title: Pontic Greek

text: Pontic Greek is an endangered Indo-European language spoken by about 778,000 people worldwide. Many Pontians live in Greece; however, only 200,000–300,000 of those are considered active Pontic speakers. Although it is mainly spoken in Northern Greece, it is also spoken in Turkey, Russia, Georgia, Armenia and Kazakhstan and by the Pontic diaspora. The language was brought to Greece in the 1920s after the population exchange between the Christian Pontic Greeks and the Turkish Muslims from their homelands during the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey. However, it is still spoken in pockets of the Pontus today, mostly by Pontic Greek Muslims in the eastern districts of Trabzon Province. Pontic Greek is one of the languages of the Greek (Hellenic) branch separate from Mainland Greek. Speakers of Pontic Greek and typical demotic, Mainland Greek do not usually understand each other. It is primarily written in the Greek script; in Turkey and Ukraine the Latin script is used more frequently; in Russia and former Soviet countries, the Cyrillic alphabet is used.


title: Pontic Greek

text: Historically, the speakers of Pontic Greek called it simply (or , ), which is also a historical and colloquial term for Modern Greek in general. The term "Pontic" originated in scholarly usage, but it has been adopted as a mark of identity by Pontic Greeks living in Greece. Pontic Greeks in Greece may call their language .


title: Pontic Greek

text: Similarly, in Turkish, there is no special name for Pontic Greek; it is called (), derived from the Turkish word "Rum", denoting Byzantine Greeks.


title: Pontic Greek

text: Similar to most modern Greek dialects, Pontic Greek is mainly derived from Koine Greek, which was spoken in the Hellenistic and Roman times between the 4th century BC and the 4th century AD. Following the Seljuk invasion of Asia Minor during the 11th century AD, Pontus became isolated from many of the regions of the Byzantine Empire. The Pontians remained somewhat isolated from the mainland Greeks, causing Pontic Greek to develop separately and distinctly from the rest of the mainland Greek. However, the language has also been influenced by the nearby Persian, Caucasian, and Turkish languages.


title: Pontic Greek

text: Speakers of Chaldiot were the most numerous. In phonology, some varieties of Pontic are reported to demonstrate vowel harmony, a well-known feature of Turkish (Mirambel 1965).


title: Pontic Greek

text: The inhabitants of the Of valley who had converted to Islam in the 17th century remained in Turkey and have partly retained the Pontic language until today. Their dialect, which forms part of the Trapezountiac subgroup, is called "Ophitic" by linguists, but speakers generally call it . As few as 5,000 people are reported to speak it. There are however estimates that show the real number of the speakers as considerably higher. Speakers of Ophitic/Romeyka are concentrated in the eastern districts of Trabzon province: Çaykara (Katohor), Dernekpazarı (Kondu), Sürmene (Sourmena) and Köprübaşı (Göneşera). Although less widespread, it is still spoken in some remote villages of the Of district itself. It is also spoken in the western İkizdere (Dipotamos) district of Rize province. Historically the dialect was spoken in a wider area, stretching further east to the port town of Pazar (Athina).


title: Pontic Greek

text: Ophitic has retained the infinitive, which is present in Ancient Greek but has been lost in other variants of Modern Greek; it has therefore been characterized as "archaic" or conservative (even in relation to other Pontic dialects) and as the living language that is closest to Ancient Greek. Because a majority of the population of these districts converted to Islam during the 17th to 19th centuries, some Arabic and Turkish loanwords have been adopted in the language. According to Vahit Tursun, writer of the Romeika-Turkish dictionary, loanwords from the neighboring Laz speakers of Rize province are strikingly absent in the Romeika vocabulary of Trabzon natives.


title: Pontic Greek

text: A very similar dialect is spoken by descendants of Christians from the Of valley (especially from Kondu) now living in Greece in the village of Nea Trapezounta, Pieria, Central Macedonia, with about 400 speakers.


title: Pontic Greek

text: Though Pontic was originally spoken on the southern shores of the Black Sea, from the 18th and 19th century and on substantial numbers migrated into the northern and eastern shores, into the Russian Empire. Pontic is still spoken by large numbers of people in Ukraine, mainly in Mariupol, but also in other parts of Ukraine such as the Odessa and Donetsk region, in Russia (around Stavropol) and Georgia. The language enjoyed some use as a literary medium in the 1930s, including a school grammar (Topkharas 1998 [1932]).


title: Pontic Greek

text: After the massacres of the 1910s, the majority of speakers remaining in Asia Minor were subject to the Treaty of Lausanne population exchange, and were resettled in Greece (mainly northern Greece). A second wave of migration occurred in the early 1990s, this time from countries of the former Soviet Union.


title: Pontic Greek

text: In urban areas in Greece the language is no longer spoken in daily life but in villages and towns with more homogeneous Pontic population, located mostly in the northern part of country, the language is still in active daily usage. Many radio stations broadcast in the Pontic language, and many associations exist for its safeguard.


title: Pontic Greek

text: Historically, Pontic Greek was the "de facto" language of the Greek minority in the USSR, although in the (, All-Union Conference) of 1926, organised by the Greek-Soviet intelligentsia, it was decided that Demotic should be the official language of the community.


title: Pontic Greek

text: Later revival of Greek identity in the Soviet Union and post-Communist Russia saw a renewed division on the issue of Rumaiic versus Demotic. A new attempt to preserve a sense of ethnic Rumaiic identity started in the mid-1980s. The Ukrainian scholar Andriy Biletsky created a new Slavonic alphabet, but though a number of writers and poets make use of this alphabet, the population of the region rarely uses it.


title: Pontic Greek

text: The language has a rich oral tradition and folklore and Pontic songs are particularly popular in Greece. There is also some limited production of modern literature in Pontic, including poetry collections (among the most renowned writers is Kostas Diamantidis), novels, and translated Asterix comic albums. The youth often speak standard Greek as their first language. The use of Pontic has been maintained more by speakers in North America than it has in Greece.


title: Pontic Greek

text: Pontic, in Greece, is written in the Greek alphabet, with diacritics: for , for (phonological ). Pontic, in Turkey, is written in the Latin alphabet following Turkish conventions. In Russia, it is written in the Cyrillic alphabet. In early Soviet times, Pontic was written in the Greek alphabet phonetically, as shown below, using digraphs instead of diacritics; were written out as , . The Pontic Wikipedia uses Greek script: it has adopted εα, εο for these vowels, to avoid clashes with Modern Greek ια, ιο, and uses digraphs from the Soviet system instead of diacritics, but otherwise follows historical orthography.


title: Pontic Greek

text: The following are features of Pontic Greek which have been retained from early forms of Greek, in contrast to the developments of Modern Greek.


title: The 3DO Company

text: The 3DO Company (formerly THDO on the NASDAQ stock exchange), also known as 3DO, was an American video game company. It was founded in 1991 by Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins, in a partnership with seven other companies. After 3DO's flagship video game console, the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, failed in the marketplace, the company exited the hardware business and became a third-party video game developer. It went bankrupt in 2003 due to poor sales of its games. Its headquarters were in Redwood City, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area.


title: The 3DO Company

text: Trip Hawkins wanted to get into the hardware market after the software market exploded with interest thanks to his involvement at Electronic Arts. When the company was first founded, its original objective was to create a next-generation CD-based video game system called the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, which would be manufactured by various partners and licensees; 3DO would collect a royalty on each console sold and on each game manufactured. For game publishers, 3DO's $3 royalty per sold game was very low compared to the royalties Nintendo and Sega collected from game sales on their consoles. The launch of the console in October 1993 was well-promoted, with a great deal of attention in the mass media as part of the "multimedia wave" in the computer world.


title: The 3DO Company

text: The 3DO console launched in October 1993 at the price of US$699 (). Poor console and game sales trumped the enticingly low royalty rate and proved a fatal flaw. While 3DO's business model attracted game publishers with its low royalty rates, it resulted in the console selling for a price higher than the SNES and Sega Genesis combined, hampering sales. While companies that manufactured and sold their own consoles could sell them, at a loss, for a competitive price, making up for lost profit through royalties collected from game publishers, the 3DO's manufacturers, not collecting any money from game publishers, and owing royalties to the 3DO Company, had to sell the console for a profit, resulting in high prices. As the console failed to compete with its cheaper competitors, game developers and publishers, while initially attracted by low royalties, dropped support for the console as its games failed to sell. Stock in the 3DO Company dropped from over $37 per share in November 1993 to $23 per share in late December. Though the company's financial figures dramatically improved in the fiscal year ending March 1995, with revenues nearly triple that of the previous fiscal year, they were still operating at a loss. The console's prospects continued to improve through the first half of 1995 with a number of critical success, including winning the 1995 European Computer Trade Show award for best hardware.


title: The 3DO Company

text: In January 1996, The 3DO Company sold exclusive rights to its next generation console, M2, to Matsushita for $100 million. Thanks in part to revenues from the sale of M2 technology to Matsushita and other licensees, in the first quarter of 1996 the 3DO Company turned a profit for the first time since it was founded, with a net income of $1.2 million. Over the second half of 1996, the company restructured to focus on software development and online gaming, in the process cutting its staff from 450 to 300 employees. President Hugh Martin was given full operating control, while Hawkins remained with the company as chairman, CEO, and creative director.


title: The 3DO Company

text: After selling the M2 technology to Matsushita, the company acquired Cyclone Studios, New World Computing, and Archetype Interactive. 3DO established a new office in Redmond, Washington devoted to PC games development, with Tony Garcia as its head. In mid-1997 it sold off its hardware business to Samsung for $20 million, making a final break from its origins as a console developer.


title: The 3DO Company

text: The company's biggest hit was its series of "Army Men" games, featuring generic green plastic soldier toys. Its "Might and Magic" and especially "Heroes of Might and Magic" series from subsidiary New World Computing were perhaps the most popular among their games at the time of release. During the late 1990s, the company published one of the first 3D MMORPGs: "Meridian 59", which survives to this day in the hands of some of the game's original developers.


title: The 3DO Company

text: After struggling for several years, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 2003. Employees were laid off without pay.


title: The 3DO Company

text: The company's game brands and other intellectual properties were sold to rivals like Microsoft ("High Heat Baseball"), Namco ("Street Racing Syndicate"), Take-Two Interactive ("Army Men") and Ubisoft ("Heroes of Might and Magic"). Founder Trip Hawkins paid $405,000 for rights to some old brands and the company's "Internet patent portfolio".


title: The 3DO Company

text: In April 2020, over 30 of the company's titles were purchased from Prism Entertainment by Ziggurat Interactive.


title: The 3DO Company

text: The "3DO Rating System" was a rating system created by The 3DO Company and used on games released for the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer. The rating system, which went into use in March 1994, uses the following five categories:


title: The 3DO Company

text: These ratings would appear on the lower front and back of the packaging, while the back of the packaging also specified what content was present in the game. In late 1994, the majority of 3DO's competitors signed on with a new rating system from the Entertainment Software Rating Board; despite this, the 3DO Company opted to continue providing their own rating system, leaving publishers of 3DO games to decide whether to use the 3DO Rating System or the new ESRB ratings. The 3DO rating for each game was designated voluntarily by the game's publisher, in contrast to the ESRB ratings, which were determined independently by the ESRB.


title: IPod Touch (5th generation)

text: The fifth generation iPod Touch (stylized and marketed as the iPod touch, and colloquially known as the iPod Touch 5G, iPod Touch 5, or iPod 5) was unveiled at Apple's media event alongside the iPhone 5 on September 12, 2012, and was released on October 11, 2012. A mobile device designed and marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-based user interface, it succeeded the 4th-generation iPod Touch. It is compatible with up to iOS 9.3.5, which was released on August 25, 2016.


title: IPod Touch (5th generation)

text: Like the iPhone 5, the fifth-generation iPod Touch is a slimmer, lighter model that introduces a higher-resolution, 4-inch screen to the series with widescreen aspect ratio, similar to the iPhone 5, 5C, and 5S. Other improvements include support for recording 1080p video and panoramic still photos via the rear camera, an LED flash, Apple's A5 chip (the same chip used in the iPad Mini (1st generation), iPad 2, and iPhone 4S) and support for Apple's Siri.


title: IPod Touch (5th generation)

text: The fifth-generation iPod Touch was released with more color options than its predecessors. It initially featured with a black screen and slate back and a white screen with five back color options including silver, pink, yellow, blue, and Product Red, however on the release of the iPhone 5S the slate color was changed to space gray and all the other colors remained unchanged.


title: IPod Touch (5th generation)

text: The device was initially only sold in 32 GB and 64 GB models. The first 16 GB model, introduced on May 30, 2013, was only available in one color combination (black screen with a silver back) and lacks the rear iSight camera, LED flash and the iPod Touch Loop that is included in the 32 GB models. On June 26, 2014, it was replaced with a new 16 GB model that no longer omits the rear camera and full range of color options. The pricing for the iPod Touch had also changed. The 16 GB model is $199 instead of $229, the 32 GB model is $249 instead of $299, and the 64 GB model is $299 instead of $399. The iPod Touch (5th generation) was officially discontinued by Apple on July 15, 2015, with the release of its successor, the iPod Touch (6th generation).


title: IPod Touch (5th generation)

text: Initially shipped with iOS 6, which was released on September 19, 2012, it can play music, movies, television shows, eBooks, audiobooks, and podcasts and can sort its media library by songs, artists, albums, videos, playlists, genres, composers, podcasts, audiobooks, and compilations. Users can rotate their device horizontally to landscape mode to access Cover Flow. This feature shows the different album covers in a scroll-through photo library. Scrolling is achieved by swiping a finger across the screen. Alternatively, headset controls can be used to pause, play, skip, and repeat tracks. However, the EarPods that come with the iPod do not include a remote and mic.


title: IPod Touch (5th generation)

text: Like the iPhone 4S and later models, the fifth generation iPod Touch was the first in the iPod Touch line-up to support Siri, which allows the user to operate the device by spoken commands. The software was improved in iOS 6 to include the ability to make restaurant reservations, launch apps, dictate Facebook or Twitter updates, retrieve movie reviews and detailed sports statistics. Some newer applications and features that came with iOS 6 included Apple Maps, Passbook and screen mirroring. AirPlay was made available, which allows screen mirroring through an Apple TV or other supported external device allows the screen of the iPod Touch to be mirrored, and was the first generation of the iPod Touch to support it.


title: IPod Touch (5th generation)

text: iOS 7 was released on September 18, 2013 to all iOS devices. This generation was the only iPod Touch in the iPod Touch line-up to run iOS 7. On June 2, 2014, it was announced that the iPod Touch 5th generation would receive iOS 8 that fall. It was released on September 17, 2014.


title: IPod Touch (5th generation)

text: It was confirmed on June 8, 2015, at WWDC 2015 that the iPod Touch 5th generation would support iOS 9. This makes it the first iPod touch to support 4 major versions of iOS being iOS 6, iOS 7, iOS 8 and iOS 9. Other A5-based devices will also support iOS 9 including the iPad 2 (6 major iOS versions), the iPhone 4S (5 major iOS versions) and the iPad Mini (4 major iOS versions). iOS 9.3.5 is the last update that supports the iPod Touch 5th generation as it is incompatible iOS 10 along with the iPhone 4S, iPad 2 and 3, and iPad Mini 1st generation due to hardware limitations.


title: IPod Touch (5th generation)

text: The fifth generation iPod Touch features the Apple A5 chip which is similar to the one on the iPhone 4S, iPad 2 and the iPad Mini. The chip comprises a 1 GHz dual core ARM Cortex-A9 processor and a PowerVR SGX543MP2 (2-core) GPU making it faster than the fourth generation iPod Touch, which uses the Apple A4 chip. Storage capacities are available at 32 or 64 GB with a 16 GB announced at a later date to replace the previous generation.


title: IPod Touch (5th generation)

text: The Retina Display of the iPod is similar to the one on the iPhone 5, measuring 1,136 by 640 pixels with an aspect ratio of almost exactly 16:9. Measuring 4 inches diagonally, it has a display size of 6.7 square inches and a pixel density of 326 ppi which remains the same as the fourth generation. Screen icons are arranged in a matrix of 6 rows of 4 icons each. With a larger screen than the previous generation model, the fifth generation iPod Touch allows a 6th row of icons to be added to the 5 rows that were present in the fourth generation iPod Touch. However, the fifth generation iPod Touch does not include an ambient light sensor which was included in the previous generation. The new iSight camera has 5 megapixels and is capable of 1080p video recording with an illuminated sensor and a LED flash. The front-facing camera was also upgraded to 1.2 megapixels capable of 720p video compared to the VGA 0.3 megapixels front camera on the fourth generation.


title: IPod Touch (5th generation)

text: The fifth-generation iPod Touch's finish features an aluminum unibody, which is made from the same kind of anodized aluminum used in the MacBook line. With a new iSight camera and LED flash, the iPod Touch includes a new feature known as the "iPod Touch Loop". At the bottom left corner of the back of the iPod Touch, there is a button that can be pressed to allow a wrist strap to attach to the iPod Touch. Other changes to the iPod Touch include the addition of colors and the return of the black Wi-Fi antenna.


title: IPod Touch (5th generation)

text: A 16 GB version that did not include the iSight camera, LED flash and Loop was released on May 30, 2013. This model was replaced with a 16 GB model of the original design on June 26, 2014.


title: IPod Touch (5th generation)

text: The fifth generation iPod Touch, as well as the iPhone 5, iPod Nano (7th generation), iPad (4th generation), and iPad Mini feature a new dock connector named Lightning, replacing the 30-pin Apple dock connector which was first introduced by Apple in 2003 on the third generation iPod. The Apple Lightning connector has eight pins and all signaling is digital. The new connector also can be inserted either way, unlike the 30-pin connector which can only be inserted in one way. Adapters will be released by Apple to convert the Apple Lightning connector to the older 30-pin Apple Dock connector or USB, although not all accessories will work with the adapter as not all signals are available, in particular video output and the iPod Out feature for BMW automobiles.


title: IPod Touch (5th generation)

text: Earphones known as Apple EarPods are also included with the fifth generation iPod touch and other devices announced at the Apple media event on September 12, 2012. They superseded earphones that were included with previous generation iPhones and iPods. According to technology commentators, the redesign of the earphones is aimed to improve sound quality by allowing air to travel in and out more freely. Apple states that the redesign of their earphones allows it to "rival high-end headphones that cost hundreds of dollars more". Reviews by Gizmodo and TechRadar reported that although the redesigned earphones sounded better than its predecessor, reviewers felt that the quality of sound produced was still underwhelming. Both have further stated that the EarPods pale in comparison to other earphones of a similar price.


title: IPod Touch (5th generation)

text: Other accessories that were sold with the iPod Touch include the lanyard for the iPod Touch loop (not available for the 16 GB model.)


title: IPod Touch (5th generation)

text: Andrew Williams from "TrustedReviews" noted the 5th generation iPod touch's common features with the iPhone 5, while praising the design and the respectable connectivity. Graham Barlow of "TechRadar" commended the improved screen, more color variants, greater quality earphones and the iPod's light weight while criticizing the "reset" of the lightning port. Scott Stein of CNET praised the enhanced camera quality and design, but remarked that the iPod touch is still weaker and outclassed compared to other iOS devices.


title: The Captain (2019 film)

text: The Captain () is a 2019 Chinese disaster-adventure film co-produced, co-cinematographed and directed by Andrew Lau, which stars Zhang Hanyu, Oho Ou, Du Jiang, Yuan Quan, Zhang Tian'ai, Li Qin, Zhang Yamei, and Yang Qiru. The film is based on the Sichuan Airlines Flight 8633 incident. The film was released in China on September 30, 2019 and received generally positive reviews.


title: The Captain (2019 film)

text: On 14 May 2018, Flight 8633 took off from Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport at 6:25 CST (22:25 UTC). Approximately 40 minutes after departure while over Xiaojin County, Sichuan at the altitude of 9 km, the right front segment of the windshield separated from the aircraft followed by an uncontrolled decompression. As a result of the sudden decompression, the flight control unit was damaged, and the loud external noise made spoken communications impossible. The co-pilot however, was able to use the transponder to squawk 7700, alerting Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport control about their situation. Because the flight was within a mountainous region, the pilots were unable to descend to the required 8,000 ft (2,400 m) to compensate for the loss of cabin pressure.


title: The Captain (2019 film)

text: About 35 minutes later, the jetliner made an emergency landing at 7:42 CST (23:42 UTC) at Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport. The aircraft was overweight on landing. As a result, the plane took a longer distance to come to a stop and the tires burst.


title: The Captain (2019 film)

text: Despite wearing a seatbelt, first officer Xu was partially sucked out of the aircraft. He suffered facial abrasions, a minor right eye injury and a sprained wrist. One of the flight attendants on the aircraft, Zhou Yanwen (Chinese: 周彦雯), also suffered a wrist injury after a large gust of wind from the cockpit caused her to fly to the roof of the cabin and land on the floor. She received treatment. Owing to the insulation design of the Airbus A319, the temperature did not drop immediately for the passengers, despite the cockpit's exposure to the outside environment, saving them from frostbite. The flight crew remained conscious and did not experience asphyxia or frostbite. No other crew member or passenger was injured.


title: The Captain (2019 film)

text: On August 8, 2018, the National Film Board publicly released the late July Chinese film script (synopsis) for the record and project approval. Bona Film Group, main production company and distributor for the film, applied for filing of the film "The Captain," with scriptwriter Yu Yonggan. Its review status was "agreed to shoot in principle." On November 16, Sichuan Airlines 3U8883 returned to flight. Director Andrew Lau, producer Peggy Lee and two stars, Zhang Hanyu and Yuan Quan, also took this flight and witnessed this special moment together with Liu Chuanjian and all members of the "CAAC hero crew." Lau said in an exclusive interview that the selection criteria for extras were quite strict. Individuals with diseases such as hypertension and heart disease were not allowed to participate in the film.


title: The Captain (2019 film)

text: The film was shot with the support and assistance of the CAAC. Under the coordination and organization of the China Civil Aviation Promotion and Education Center, hundreds of professionals from various departments of the civil aviation system participated in the production and shooting of the film. Zhang Hanyu, Yuan Quan and other casts went to the location of the incident to collect information, met with those who were involved in the event, and listened to the hero crew to envision the situation. To make the real "flying experience" available for the big screen audience, Bona Film Group invested nearly 30 million yuan in building a 1:1 airbus A319 simulator, used a motion platform to simulate the bumpiness and dizziness caused by the plane falling sharply at the height of 9800 meters, and brought in the Hollywood team who produced special effects for big Hollywood films such as "Star Wars", "Captain America", and "Thor 3".


title: The Captain (2019 film)

text: The cast all received specialized training before shooting. Zhang Hanyu, Oho Ou and Du Jiang, who played the role as pilots, completed specialized training for professional pilots. Yuan Quan, Zhang Tianai, Li Qin, Zhang Yamei and Yang Qiru also received all-round training from theory to practice. To play the role, Oho Ou had to wear three hours of makeup with special effects to depict his character's injury after the accident. His right eye was almost entirely covered by special effects makeup. By the end of the shooting, his facial allergy was severe, with many small red rashes on his face, but he still insisted on shooting. The "flying trio" of Zhang Hanyu, Ou Hao and Du Jiang learned theory in the classroom in the morning and practiced the plane driving skills in the simulation cabin in the afternoon in order to understand their characters' experience.


title: The Captain (2019 film)

text: "The Captain" was supported and assisted by the Civil Aviation Administration of China, included hundreds of professionals from the civil aviation system participated in the film development and filming process.


title: The Captain (2019 film)

text: Shooting began on January 3, 2019 and ended on March 4, 2019. Filming began at Wuxi and on February 17, the film was transferred to be shot in Chengdu. Filming concluded in Lhasa, Tibet.


title: The Captain (2019 film)

text: The first poster was released on May 5, 2019 and the first official trailer was released on August 5, 2019. The film premiered in Beijing on September 25, 2019 with wide-release in China on September 30, 2019.


title: The Captain (2019 film)

text: "The Captain" was the opening night film at the 15th Chinese American Film and TV Festival in Los Angeles where it won Best Feature Film. Yu Dong also won Best Producer.


title: The Captain (2019 film)

text: On October 3, 2019, the box office of "The Captain" collected another 263 million yuan in one day, and the cumulative box office exceeded 1 billion yuan.


title: The Captain (2019 film)

text: "The Captain" grossed 55.15 million yuan (around 7.80 million U.S. dollars) on the second to last day of its presale.


title: Valerie Adams

text: Dame Valerie Kasanita Adams (formerly Vili; born 6 October 1984) is a retired New Zealand shot putter. She is a four-time World champion, four-time World Indoor champion, two-time Olympic, three-time Commonwealth Games champion and twice IAAF Continental Cup winner. She has a personal best throw of 21.24 metres outdoors and 20.98 m indoors. These marks are Oceanian, Commonwealth and New Zealand national records. She also holds the Oceanian junior record (18.93 m) and the Oceanian youth record (17.54 m), as well as the World Championships record, World Indoor Championships record and Commonwealth Games record.


title: Valerie Adams

text: Adams was the third woman to win world championships at the youth, junior, and senior level of an athletics event, following the feats of Yelena Isinbayeva and Jana Pittman. She was the first woman to win four consecutive individual titles at the IAAF World Championships. Adams had a winning streak that extended to 56 wins at elite-level competitions, which started in August 2010 and ended in July 2015. She was the IAAF World Athlete of the Year in 2014 and the Track & Field News Athlete of the Year in 2012 and 2013. She had the longest shot put performance of the season every year from 2006 to 2014, bar 2008 when she was second to Natallia Mikhnevich (later banned for doping that year).


title: Valerie Adams

text: Adams won silver medals at the 2012 Summer Olympics (amended to a gold after prior winner Nadzeya Astapchuk was disqualified for doping), 2016 Summer Olympics, 2005 World Championships in Athletics, and the Commonwealth Games in 2002 and 2018. She was also a bronze medallist at the 2016 IAAF World Indoor Championships. While still a teenager, Adams was a finalist at the 2003 World Championships in Athletics and the 2004 Summer Olympics.


title: Valerie Adams

text: At national level, she has won fifteen shot put titles at the New Zealand Athletics Championships between 2001 and 2018, as well as having a hammer throw national title in 2003. Adams also won four times at the Australian Athletics Championships between 2004 and 2008. From 2006 to 2012 she was chosen as the New Zealand Sportswoman of the Year seven times consecutively and has been awarded the Lonsdale Cup on five occasions in recognition as the leading national athlete in an Olympic sport.


title: Valerie Adams

text: Adams retired from athletics competition in 2022. In that year she was appointed to the board of High Performance Sport New Zealand, and was the subject of the documentary "".


title: Valerie Adams

text: In 1998 Adams met former javelin thrower Kirsten Hellier, who would become her coach for the next 11 years. Adams first came to prominence when winning the World Youth Championships in 2001, with a throw of 16.87 m. She followed this up in 2002 by becoming World Junior champion, throwing 17.73 m, and gained her first international senior placing with the silver medal at the Commonwealth Games, throwing 17.45 m.


title: Valerie Adams

text: She finished fifth at the 2003 World Championships at eighteen years of age. At her first Olympics in 2004, Adams finished seventh (after two athletes' subsequent disqualification), while still recovering from an appendectomy she had just weeks before the competition.


title: Valerie Adams

text: The following year Adams finished third at the World Championships with a personal best throw of 19.87 m. When the original winner, Nadzeya Astapchuk, was disqualified following a 2013 retest of her drug sample from the competition that was found to be positive, Adams' original bronze medal was upgraded to silver. Adams originally finished second at the World Athletics Final in 2005, but was promoted to gold after Astapchuk's results were annulled. At the 2006 Commonwealth Games Adams won the gold medal, breaking the 20-year-old Commonwealth Games record of 19.00 m with a throw of 19.66 m.


title: Valerie Adams

text: In 2007, Adams went to the Osaka World Championships as a favourite to take a medal due to her being one of only three women to throw over 20 m before the championships. In qualifying, Adams led the field with a throw of 19.45 m. Adams held second place behind Nadzeya Astapchuk throughout the final, but responded well in the last round with a mammoth throw and Commonwealth record of 20.54 m to take the gold. This made Adams one of few female athletes ever to take IAAF World Titles at youth, junior and senior level.


title: Valerie Adams

text: In 2008 Adams broke the Oceania record in winning her first World Indoor Title in Valencia (20.19 m). At the Beijing Olympics, she qualified for the final with the longest distance thrown, 19.73 meters, on her first attempt. She won the gold with a throw of 20.56 m, a personal best, beating Belarusian thrower Natallia Mikhnevich. It was the first Olympic gold medal in track and field for New Zealand since John Walker won the 1500 meter race in 1976. She also won the New Zealand Sports Award of the year in 2008.


title: Valerie Adams

text: At the 2009 Grande Prêmio Rio in Brazil Adams won the competition with a new personal best and Oceanian area record of 20.69 m. The throw was also the world leading distance for the event. In August, Adams won at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics in Berlin with a throw of 20.44 meters, ahead of the German Nadine Kleinert and Gong Lijiao of China.


title: Valerie Adams

text: At the 2010 IAAF World Indoor Championships Adams was defeated by Nadzeya Astapchuk by a large margin, in spite of the New Zealander setting a continental record of 20.49 m. Adams announced on 28 March 2010 that she would no longer be coached by Kirsten Hellier after an 11-year partnership. In April 2010 she announced her new coach was Didier Poppe.


title: Valerie Adams

text: Adams was consistently beaten by Nadzeya Astapchuk in the big meetings that season. She set a meeting record and season's best of 20.37 m at the Athletics Bridge meet in Slovakia, later saying that a change in her technique that April had begun to pay dividends.


title: Valerie Adams

text: Later that season she won at the 2010 IAAF Continental Cup with a season's best mark of 20.85 m and also competed at the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, where she set a Games record mark of 20.47 m to retain her title. In late 2010 Jean-Pierre Egger took over as her coach from Poppe.


title: Valerie Adams

text: Adams won the 2011 World Championships equalling the championship record 21.24 met by Natalya Lisovskaya in 1987. At the 2012 World Indoor Championships Adams won the competition with a throw of 20.54 m, a new indoors personal best.


title: Valerie Adams

text: Adams originally won the silver medal at the 2012 London Olympics but was promoted to the gold medal after the initial Olympic champion, Nadzeya Astapchuk, failed two drug tests, one a day before the event and the second on the day of the event.


title: Valerie Adams

text: The Belarusian Ostapchuk tested positive for metenolone which is classified as an anabolic agent on the list of banned substances. Adams later recounted how she initially believed Chef de Mission Dave Currie was "telling fibs" upon being told the news. She received the gold medal from the New Zealand Governor-General, Sir Jerry Mateparae, at a special ceremony in Auckland on 19 September 2012.


title: Valerie Adams

text: Adams won her fourth world championship gold at the 2013 World Championships games in Moscow in August 2013. Her fourth gold medal surpassed Astrid Kumbernuss for most all time by a female shotputter and made her the first woman to win four straight titles in an event at the competition. On 27 September, Adams underwent surgery on her left ankle and right knee, and in March 2014 won her third world indoor championship at Sopot in Poland with a distance of 20.67 m. Her gold medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, where she was New Zealand's flag-bearer, was her 54th consecutive event win; the streak began in August 2010.


title: Valerie Adams

text: Injury caused Adams to withdraw from an attempted defence of her shot put title at the 2014 IAAF Continental Cup and she was ruled out for most of 2015 season for the same reason. During this period she underwent surgeries on her shoulder and elbow in late 2014 and returned for a further operational on her knee in August 2015.


title: Valerie Adams

text: Adams finished second in shot put at the 2016 Summer Olympics with a distance of 20.42 m. She was beaten by Michelle Carter who had a personal best of 20.63 m with her last put of the competition.


title: Valerie Adams

text: In the 2017 New Year Honours, Adams was named a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. She skipped the entire track and field that season due to pregnancy.


title: Valerie Adams

text: Adams came in second in the shot put at the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast, Australia, with a seasonal best put of 18.70 m.


title: Valerie Adams

text: Adams won her fourth Olympic medal in July 2021, at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, winning a bronze medal with a best put of .


title: Valerie Adams

text: Adams announced her retirement from athletics competition on 1 March 2022, but will continue to coach Lisa Adams. In October 2022, the documentary film "" was released in New Zealand cinemas, depicting Adams' childhood, sporting career and the lead-up to the 2020 Summer Olympics.


title: Valerie Adams

text: Adams was born in Rotorua, New Zealand, to a Tongan mother (Lilika Ngauamo) and an English father (Sydney Adams). Her father, who settled in New Zealand after service in the Royal Navy, had a total of 18 children with five women. Adams' youngest sibling is NBA player Steven Adams, and two other brothers played professional basketball in New Zealand. Their sister, Lisa Adams, is a paralympic champion shot-putter and discus thrower who has cerebral palsy.


title: Valerie Adams

text: Adams was married to Bertrand Vili, a discus thrower from New Caledonia. They married in 2004 and divorced in early 2010. Adams married Gabriel Price, a friend since childhood, at Temple View in Hamilton on 2 April 2016. The couple have two children: a daughter born in 2017 and a son.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: The European Neolithic is the period when Neolithic (New Stone Age) technology was present in Europe, roughly between 7000 BCE (the approximate time of the first farming societies in Greece) and c.2000–1700 BCE (the beginning of the Bronze Age in Scandinavia). The Neolithic overlaps the Mesolithic and Bronze Age periods in Europe as cultural changes moved from the southeast to northwest at about 1 km/year – this is called the Neolithic Expansion.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: The duration of the Neolithic varies from place to place, its end marked by the introduction of bronze tools: in southeast Europe it is approximately 4,000 years (i.e. 7000 BCE–3000 BCE) while in parts of Northwest Europe it is just under 3,000 years (c. 4500 BCE–1700 BCE). In parts of Europe, notably the Balkans, the period after c. 5000 BC is known as the Chalcolithic (Copper Age), due to the invention of copper smelting and the prevalence of copper tools, weapons and other artefacts.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: The spread of the Neolithic from the Near East Neolithic to Europe was first studied quantitatively in the 1970s, when a sufficient number of C age determinations for early Neolithic sites had become available. Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza discovered a linear relationship between the age of an Early Neolithic site and its distance from the conventional source in the Near East (Jericho), thus demonstrating that the Neolithic spread at an average speed of about 1 km/yr. More recent studies confirm these results and yield the speed of 0.6–1.3 km/yr at 95% confidence level.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: Regardless of specific chronology, many European Neolithic groups share basic characteristics, such as living in small-scale, family-based communities, subsisting on domesticated plants and animals supplemented with the collection of wild plant foods and with hunting, and producing hand-made pottery, that is, pottery made without the potter's wheel. Polished stone axes lie at the heart of the neolithic (new stone) culture, enabling forest clearance for agriculture and production of wood for dwellings, as well as fuel.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: There are also many differences, with some Neolithic communities in southeastern Europe living in heavily fortified settlements of 3,000–4,000 people (e.g., Sesklo in Greece) whereas Neolithic groups in Britain were small (possibly 50–100 people) and highly mobile cattle-herders.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: The details of the origin, chronology, social organization, subsistence practices and ideology of the peoples of Neolithic Europe are obtained from archaeology, and not historical records, since these people left none. Since the 1970s, population genetics has provided independent data on the population history of Neolithic Europe, including migration events and genetic relationships with peoples in South Asia.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: A further independent tool, linguistics, has contributed hypothetical reconstructions of early European languages and family trees with estimates of dating of splits, in particular theories on the relationship between speakers of Indo-European languages and Neolithic peoples. Some archaeologists believe that the expansion of Neolithic peoples from southwest Asia into Europe, marking the eclipse of Mesolithic culture, coincided with the introduction of Indo-European speakers, whereas other archaeologists and many linguists believe the Indo-European languages were introduced from the Pontic-Caspian steppe during the succeeding Bronze Age.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: Archeologists trace the emergence of food-producing societies in the Levantine region of southwest Asia to the close of the last glacial period around 12,000 BCE, and these developed into a number of regionally distinctive cultures by the eighth millennium BCE. Remains of food-producing societies in the Aegean have been carbon-dated to around 6500 BCE at Knossos, Franchthi Cave, and a number of mainland sites in Thessaly. Neolithic groups appear soon afterwards in the Balkans and south-central Europe. The Neolithic cultures of southeastern Europe (the Balkans and the Aegean) show some continuity with groups in southwest Asia and Anatolia (e.g., Çatalhöyük).


title: Neolithic Europe

text: In 2018, an 8,000-year-old ceramic figurine portraying the head of the "Mother Goddess", was found near Uzunovo, Vidin Province in Bulgaria, which pushes back the Neolithic revolution to 7th millennium BCE.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: Current evidence suggests that Neolithic material culture was introduced to Europe via western Anatolia, and that similarities in cultures of North Africa and the Pontic steppes are due to diffusion "out" of Europe. All Neolithic sites in Europe contain ceramics, and contain the plants and animals domesticated in Southwest Asia: einkorn, emmer, barley, lentils, pigs, goats, sheep, and cattle. Genetic data suggest that no independent domestication of animals took place in Neolithic Europe, and that all domesticated animals were originally domesticated in Southwest Asia. The only domesticate not from Southwest Asia was broomcorn millet, domesticated in East Asia. The earliest evidence of cheese-making dates to 5500 BCE in Kuyavia, Poland.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: Archaeologists agreed for some time that the culture of the early Neolithic is relatively homogeneous, compared to the late Mesolithic. DNA studies tend to confirm this, indicating that agriculture was brought to Western Europe by the Aegean populations, that are known as 'the Aegean Neolithic farmers'. When these farmers arrived in Britain, DNA studies show that they did not seem to mix much with the earlier population of the Western Hunter-Gatherers. Instead, there was a substantial population replacement.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: The diffusion of these farmers across Europe, from the Aegean to Britain, took about 2,500 years (6500–4000 BCE). The Baltic region was penetrated a bit later, around 3500 BCE, and there was also a delay in settling the Pannonian plain. In general, colonization shows a "saltatory" pattern, as the Neolithic advanced from one patch of fertile alluvial soil to another, bypassing mountainous areas. Analysis of radiocarbon dates show clearly that Mesolithic and Neolithic populations lived side by side for as much as a millennium in many parts of Europe, especially in the Iberian peninsula and along the Atlantic coast.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: Investigation of the Neolithic skeletons found in the Talheim Death Pit suggests that prehistoric men from neighboring tribes were prepared to fight and kill each other in order to capture and secure women. The mass grave at Talheim in southern Germany is one of the earliest known sites in the archaeological record that shows evidence of organised violence in Early Neolithic Europe, among various Linear Pottery culture tribes.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: In terms of overall size, some settlements of the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture, such as Talianki (with a population of around 15,000) in western Ukraine, were as large as the city-states of Sumer in the Fertile Crescent, and these Eastern European settlements predate the Sumerian cities by more than half of a millennium.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: With some exceptions, population levels rose rapidly at the beginning of the Neolithic until they reached the carrying capacity. This was followed by a population crash of "enormous magnitude" after 5000 BCE, with levels remaining low during the next 1,500 years.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: Populations began to rise after 3500 BCE, with further dips and rises occurring between 3000 and 2500 BCE but varying in date between regions. Around this time is the Neolithic decline, when populations collapsed across most of Europe, possibly caused by climatic conditions, plague, or mass migration. A study of twelve European regions found most experienced boom and bust patterns and suggested an "endogenous, not climatic cause". Recent archaeological evidence suggests the possibility of plague causing this population collapse, as mass graves dating from around 2900 BCE were discovered containing fragments of "Yersinia pestis" genetic material consistent with pneumonic plague.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: The Chalcolithic Age in Europe started from about 3500 BC, followed soon after by the European Bronze Age. This also became a period of increased megalithic construction. From 3500 BCE, copper was being used in the Balkans and eastern and central Europe. Also, the domestication of the horse took place during that time, resulting in the increased mobility of cultures.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: Nearing the close of the Neolithic, around 2500 BCE, large numbers of Eurasian steppe peoples migrated in Central and Eastern Europe.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: Genetic studies since the 2010s have identified the genetic contribution of Neolithic farmers to modern European populations, providing quantitative results relevant to the long-standing "replacement model" vs. "demic diffusion" dispute in archaeology.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: The earlier population of Europe were the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, called the "Western Hunter-Gatherers" (WHG). Along with the Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherers (SHG) and Eastern Hunter-Gatherers (EHG), the WHGs constituted one of the three main genetic groups in the postglacial period of early Holocene Europe. Later, the Neolithic farmers expanded from the Aegean and Near East; in various studies, they are described as the Early European Farmers (EEF); Aegean Neolithic Farmers (ANF), First European Farmers (FEF), or also as the Early Neolithic Farmers (ENF).


title: Neolithic Europe

text: A seminal 2014 study first identified the contribution of three main components to modern European lineages (the third being "Ancient North Eurasians", associated with the later Indo-European expansion). The EEF component was identified based on the genome of a woman buried c. 7,000 years ago in a Linear Pottery culture grave in Stuttgart, Germany.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: This 2014 study found evidence for genetic mixing between WHG and EEF throughout Europe, with the largest contribution of EEF in Mediterranean Europe (especially in Sardinia, Sicily, Malta and among Ashkenazi Jews), and the largest contribution of WHG in Northern Europe and among Basque people.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: Nevertheless, when the Neolithic farmers arrived in Britain, DNA studies show that these two groups did not seem to mix much. Instead, there was a substantial population replacement.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: Since 2014, further studies have refined the picture of interbreeding between EEF and WHG. In a 2017 analysis of 180 ancient DNA datasets of the Chalcolithic and Neolithic periods from Hungary, Germany and Spain, evidence was found of a prolonged period of interbreeding. Admixture took place regionally, from local hunter-gatherer populations, so that populations from the three regions (Germany, Iberia and Hungary) were genetically distinguishable at all stages of the Neolithic period, with a gradually increasing ratio of WHG ancestry of farming populations over time. This suggests that after the initial expansion of early farmers, there were no further long-range migrations substantial enough to homogenize the farming population, and that farming and hunter-gatherer populations existed side by side for many centuries, with ongoing gradual admixture throughout the 5th to 4th millennia BCE (rather than a single admixture event on initial contact). Admixture rates varied geographically; in the late Neolithic, WHG ancestry in farmers in Hungary was at around 10%, in Germany around 25% and in Iberia as high as 50%.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: During late Neolithic and early Bronze Age, the EEF-derived cultures of Europe were overwhelmed by successive invasions of Western Steppe Herders (WSHs) from the Pontic–Caspian steppe. These invasions led to EEF paternal DNA lineages in Europe being almost entirely replaced with WSH paternal DNA (mainly R1b and R1a). EEF mtDNA however remained frequent, suggesting admixture between WSH males and EEF females.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: There is no direct evidence of the languages spoken in the Neolithic. Some proponents of paleolinguistics attempt to extend the methods of historical linguistics to the Stone Age, but this has little academic support. Criticising scenarios which envision for the Neolithic only a small number of language families spread over huge areas of Europe (as in modern times), Donald Ringe has argued on general principles of language geography (as concerns "tribal", pre-state societies), and the scant remains of (apparently indigenous) non-Indo-European languages attested in ancient inscriptions, that Neolithic Europe must have been a place of great linguistic diversity, with many language families with no recoverable linguistic links to each other, much like western North America prior to European colonisation.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: Discussion of hypothetical languages spoken in the European Neolithic is divided into two topics, Indo-European languages and "Pre-Indo-European" languages.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: Early Indo-European languages are usually assumed to have reached Danubian (and maybe Central) Europe in the Chalcolithic or early Bronze Age, e.g. with the Corded Ware or Beaker cultures (see also Kurgan hypothesis for related discussions). The Anatolian hypothesis postulates arrival of Indo-European languages with the early Neolithic. Old European hydronymy is taken by Hans Krahe to be the oldest reflection of the early presence of Indo-European in Europe.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: Theories of "Pre-Indo-European" languages in Europe are built on scant evidence. The Basque language is the best candidate for a descendant of such a language, but since Basque is a language isolate, there is no comparative evidence to build upon. Theo Vennemann nevertheless postulates a "Vasconic" family, which he supposes had co-existed with an "Atlantic" or "Semitidic" (i. e., para-Semitic) group. Another candidate is a Tyrrhenian family which would have given rise to Etruscan and Raetic in the Iron Age, and possibly also Aegean languages such as Minoan or Pelasgian in the Bronze Age.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: In the north, a similar scenario to Indo-European is thought to have occurred with Uralic languages expanding in from the east. In particular, while the Sami languages of the indigenous Sami people belong in the Uralic family, they show considerable substrate influence, thought to represent one or more extinct original languages. The Sami are estimated to have adopted a Uralic language less than 2,500 years ago. Some traces of indigenous languages of the Baltic area have been suspected in the Finnic languages as well, but these are much more modest. There are early loanwords from unidentified non-IE languages in other Uralic languages of Europe as well.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: Guus Kroonen brought up the so-called "Agricultural Substrate Hypothesis", based on the comparison of presumable Pre-Germanic and Pre-Greek substrate lexicon (especially agricultural terms without clear IE etymologies). Kroonen links that substrate to the gradual spread of agriculture in Neolithic Europe from Anatolia and the Balkans, and associates the Pre-Germanic agricultural substrate language with the Linear Pottery culture. The prefix "*a-" and the suffix "*-it-" are the most apparent linguistic markers by which a small group of "Agricultural" substrate words - i.e. "*arwīt" ("pea") or "*gait" ("goat") - can be isolated from the rest of the Proto-Germanic lexicon. According to Aljoša Šorgo, there are at least 36 Proto-Germanic lexical items very likely originating from the "agricultural" substrate language (or a group of closely related languages). It is proposed by Šorgo that the Agricultural substrate was characterized by a four-vowel system of */æ/ */ɑ/ */i/ */u/, the presence of pre-nasalized stops, the absence of a semi-vowel */j/, a mobile stress accent, and reduction of unstressed vowels.


title: Neolithic Europe

text: Some Neolithic cultures listed above are known for constructing megaliths. These occur primarily on the Atlantic coast of Europe, but there are also megaliths on western Mediterranean islands.


title: Police station

text: A police station (sometimes called a "station house" or just "house") is a building which serves to accommodate police officers and other members of staff. These buildings often contain offices and accommodation for personnel and vehicles, along with locker rooms, temporary holding cells and interview/interrogation rooms.


title: Police station

text: Large departments may have many stations to cover the area they serve. The names used for these facilities include:


title: Police station

text: The area a police station serves has a variety of different names, such as precinct, district, division and zone. However, in some police forces such as Hampshire Constabulary, police stations do not serve a specific area and the officers have great flexibility over where they can operate.


title: Police station

text: Specialized stations exist in a number of countries, typically containing more or less of these facilities. An example includes women's police stations in Latin America.


title: Police station

text: Police stations in India have a designated area under their jurisdiction. Police stations are headed by a station house officer (SHO) who may be of inspector or sub-inspector rank, assisted by an assistant sub-inspector, head constables, and constables. The number of personnel in a particular police station depend on many factors like area covered, population, topography, crime rate, sensitivity, important places and others. Some police stations may have police outposts under them. Police outposts are set up when areas covered by police stations have difficult topography, a lack of transportation, high population density, communally sensitive places and border points, or if the area is very large. There are many police stations in India which lack basic infrastructure like proper buildings, landline telephones, wireless sets, vehicles, computers and adequate police personnel. Specialized police stations also exist for specific purposes, such as cyber crime, railway, traffic enforcement, women, and others.


title: Police station

text: The police stations (or barracks) of the Garda Síochána come in the following types, in ascending order of size:


title: Police station

text: The county constabularies in Great Britain were previously organised on a village basis. Most villages of any size had a "police house". Police houses in small villages were often staffed by a single uniformed constable, with larger stations being staffed by more. Local police stations were grouped together under the command of a uniformed sergeant, whose station was known as a "sergeant's station". Larger towns in the county constabulary areas had police stations staffed by a number of officers, often under the command of an inspector or superintendent, usually also commanding a sub-division or division respectively, and therefore giving the names of "sub-divisional station" or "divisional station" to their stations.


title: Police station

text: As well as traditional, staffed, police stations, there are a number of kiosks in Dubai allowing instant access to police services via a video touchscreen.


title: Biceps femoris muscle

text: The biceps femoris () is a muscle of the thigh located to the posterior, or back. As its name implies, it has two parts, one of which (the long head) forms part of the hamstrings muscle group.


title: Biceps femoris muscle

text: The two muscle heads joint together distally and unite in an intricate fashion. The fibers of the long head form a fusiform belly, which passes obliquely downward and lateralward across the sciatic nerve to end in an aponeurosis which covers the posterior surface of the muscle and receives the fibers of the short head. Inferiorly, the aponeurosis condenses to form a tendon which predominantly inserts onto the lateral side of the head of the fibula. There is a second small insertional attachment by a small tendon slip into the lateral condyle of the tibia.


title: Biceps femoris muscle

text: At its insertion the tendon divides into two portions, which embrace the fibular collateral ligament of the knee-joint. Together, this joining of tendons is commonly referred to as the "conjoined tendon" of the knee.


title: Biceps femoris muscle

text: From the posterior border of the tendon a thin expansion is given off to the fascia of the leg. The tendon of insertion of this muscle forms the lateral hamstring; the common fibular (peroneal) nerve descends along its medial border.


title: Biceps femoris muscle

text: The short head may be absent; additional heads may arise from the ischial tuberosity, the linea aspera, the medial supracondylar ridge of the femur, or from various other parts. The tendon of insertion may be attached to the Iliotibial band and to retinacular fibers of the lateral joint capsule.


title: Biceps femoris muscle

text: It is a composite muscle as the short head of the biceps femoris develops in the flexor compartment of the thigh and is thus innervated by common fibular branch of the sciatic nerve (L5, S1), while the long head is innervated by the tibial branch of the sciatic nerve (L5, S1).


title: Biceps femoris muscle

text: The muscle's vascular supply is derived from the anastomoses of several arteries: the perforating branches of the profunda femoris artery, the inferior gluteal artery, and the popliteal artery.


title: Biceps femoris muscle

text: Since the long head originates in the pelvis it is involved in hip extension. The long head of the biceps femoris is a weaker knee flexor when the hip is extended (because of active insufficiency). For the same reason the long head is a weaker hip extender when the knee is flexed.


title: Biceps femoris muscle

text: When the knee is semi-flexed, the biceps femoris in consequence of its oblique direction rotates the leg slightly outward.


title: Biceps femoris muscle

text: Avulsion of the biceps femoris tendon is common in sports that require explosive bending of the knee as seen in sprinting.


title: Aberdeen Airport

text: Aberdeen International Airport () is an international airport, located in the Dyce suburb of Aberdeen, Scotland, approximately northwest of Aberdeen city centre. A total of just under 3.1 million passengers used the airport in 2017, an increase of 4.6% compared with 2016.


title: Aberdeen Airport

text: The airport is owned and operated by AGS Airports which also owns and operates Glasgow and Southampton airports. It was previously owned and operated by Heathrow Airport Holdings (formerly known as BAA). Aberdeen Airport is a base for Eastern Airways and Loganair. The airport also serves as the main heliport for offshore North Sea oil and gas industry. With the utilisation of newer aircraft, helicopters can reach northernmost platforms on both the east and west of Shetland.


title: Aberdeen Airport

text: The airport has one main passenger terminal, serving all scheduled and charter holiday flights. In addition, there are four terminals dedicated to North Sea helicopter operations, used by Bristow Helicopters, CHC Helicopter, NHV and Babcock Mission Critical Services Offshore. There is also an additional small terminal adjacent to the main passenger terminal, used only for specific oil company charter flights to Sumburgh in Shetland.


title: Aberdeen Airport

text: The airport opened on 28 July 1934 as Dyce Aerodrome. It was established by Eric Gandar Dower for his other new enterprises including Aberdeen Flying School, Aberdeen Flying Club, and his airline, Aberdeen Airways.


title: Aberdeen Airport

text: During the Second World War the airfield became a Royal Air Force station known as RAF Dyce (Royal Air Force Dyce). It was the site of the Dyce Sector Operations Room within No. 13 Group RAF. Although fighter aircraft were based there throughout the Battle of Britain to provide protection from German bombing raids from Occupied Norway, it was mainly used as a photographic reconnaissance station. Anti-shipping operations by RAF Coastal Command were carried out from RAF Dyce as well as convoy escort. The airfield was bombed by the Luftwaffe on 26 July 1940 and 27 August 1940, however no damage was reported. A decoy site ('Q' Site) was located at Harestone Moss near Whitecairns. The aim of this site was to create the impression of an active airfield during the night. The decoy worked on around four occasions, where several raids resulted in bombs being dropped on the decoy site. The decoy site had a small underground bunker that housed a generator. This was used to power a decoy 'flarepath' in addition to a rotating lamp to give the impression of a taxiing aircraft. Near the airport off the A96 road, to deter German gliders landing to attack RAF Dyce, the flat areas across from Concraig Farm (between Blackurn and Kintore) had wooden poles erected as anti-glider landing poles. A Supermarine Spitfire IIa crashed at the east side of the airfield on 19 November 1941 during attack practice with a target glider being towed. F/O Zaoral is buried in the old Dyce graveyard, where some German aircrew are also buried that crashed in Aberdeen in 1940.


title: Aberdeen Airport

text: A significant wartime event occurred in May 1943 when a German Junkers Ju 88 night-fighter landed at Dyce; it was flown to Scotland by its crew, who wanted to defect to the Allies. The surrender of this aircraft was of great intelligence value at the time, as it was fitted with the latest FuG 202 Liechtenstein BC A.I radar. The aircraft survives and is displayed in the Royal Air Force Museum in London.


title: Aberdeen Airport

text: On 17 August 1943, a de Havilland Mosquito crashed following a stall in the circuit, crashing onto 5 John Street in Dyce village; another Mosquito on 10 April 1944 crashed on approach to the airfield. On 26 December 1944, A Messerschmitt Bf 109G signalling intentions to surrender crash landed at the airfield. On 16 May 1945, two pilots were killed when a Vickers Wellington bomber crashed on landing wrecking a goods train in Dyce railway station. During air-raids in the Second World War, aircraft were moved to East Fingask beside Oldmeldrum. One RAF building still remains at East Fingask, where aircrews waited for the "All Clear" before returning to Dyce airfield.


title: Aberdeen Airport

text: Virtually nothing remains from the war era at the airport due to expansion and development of the industrial estates around it. The original airport terminal was located at the east side where the Bond Offshore Helicopters Terminal 2 is located, a new terminal was built along with a new control tower to handle the increase in air traffic. The airport was nationalised in 1947 and was transferred to the control of the British Airports Authority (BAA) in 1975. From 1967 and 1970 there were regular flights to Moscow and Toronto; these were later stopped due to cost related problems.


title: Aberdeen Airport

text: With the discovery of North Sea oil, helicopter operations began in 1967, linking the growing number of oil platforms to the mainland. As Aberdeen became the largest oil-related centre in Europe, the airport became the world's largest commercial heliport. Today, Aberdeen Airport handles more than 37,000 rotary wing movements carrying around 468,000 passengers annually. Helicopters account for almost half of all aircraft movements at the airport.


title: Aberdeen Airport

text: Until March 2005, aircraft were not allowed to take-off or land between 22:30 and 06:00 local time due to noise constraints. The city council overturned this curfew, however, despite some Dyce residents' objections, and the airport is now open 24 hours a day to fixed-wing aircraft with a quota count of QC4 or below, and the overnight restrictions still apply to helicopters.


title: Aberdeen Airport

text: General aviation flight training for private pilots licences takes place from the east side of the airport. Signature Flight Support also handles most of the private flights and corporate jets that park on the Eastside Apron. An air ambulance (fixed wing) is based on the eastside in a dedicated hangar, Gama Aviation operates the Super King-Air aircraft. There is an additional air ambulance Eurocopter EC135 helicopter based at the airport for use during daylight hours to attend emergency incidents.


title: Aberdeen Airport

text: Aberdeen, being a major city in the oil industry has a number of oil company charter flights, these have included flights to South America and also Korea (via Abu Dhabi). Flights from the USA are regular visitors as well as the occasional military or VVIP flight.


title: Aberdeen Airport

text: In May 2011, the Aberdeen airport gained direct connectivity to Central Asia. Azerbaijan Airlines commenced an Airbus A319 service to Baku, facilitating ties between the oil and gas businesses of the Scottish city and Azerbaijan. In October of the same year, a 124-metre extension to the main runway at the airport was opened, almost eight months ahead of schedule.


title: Aberdeen Airport

text: After less than two years of operation, Azerbaijan Airlines decided to conclude its Baku flight in October 2012, seeking to focus on its London route instead. On 8 January 2013, the airport was renamed Aberdeen International Airport.


title: Aberdeen Airport

text: In October 2014, Heathrow Airport Holdings reached an agreement to sell the airport, together with Southampton and Glasgow, to a consortium of Ferrovial and Macquarie Group for £1 billion. The airport handles around 500,000 passengers per year by helicopter for the North Sea oil fields. making it the world's busiest heliport.


title: Aberdeen Airport

text: A total of just under 3.1 million passengers used the airport in 2017, an increase of 4.6% compared with 2016. The airport's Master Plan 2013 forecast growth to 5.09 million passengers a year by 2040. A major three-year project (2016-2019) aims to transform the passenger terminal and increase space by 50%.


title: Aberdeen Airport

text: In 2019 the airport was ranked worst in Scotland and sixth worst in the UK by "Which?" magazine in a ranking of 30 airports for customer satisfaction, with a score of 50%. Edinburgh performed better on 61% while Glasgow International achieved the top rank in Scotland at 64%. In February, Easyjet announced that they will axe their Aberdeen to Gatwick service. In December 2020, easyJet announced that they would reverse this decision and would restart flights to Gatwick Airport in May 2021.


title: Aberdeen Airport

text: Aberdeen International Airport has one fixed-wing aircraft runway (16/34) which is long and surfaced with grooved asphalt. Three further runways (H14/H32 which is long, H05/H23 which is long and H36 which is long) are available for helicopter use only.


title: Aberdeen Airport

text: The main terminal has 19 stands adjacent to it. Remote parking is available on other aprons located around the airfield. Four offshore helicopter operators each have their own aprons and hangars, with Bristows and CHC-Scotia located on the western side of the airfield and NHV and Babcock on the eastern side.


title: Aberdeen Airport

text: Several hotels are situated adjacent to the airport, including Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn Express, Courtyard by Marriott, Leonardo Inn, Moxy Hotel and Jurys Inn. Other nearby hotels include the Hallmark Hotel, Hampton by Hilton, Marriott, and Premier Inn.BMI Regional had its head office in Aberdeen Airport East.


title: Aberdeen Airport

text: For flight training, Airbus/Eurocopter and Bristow Helicopters both have helicopter flight simulators in buildings at the airport. Alexander Air also operate GA flight training based from Aberdeen Airport.


title: Aberdeen Airport

text: The Aberdeen–Inverness railway line and Dyce railway station are located alongside the eastern boundary of the airport. As of July 2020 there is no scheduled bus service between the station and the main passenger terminal which is located on the western side of the airfield. Between 2012 and 2017 a shuttle bus (No. 80 Dyce Airlink) provided transport between the station and the terminal. The service ceased operation due to low passenger numbers, attributed by the operator to lower activity in the North Sea oil and gas industry.


title: Aberdeen Airport

text: Aberdeen Airport is served by local and express bus services operated by First Aberdeen and Stagecoach Bluebird. There is a dedicated Jet 727 bus service up to every 10 minutes to the main bus and rail station in central Aberdeen. 747 Aberdeen Airport–Peterhead links the airport with Balmedie, Ellon, and Peterhead.


title: Aberdeen Airport

text: Since 5 August 2019, the new X27 bus service was introduced which connects Aberdeen City Centre, Dyce railway station, TECA (P&J Live) and the heliports which are around a 5-minute walk to the main terminal.


title: Aberdeen Airport

text: The airport lies on the main A96 Aberdeen to Inverness road, being only a few kilometres from the city centre itself.


title: Aberdeen Airport

text: The airport is connected to the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route at the Craibstone exit which is around 1 mile drive away from the Main terminal.


title: Aberdeen Airport

text: A range of proposals to better connect Dyce railway station to the main passenger terminal have been suggested over the years. A rail link between the two was ruled-out in 2019 as being too expensive, with an estimated cost in excess of £100 million. Options such as walking long distance travelators or covered walkways, bus services or fixed trams as well as the possibility of a railway station at nearby entertainment venue P&J Live are still being considered.


title: Mathías Olivera

text: Mathías Olivera Miramontes (born 31 October 1997) is a Uruguayan professional footballer who plays as a left back for club Napoli and the Uruguay national team.


title: Mathías Olivera

text: Born in Montevideo, Olivera is a Nacional youth graduate. After progressing through the youth setup, he made his professional debut on 13 February 2016, starting and being booked in a 3–0 away win against River Plate.


title: Mathías Olivera

text: Olivera appeared in only one further match for the club, a 0–2 loss at Plaza Colonia on 29 February 2016. In December of that year, he was bought outright by his agent Daniel Fonseca and assigned to Atenas de San Carlos in Segunda División.


title: Mathías Olivera

text: In July 2017, Oliveira passed a medical at Galatasaray, but eventually did not sign a contract and subsequently returned to Uruguay.


title: Mathías Olivera

text: On 14 August 2017, Olivera signed a six-year deal with La Liga club Getafe. He scored his first professional goal on 21 April 2018, netting the game's only in a 1–0 win against Eibar.


title: Mathías Olivera

text: On 4 July 2018, Segunda División side Albacete announced the signing of Olivera on a season long loan deal. He played 15 matches and scored a goal for the club before his loan was cut short by Getafe on 25 January 2019.


title: Mathías Olivera

text: Olivera is a former Uruguay youth international. He was part of Uruguay under-20 team which won 2017 South American U-20 Championship and finished fourth at 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup.


title: Mathías Olivera

text: On 7 January 2022, Olivera was named in Uruguay's 50-man preliminary squad for FIFA World Cup qualifying matches against Paraguay and Venezuela. He made his senior team debut on 27 January 2022 in a 1–0 win against Paraguay.


title: Admiral-class battlecruiser

text: The Admiral-class battlecruisers were to have been a class of four British Royal Navy battlecruisers built near the end of World War I. Their design began as an improved version of the s, but it was recast as a battlecruiser after Admiral John Jellicoe, commander of the Grand Fleet, pointed out that there was no real need for more battleships, but that a number of German battlecruisers had been laid down that were superior to the bulk of the Grand Fleet's battlecruisers and the design was revised to counter these. The class was to have consisted of , "Anson", "Howe", and "Rodney" — all names of famous admirals — but the other three ships were suspended as the material and labour required to complete them was needed for higher-priority merchantmen and escort vessels. Their designs were updated to incorporate the lessons from the Battle of Jutland, but the Admiralty eventually decided that it was better to begin again with a clean-slate design so they were cancelled in 1919. No more battlecruisers would be built due to the arms limitations agreements of the interbellum.


title: Admiral-class battlecruiser

text: "Hood", however, was sufficiently advanced in construction that she was completed in 1920 and immediately became flagship of the Battlecruiser Squadron of the Atlantic Fleet. She served as the flagship of the Special Service Squadron during its round-the-world cruise in 1923–1924. "Hood" was transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet in 1936 and spent much of the next few years on Non-Intervention Patrols during the Spanish Civil War, returning to the United Kingdom before the beginning of World War II and the Battlecruiser Squadron of the Home Fleet.


title: Admiral-class battlecruiser

text: "Hood" spent most of the early part of the war patrolling against German commerce raiders and escorting convoys. Flagship of Force H, based at Gibraltar, she bombarded French ships during the attack on Mers-el-Kébir. In May 1941 "Hood" and the battleship were ordered to intercept the and the heavy cruiser as they attempted to break out into the North Atlantic. In the subsequent Battle of the Denmark Strait, the aft magazines of "Hood" exploded, sinking her within five minutes of opening fire.


title: Admiral-class battlecruiser

text: In 1915 the Admiralty was considering the next generation of warship to follow the "Queen Elizabeth"-class battleships. The Director of Naval Construction (DNC), Sir Eustace Tennyson-d'Eyncourt, was given instructions to prepare designs for a new battleship. The design should: "take the armament, armour and engine power of "Queen Elizabeth" as the standard and build around them a hull which should draw as little water as was considered practicable and safe, and which should embody all the latest protection and improvements against underwater attack." The design ('A') was submitted to the Admiralty on 30 November for consideration. The DNC had been able to reduce the draught in comparison to "Queen Elizabeth" by 22% by widening the ship to and lengthening it to ; this had the consequence of restricting the ships to use only one dock in Rosyth and two in Portsmouth. Large anti-torpedo bulges were fitted, and the secondary armament of twelve guns of a new design was mounted on the forecastle deck. The resulting high freeboard gave the design a greater ratio of reserve buoyancy to displacement than in any previous British dreadnought. The design's stretched hull form also gave her an estimated speed of , about faster than "Queen Elizabeth" had been able to reach in service. The First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Henry Jackson, responded on 6 December that such a large ship might start a new arms race with the Americans that Britain could ill afford, and that better deck protection was necessary to defeat plunging shells during long-range engagements.


title: Admiral-class battlecruiser

text: The Admiralty asked for the design to be reworked ('B') with a maximum beam of , but this was deemed unsatisfactory as it compromised the ship's underwater protection. A pair of revised designs was requested with the speed reduced to to allow the hull to be shortened to better fit in existing floating docks and the minimum possible draught. The first of the two ('C1') was to have full bulge protection and the second ('C2') to have the best bulge protection possible without exceeding "Queen Elizabeth"s length. 'C1' was shortened by in comparison with 'B' and 'C2' was only in length, but draught increased by . In both proposals it had been necessary to reduce the number of guns in the secondary armament and reduce the thickness of the armour. The Admiralty was not pleased with either design and asked for a revised version of 'A' of the same draught, beam, armour and armament, but shortened and with the same speed as "Queen Elizabeth". In addition the new five-inch gun was rejected in favour of the existing gun.


title: Admiral-class battlecruiser

text: At least some of the designs were passed to Admiral John Jellicoe, commander of the Grand Fleet, who pointed out that there was no need for new battleships as the British superiority in numbers over the Germans was substantial, but that was not true for battlecruisers. Germany was known to be building three new s with an estimated speed approaching and a reported armament of guns. These ships would be superior to all existing British battlecruisers, and those then under construction (the two and the three 'large light cruisers') were equally fast, but too thinly armoured to compete with them. He also remarked that his experience with "Queen Elizabeth"-class had persuaded him that an intermediate speed between the battleships and the battlecruisers was of little use; he suggested that the design should be for either a battleship or a 30-knot battlecruiser, preferably the latter.


title: Admiral-class battlecruiser

text: The DNC prepared two new designs in response to Admiral Jellicoe's comments on 1 February 1916, each for a battlecruiser capable of thirty knots or better and armed with eight guns. Design '1' displaced with two inches less belt armour and a speed of thirty knots. It used the bulky large-tube boilers traditional in British capital ships, which explains why the design was larger than any of the previous battleship designs. Design '2' was essentially a repeat of the first design except that small-tube boilers were substituted. These were considerably smaller than the older type and saved over Design '1' and had one foot less draught. These savings were substantial enough to overcome the Engineer-in-Chief's objections that they required more frequent and expensive repairs. The DNC was asked to submit four more designs using small-tube boilers which were submitted on 17 February. Design '3' was Design '2' with the machinery power increased to to boost the maximum speed to while the other designs had either four, six or eight guns. Design '3' was selected as Admiral Jellicoe had specified that the minimum number of guns should be no less than eight as fewer caused problems in accurate fire control, and two alternatives were to be provided, one with a dozen 5.5-inch guns and the other with sixteen such guns. The latter proposal was selected on 7 April and orders were placed on 19 April for three ships ("Hood", "Howe" and "Rodney"). The order for the fourth ship, "Anson", was placed on 13 June.


title: Admiral-class battlecruiser

text: On 5 July the DNC submitted two revised designs for the Admiral-class ships. The first was a modification of the previous design with slight increases to the deck, turret, barbette, and funnel uptake armour, one-inch protection for the 5.5-inch ammunition hatches and hoists, and the number of electrical generators increased from four to eight. These changes increased the displacement by and draught by . The second design drastically improved the protection and converted the ships into fast battleships. The vertical armour was generally increased by 50% and the deck protection was slightly thickened as in the first design. These changes would have added another to the original design and increased the draught by , but would have cost half a knot in speed. This design would have been equal to the "Queen Elizabeth"s, but faster and with much improved torpedo protection, although it was some larger than the older ships. After the DNC submitted the above designs, he was asked to consider variations with triple fifteen-inch turrets, and these were submitted on 20 July. The Admiralty chose the fast battleship design, and "Hood" was laid down again on 1 September.


title: Admiral-class battlecruiser

text: Later that month "Hood"s armour scheme was slightly revised in light of further analysis of the results of Jutland and the deck armour was modestly increased in order to ensure that a minimum thickness of nine inches of armour would have to be penetrated by shells striking at angles of descent up to 30° from the horizontal. Further alterations were made in 1917 during her construction that increased the thickness of her turret faces and roofs. These changes, plus numerous others, increased her displacement by and her draught by , and reduced her speed to . The changes continued during 1918 when the thickness of her magazine crowns was increased from one inch to two; the armour for the funnel uptakes above the forecastle deck was omitted in compensation. In May 1919 her main deck armour at the side abreast the magazines was increased to three inches (76 mm), and four 5.5-inch guns and their ammunition were deleted in consequence. The next month plans were approved to increase the thickness of the main deck over the forward magazines to and to over the rear magazines; her four above water torpedo tubes and their protection were to be omitted and the wall of the torpedo control tower were to be reduced to a thickness of to offset the armour's weight. However, the additional deck armour was never fitted and the torpedo tubes (less their protection) were retained.


title: Admiral-class battlecruiser

text: Earlier in 1917, however, construction of "Hood"s three sisters had been suspended as the amount of labour and material they required would be better employed in the construction and repair of merchant ships and escorts needed to keep open Britain's lines of communication in the face of the U-boat blockade. Design work continued however, although "Hood" was too far advanced to incorporate these changes, and ultimately would have been extensive enough for the other three ships to constitute their own class. At the end of 1917 the suspended ships' design was modified to increase the thickness of the turret roofs to six inches (152 mm), and (unspecified) alterations were made to the armoured bulkheads. These cost a total of in displacement. Other changes were a redesigned bridge structure and moving the funnels closer together and the exchange in position between the fifteen-inch shellrooms and magazines. This latter change would have caused the hull's form to be filled out somewhat to accommodate the handling room of the rearmost turret at the cost of a slight loss in speed and ammunition storage.


title: Admiral-class battlecruiser

text: "Hood" was the closest to completion and her construction was continued in case the Germans managed to complete any of their new battlecruisers. Admiral Beatty continually pressed to have "Hood"s construction expedited and for her sisters to be restarted, but the War Cabinet refused to approve either measure as nothing could be sacrificed in the shipbuilding programme to this end. After the end of the war the three suspended ships were cancelled as they could not fully incorporate the lessons of the war.


title: Admiral-class battlecruiser

text: The Admiral-class ships were significantly larger than their predecessors of the . They had an overall length of , a beam of , and a draught of at deep load. This was longer and wider than the smaller ships. They displaced at load and at deep load, over more than the older ships. They had a metacentric height of at deep load as well as a complete double bottom.


title: Admiral-class battlecruiser

text: The ships had four Brown-Curtis single-reduction geared steam turbine sets, each of which drove one propeller shaft. They were arranged in three engine rooms. The forward engine room held the two turbines for the wing shafts, the middle compartment housed the turbines for the port inner shaft and the aft engine room contained the turbines for the starboard inner shaft. A cruising turbine was built into the casing of each wing turbine. The turbines were powered by twenty-four Yarrow small-tube boilers equally divided between four boiler rooms. They were designed to produce a total of at a working pressure of , but achieved more than during "Hood"s trials, when she slightly exceeded her designed speed of .


title: Admiral-class battlecruiser

text: They were designed to normally carry of fuel oil, but had a maximum capacity of . At full capacity, "Hood" could steam at a speed of for an estimated . They had eight dynamos, two diesel, two turbo-driven, and four reciprocating.


title: Admiral-class battlecruiser

text: The Admiral-class ships mounted eight BL 15-inch Mk I guns in four twin hydraulically powered Mark II turrets, designated 'A', 'B', 'X' and 'Y' from front to rear. The guns could be depressed to −3° and elevated to 30°; they could be loaded at any angle up to 20°, although loading at high angles tended to slow the gun's return to battery. The ships carried 120 shells per gun. They fired projectiles at a muzzle velocity of ; this provided a maximum range of with armour-piercing (AP) shells.


title: Admiral-class battlecruiser

text: Their secondary armament consisted of sixteen BL 5.5-inch Mk I guns, which were mounted on pivot mounts on the forecastle deck, protected by gun shields. They were provided with 200 rounds per gun. The guns on their CPII mounts had a maximum elevation of 30°. They fired projectiles at a muzzle velocity of . Their maximum range was at 30° elevation. Their rate of fire was twelve rounds per minute.


title: Admiral-class battlecruiser

text: The Admiral-class ships were designed with four QF four-inch Mark V anti-aircraft guns. They had a maximum depression of -5° and a maximum elevation of 80°. They fired a high explosive shell at a muzzle velocity of at a rate of ten to fifteen rounds per minute. The guns had a maximum ceiling of , but an effective range of much less.


title: Admiral-class battlecruiser

text: Two submerged side-loading torpedo tubes were fitted forward of 'A' turret and eight above-water side-loading Mark V tubes were intended to be mounted abreast the rear funnel on the upper deck, although only four of the latter were carried by "Hood". They were loaded and traversed by hydraulic power; the submerged tubes were fired by compressed air while the above-water tubes used cordite charges. Thirty-two warheads could be accommodated in the two magazines in the hold forward of 'A' turret's shellroom. "Hood" carried Mark IV and IV* torpedoes, each which had a warhead of of TNT. They had three speed settings which governed their range; from at , at , and at .


title: Admiral-class battlecruiser

text: The main guns of the Admiral-class ships were controlled from either of the two fire-control directors. The primary director was mounted above the conning tower in an armoured hood and the other was in the fore-top on the foremast. 'B' turret could also control all the main gun turrets while 'X' turret could control the rear guns. Data from a rangefinder in the armoured hood were input into a Mk V Dreyer Fire Control Table located in the Transmitting Station (TS) on the platform deck where they were converted into range and deflection data for use by the guns. The target's data were also graphically recorded on a plotting table to assist the gunnery officer in predicting the movement of the target. The fore-top was equipped with a rangefinder. Each turret was provided with a thirty-foot rangefinder in an armoured housing on the turret roof and a Dumaresq analogue computer for local fire-control.


title: Admiral-class battlecruiser

text: The secondary armament was primarily controlled by the 5.5-inch directors mounted on each side of the bridge. They were supplemented by the two additional control positions in the fore-top, which were provided with rangefinders. Each of these positions was equipped with a Dumaresq calculator for local control, but the spotting data were normally sent to the 5.5-inch TS on the lower deck much like the procedure for the fifteen-inch guns, except that the firing data were calculated by two Type F fire-control clocks (analog computers). The anti-aircraft guns were controlled by a simple rangefinder mounted on the aft superstructure.


title: Admiral-class battlecruiser

text: The torpedoes initially had a similar system where various rangefinders, especially the fifteen-foot rangefinder above the aft torpedo control tower, and deflection sights provided data to a Dreyer table in the torpedo TS adjacent to the 5.5-inch TS on the lower deck. However the Dreyer table was removed during "Hood"s 1929–1931 refit and the calculations were made in the torpedo control position in the bridge.


title: Admiral-class battlecruiser

text: The waterline belt of the Admiral-class ships was thick, angled 12° outwards partly to keep the belt inside the bulge structure and allow torpedo hits to vent to the atmosphere. This angle also increased the armor's relative thickness to horizontal, close-range fire, albeit at the cost of reducing its relative height which increased the chance of plunging shellfire going over or under it. This sloped belt made their armor comparable to the found in the latest British dreadnoughts. It ran some , from the forward edge of 'A' barbette to the middle of 'Y' barbette. Forward of this the belt thinned to six inches before further reducing to and ending in a five-inch (127 mm) bulkhead well short of the bow. Aft of the midships section the belt reduced to six inches (152 mm) ; it did not reach the stern, but terminated at a five-inch bulkhead. This belt had a height of , which was below the designed waterline. Above it was the seven-inch middle belt, high, and the five-inch upper belt, which was high. The middle belt stretched between 'A' and 'Y' barbettes, ending in four-inch transverse bulkheads at each end. The upper belt only ran from 'A' barbette to the end of the machinery spaces and ended in another four-inch transverse bulkhead. Five of "Hood"s decks were armoured with thicknesses varying from , with the greatest thicknesses over the magazines and the steering gear. Immediately adjacent to 'A' and 'Y' barbettes the main deck was five inches thick to protect the magazines.


title: Admiral-class battlecruiser

text: The turret faces were fifteen inches thick while their sides ranged from in thickness, and the roof was five inches thick. The barbettes had a maximum of twelve inches of armour, but were reduced in thickness in stages below decks, although the outer faces of 'A' and 'Y' barbettes were considerably thicker below decks than the other barbettes. The conning tower armour was nine to eleven inches thick, and it was the largest yet fitted to a British capital ship as it weighed . The primary fire-control director atop the conning tower was protected by an armoured hood. The face of the hood was six inches thick, its sides were two inches thick, and its roof was protected by three inches of armour. A communications tube with six-inch sides ran from the conning tower down to the lower conning position on the main deck. The three torpedo bulkheads were , and thick.


title: Admiral-class battlecruiser

text: The anti-torpedo bulges of the Admiral-class battlecruisers were the first fitted on a British capital ship to fully incorporate the lessons learned from a series of experiments begun before World War I. They consisted of an outer air space, an inner buoyancy space and the 1.5-inch protective bulkhead. The buoyancy space was filled with sealed steel crushing tubes intended to distribute the force of an explosion over as wide an area as possible as well as absorb as much of its force as possible. However, tests conducted after "Hood" was completed showed that filling the buoyancy space with water was equally effective and considerably cheaper.


title: Admiral-class battlecruiser

text: Shortly after commissioning on 15 May 1920 "Hood" became flagship of the Battlecruiser Squadron of the Atlantic Fleet, under the command of Rear Admiral Sir Roger Keyes. She made a cruise to Scandinavian waters that year. She visited the Mediterranean in 1921 and 1922 to show the flag and to train with the Mediterranean Fleet, before sailing on a cruise to Brazil and the West Indies in company with the Battlecruiser Squadron.


title: Admiral-class battlecruiser

text: In November 1923 "Hood", accompanied by the battlecruiser and a number of s of the 1st Light Cruiser Squadron, set out on a world cruise from west to east via the Panama Canal. They returned home ten months later in September 1924. The Battlecruiser Squadron visited Lisbon in January 1925 to participate in the Vasco da Gama celebrations before continuing on the Mediterranean for exercises. "Hood" would continue this pattern of a winter training visit to the Mediterranean for the rest of the decade.


title: Admiral-class battlecruiser

text: "Hood" was given a major refit from 1 May 1929 to 10 March 1931 and afterwards resumed her role as flagship of the Battlecruiser Squadron. Later that year her crew participated in the Invergordon Mutiny over pay cuts for the sailors. It ended peacefully and "Hood" returned to her home port afterwards. The Battlecruiser Squadron made a Caribbean cruise in early 1932. The next year she resumed her previous practice of a winter cruise in the Mediterranean. While en route to Gibraltar for one of these cruises she collided with the battlecruiser on 23 January 1935, but was only lightly damaged. "Hood" participated in King George V's Silver Jublilee Fleet Review at Spithead the following August. She was transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet shortly afterward and stationed at Gibraltar at the outbreak of the Second Italo-Abyssinian War and the Spanish Civil War. On 23 April 1937 she escorted three British merchantmen into Bilbao harbour despite the presence of the Nationalist cruiser that attempted to blockade the port. She returned to Portsmouth in January 1939 for an overhaul that lasted until 12 August.


title: Admiral-class battlecruiser

text: In June 1939, "Hood" was assigned to the Home Fleet's Battlecruiser Squadron while still refitting; when war broke out later that year, she was employed principally in patrolling the vicinity of Iceland and the Faroe Islands to protect convoys and intercept German raiders attempting to break out into the Atlantic. In September 1939, she was hit by a 250 kg (550 lb) aircraft bomb with minor damage. By early 1940 "Hood"s machinery was in dire shape and limited her best speed to ; she was refitted between 4 April and 12 June.