over the Islamic World. In that period Imam Sahnun and Asad ibn al-Furat made of Kairouan a temple of knowledge and a magnificent centre of diffusion of Islamic sciences. The Aghlabids also built palaces, fortifications and fine waterworks of which only the pools remain. From Kairouan envoys from Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire returned with glowing reports of the Aghlabites palaces, libraries and gardens – and from the crippling taxation imposed to pay for their drunkenness and sundry debaucheries. The Aghlabite also pacified the country and conquered Sicily in 827.


title: Kairouan

text: In 893, through the mission of Abdullah al Mahdi, the Kutama Berbers from the west of the country started the movement of the Shiite Fatimids. The year 909 saw the overthrow of the Sunni Aghlabites who ruled Ifriqiya and the establishment of the Fatimid dynasty. During the rule of the Fatimids, Kairouan was neglected and lost its importance: the new rulers resided first in Raqqada but soon moved their capital to the newly built Al Mahdiyah on the eastern coast of Tunisia. After succeeding in extending their rule over all of central Maghreb, an area consisting of the modern countries of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya, they eventually moved east to Egypt to found Cairo making it the capital of their vast Caliphate and leaving the Zirids as their vassals in Ifriqiya. Governing again from Kairouan, the Zirids led the country through another artistic, commercial and agricultural heyday. Schools and universities flourished, overseas trade in local manufactures and farm produce ran high and the courts of the Zirids rulers were centres of refinement that eclipsed those of their European contemporaries. When the Zirids declared their independence from Cairo and their conversion to Sunni Islam in 1045 by giving allegiance to Baghdad, the Fatimid Caliph Ma'ad al-Mustansir Billah sent as punishment hordes of troublesome Arab tribes (Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym) to invade Ifriqiya. These invaders so utterly captured Kairouan from the Zirids in 1057 and destroyed it that it never regained its former importance and their influx was a major factor in the spread of nomadism in areas where agriculture had previously been dominant. Some 1,700 years of intermittent but continual progress was undone within a decade as in most part of the country the land was laid to waste for nearly two centuries. In the 13th century under the prosperous Hafsids dynasty that ruled Ifriqiya, the city started to emerge from its ruins. It is only under the Husainid Dynasty that Kairouan started to find an honorable place in the country and throughout the Islamic world. In 1881, Kairouan was taken by the French, after which non-Muslims were allowed access to the city. The French built the Sousse–Kairouan Decauville railway, which operated from 1882 to 1996, before it was regauged to gauge.


title: Kairouan

text: Between the 9th and 11th centuries AD, Kairouan functioned as one of the great centers of Islamic civilization and gained a reputation as a hotbed of scholarship across the entire Maghreb. During this period, the Great Mosque of Kairouan became both a place of prayer and a center for teaching Islamic sciences under the Maliki current. A unique religious tradition practiced in Kairouan was the use of Islamic law to enforce monogamy by stipulating it in the marriage contract. Local tradition holds that seven pilgrimages to the Great Mosque equals one pilgrimage to Mecca, which according to some, made Kairouan the fourth holiest city in Islam after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. As of 2004, the city contained 89 mosques. Sufi festivals are held in the city in memory of saints.


title: Kairouan

text: Before the arrival of the French in 1881, non-Muslims were forbidden from living in Kairouan. A Christian community had existed during the early 11th century alongside Jews who were among the original settlers of Kairouan. The Jewish community's golden era began in the late 8th century and lasted until the early 11th century during which time it played an important role in Jewish history, having been a world center of Talmudic and Halakhic scholarship for at least three generations. The Banu Hilal conquest of Kairouan in 1057 led to the decline of the medieval community with Jews only returning after Tunisia was established as a French protectorate in 1881. By the 1960s the community had disappeared, and all that remains is their dilapidated cemetery.


title: Kairouan

text: The city's main landmark is the Great Mosque of Sidi-Uqba (also known as the Great Mosque of Kairouan) which is one of the most impressive and largest Islamic monuments in North Africa. Originally built when Kairouan was founded in 670 AD, the mosque currently occupies an area of over and is one of the oldest places of worship in the Islamic world. The mosque became a center of education both in Islamic thought and in the secular sciences and helped the city to develop and expand.


title: Kairouan

text: The Mosque of the Three Gates was founded in 866. Its façade is a notable example of Islamic architecture. It has three arched doorways surmounted by three inscriptions in Kufic script, interspersed with floral and geometrical reliefs and topped by a carved frieze; the first inscription includes the verses 70–71 in the sura 33 of Quran. The small minaret was added during the restoration works held under the Hafsid dynasty. The prayer hall has a nave and two aisles, divided by arched columns, parallel to the qibla wall.


title: Kairouan

text: The Mausoleum of Sidi Sahab, generally known as the Mosque of the Barber, is actually a zaouia located inside the city walls. It was built by the Muradid Hammuda Pasha Bey (mausoleum, dome and court) and Murad II Bey (minaret and madrasa). In its present state, the monument dates from the 17th century.


title: Kairouan

text: The mosque is a veneration place for Abu Zama' al-Balaui, a companion of the prophet Muhammad, who, according to a legend, had saved for himself three hairs of Muhammad's beard, hence the edifice's name. The sepulchre place is accessed from a cloister-like court with richly decorated ceramics and stuccoes.


title: Kairouan

text: The Aghlabid basins are a Tunisian historical monument located in Kairouan. Dating from the 9th century and located outside the ramparts of the medina of Kairouan, they are considered to be the most important hydraulic systems in the history of the Muslim world. The structure covers an area of 11,000 square meters and consists of a small settling basin, a large basin for storing water and two drawing tanks, all having a total storage capacity of 68,800 cubic meters.


title: Kairouan

text: The Kairouan region currently has 167 industrial companies offering more than 10,000 jobs, of which 33 are fully exporters.


title: Kairouan

text: The industrial activities of the region are quite diversified, although the agrifood industry sector is preeminent with 91 units.


title: Kairouan

text: The governorate of Kairouan is known mainly for the production of vegetables (peppers, tomatoes) and fruits (apricots, almonds and olives). It is the leading national producer of chili peppers with nearly 90,000 tonnes in 2019, as well as apricots with more than 15,000 tonnes.


title: Kairouan

text: Kairouan is one of the four most visited sites in Tunisia along with Carthage, El Jem and Le Bardo as historic sites. Tourist activity is essentially, if not almost exclusively, a cultural activity focused on the sites and monuments of the city of Kairouan.


title: Kairouan

text: Kairouan was used as a filming location for the 1981 film "Raiders of the Lost Ark", standing in for Cairo. As the film is set in 1936, television antennas throughout the city were taken down for the duration of filming.


title: Atopy

text: Atopy is the tendency to produce an exaggerated immunoglobulin E (IgE) immune response to otherwise harmless substances in the environment. Allergic diseases are clinical manifestations of such inappropriate, atopic responses.


title: Atopy

text: Atopy may have a hereditary component, although contact with the allergen or irritant must occur before the hypersensitivity reaction can develop (characteristically after re-exposure). Maternal psychological trauma "in utero" may also be a strong indicator for development of atopy.


title: Atopy

text: The term "atopy" was coined by Arthur F. Coca and Robert Cooke in 1923. Many physicians and scientists use the term "atopy" for any IgE-mediated reaction (even those that are appropriate and proportional to the antigen), but many pediatricians reserve the word "atopy" for a genetically mediated predisposition to an excessive IgE reaction. The term is from Greek ἀτοπία meaning "the state of being out of place", "absurdity".


title: Atopy

text: Atopic sensitization is considered IgE positivity or prick test positivity to any common food- or air-borne allergen. Atopic conditions are considered: atopic dermatitis, allergic rhinitis (hay fever), allergic asthma, atopic keratoconjunctivitis. The likelihood of having asthma, rhinitis and atopic dermatitis together is 10 times higher than could be expected by chance. Atopy is more common among individuals with a number of different conditions, such as eosinophilic esophagitis and non-celiac gluten sensitivity.


title: Atopy

text: In an allergic reaction, initial exposure to an otherwise harmless exogenous substance (known as an allergen) triggers the production of specific IgE antibodies by activated B cells. These IgE antibodies bind to the surface of mast cells via high-affinity IgE receptors, a step that is not itself associated with a clinical response. However, upon re-exposure, the allergen binds to membrane-bound IgE which activates the mast cells, releasing a variety of mediators. This type I hypersensitivity reaction is the basis of the symptoms of allergic reactions, which range from sneezing and rhinorrhoea to anaphylaxis. Allergens can be a number of different substances, for example pollen, dander, dust mites, and foods.


title: Atopy

text: Atopic reactions are caused by localized hypersensitivity reactions to an allergen. Atopy appears to show a strong hereditary component. One study concludes that the risk of developing atopic dermatitis (3%) or atopy in general (7%) "increases by a factor of two with each first-degree family member already suffering from atopy". As well, maternal stress and perinatal programming is increasingly understood as a root cause of atopy, finding that "...trauma may be a particularly robust potentiator of the cascade of biological events that increase vulnerability to atopy and may help explain the increased risk found in low-income urban populations."


title: Atopy

text: Environmental factors are also thought to play a role in the development of atopy, and the 'hygiene hypothesis' is one of the models that may explain the steep rise in the incidence of atopic diseases, though this hypothesis is incomplete and in some cases, contradictory to findings. This hypothesis proposes that excess 'cleanliness' in an infant's or child's environment can lead to a decline in the number of infectious stimuli that are necessary for the proper development of the immune system. The decrease in exposure to infectious stimuli may result in an imbalance between the infectious-response ("protective") elements and the allergic-response ("false alarm") elements within the immune system.


title: Atopy

text: Some studies also suggest that the maternal diet during pregnancy may be a causal factor in atopic diseases (including asthma) in offspring, suggesting that consumption of antioxidants, certain lipids, and/or a Mediterranean diet may help to prevent atopic diseases.


title: Atopy

text: A Swedish research study titled "Atopy In Children Of Families With An Anthroposophic Lifestyle" comparing the rate of bronchial asthma, allergies, dermatitis, and other atopic diseases among Steiner school pupils and pupils in public schools originally appeared in the May 1, 1999, edition of the British medical journal The Lancet. The findings indicated that Steiner school pupils were "at a significantly lower risk of atopy" than children attending public schools. The researchers investigated a variety of factors in the lives of the Steiner school pupils that might have contributed to this lower rate of atopy, which included breastfeeding, reduced immunization, avoidance of antibiotics and medications that reduce fevers, consumption of bio-dynamic and organic foods, and other physical aspects of the children's lives.


title: Atopy

text: The multicenter PARSIFAL study in 2006, involving 6,630 children age 5 to 13 in 5 European countries, suggested that reduced use of antibiotics and antipyretics is associated with a reduced risk of allergic disease in children.


title: Atopy

text: There is a strong genetic predisposition toward atopic allergies, especially on the maternal side. Because of the strong familial evidence, investigators have tried to map susceptibility genes for atopy. Genes for atopy (C11orf30, STAT6, SLC25A46, HLA-DQB1, IL1RL1/IL18R1, TLR1/TLR6/TLR10, LPP, MYC/PVT1, IL2/ADAD1, HLA-B/MICA) tend to be involved in allergic responses or other components of the immune system. The gene C11orf30 seems to be the most relevant for atopy as it may increase susceptibility to poly-sensitization.


title: Atopy

text: Bleach baths provide temporary control of eczema. Ciprofloxacin is an allergen that may cause contact dermatitis, symptoms of which are indistinguishable from eczema. Filaggrin mutations are associated with atopic eczema and may contribute to the excessive dryness of the skin and the loss of the barrier function of normal skin. It may be possible that the filaggrin mutations and the loss of the normal skin barrier expose crevices that make it possible for "Staphylococcus aureus" to colonize the skin. Atopic eczema is often associated with genetic defects in genes that control allergic responses. Thus, some investigators have proposed that atopic eczema is an allergic response to increased "Staphylococcus aureus" colonization of the skin. A hallmark indicator of atopic eczema is a positive wheal and flare reaction to a skin test of "S. aureus" antigens. In addition, several studies have documented that an IgE-mediated response to "S. aureus" is present in people with atopic eczema.


title: Atopy

text: In adults, the prevalence of IgE sensitization to allergens from house dust mite and cat, but not grass, seems to decrease over time as people age. However, the biological reasons for these changes are not fully understood.


title: Atopy

text: Treatments for atopic disorders depend on the organ(s) involved. They can vary from local treatment options, often topical corticosteroids, to systemic treatment options with oral corticosteroids, biological treatments (e.g. omalizumab, mepolizumab) or allergen immunotherapy.


title: Jaguar XF (X260)

text: The Jaguar XF (X260) is an executive/mid-size luxury sports saloon manufactured and marketed by the Jaguar Cars brand of Jaguar Land Rover in sedan/saloon and station wagon/estate body styles. Following the first generation steel-bodied X250 XF introduced in 2007, the second-generation XF sedan/saloon debuted at the 2015 New York International Auto Show, noted for its aluminium bodywork.


title: Jaguar XF (X260)

text: As of 2022, the XF has been downgraded to compete in the D-segment while retaining its E-segment exterior dimensions.


title: Jaguar XF (X260)

text: The XF is an evolution of the original J-Blade design pioneered in the X250 XF, with a largely similar silhouette. Effort was made to build a uniform design language across Jaguar's saloon range.


title: Jaguar XF (X260)

text: The X260 XF uses 83 percent all-new parts compared with the previous model. The car is shorter than the predecessor. Bodywork uses aluminium as the primary component of the body structure and chassis; the XF's bodyside panel is a single aluminium pressing.


title: Jaguar XF (X260)

text: The chassis featured a fully independent suspension, including multiple "modes" in the S model providing either maximum comfort, maximum performance, or a setting in between. The standard model in the USA featured a P250 247 HP Ingenium engine. Optional power included the P300 296 HP turbo 4 and the P380 380 HP supercharged V6 for the performance-oriented S model. Diesel engines, while available in other markets, were not available to customers in North America.


title: Jaguar XF (X260)

text: The Sportbrake was introduced for sale in the USA in 2018 where it was positioned as a competitor for other high performance "station wagons." It was initially available only in S trim for North America, with the high performance F-Type 3.0L supercharged 380 HP engine and all wheel drive. The XF S in sportbrake trim was able to accelerate from 0- in 5.0 seconds.


title: Jaguar XF (X260)

text: A long-wheelbase version debuted at the 2016 Beijing Motor Show, with added to the wheelbase giving rear passengers more legroom and more kneeroom. As the car is designed for chauffeur driven drivers in mind, therefore standard equipment includes folding tables, massaging seats, electric window blinds and eight-inch screens integrated in the back of the front-seat headrests.


title: Jaguar XF (X260)

text: It is the first aluminium-bodied car built in China with the debut of some new features, with Clear Exit Detection warning passengers of opening the doors into traffic approaching from behind. The XFL comes with a new cabin air ionisation technology to make the air inside the car more comfortable. For the driver, the InControl Touch Pro infotainment system with its 10.2-inch touchscreen works alongside a configurable 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster which works together with a 17-speaker, 825-watt Meridian Surround Sound System. Rear passengers have access to a wide array of buttons as well as to 2 HDMI ports, 2 USB 3.0 ports, and a 12V power socket.


title: Jaguar XF (X260)

text: The 2.0-litre I4 engine is offered in power output configurations and a 3.0-litre supercharged V6 engine is also offered as the ultimate engine option, with all versions coming with an automatic transmission. The long wheelbase models come with four-wheel-drive only. Due to the long wheelbase and added features, the XFL weighs more than the standard XF.


title: Jaguar XF (X260)

text: On 22 September 2016, the Jaguar XF was launched in India for Rs. 4,750,000 onwards. The engines offered for the Indian market include the 2.0-litre Ingenium petrol and diesel I4 engines. The XF is assembled in India from complete knock-down kits alongside the XE and F-Pace.


title: Jaguar XF (X260)

text: Manual transmission was introduced for the first time in the second generation of Jaguar XF. Previously there was only automatic transmission available.


title: Home (Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros song)

text: "Home" is a song written and recorded by American group Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. It was released in January 2010 as the second single from the album, "Up from Below". The song came in at number 73 on Australian radio station Triple J's 100 hottest songs of the past 20 years.


text: The song is a duet between Alex Ebert and Jade Castrinos, with portions of spoken word from both. It features prominent use of whistling. In total, the song has nearly three minutes of whistling, including the opening melody. Other instruments include guitar, piano, and trumpet.


text: A music video for the song features a selection of clips of the band on tour in Australia. It was made by Ryan Gall, with cinematography from Gall, Petey Klein, Stephen Frizza and Hamish Siddins.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: Before properly being called a pro gamer from signing a sponsorship deal with Mad Catz, Japanese media usually referred to Daigo as .


title: Daigo Umehara

text: Daigo began going to an arcade game center and playing fighting games as an elementary school student around 10 years of age. "Street Fighter II" and "" had recently been released and were Daigo's first two fighting games. "Street Fighter II" often had a very long line with older players, so he began learning "Fatal Fury" first. After some time and due to the limited time he could stay at the game center, Daigo started challenging other players in "Street Fighter II<nowiki>'</nowiki>" ("Champion Edition") for an opportunity to play even though he felt shy and had to ask for permission. This was when he discovered that he preferred competing with other players.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: Around the time when he was a 13-year-old middle school student, Daigo shifted his main game to "" because he thought he was more skilled in that game than in "Street Fighter II". He developed a reputation in "Vampire Hunter" by setting a 286-win streak record in a single outing before he was forced to leave due to Akihabara Sega (now Club Sega) game center closing for the day. Umehara enrolled in his first tournament when he entered GAMEST Cup's national "Vampire Hunter" tournament in 1995, losing in the block's finals. His first tournament victory came at his second tournament, GAMEST Cup's national "Vampire Savior" tournament in 1997, where he defeated Ōnuki (now Nuki) in the finals.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: In 1998, at the age of 17 Daigo participated in Capcom's official "Street Fighter Zero 3" national tournament and advanced to the finals which took place on a stage in Tokyo Game Show 1998: Autumn on October 11. After winning the tournament by defeating Ōnuki 3-1, Daigo, as the champion, went on to face Alex Valle, the winner of the U.S. national "Street Fighter Alpha 3" tournament. The international "Grand Championship" was held in San Francisco, California on November 8. This was Daigo's first trip to the U.S. and his first overseas tournament appearance. The match was best of three games, with five-round games. Daigo came from behind to win 2-1. Both events aired as a 50-minute TV report in Japan.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: In September 2001, Daigo's popularity led to the publishing of a mini-autobiography called VERSUS (known as "Umehon" (ウメ本) or "Ume Book" by fans). The book's content is separated into six chapters chronicling the games in which he competes and includes background stories, anecdotes of competitions, and analysis of his opponents.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: In 2002, Daigo appeared in a U.S. versus Japan exhibition in Japan. American players competed in four games ("Super Street Fighter II Turbo", "Street Fighter Alpha 3", "Street Fighter III 3rd Strike" and "") for the right to battle Japan's best players in those respective games. Umehara only entered the "3rd Strike" exhibition, but defeated all of his opponents, ending each round with Ken's fierce Shoryuken. These events were filmed for the documentary "Bang the Machine".


title: Daigo Umehara

text: In 2003, Daigo won the "Super Street Fighter II Turbo" tournament in the first Super Battle Opera (Tougeki) and won the same game in Evolution Championship Series when he joined the event for the first time in the same year, making him the first player to win both the SBO and Evolution in the same year on the same game. Umehara also went to Evolution 2004 and Absolution 2004 on April 18 in England and won on "SSFII Turbo" there.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: Daigo has participated regularly in a number of tournaments, appearing in at least one each year since his start in 1997, with a brief hiatus in 2008.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: Throughout his career, Daigo Umehara's main character has been Ryu and his play style based on "zoning" (keeping the opponent at a specific distance) even though he is also adept in close combat. Since "Street Fighter V"'s balance patch in December 2016 that nerfed Ryu to balance the game, Daigo switched to Guile, a "charge" character. Daigo said, "I don't care if I play a top tier character. I don't need to pick a top tier character, but I want to have a character that can fight the top tiers. It's boring if you go to tournament and you know you're going to run into a really bad match up, it's like 'Oh, I can't win because of the match up'". Hesitating between Urien and Guile, he finally chose the latter, but decided to try Ryu one more time in "Topanga League 6" and "Final Round 20". His disappointing results (he finished respectively last and 33rd) made him give up on Ryu. Since then, he has continued to play with Guile in spite of a new balance patch that partially restored Ryu in 2017.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: Despite having never matched off against him before, Umehara was known for having a supposed rivalry with the American Justin Wong due to their differences in gaming philosophies. The two players met each other in the loser's finals of Evo 2004's "Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike" tournament. Umehara, playing using the character Ken, was down to his last pixel of vitality and any special attack by Wong's Chun-Li, even if guarded, could knock Ken out. Wong attempted to hit his opponent with Chun-Li's "Super Art" move, forcing Umehara to parry 15 attacks in a very short period of time. Umehara did so successfully and went on to counter a final kick of Chun-Li in mid-air before launching a combo move himself and winning the match. Though Umehara lost the grand finals to Kenji Obata, the clip of him parrying Wong's multihit attack became hugely influential and has been compared to famous sports moments such as Babe Ruth's called shot and the Miracle on Ice.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: "Evo Moment 37", also known as the "Daigo Parry", is frequently described as the most iconic and memorable moment in the history of competitive video gaming. It was at one point the most-watched competitive gaming moment of all time.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: In July 2008, Umehara came out of retirement and became competitive once again. This time, his focus was on the newly released Street Fighter IV. Because of this, Japanese arcade gaming magazine Arcadia has included a DVD featuring "Umehara Concept Matches" in its January 2009 issue (released on November 29, 2008) and "The God has returned" was stated in Umehara's player introduction part. The DVD contains exhibition matches between him and Japan's 6 top players such as Inoue, Itabashi Zangief, Fuudo, Nemo, and Mago.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: On March 5, Umehara made an appearance as the "god of the fighting games world" on the TV show "Gamer's Koshien". He and four other top Japanese players (Soushihan KSK, Itabashi Zangief, Mago, and Tokido) competed with each other and with celebrities in a Street Fighter IV round-robin tournament.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: On April 18, at GameStop's Street Fighter IV National Tournament 2009 in San Francisco, California, four players from three countries held exhibition matches following the main competition. Umehara, who came by Capcom's invitation, defeated players Iyo, Poongko and Justin Wong to win the tournament. For the win, he was awarded a free trip to Evolution 2009 in Las Vegas.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: Umehara began writing a column in Arcadia called Umehara Column: Michi, starting with the August issue. ("Umehara Column: Street")


title: Daigo Umehara

text: Thanks to his win at the GameStop tournament, Umehara entered the Evolution 2009 Street Fighter IV competition as a seeded player in the semi-finals on July 18, which was the second day of the event. In the third and final day, Umehara defeated Justin Wong and placed him in the Losers Bracket, then advanced to the grand finals only to meet Wong again. The two fought until the last game possible, but Umehara ultimately won the competition.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: The September issue of Arcadia magazine included a DVD featuring a set of "Umehara's Concept Matches." This was a follow-up to a previous DVD which released in late 2008.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: Umehara participated in exhibition matches in a Street Fighter IV competition in Taiwan on October 10. The matches were broadcast live on Famitsu's web channel.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: Umehara returned to the United States to join a tournament called Season's Beatings, held October 16–18 in Columbus, Ohio. He won Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix and Street Fighter IV Singles competition.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: In a November interview with Simon Parkin, a 28 year old Daigo stated that he felt he was, currently, at his peak as a gamer. He went on to clarify his claim: "My reactions are probably comparable to when I was younger, but I no longer grow agitated when I'm cornered. Nothing can mentally break me anymore; I have mastered nervousness and tension. I can instantly tell opponents apart and categorize them into groups and types according to their personality and weaknesses. As I haven't felt my physical abilities weakening yet, I think I might be at the peak of my career as a fighting gamer."


title: Daigo Umehara

text: On November 26, Umehara and five other top Japanese Street Fighter IV players joined a Nico Nico live internet show to talk about the second GODSGARDEN tournament. The show also featured an exhibition match between Umehara and Mago.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: Instead of participating in GODSGARDEN #2 (March 6), Umehara flew to France to enter Street Fighter IV tournaments in the World Game Cup gaming event, which took place March 3–7. He placed second in singles and first in 2-on-2.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: On April 4, Umehara and two teammates participated in an official Street Fighter IV National Tournament and qualified for the top 14. His team was eliminated, in the quarter finals.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: Umehara participated in Capcom's Super Street Fighter IV "Fight Club" launch party in Los Angeles, United States on April 23. Umehara held exhibition matches in which he played various characters including Hakan, Guy, and Dee Jay against a dozen challengers. The event closed with a 3-out-of-5 match between Umehara and Justin Wong, ending in a double-K.O. draw which left Umehara undefeated all night. It was also revealed at the event that Umehara had accepted a sponsorship deal with Mad Catz and would play under their name in future tournaments.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: The limited edition of Super Street Fighter IV from the e-CAPCOM store included a special DVD featuring two tournaments between Japan's 8 top players: Umehara, Tokido, Iyo, Shirou, Kin Devu, Momochi, Tokidoki Nukings, and Itabashi Zangief. The Super Street Fighter IV Technical Guide published by Enterbrain which was released on April 28 includes a DVD featuring exhibition matches of the new characters played by Japan's 7 top players: Umehara, Tokido, Kin Devu, Iyo, Momochi, Itabashi Zangief, and Shirou.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: On May 9, Umehara appeared on the NHK Sunday night program "MAG-NET" in a feature about Street Fighter.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: On May 15, Nico Nico Live held a Super Street Fighter IV online competition where participating online players on Xbox Live got a chance to fight Japan's 3 top players: Umehara, Mago, and Tokido. They also held offline matches and a brief talking segment.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: May 29–30, Umehara went to Australia for the first time to participate in Evolution Asia Pacific's Super Street Fighter IV tournament in Sydney. He won the tournament, losing just one game. As the grand prize, he earned a paid flight to Evolution 2010 in Las Vegas where he would start off as a seeded player.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: On June 4, Umehara joined the 106th Xbox Live Park online event held by Microsoft Japan with Famitsu's editorial department. During the two-hour event, participating Xbox Live Gold members had the opportunity to chat and face off with Umehara in Super Street Fighter IV online matches.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: After getting 2nd place in Nagoya Street Battle 15 (July 4), Umehara joined Evolution 2010 on July 9–11 and faced a tougher challenge than before with over 1,700 players from around the world participating in the Super Street Fighter IV tournament. Nevertheless, Umehara secured a win without ever dropping into the Losers bracket. The live stream of the event set a new record with an approximate 48,000 viewers at its peak across its two channels (Stickam 18,000 and Ustream 30,000).


title: Daigo Umehara

text: After winning the qualifier on May 22, Umehara's team participated in the Super Battle Opera 2010 Street Fighter IV finals on September 19 and won second place. The event took place as a part of Tokyo Game Show 2010 at Makuhari Messe International Convention Complex.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: Umehara participated in the Season's Beatings tournament in Ohio for the second time October 15–17, the Southern California Regionals tournament in Los Angeles November 6–7, the Canada Cup in Canada November 13–14, and the Northern California Regionals tournament November 20–21. He also attended an exhibition event in Kuwait on November 26.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: Umehara published his first book on April 2, 2012. The book reached the #1 best-selling spot on Amazon Japan's Kindle store.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: On April 13, 2013, Daigo attended the New York University Game Center's fourth annual Spring Fighter event as a special guest alongside Seth Killian. At the event, Umehara and Killian held a talk, in which Umehara discussed his life in and out of the Street Fighter scene.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: On June 6, 2013, Daigo spoke at the first in a series of seminars hosted by Tohmatsu Innovation Co, Ltd. targeting business executives.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: On August 30, 2013, Daigo had a match against the 2013 EVO Champion Xian. The rule was the first to win 10 matches will be declared the winner. Daigo won the match 10-0 against the world Champion Xian.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: On November 24, 2013, Daigo held a panel at the DODA career fair where he spoke about his experiences as a professional gamer.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: During the Stunfest 2015 final, Daigo managed to pull off an impressive 25-hit combo with Evil Ryu against Ken controlled by Momochi who was the best Ultra Street Fighter IV player of the season according to the Capcom Pro Tour 2015 ranking. The combo thrilled the crowd and was acclaimed by the live french and english commentators. It was selected by Capcom as one of the «Most Hype Moments» of 2015 in a retrospective video. « You could hear the crowd go wild and if you were watching the stream you could see the stream chat go crazy » wrote Capcom in an article, while a french spectator who was in the crowd said that « Daigo's incredible 25-hit combo with Evil Ryu stunned the crowd and the opponent ». Daigo finally won the tournament beating Momochi 3-1, 3-1.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: Umehara penned a foreword for the September issue of Japan's Harvard Business Review, with the title "得意なことより好きなことを追求する" (""Tokui na koto yori suki na koto wo tsuikyuu suru""|"Pursue that which you like rather than that at which you excel").


title: Daigo Umehara

text: In December 2015, Umehara announced his intentions to donate the entirety of his winnings from the Capcom Pro Tour 2015 Finals, a sum of $60,000, to the Evo Scholarship, a New York University scholarship program which offers financial assistance to students wishing to study game design at the NYU Game Center at the Tisch School of the Arts. The NYU Game Center confirmed the $60,000 donation on January 6, 2016.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: The January issue of the Japanese Harvard Business Review featured a twelve-page interview with Umehara entitled, "感情を制するものはゲームを制す" ("Kanjou wo seisuru mono wa game wo seisu"|"He who controls his emotions controls the game.")


title: Daigo Umehara

text: In February 2016, Daigo was narrowly defeated by American rapper and music producer Lupe Fiasco in a "Street Fighter V" exhibition match. The event, organized by former Mad Catz executive Mark Julio, was live streamed to over 75,000 viewers. Several observers noted that Daigo's timing appeared to be off, and that he did not capitalize on key strategic openings during the match.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: On April 26, 2016, Daigo held a talk in conjunction with Mizuho bank and medical professor Yoshiki Ishikawa in Osaka, Japan.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: In May, 2016, Daigo appeared in the Street Fighter documentary, "格闘ゲームに生きる" "(Kakuto geemu ni ikiru | Living the Game)," broadcast on WOWOW. Later that month, the documentary was screened at the Hot Docs Film Festival in Toronto, Canada under the name "Living the Game."


title: Daigo Umehara

text: On June 1, 2016, Japanese publisher Shogakukan released the book "悩みどころと逃げどころ" "(Nayamidokoro to Nigedokoro)," a written discussion between Umehara and the popular Japanese blogger Chikirin.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: In July 2016, an official English translation of Umehara's first book, "The Will to Keep Winning," was sold to Evo attendees as an event exclusive. The book continued to be sold exclusively at fighting game events across the globe throughout the remainder of 2016.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: On September 14, 2016, Umehara announced that he had achieved two new World Records recognized by Guinness World Records: "Most views for a competitive fighting game match" (for his famous match against Justin Wong from Evo 2004) and "Highest all-time rank in Ultra Street Fighter IV." Umehara received official recognition for the records via a ceremony held at Tokyo Game Show.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: On November 30, 2016, Umehara announced that he had entered a new sponsorship deal with gaming headset maker HyperX.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: On December 1, 2016, Red Bull and director Nick McDonald released an eleven-minute documentary on Daigo Umehara entitled, "Mind of a Beast." In the piece, Umehara addressed the pressures of life as a professional gamer, and asserted a distinction between the mythical public figure "Umehara" and the flawed human being, Daigo Umehara.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: On January 19, 2017, Daigo gave a two-hour lecture entitled "1日ひとつだけ、強くなる" ("Ichinichi hitotsu dake, tsuyoku naru"|"Getting Stronger Everyday") at the Keio University Marunouchi City Campus. In the lecture, Daigo discussed the ups and downs of carving out a niche as a professional gamer. He spoke to a sold-out audience.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: On March 1, 2017, Umehara announced that he had entered another sponsorship with Japanese game developer Cygames, alongside fellow pro fighting gamers Darryl "Snake Eyez" Lewis and Eduardo "PR Balrog" Perez. Together, the three athletes donned the moniker "Cygames Beast," sporting T-shirts with a matching new logo.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: From March to May 2017, Umehara participated in the ELEAGUE Street Fighter Invitational, during which he played solely as Guile. Beginning in Group B alongside Snake Eyez and PR Balrog, Umehara pushed his way into the Playoffs, ultimately finishing 8th overall.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: On June 27, Umehara appeared in the Red Bull France-produced documentary, "The Art of Street Fighting" alongside fellow pro gamers Xiao Hai, Gamerbee, Tokido, and Luffy.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: On July 14–16, Umehara participated in EVO 2017. After a no-loss sweep in Round 1, he was bumped into the Losers bracket by Haitani during Round 2, and ultimately eliminated during the Semi-Finals by longtime rival Justin Wong.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: On July 14, Daigo launched the "Beast" apparel brand in conjunction with apparel makers Nsurgo. The brand is represented by Daigo as well as fellow Cygames-sponsored gamers Snake Eyez and PR Balrog.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: On March 10, Daigo was challenged by the EVO champion, Tokido, to a first to 10 Match. Tokido felt very strongly about proving that he was able to beat Daigo. Daigo won 10-5, leaving Tokido frustrated.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: On June 30, Daigo placed 5th/6th in the CPT Premier tournament at Community Efforts Orlando 2019, where he was eliminated by Fujimura.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: On October 27, Daigo placed 7th/8th in the CPT Premier tournament at First Attack 2019, where he was eliminated by JB.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: Despite not winning any major tournaments, Daigo's consistent appearance at international CPT events throughout the year was enough to earn him a qualification spot at the 2019 Capcom Cup finals.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: At the Capcom Cup 2019 finals, Daigo was eliminated by Tokido with a score of 3-2 in the second round of the tournament, leaving him with a tied 17th-24th place finish to end the 2019 competitive Street Fighter V season.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: "Umehara FIGHTING GAMERS!" is a dramatized manga depiction of Umehara's life as a young participant in the Street Fighter arcade scene, and features several noted players from the Japanese fighting game community. The series is considered a flagship title for its publisher, Kadokawa Shoten, who are actively marketing the series and have confirmed plans to serialize it in their seinen comic magazine Young Ace UP.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: The series is illustrated by Kengoro Nishide and written by Saitaru Orika and Maki Tomoi, with Daigo acting as an editorial supervisor.


title: Daigo Umehara

text: On July 14, 2017, the English translation of Daigo's manga series, titled "Daigo the Beast: Umehara Fighting Gamers," debuted with the release of Volume 1 (which compiles the first and second volumes of the Japanese series). The volume, published and translated by Udon Entertainment, was released as an early exclusive for EVO attendees, and is planned for a wider release in December 2017.


title: One Tree Hill (season 6)

text: The sixth season of "One Tree Hill", an American television series, began on September 1, 2008, and concluded on May 18, 2009, with a total of 24 episodes. This is the third season to air on The CW television network. The season's seventh episode, "Messin' with the Kid" achieved a series high in Adults 18–34 with a 2.7 rating.


title: One Tree Hill (season 6)

text: Season six is the final season for original cast members Chad Michael Murray and Hilarie Burton. Their characters, Lucas and Peyton, leave Tree Hill with their newborn baby in the finale.


title: One Tree Hill (season 6)

text: Season 6 begins by revealing the woman Lucas proposed to over the phone. Peyton is faced with difficult decision regarding her health. Nathan tries to make a comeback in basketball, Haley has to make a decision involving her career, Brooke takes in a young girl named Sam and deals with being attacked in her own store, and Dan spends time with Jamie as he waits on a heart transplant. Meanwhile, a movie producer named Julian Baker comes to Tree Hill and wants to make Lucas's book into a movie.


title: One Tree Hill (season 6)

text: The CW announced on March 3, 2008, that "One Tree Hill" was renewed for a sixth season. It was later reported the season would consist of twenty-four episodes, making it the biggest episode order in the series.


title: One Tree Hill (season 6)

text: Brooke begins her battle with her mom, Victoria, who battles to claim Clothes Over Bro's. Lucas and the Ravens basketball team must come to terms with the death of the star player. Nathan begins his comeback, Haley also hits the recording studio, while Peyton and Lucas settle down and begin a family. Brooke, left broken and shaken after her attack, takes in foster child Sam, who was responsible for the attack, and the attacker also turned out to be Q's killer. Nanny Carrie returns, after hitting Dan with a car, and taking him hostage, she lures Haley and Jamie to her, and attacks them, only to be killed by Dan, after weeks of torture. Mouth and Millicent have dramas and depart, while newcomer Julian Baker, rocks Brooke's world and begins to turn Lucas' book into a movie. With Peyton's alarming pregnancy, Lucas' finally allows for a wedding, only for Peyton to collapse at home, and go into a coma. The season finale ends with Brooke and Julian declaring their love for one another, Nathan making it into the NBA, and Lucas and Peyton leave Tree Hill.


title: One Tree Hill (season 6)

text: The season opened to 3.24 million viewers and a 1.7 Adults 18–49 rating. Episode 7 hit series highs in Adults 18–34 with a 2.7 rating, it also hit its second best numbers in The CW's target audience of Women 18–34 with a 4.0 rating. The episode also reached its highest Adults 18–49 rating of the season, with a 1.9. The finale was seen by 2.67 million viewers and achieved a 1.3 Adults 18–49.


title: One Tree Hill (season 6)

text: The DVD release of season six was released after the season has completed broadcast on television. It has been released in Region 1. As well as every episode from the season, the DVD release features bonus material such as audio commentaries on some episodes from the creator and cast, deleted scenes, gag reels and behind-the-scenes featurettes.


title: Jerome Bruner

text: Jerome Seymour Bruner (October 1, 1915 – June 5, 2016) was an American psychologist who made significant contributions to human cognitive psychology and cognitive learning theory in educational psychology. Bruner was a senior research fellow at the New York University School of Law. He received a BA in 1937 from Duke University and a PhD from Harvard University in 1941. He taught and did research at Harvard University, the University of Oxford, and New York University. A "Review of General Psychology" survey, published in 2002, ranked Bruner as the 28th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.


title: Jerome Bruner

text: Bruner was born blind (due to cataracts) on October 1, 1915, in New York City, to Herman and Rose Bruner, who were Polish Jewish immigrants. An operation at age 2 restored his vision. He received a bachelor's of arts degree in Psychology, in 1937 from Duke University, and went on to earn a master's degree in Psychology in 1939 and then a doctorate in Psychology in 1941 from Harvard University. In 1939, Bruner published his first psychological article on the effect of thymus extract on the sexual behavior of the female rat. During World War II, Bruner served on the Psychological Warfare Division of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force committee under General Dwight D. Eisenhower, researching social psychological phenomena.


title: Jerome Bruner

text: In 1945, Bruner returned to Harvard as a psychology professor and was heavily involved in research relating to cognitive psychology and educational psychology. In 1972, Bruner left Harvard to teach at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. He returned to the United States in 1980, to continue his research in developmental psychology. In 1991, Bruner joined the faculty at New York University (NYU), where he taught primarily in the School of Law.


title: Jerome Bruner

text: As an adjunct professor at NYU School of Law, Bruner studied how psychology affects legal practice. During his career, Bruner was awarded honorary doctorates from Yale University, Columbia University, The New School, the Sorbonne, the ISPA Instituto Universitário, as well as colleges and universities in such locations as Berlin and Rome, was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the American Philosophical Society. Bruner is a distinguished member of Psi Chi. He turned 100 in October 2015 and died on June 5, 2016.


title: Jerome Bruner

text: Bruner is one of the pioneers of cognitive psychology in the United States, which began through his own early research on sensation and perception as being active, rather than passive processes.


title: Jerome Bruner

text: In 1947, Bruner published his study "Value and Need as Organizing Factors in Perception", in which children from advantaged and disadvantaged backgrounds were asked to estimate the size of coins or wooden disks the size of American pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters and half-dollars. The results showed that the value and need the poor and rich children associated with coins caused them to significantly overestimate the size of the coins, especially when compared to their more accurate estimations of the same size disks.


title: Jerome Bruner

text: Similarly, another study conducted by Bruner and Leo Postman showed slower reaction times and less accurate answers when a deck of playing cards reversed the color of the suit symbol for some cards (e.g. red spades and black hearts). These series of experiments issued in what some called the 'New Look' psychology, which challenged psychologists to study not just an organism's response to a stimulus, but also its internal interpretation. After these experiments on perception, Bruner turned his attention to the actual cognitions that he had indirectly studied in his perception studies.


title: Jerome Bruner

text: In 1956, Bruner published the book "A Study of Thinking", which formally initiated the study of cognitive psychology. Soon afterward Bruner helped found the Harvard Center of Cognitive Studies. After a time, Bruner began to research other topics in psychology, but in 1990 he returned to the subject and gave a series of lectures, later compiled into the book "Acts of Meaning". In these lectures, Bruner contested the computer model of the mind, advocating a more holistic understanding of cognitive processes.


title: Jerome Bruner

text: Beginning around 1967, Bruner turned his attention to the subject of developmental psychology and studied the way children learn. He coined the term "scaffolding" to describe an instructional process in which the instructor provides carefully programmed guidance, reducing the amount of assistance as the student progresses through task learning. Bruner suggested that students may experience, or "represent" tasks in three ways: enactive representation (action-based), iconic representation (image-based), and symbolic representation (language-based). Rather than neatly delineated stages, the modes of representation are integrated and only loosely sequential as they "translate" into each other. Symbolic representation remains the ultimate mode, and it "is clearly the most mysterious of the three."


title: Jerome Bruner

text: Bruner's learning theory suggests that it is efficacious, when faced with new material, to follow a progression from enactive to iconic to symbolic representation; this holds true even for adult learners. A true instructional designer, Bruner's work also suggests that a learner (even of a very young age) is capable of learning any material so long as the instruction is organized appropriately, in sharp contrast to the beliefs of Piaget and other stage theorists. Like Bloom's Taxonomy, Bruner suggests a system of coding in which people form a hierarchical arrangement of related categories. Each successively higher level of categories becomes more specific, echoing Benjamin Bloom's understanding of knowledge acquisition as well as the related idea of instructional scaffolding.


title: Jerome Bruner

text: In accordance with this understanding of learning, Bruner proposed the spiral curriculum, a teaching approach in which each subject or skill area is revisited at intervals, at a more sophisticated level each time. First there is basic knowledge of a subject, then more sophistication is added, reinforcing principles that were first discussed. This system is used in China and India. Bruner's spiral curriculum, however, draws heavily from evolution to explain how to learn better and thus it drew criticism from conservatives. In the United States classes are split by grade—life sciences in 9th grade, chemistry in 10th, physics in 11th. The spiral teaches life sciences, chemistry, physics all in one year, then two subjects, then one, then all three again to understand how they mold together. Bruner also believes learning should be spurred by interest in the material rather than tests or punishment, since one learns best when one finds the acquired knowledge appealing.


title: Jerome Bruner

text: While Bruner was at Harvard he published a series of works about his assessment of current educational systems and ways that education could be improved. In 1961, he published the book "Process of Education". Bruner also served as a member of the Educational Panel of the President's Science Advisory Committee during the presidencies of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Referencing his overall view that education should not focus merely on memorizing facts, Bruner wrote in "Process of Education" that "knowing how something is put together is worth a thousand facts about it." From 1964 to 1996 Bruner sought to develop a complete curriculum for the educational system that would meet the needs of students in three main areas which he called . Bruner wanted to create an educational environment that would focus on (1) what was uniquely human about human beings, (2) how humans got that way and (3) how humans could become more so. In 1966, Bruner published another book relevant to education, "Towards a Theory of Instruction," and then in 1973, another book, "The Relevance of Education." Finally, in 1996, in "The Culture of Education," Bruner reassessed the state of educational practices three decades after he had begun his educational research. Bruner was also credited with helping found the Head Start early childcare program. Bruner was deeply impressed by his 1995 visit to the preschools of Reggio Emilia and has established a collaborative relationship with them to improve educational systems internationally. Equally important was the relationship with the Italian Ministry of Education which officially recognized the value of this innovative experience.


title: Jerome Bruner

text: In 1972, Bruner was appointed Watts Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford, where he remained until 1980. In his Oxford years, Bruner focused on early language development. Rejecting the nativist account of language acquisition proposed by Noam Chomsky, Bruner offered an alternative in the form of an interactionist or social interactionist theory of language development. In this approach, the social and interpersonal nature of language was emphasized, appealing to the work of philosophers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, John L. Austin and John Searle for theoretical grounding. Following Lev Vygotsky the Russian theoretician of socio-cultural development, Bruner proposed that social interaction plays a fundamental role in the development of cognition in general and of language in particular. He emphasized that children learn language in order to communicate, and, at the same time, they also learn the linguistic code. Meaningful language is acquired in the context of meaningful parent-infant interaction, learning "scaffolded" or supported by the child's language acquisition support system (LASS).


title: Jerome Bruner

text: At Oxford Bruner worked with a large group of graduate students and post-doctoral fellows to understand how young children manage to crack the linguistic code, among them Alison Garton, Alison Gopnik, Magda Kalmar (), Alan Leslie, Andrew Meltzoff, Anat Ninio, Roy Pea, Susan Sugarman, Michael Scaife, Marian Sigman, Kathy Sylva and many others. Much emphasis was placed on employing the then-revolutionary method of videotaped home-observations, Bruner showing the way to a new wave of researchers to get out of the laboratory and take on the complexities of naturally occurring events in a child's life. This work was published in a large number of journal articles, and in 1983 Bruner published a summary in the book "Child's talk: Learning to Use Language".


title: Jerome Bruner

text: This decade of research established Bruner at the helm of the interactionist approach to language development, exploring such themes as the acquisition of communicative intents and the development of their linguistic expression, the interactive context of language use in early childhood, and the role of parental input and scaffolding behavior in the acquisition of linguistic forms. This work rests on the assumptions of a social constructivist theory of meaning according to which meaningful participation in the social life of a group as well as meaningful use of language involve an interpersonal, intersubjective, collaborative process of creating shared meaning. The elucidation of this process became the focus of Bruner's next period of work.


title: Jerome Bruner

text: In 1980, Bruner returned to the United States, taking up the position of professor at the New School for Social Research in New York City in 1981. For the next decade, he worked on the development of a theory of the narrative construction of reality, culminating in several seminal publications which contributed to the development of narrative psychology. His book "Acts of Meaning" has been cited over 20,000 times followed by "Actual Minds, Possible Worlds" which has been cited by over 18,000 scholarly publications, making them two of the most influential works of the 20th century. In these books, Bruner argued that there are two forms of thinking: the paradigmatic and the narrative. The former is the method of science and is based upon classification and categorisation. The alternative narrative approach organises everyday interpretations of the world in storied form. The challenge of contemporary psychology is to understand this everyday form of thinking.


title: Jerome Bruner

text: In 1991, Bruner arrived at NYU as a visiting professor to do research and to found the Colloquium on the Theory of Legal Practice.


title: Contemporary hit radio

text: Contemporary hit radio (also known as CHR, contemporary hits, hit list, current hits, hit music, top 40, or pop radio) is a radio format that is common in many countries that focuses on playing current and recurrent popular music as determined by the Top 40 music charts. There are several subcategories, dominantly focusing on rock, pop, or urban music. Used alone, "CHR" most often refers to the CHR-pop format. The term "contemporary hit radio" was coined in the early 1980s by "Radio & Records" magazine to designate Top 40 stations which continued to play hits from all musical genres as pop music splintered into Adult contemporary, Urban contemporary, Contemporary Christian and other formats.


title: Contemporary hit radio

text: The term "top 40" is also used to refer to the actual list of hit songs, and, by extension, to refer to pop music in general. The term has also been modified to describe top 50; top 30; top 20; top 10; hot 100 (each with its number of songs) and hot hits radio formats, but carrying more or less the same meaning and having the same creative point of origin with Todd Storz as further refined by Gordon McLendon as well as Bill Drake. The format became especially popular in the mid-sixties as radio stations constrained disc jockeys to numbered play lists in the wake of the payola scandal.


title: Contemporary hit radio

text: Also known as CHR/pop or teen CHR. Plays pop, and dance, and sometimes urban, alternative, rock, and country crossover as well. Often referred as "Top 40"; in terms of incorporating a variety of genres of music, CHR/pop is the successor to the original concept of top 40 radio which originated in the 1950s. Examples of CHR/pop stations in the United States, Canada, Brazil and the Philippines include WHTZ in New York City, KIIS-FM in Los Angeles, KYLD and KMVQ-FM in San Francisco, CKFM-FM and CKIS-FM in Toronto, KXXM and KTFM in San Antonio, WIOQ in Philadelphia, WXKS-FM in Boston, WKSC-FM and WBBM-FM in Chicago, WFLZ and WPOI in Tampa/St. Petersburg, WHYI and WFLC in Miami, KLUC in Las Vegas, WNCI in Columbus, Ohio, WZPL in Indianapolis, KDWB in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Jovem Pan And Jovem Pan FM in Brazil, and DWFO, DWTM, DWRX, DWRT-FM and DWBM-FM in Manila, Philippines. The stations generally gain large popularity with this format.


title: Contemporary hit radio

text: These stations typically are hybrids of the contemporary hit radio (CHR/pop) and Hot AC formats. This format contains a strong focus on current charts, contemporary and recurrent hits as well as placing a minority of older, classic hits from the 2000s and early to mid 2010s onto the playlist. Adult CHR stations play pop-friendly rhythmic, dance and hip hop titles from artists such as Rihanna, Post Malone, Khalid, Lizzo, Black Eyed Peas, The Weeknd, Doja Cat and Blackbear alongside standard mainstream pop and pop rock fare.


title: Contemporary hit radio

text: Examples in the U.S. include KRBE in Houston, WKRQ in Cincinnati, WWMX in Baltimore, WTIC-FM in Hartford, WMXZ in Charleston, and KZZO in Sacramento. United Kingdom (UK) media regulator Ofcom states: "where a format requires a contemporary and chart music service, the main diet must be of modern music, reflecting the charts of today and recent months. Older, classic tracks would not be out of place, but only as spice to the main offering."


title: Contemporary hit radio

text: The adult CHR format is sometimes utilized by stations which are heritage Top 40/CHR outlets in their respective markets which have been in the format since the 1970s or 1980s or FM successors to former AM top 40s, with examples in the UK including the Hits Radio Network compiled of heritage radio stations including Clyde 1 in Glasgow and Radio City in Liverpool.


title: Contemporary hit radio

text: Also known as CHR/rhythmic, or CHR/urban. These stations focus on hip-hop and dance-pop. There are differences between CHR/rhythmic and the urban contemporary format; urban stations will often play R&B and soul songs that CHR/rhythmic stations will not, and CHR/rhythmic stations, despite playlists heavy with urban product, sometimes have white disc jockeys and will include EDM and rhythmic pop music that urban outlets will not play. KYLD in San Francisco, WQHT in New York, and KPWR in Los Angeles are among the most successful CHR/rhythmic stations in the U.S. and among the pioneers of the format.


title: Contemporary hit radio

text: Bilingual Spanish CHRs (such as WPOW in Miami, KHHM in Sacramento, California, KKPS and KBFM in Brownsville, Texas, WKAQ and WXYX in San Juan, Puerto Rico, KBHH in Fresno, California WRUM-HD2 in Orlando, Florida and KLLI (FM) in Los Angeles combine current and recent mainstream and rhythmic CHR hits with recent Latin pop hits, targeting young Latina listeners. Similarly, bilingual French CHRs (such as CKOI-FM in Montreal) are common in many Canadian markets, and combine anglophone and French pop hits.


title: Contemporary hit radio

text: Playing dance remixes of popular songs with perhaps some current hits from the dance charts. Pure dance-music radio stations (as opposed to CHR/rhythmic and rhythmic AC formats such as MOViN) are not very common but tend to have loyal audiences in the markets where they do exist. Examples include WPTY on Long Island, NY and KNHC in Seattle. This format is very popular on internet radio stations such as KVPN Digital Broadcasting (VPN Digital 1) Los Angeles.


title: Contemporary hit radio

text: Stations with this format, a modernized Rock 40 format, are similar in some ways to the Adult CHR and Mainstream CHR/Pop formats, but also incorporate modern rock/alternative/active rock and modern AC titles in an upbeat presentation. Examples include KSXY in Santa Rosa, California, WDJQ in Canton, Ohio, WIXX in Green Bay, Wisconsin, KKCK in Marshall, Minnesota, and WMOM in Ludington, Michigan.


title: Contemporary hit radio

text: An early version of rock-leaning CHR is Rock 40, which was popular in the late 1980s. This format, developed by Joint Communications who servicemarked the name in 1987, is a young-male-targeted hybrid of CHR and album-oriented rock (AOR) that combines the formatics of the former with the music mix of the latter. After a short period of successful ratings, the Rock 40 format began to decline because it was too similar to conventional AOR yet lacked appeal among CHR fans who desired less emphasis on rock. According to Lee Abrams, a pioneer of the AOR format, Rock 40 was "too wimpy for the real rockers and too hard for the mainstream people". Stations that previously broadcast the format include KEGL in Dallas, KQLZ (Pirate Radio) in Los Angeles, KRZR in Fresno, California, KXXR in Kansas City, and WMMS in Cleveland. Rock 40 stations eventually segued to CHR or an AOR spinoff format such as active rock or modern rock.


title: Contemporary hit radio

text: There are also variations targeting minority ethnic groups, such as CHR/español (Latin pop), and CHR/Tejano (Tex-Mex and Tejano) which are commonly found in Arizona, Texas, California, and Mexico. In Greater China (People's Republic of China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong), there is also Mandopop and Cantopop which are the top 40 variants in that language.


title: Contemporary hit radio

text: Credit for the format is widely given to Todd Storz, who was the director of radio station KOWH-AM in Omaha, Nebraska in 1951. At that time typical AM radio programming consisted largely of full-service "block programming": pre-scheduled, sponsored programs of a wide variety, including radio dramas and variety shows. Local popular music hits, if they made it on the air at all, had to be worked in between these segments. Storz noted the great response certain songs got from the record-buying public and compared it to the way certain selections on jukeboxes were played over and over. He expanded his domain of radio stations, purchasing WTIX-AM in New Orleans, Louisiana, gradually converted his stations to an all-hits format, and pioneered the practice of surveying record stores to determine which singles were popular each week. Storz found that the more people heard a given song on the radio or from the jukebox, the more likely they were to buy a copy; a conclusion not obvious in the industry at the time. In 1952 he purchased what was then WLAF-AM in Lafayette, Indiana and constructed WAZY-AM/FM which is still the longest running top 40 FM station in existence to this day. In 1954, Storz purchased WHB-AM, a high-powered station in Kansas City, Missouri which could be heard throughout the Midwest and Great Plains, converted it to an all-hits format, and dubbed the result "top 40". Shortly thereafter WHB debuted the first "top 40 countdown", a reverse-order playing of the station's ranking of hit singles for that week. Within a few years, top 40 stations appeared all over the country to great success, spurred by the burgeoning popularity of rock and roll music, especially that of Elvis Presley. A 1950s employee at WHB, Ruth Meyer, went on to have tremendous success in the early to mid-60's as program director of New York's premiere top 40 station at that time, WMCA.


title: Contemporary hit radio

text: Although Todd Storz is regarded as the father of the top 100 format, Gordon McLendon of Dallas, Texas, is regarded as the person who took an idea and turned it into a mass media marketing success in combination with the development in that same city of PAMS jingles. McLendon's successful Mighty 1190 KLIF in Dallas, along with his two other Texas Triangle stations, 610 KILT (AM) Houston and 550 KTSA San Antonio, which went top 40 during the mid to late 1950s, soon became perhaps the most imitated radio stations in America. With careful attention to programming, McLendon presented his stations as packages to advertisers and listeners alike. It was the combination of top 40 and PAMS jingles which became the key to the success of the radio format itself. Not only were the same records played on different stations across America, but so were the same jingle music beds whose lyrics were resung repetitively for each station to create individual station identity. To this basic mix were added contests, games and disc jockey patter. Various groups (including Bartell Broadcasters) emphasized local variations on their top 40 stations.


title: Contemporary hit radio

text: Gordon McLendon would operate approximately a dozen and a half AM, FM and TV stations at various times, experimenting with formats other than top 40 (including beautiful music and all-news).


title: Contemporary hit radio

text: In the early 1960s Rick Sklar also developed the Top 40 format for radio station WABC in New York City which was then copied by stations in the eastern and mid-western United States such as WKBW and WLS.


title: Contemporary hit radio

text: Bill Drake built upon the foundation established by Storz and McLendon to create a variation called "Boss Radio". This format began in California in early 1961 at KSTN in Stockton, then expanded in 1962–63 to KYNO in Fresno, in 1964 to KGB in San Diego, and finally to KHJ in Los Angeles in May 1965; it was further adapted to stations across the western US. Boss Radio was later broadcast by American disc jockeys as a hybrid format on pirate radio station Swinging Radio England, broadcasting from onboard a ship anchored off the coast of southern England in international waters. At that time there were no commercial radio stations in the UK, and BBC radio offered only sporadic top 40 programming. Other noteworthy North American top 40 stations that used the Drake approach included KFRC in San Francisco; CKLW in Windsor, Ontario; WRKO in Boston; WHBQ in Memphis; WOLF in Syracuse, New York; and WOR-FM in New York City. Most listeners identified Boss Radio with less talk, shorter jingles and more music.


title: Contemporary hit radio

text: Mike Joseph's "hot hits" stations of the late 1970s and early 1980s attempted to revitalize the format by refocusing listeners' attention on current, active "box-office" music. Thus, hot hits stations played only current hit songs—no oldies unless they were on current chart albums—in a fast, furious and repetitive fashion, with fast-talking personalities and loud, pounding jingles. In 1977, WTIC-FM in Hartford, CT, dropped its long-running classical format for Joseph's format as "96 Tics" and immediately became one of the top radio stations in the market. The first Joseph station to use the term "hot hits" on the air was WFBL ("Fire 14", which played its top 14 hits in very tight rotation) in Syracuse, NY, in 1979. Then WCAU-FM in Philadelphia switched to hot hits as "98 Now" in the fall of 1981 and was instantly successful. Other major-market stations which adopted the hot hits format in the early 1980s included WBBM-FM Chicago, WHYT (now WDVD) Detroit, WMAR-FM (now WWMX) Baltimore, which we might add was not successful against market leader WBSB B104, KITS San Francisco, and WNVZ Norfolk.


title: Contemporary hit radio

text: Don Pierson took the formats of Gordon McLendon, boss radio and PAMS jingles to the UK in the form of Wonderful Radio London, (a pirate radio ship) and subsequently revolutionized the popular music format. On 14 August 1967 The Marine Offences Act was introduced in the UK and the pirate stations were shut down.


title: Contemporary hit radio

text: The British Broadcasting Corporation were chosen by the UK government to come up with a station to replace the pirates, and so in 1967 BBC Radio 1 started broadcasting, employing many of the DJ's from the pirate stations (Tony Blackburn, Kenny Everett and John Peel etc.) and obtaining re-sings of the PAMS jingles.


title: Contemporary hit radio

text: In fact it was Tony Blackburn who played the first pop record on Radio 1, The Move's "Flowers In The Rain".


title: Mazu

text: Mazu or Matsu is a Chinese sea goddess also known by several other names and titles. She is the deified form of the legendary figure Lin Mo or Lin Moniang, a Fujianese shamaness whose life span is traditionally dated from 960 to 987. Revered after her death as a tutelary deity of seafarers, including fishermen and sailors, her worship spread throughout China's coastal regions and overseas Chinese communities throughout Southeast Asia and overseas, where some Mazuist temples are affiliated with famous Taiwanese temples. She was thought to roam the seas, protecting her believers through miraculous interventions. She is now generally regarded by her believers as a powerful and a benevolent Queen of Heaven. Mazu worship is popular in Taiwan as large numbers of early immigrants to Taiwan were Hoklo people; her temple festival is a major event in the country, with the largest celebrations around her temples at Dajia and Beigang.


title: Mazu

text: In addition to Mazu or Ma-tsu, meaning "Maternal Ancestor" "Mother", "Granny", or "Grandmother", Lin Moniang is worshipped under various other names and titles:


title: Mazu

text: Although many of Mazu's temples honor her titles Tianhou and Tianfei, it became customary to never pray to her under those names during an emergency since it was believed that, hearing one of her formal titles, Mazu might feel obligated to groom and dress herself as properly befitting her station before receiving the petition. Prayers invoking her as Mazu were thought to be answered more quickly.


title: Mazu

text: Very little is known of the historical Lin Moniang. She was apparently a shamaness from a small fishing village on Meizhou Island, part of Fujian's Putian County, in the late 10th century. She probably did not live there, however, but on the nearby mainland. During this era, Fujian was greatly sinicized by influxes of refugees fleeing invasions of northern China and Mazu's cult, a form that may represent a hybridization of Chinese and local culture. The earliest record of her cult is from two centuries later, an 1150 inscription that mentions "she could foretell a man's good and ill luck" and, "after her death, the people erected a temple for her on her home island".


title: Mazu

text: She was said to have been born under the reign of the Quanzhounese warlord Liu Congxiao (.962), in the Min Kingdom, which eventually developed into the specific date of the 23rd day of the third month of the Chinese lunar calendar in AD960, the first year of the Song. The late Ming "Great Collection of the Three Teachings' Origin and Development and Research into the Divine" (, "Sānjiào Yuánliú Sōushén Dàquán"), however, placed her birth much earlier, in 742.


title: Mazu

text: The early sources speak of her as "Miss Lin"; her given name Mo ("Silent One") or Moniang ("the Silent Girl") appeared later. It was said to have been chosen when she did not cry during birth or during the first month afterwards; she remained a quiet and pensive child as late as four. She was said to have been the sixth or seventh daughter of Lin Yuan (). He is now usually remembered as one of the local fishermen, although the 1593 edition of the "Records of Research into the Divine" made him Putian's chief military inspector. The family was helpful and popular within their village. Late legends intended to justify Mazu's presence in Buddhist temples held that her parents had prayed to Guanyin for a son but received yet another daughter. In one version, her mother dreamt of Guanyin giving her a magical pill to induce pregnancy and woke to find the pill still in her hand; rather than being born in the conventional way, Mazu shot from her mother at birth in the form of a fragrant flash of red light. Guanyin was said to have been especially devoted to Mazu or even to have been incarnated as Mazu; for her part, Mazu was said to have been entranced by a statue of Guanyin at a temple she visited as a child, after which she became an ardent Buddhist.


title: Mazu

text: She is now often said to have studied religious literature, mastering Confucius by 8 and the principal Buddhist sutras by 11. The "Account of the Blessings Revealed by the Princess of Heaven" , "Tiānfēi Xiǎnshèng Lù") collected by her supposed descendants Lin Yaoyu , , "Lín Yáoyú"; ) and Lin Linchang , "Lín Línchàng"; ) claimed that, while still a girl, she was visited by a Taoist master (elsewhere a Buddhist monk) named Xuantong , "Xuántōng") who recognized her Buddha nature. By 13, she had mastered the book of lore he had left her , "Xuánwēi Bìfǎ") and gained the abilities to see the future and visit places in spirit without travel. She was able to manifest herself at a distance as well and used this power to visit gardens in the surrounding countryside, although she asked owners' permission before gathering any flowers to take home. Although she only started swimming at the relatively late age of 15, she soon excelled at it. She was said to have stood on the shore in red garments to guide fishing boats home, regardless of harsh or dangerous weather. She met a Taoist immortal at a fountain at sixteen and received an amulet or two bronze tablets which she translated or used to exorcize demons, to heal the sick, and to avert disasters. She was also said to be a rainmaker during times of drought.


title: Mazu

text: Mazu's principal legend concerns her saving one or some members of her family when they were caught offshore during a typhoon, usually when she was 16. It appears in several forms. In one, the women at home feared Lin Yuan and his son were lost but Mazu fell into a trance while weaving at her loom. Her spiritual power began to save the men from drowning but her mother roused her, causing her to drop her brother into the sea. The father returned and told the other villagers of the miracle; this version of the story is preserved in murals at Fengtin in Fujian. One variant is that her brothers were saved but her father was lost; she then spent three days and nights searching for his body before finding it. Another version is that all the men returned safely. Another is that Mazu was praying to Guanyin; another that she was sleeping and assisting her family through her dream. Still another is that the boats were crewed by her four brothers and that she saved three of them, securing their boats together, with the eldest lost owing to the interference of her parents, who mistook her trance for a seizure and woke her.


title: Mazu

text: In earlier records, Mazu died unmarried at 27 or 28. (Her celibacy was sometimes ascribed to a vow she took after losing her brother at sea.) The date of her passing eventually became the specific date of the Double Ninth Festival in 987, making her 27 by western reckoning and 28 by traditional Chinese dating. She was said to have died in meditation, though in some accounts she did not die but climbed a mountain alone and ascended into Heaven as a goddess in a beam of bright light. In others, she died protesting an unwanted betrothal. Still another places her death at age 16, saying she drowned after exhausting herself in a failed attempt to find her lost father, underlining her filial piety. Her corpse then washed ashore on Nangan Island, which preserves a gravesite said to be hers.


title: Mazu

text: In one, the demons Qianliyan ("Thousand-Mile Eye") and Shunfeng'er ("Wind-Following Ear") both fell in love with her and she conceded that she would marry the one who defeated her in combat. Using her martial arts skills, however, she subdued them both and, after becoming friends, hired them as her guardian generals.


title: Mazu

text: In a book of the Taoist Canon , , "Tàishàng Lǎojūn Shuō Tiānfēi Jiùkǔ Língyàn Jīng"), the Jade Woman of Marvelous Deeds ) is a star from the Big Dipper brought to earth by Laojun, the divine form of Laozi, to show his compassion for those who might be lost at sea. She is incarnated as Mazu and swears not only to protect sailors but to oversee all facets of life and death, providing help to anyone who might call upon her.


title: Mazu

text: Mazuism is first attested in Huang Gongdu's poem "On the Shrine of the Smooth Crossing" , , "Shùnjì Miào"), which considered her a menial and misguided shamaness whose continued influence was inexplicable. He notes that her devotees danced and sang together and with their children. Shortly afterwards, Liao Pengfei ()'s 1150 inscription at the village of Ninghai (now Qiaodou Village) in Putian was more respectful. It states that, "after her death, the people erected a temple for her on her home island" and that the Temple of the Sacred Mound , , "Shèngdūn Miào") was raised in 1086 after some people in Ninghai saw it glowing, discovered a miraculous old raft or stump, and experienced a vision of "the goddess of Meizhou". This structure had been renamed the Smooth Crossing Temple by Emperor Huizong of Song in 1123 after his envoy Lu Yundi , "Lù Yǔndí") was miraculously saved during a storm the year before while on an official mission to pay respects to the court of Goryeo upon the death of its king, Yejong, and to replace the Liao dynasty as the formal suzerains investing his successor, Injong.