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c5e5ae2d6321e62f88d953f1bc272880 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/cjarlotta/2016/03/29/obama-continues-fight-against-opioid-heroin-epidemic/ | Obama Continues Fight Against Opioid, Heroin Epidemic | Obama Continues Fight Against Opioid, Heroin Epidemic
Speaking at the National Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit in Atlanta, President Barack Obama today will introduce additional public- and private-sector initiatives to help curb opioid-related overdoses in the United States.
There were 18,893 deaths involving prescription opioids in the United States in 2014, up 16% from 2013, according to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).
Building on his proposal for $1.1 billion in new funding to assist Americans with opioid use disorder, the president will announce how his administration will expand treatment: increasing the current patient limit from 100 to 200 for physicians qualified to prescribe buprenorphine to treat opioid addiction, releasing $94 million in funding to 261 community health centers across the country and providing $11 million in new funding opportunity for up to 11 states interested in growing their medication-assisted treatment services.
Establishing a Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Parity Task Force, which will be chaired by the Domestic Policy Council, the president will outline several of its objectives: advancing access to mental health and substance use disorder treatment, promoting compliance with best practices for mental health and substance use disorder parity implementation and developing additional agency guidance as needed.
In addition, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is hoping to strengthen access to mental health and substance use services for people enrolled in Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) plans. The department is in the middle of finalizing a rule that will require these benefits to be offered at parity.
Encouraging states to purchase and distribute naloxone, and provide training to those administering the opioid antagonist, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is releasing $11 million in new funding.
Building upon its High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program, the Office of National Drug Control Policy will add Ohio and Michigan to the effort, in an attempt to combat heroin use and overdose by establishing local partnerships between law enforcement and their counterparts in public health.
The president will announce $7 million in financing for the COPS Anti-Heroin Task Force Program, which falls under the Department of Justice, a program created to provide funds to law enforcement agencies in states with high rates of primary treatment admission for heroin and other opioids.
U.S. President Barack Obama delivers the keynote address at the awards dinner for Syracuse... [+] University's Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium March 28, 2016 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images)
To tackle substance use disorders in rural communities, the Department of Agriculture on Monday announced a Rural Health and Safety Education Grant Program focusing on addressing the challenges related to substance addiction in rural communities in the country.
HHS will continue to fund syringe services programs for people who inject drugs, an approach that the administration believes will prevent HIV and viral hepatitis among those who inject drugs.
Recognizing the need for clinicians to do their part in addressing the country's growing epidemic, more than 60 medical schools, beginning in fall 2016, will be requiring students to take some form of prescribing education.
Follow CJ on Forbes and Twitter for more coverage of end-of-life care and the culture of medicine.
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1f636e96cde64a03774ef25949737ec5 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/cjarlotta/2016/05/03/opioid-abuse-contributes-to-rising-health-care-costs/ | How Opioid Abuse Contributes To Rising Healthcare Costs | How Opioid Abuse Contributes To Rising Healthcare Costs
As the opioid epidemic in the United States continues taking lives across the nation, it's also contributing to rising healthcare costs for taxpayers.
Published in the May issue of the journal Health Affairs, a new retrospective cohort study revealed that hospitalizations related to opioid abuse/dependence rose significantly from 301,707 in 2002 to 520,275 in 2012, an increase of 72%. Overall hospitalizations during the same time period remained largely consistent: slightly growing from 36.52 million to 36.48 million.
Oxycodone pain pills prescribed for a patient with chronic pain lie on display on March 23, 2016 in... [+] Norwich, CT. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
Via email, study author Dr. Matthew Ronan, a hospitalist at the VA Boston Healthcare System’s West Roxbury Medical Center and an instructor at Harvard Medical School, said injection opioid abuse leads to many complications, one of the most known is serious infection.
Opioid-related hospitalizations with serious infection jumped 91% to 6,535. Analyzing trends held within individual types of infection, the investigators found similar growth in the numbers of cases of endocarditis (1.5-fold increase), osteomyelitis (2.2-fold), septic arthritis (2.7- fold) and epidural abscess (2.6-fold).
"Our study characterizes the sobering impact of these infections on healthcare systems, but also on the patients themselves who are suffering from addiction," he said. "Up to 5% of patients presenting to the hospital with an infection related to their opioid abuse will die during hospitalization. Of those that survive to hospital discharge, more than a quarter will be too functionally impaired to return home immediately and will need to spend time in a rehab or skilled nursing facility. These are sobering statistics in a patient population with an average age of 43 years."
Dr. Shoshana Herzig, a hospitalist and director of Hospital Medicine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, said the study's findings reveal the need for clinicians to prescribe narcotics more judiciously than they have been.
"Prevention is the most effective way to fight the opioid epidemic," she said. "We need programs that support clinician training in the areas of discussing pain control with their patients, appropriate opioid prescribing, alternatives to opioid therapy, and safe prescribing. We also need to change the message we deliver to patients about pain, and the expectations for pain control."
The painkiller epidemic has had a significant impact on the U.S. healthcare system, mainly due to the rising number of opioid-related hospitalizations. The estimated total charge per hospitalization related to opioid abuse/dependence in 2012 was more than $28,000. For cases associated with an infection: $107,000 for hospitalizations.
There were 18,893 deaths involving prescription opioids in the country in 2014, up 16% from 2013, according to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).
More than quadrupling between 2002 and 2012, total inpatient charges related to opioid abuse/dependence reached $14.85 billion in 2012. Roughly $700 million of that went to paying hospitalizations related to opioid-associated infections.
Shifting expectations from complete absence of pain to tolerability of pain can assist patients with comprehending potential tradeoffs of not ingesting painkillers for chronic pain. "We need to help patients understand that opioids can actually make pain worse when used for long periods of time, rather than better," Herzig said. "We as a healthcare system really need to reexamine our use of greater than seven days of opioid therapy. Beyond this, we need commitment to more resources and facilities for early treatment, and accordingly, greater access to such therapies, since current levels of treatment availability are woefully inadequate."
"We need to better understand the factors responsible for the disproportionate increase in healthcare charges related to these hospitalizations," Ronan said. "While the number of hospitalizations roughly doubled over the studied time frame, the charges submitted by hospitals for the care of these patients quadrupled. The source of the increase isn’t clear, since length of hospitalization and number of procedures were almost identical over the study time frame."
Follow CJ on Forbes and Twitter for more coverage of end-of-life care and the culture of medicine.
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7c4d2072ec5883782fe92799ce091454 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/cjarlotta/2016/05/25/fighting-for-a-fix/?sh=26e871782658 | Fighting For A Fix: Reflections Of Mothers Who Lost Children To The Opioid Epidemic | Fighting For A Fix: Reflections Of Mothers Who Lost Children To The Opioid Epidemic
Communities across the country are witnessing firsthand the effects of the opioid epidemic. Addiction has no face; its victims may be your neighbors, your teammates, your friends. Many become addicted from a physician’s prescription; others from one poor choice. A fix is needed.
The number of drug-related deaths is rising in the United States. Each year, more people are dying from overdoses than car accidents, and more than half of overdoses involve opioids, such as heroin and prescription painkillers.
New eBook from FORBES. (Cover design by Nick DeSantis)
Parents are burying their children. Mothers are crying out for change—to the pharmaceutical industry, to treatment programs and to stigmas. Amid their sadness, hope endures.
Neighborhoods are coming together, voicing their concerns and suggestions to community leaders, elected officials and addiction experts. Recovery programs are too few and ineffective, while stigmas and pharmaceutical profitability impede reform.
Depriving this disease of its oxygen includes enhancing education programs for prescribers and patients, expanding access to treatment and recovery centers, increasing naloxone awareness, and keeping Big Pharma in check. While these actions alone aren't enough, they're a foundation to build upon, with the hope of elevating the quality of life and higher standard of care for generations to come.
In a new eBook titled "Fighting For A Fix," I retell the stories of seven mothers who lost a son or daughter to the country’s ever-growing opioid crisis. Each account depicts a struggling battle with addiction. The motivation for discussing their experiences is clear: to prevent another scream, another death, another empty chair at a dinner table. Whether you agree with their accusations or not, one thing is certain: Our citizenry is in peril.
Fighting For A Fix: An eBook From Forbes Death by opioid overdose is on the rise in the U.S. Read the stories of grieving mothers crying out for reform.
Follow CJ on Forbes and Twitter for more coverage of end-of-life care and the culture of medicine.
Also on Forbes:
Gallery: Global 2000: The Biggest Drug Companies Of 2015 15 images View gallery
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7791bbaf6537f8f1f0c96666f0aed971 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/cjarlotta/2016/08/29/advice-on-e-cigarettes-varies-from-doctor-to-doctor-study-suggests/ | Advice On E-Cigarettes Varies From Doctor To Doctor, Study Suggests | Advice On E-Cigarettes Varies From Doctor To Doctor, Study Suggests
If you’re still unsure of how e-cigarettes affect users, you’re not alone.
Physicians are beginning to field more questions and more questions about e-cigarettes from patients—and responses to these concerns are varying greatly from clinician to clinician, a new study suggests.
Christopher Chin blows vapor from an e-cigarette at Gone With the Smoke Vapor Lounge on May 5, 2016... [+] in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Stanford University of Medicine researchers analyzed more than 500 online interactions about e-cigarettes between physicians and patients from July 2011 through June 2015. The rate of e-cigarette-related questions increased during the four-year period, the researchers found.
The investigators reviewed questions patients asked and analyzed common themes pulled from the data. Some participants thanked clinicians for providing answers by clicking a button on the program's interface. The study’s findings and details can be found in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine (AJPM).
Some questions were straightforward while others were a bit more personal. Of the questions asked, 34% were related to specific side effects and harms; 27% were about general safety; and 19% focused on the use of e-cigarettes as quitting aids. While the patients were the ones asking the questions, clinicians raised their own themes.
During exchanges with patients, doctors acknowledged the need for more research on e-cigarettes and the relative safety of e-cigarettes compared with combusted tobacco. They also expressed overwhelming concerns about nicotine addiction in tobacco smokers.
The overall tone of the physicians' answers varied: 47% of responses were deemed by the researchers as being negative regarding e-cigarettes. Another 20% of responses were considered to be positive (e.g., encouraging the use of e-cigarettes as smoking cessation aids). Forty-five percent of physicians recommended e-cigarettes as a potential tool for quitting smoking.
Patients who received positive messages about e-cigarettes were more likely to thank providers. Future studies will need to examine how doctors can tailor messages on e-cigarettes to different patients, the researchers noted.
Follow CJ on Forbes and Twitter for more coverage of end-of-life care and the culture of medicine. In his new eBook, titled "Fighting For A Fix," he tells the stories of seven mothers who lost a son or daughter to this epidemic.
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623e2306f69287c5e965668f49ccf2f7 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/ckgsb/2014/08/04/chinas-salt-monopoly-cracking-down-on-illegal-contraband-2/ | China's Salt Monopoly: Cracking Down on Illegal Contraband | China's Salt Monopoly: Cracking Down on Illegal Contraband
China's 2,132-year old salt monopoly and why it makes sense to finally end it.
Early last year Taobao, Alibaba’s online marketplace, went through a cleansing process to remove contraband being sold by merchants on the site. What was this illicit item? Was it cocaine or heroin sale of which is prohibited under China’s Drug Administration Law? No. Was it firearms which private citizens in China are not allowed to own or sell? No. Was it stolen merchandise being resold by unscrupulous thieves? No. In fact, the Taobao merchants were attempting to sell... common table salt.
That’s right–table salt. Under Chinese law, it is illegal for any entity except the China National Salt Industry Corporation (“China Salt” for short) to sell salt for household use in mainland China. This makes China Salt a government-mandated monopolist. Salt in China is perhaps the world’s oldest monopolized industry. Although there have been brief periods of non-enforcement, the monopoly has operated continuously for 2,132 years since it originated in 119 BC during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han.
During Taobao’s cleansing process from February 26 to March 8 of 2013, merchants were ordered to stop selling salt unless they were government sanctioned (in Chinese). This would allow for only China Salt and its wholly-owned subsidiaries. Taobao’s enforcement was mild compared to past efforts. In 1994 China created a special police force just to enforce the salt monopoly. At one point the force numbered 25,000 officers and engaged in operations one could envision occurring in a television crime drama (see this article).
The salt monopoly is back in the news because China is considering dismantling it. Although one has to admire this monopoly’s resilience, economic principles say it is time for it to end. There are three main reasons that economists worry about monopolies like China Salt. First, having multiple firms competing is helpful because it pushes them to produce and price at the lowest possible cost. If firms don’t work hard to reduce their costs or attempt to price higher than their costs, they face consequences. Other firms, seeing the opportunity to profitably steal market share, will undercut them on price. This competitive pressure is good for customers because it means prices will be as low as possible. It also means that resources will be used efficiently as costs are driven as low as possible.[1] A monopolist, in contrast, is an island unto itself. Not similarly constrained, it will charge a price above, perhaps well above, its production costs.
Brine being boiled down to produce salt at the Xinhai Well in Zigong, China. (Art Yang) (Photo... [+] credit: Wikipedia)
Of course, China Salt is not an ordinary monopoly because it is controlled by the government. Perhaps the Salt Affairs Bureau–the bureaucracy that controls the salt industry–is not concerned with China Salt’s profits and watches out for customers by forcing China Salt to keep costs low and prices close to its costs (or maybe even below). I don’t know enough about the costs of producing salt in China to know how China Salt’s prices compare; however, the fact that non-authorized vendors were successfully selling salt on Taobao suggests that there is room to undercut China Salt and its subsidiaries. But perhaps these renegade sellers are temporarily pricing below their costs to get a foothold in the market and will not be able to sustain these prices. This could be. There is one simple way to find out–open the gates to any firm that wants to sell salt. If China Salt offers the lowest sustainable price of any firm then there won’t be many takers of this opportunity.[2] On the other hand, if other firms take the bait and succeed then the result will be lower prices for China’s consumers and more efficient use of resources.
There is another way that monopolists tend to use resources inefficiently and is the second reason to hope for the salt monopoly’s demise. If it enjoys the luxury of charging prices well above its costs, a monopoly must devote resources to preventing others from getting in on the action. The temptation is great because there is money to be made. In China Salt’s case the government handles protection for them. The government devotes resources to identifying illegal sales of salt, prosecuting the sellers, and punishing them. How much is spent on this is unknown but a salt police force numbering in the tens of thousands suggest that the costs were non-trivial at least at one point in time. The vexing part of these expenditures is that they exist solely to preserve the inefficiently high profits that the monopolist enjoys. Better that these resources were devoted to ensuring the safety and integrity of salt sold in China.
The third reason is that monopolists, being insulated from the rigors of competition, may not feel the need to innovate. This is a very important reason in high-technology industries which evolve quickly. It is probably not so important in the salt industry. Nonetheless, innovations in how salt is distributed and sold may bring about cost reductions or increased convenience for customers. This could be another reason that the illegal merchants on Taobao had succeeded. Perhaps their delivery times, service, or packaging were superior to those of China Salt.
We can hope that 2,132 years from now in the year 4146 people reflect back and marvel at how purveyors of salt have been competing to provide salt (if that is what people are still using) at the lowest possible cost.
Update: An article in The Global Times demonstrates that the problems of unrelated diversifications that I discussed in the context of WISCO can also plague a private steel company–this time the Highsee Group that diversified into banking and securities firms.
Another Update: I previously discussed a price war that China’s electronics retailers flirted with and the disastrous consequences it would have for prices. The same game is now being played in the market for taxi apps. Kuaidi, one of the service providers, recently stated that it would forever rebate one yuan more to users of its app than its competitors rebated. It will be interesting to see if this statement is more credible than those of the appliance retailers.
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[1] This is a similar to an argument I made when discussing CCTV’s concerns about the pricing of Starbucks’ coffee.
[2] I made a similar point in discussing the government’s efforts to reduce papermaking capacity.
About Brian Viard
Prof Brian Viard is Associate Professor of Strategy and Economics at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business. He explores the workings of economics in everyday life and in China through his column Invisible Hand Revealed.
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dcf63e9a4ee74c86ad29b95e81a03d17 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/ckoliver/2016/04/30/kiwi-businesses-are-investing-in-new-opportunities-with-big-data-telco/ | Kiwi Businesses are Investing in New Opportunities with Big Data & Telco | Kiwi Businesses are Investing in New Opportunities with Big Data & Telco
Big data has long been touted as a tool for success in the enterprise, though Australasian businesses of all sizes can benefit from the ability to access customer data. Recently, small business owners in New Zealand have also been able to benefit from aggregated data. This comes as a result of cloud-based accounting firm Xero introducing its Xero Signals technology, which aggregates data from over 10,000 New Zealand businesses, helping organizations better achieve their goals through providing valuable customer insights.
It’s our responsibility to provide the technology tools to small businesses to help them thrive. These insights will enable New Zealand’s small businesses to assess their own business using comparative insight from thousands of other similar sized businesses.
-- Anna Curzon, Xero Managing Director
On-boarding big data, containers, and cloud-based technologies was once thought of as something to leave to the professionals. Being locked into a physical legacy hardware solution complete with an equally futuristic price tag may intimidate many Australasian businesses out of transitioning to a more technologically savvy approach overall. As New Zealand makes strides in unbundling its fibre internet, R&D spending, and cloud-technology investments to close the gap between itself and the rest of Oceania, it has seen steady growth in many business sectors. MYOB New Zealand’s most recent business monitor survey found that, “Over the 12 months to March 2016, 37 per cent of SME business operators across the country reported an increase in their revenue, up from 30 per cent in the September Monitor, while just 21 per cent reported a revenue decline, down from 23 per cent.”
DUESSELDORF, GERMANY - MAY 24: Two men walk into the German headquarters of British mobile telephone... [+] giant Vodafone May 24, 2005 in Duesseldorf, Germany. Vodaphone announced a three percent increase in pre-tax profits at today's annual news conference. (Photo by Ralph Orlowski/Getty Images)
New Zealand’s overall IT spending has also increased, with Gartner research forecasting sales of $11.5 billion in 2016, representing an increase of 1.4 percent from 2015. Kiwi enterprises are investing in data centers, hardware, and IT services, while Gartner saw a slight dip in spending from 2015 on physical devices. The largest forecasted area of investment for New Zealand’s IT spending is in the communication services sector, particularly within the realm of telecommunications.
IT telecommunications has been a focus of many Australasian communication service providers such as Vodaphone, Spark, Telstraclear, and TNZI. Sydney-based Symbio’s sister-company iBoss offers Australasian enterprises the ability to aggregate their communication services with major carriage providers with its unique SaaS solution. iBoss launched throughout New Zealand in March of 2016.
“We’re seeing big brands from other industries looking to enter the telco market and it is very satisfying to support the wider market in allowing them to innovate by giving them access to the technology, networks and a highly skilled team of people.”
-- John Cleaver, Chief Commercial Officer, Symbio Networks.
A pedestrian passes a Telstra phone booth in Sydney on September 18, 2008, as the telecommunications... [+] giant announced it will slash 800 jobs as new systems reduce the need for support workers for frontline staff dealing with customers. Australia's biggest telco plans to keep staff who face customers but axe roles in senior management, middle management and professional services, mainly in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. AFP PHOTO/Torsten BLACKWOOD (Photo credit should read TORSTEN BLACKWOOD/AFP/Getty Images)
Virtualizing telcom through the creation of SaaS solutions such as iBoss allows New Zealand businesses to take advantage of technology to help better their business. Through targeted IT spending in areas such as communication services, New Zealand’s organizations can continue to improve their IT infrastructure while also addressing the needs of their customers. iBoss has made great strides in improving the lives of disadvantaged Australians through a partnership with Better Life Mobile, which is something that New Zealand’s telco providers and mobile carriers should strive to emulate. There are no doubt many New Zealand communities that could benefit from a similar program. Better Life Mobile provides affordable and secure mobile plans to customers facing socio-economic disadvantages. By partnering with iBoss, Better Life Mobile was able to integrate an order and service management platform with its MNO without having to pay for the expense of creating such a solution from the group up.
When considering where to spend for improving one’s IT infrastructure, there are a variety of avenues to consider. Overall, New Zealand businesses have more opportunities than ever before for choosing tools to help curate data, manage communication services, and reach the customers that need their solutions the most.
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07b9464ccf55a55cae10fdb27524a9c0 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/clairecoghlan/2017/10/17/how-this-crowd-sourced-startup-is-disrupting-the-beauty-industry/ | How This Crowd-Sourced Startup Is Disrupting The Beauty Industry | How This Crowd-Sourced Startup Is Disrupting The Beauty Industry
Brandy Hoffman, a beauty executive, and Patricia Santos, a VC, met while championing a brand in Korea, China and Southeast Asia. Over the course of many long haul flights, the pair formed not just a fast friendship, but also the foundation of a fully crowd-sourced beauty brand, Volition. Their vision: real women submit ideas for products they’ve been searching for and Volition’s chemists and labs vet the ideas for feasibility. Two years later, sales are growing 70% month over month and five of the brand’s bestselling formulas have launched at Sephora. Here, the cofounders share their secrets for success.
Brandy Hoffman (left) and Patricia Santos cofounded Volition in 2015 Volition Beauty
Claire Coghlan: Why a fully crowd-sourced beauty brand?
Patricia Santos: 42% of millennials want to help companies develop their products and services. Meanwhile, beauty has a product failure rate close to 80%, which costs our industry billions per year. We deploy community wisdom to solve that problem.
Brandy Hoffman: To give the customer a true voice in driving the direction of a brand while having a direct line to the labs and product developers solves one of the most basic problems beauty companies face: how do you create truly differentiated product in a sea of sameness?
Coghlan: Patricia, what did you observe as a VC that convinced you Volition was a winner?
Santos: I saw a lot of female entrepreneurs come through our doors with amazing product ideas. Some couldn't get funded. Some didn't have the right retailer relationships. Some didn't have access to the right labs or chemists. I realized there was an untapped well of innovation and product ideas. At the same time, I was watching beauty become driven more and more by social platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, etc. Breakaway brands like ColourPop, Ipsy and Huda Beauty kill it by tapping into these platforms to drive sales and product discovery. We use social to not only drive sales and discovery but also product innovation and community engagement.
Coghlan: You vet all ideas for feasibility for free. How detailed does an idea need to be?
Hoffman: Some are well researched, with a detailed ingredient lists, and some are just a problem looking for a solution. For example, “I’m going through menopause and this is my issue. Can you help me?”
Coghlan: If cleared, the idea becomes a product. At that stage, the community votes. What happens next?
Santos: Success is determined by whether the product gets enough votes. The threshold is based on numerous factors, for example, what are the economical viable quantities needed to manufacture or is tooling or special testing required? Once they meet the threshold, select products are sold through our retail partners based on what makes sense for their consumers. VolitionBeauty.com is the only place for the entire collection.
Coghlan: Innovators share in the revenues of products they helped create. What percent?
Hoffman: It ranges depending on where the idea is in development and if proceeds are being directed to any charities. We just received a thank you card from an innovator saying she’s house hunting because she now has a down payment!
Coghlan: Patricia, your two boys were in diapers when you launched. How did you balance toddlers with a start-up?
Santos: It was much easier than in my previous finance career! I agree with Melinda Gates — we’re sending our daughters into a workplace designed for our dads. When we were working out of my house, the boys were running around, taking naps, drawing at the conference table. It kept the culture casual and energy high. It also forced me to make my being a mom part of the company we were building — instead of being ashamed or apologetic like I was at previous jobs.
Coghlan: What makes you feel successful?
Hoffman: Success to me means being the only member of my family to go to college. I grew up in a very rough, poor neighborhood on the south side of St. Louis, MO. I had an amazing, hardworking father, but he died when I was young. I’ve never felt more successful than when I drove away from that neighborhood to start the next chapter of my life.
Santos: I've never felt successful! My family immigrated from the Philippines when I was 12, so I have acute immigrant mentality – there’s no safety net, failure is not an option, never take anything for granted because anything can be taken away from you, always. There’s always more to do, more to achieve.
Coghlan: Have you ever experienced failure?
Santos: I consider myself a failed venture capitalist! I didn't play politics well enough. I was too honest about potential risks. There was one beauty deal I was championing and failed to get past a committee (all men, might I add, so it was an uphill battle to begin with). I failed that entrepreneur and I failed myself, and I vowed to never let politics, gender bias, prejudice or even my own weaknesses get in the way of good businesses, good ideas and great founders getting funded.
Coghlan: What terrifies you?
Hoffman: Losing my wife, my dog or our company.
Santos: The state of American politics. That racial tension, misogyny and discrimination still exist — at the level they exist — in our world today.
Coghlan: When was the last time you were moved to tears?
Hoffman: I bawled when I saw the images coming out of Las Vegas. I saw a woman lying on the ground covered in blood while another woman held her hand. It represented such horrific evil but at the same time such compassion and hope.
"Their fearlessness inspires me every day," says Santos of the Volition team. Volition Beauty
Coghlan: What do you love most about your job?
Hoffman: I feed off the fact that we challenge what our industry accepts as “business as usual.” I was once told by a boss, “Beauty is a marketing industry and that’s the most important part.” I remember thinking, “Aren’t we making a product and shouldn’t that be the number one priority?” Our priorities are different and I love where we’re headed.
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3dddb2682a889cd9d13436aeb32fcd7f | https://www.forbes.com/sites/clairepoole/2016/11/21/is-there-value-in-sunoco-logistics-merger-with-energy-transfer-partners/ | Is There Value In Sunoco Logistics' Merger With Energy Transfer Partners? | Is There Value In Sunoco Logistics' Merger With Energy Transfer Partners?
Investors don't think much of Sunoco Logistics Partners LP (NYSE:SXL)'s $20 billion purchase of affiliate Energy Transfer Partners LP (NYSE:ETP), and with good reason.
Energy Transfer CEO Kelcy Warren reviews documents about the Dakota Access Pipeline, which has been... [+] mired in controversy after thousand of protestors have sought to block its expansion underneath a water source close to the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation. (Photo by AP Photo/John L. Mone)
The deal, which consists of all stock, looks cheap, valuing ETP at $39.29 per unit, slightly lower than its $39.37 closing price this past Friday (the entities say the price represents a 10% premium over the target's average closing price over the last 30 days).
Sunil Sibal, who follows the energy infrastructure sector at Seaport Global Securities, said Sunoco Logistics also pays less in dividends -- $2 per unit per year vs. $4.22 per unit at ETP. He expects the deal to lead to a distribution reduction of about $1.22 per Energy Transfer Partners unit or $650 million. He is also concerned about its debt load of $30.4 billion.
Energy Transfer Partners' stock was down 8% in midday trading Monday to $36.22 per unit while Sunoco Logistics' stock was off 7.5% to $24.24.
The deal may turn out well in the long run. Management -- which is led by billionaire Kelcy Warren -- expects the combination will result in $200 million in annual cost synergies by 2019. So along with the $650 million payout cut, the entity will end up saving $850 million overall, Sibal figures, which could go toward paying down the debt, fund new projects and maybe even boost the dividend.
The transaction shouldn't have come as a surprise, as management previously said it was actively considering a "simplifying" transaction, Sibal notes. He thinks the deal will lower the cost of capital for the Energy Transfer complex, which includes Energy Transfer Equity LP (NYSE:ETE) and Sunoco LP (NYSE:SUN), positioning it well for acquisitions as the industry continues to consolidate.
Energy Transfer Equity is already benefiting, with its units trading up almost 4% to $17.96 per unit on the news. However, Sunoco LP's units fell by 4% to $22.83 per unit.
Warren could use some good news. Energy Transfer Equity's planned $30 billion acquisition of Williams Cos. Inc. (NYSE:WMB) fell apart last summer due to tax issues. More recently, approval for its $3.7 billion Dakota Access Pipeline project has been hung up by federal regulators after protests from environmentalists.
Sibal's biggest questions about the merger revolve around how the debt and the incentive distribution rights will be treated after the deal closes. Answers around those issues may be key in getting unitholders to come around to the eventual value of the deal.
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ab03459a9182974e2cd1e29b818d8835 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/clairetsosie/2017/08/15/more-credit-card-issuers-let-you-pay-off-debt-for-free/ | More Credit Card Issuers Let You Pay Off Debt For Free | More Credit Card Issuers Let You Pay Off Debt For Free
Shutterstock
It’s never been easier to dump your high-interest credit card balances without paying a penny in interest or fees.
Three credit cards from major issuers — Barclaycard, Bank of America and Chase — now give you an interest-free and fee-free way to pay down debt — as long as you pay your balance off in full by the end of the promotional period. These generous balance transfer offers include:
0% introductory annual percentage rate, or APR, on balance transfers No balance transfer fees or an introductory transfer fee of $0 (usually, these fees are 3% to 5% of the amount transferred) No annual fee
Before 2017, only one major issuer — Chase — offered such a card. Now, this once-rare offer is quickly becoming the new gold standard for balance transfers.
"[Issuers are] finding people who are already in debt and making them an offer they can’t refuse,” says David Robertson, publisher of The Nilson Report, an industry newsletter.
For indebted cardholders with good credit, these offers are a way to save hundreds of dollars on interest and fees. And the higher their current interest and balances, the more they can save — as long as they understand the terms and conditions.
Offers bloom in 2017
The Chase Slate credit card debuted in 2009, making Chase the first major issuer to offer a card allowing cardholders to sidestep both interest and balance transfer fees. For qualifying applicants, it offered 0% APR and an introductory $0 balance transfer fee.
In the wake of the financial crisis of 2008, banks were pulling out all the stops to bolster their hollowed balance sheets, in part by boosting sign-up bonuses and lengthening 0% APR periods. The Chase Slate credit card took that trend a step further with its new balance transfer offer.
“When we launched the Chase Slate [credit card] in 2009, the decision reflected where the country was at the time,” says Mical Jeanlys, general manager of the Chase Slate credit card. “We wanted to give customers the ability to be in the driver’s seat in terms of how they manage their credit.”
Slate is now one of Chase’s largest portfolios, Jeanlys says.
In 2017, two other major issuers debuted similar offers.
In February, the Barclaycard Ring added 0% APR to its previous terms. As before, it charges no annual fee and no balance transfer fees.
“When we launched our new offer, the response and application volume was substantially higher than expected,” Hameer Ruparel, vice president and head of acquisition of U.S. branded cards at Barclaycard, said by email.
In May, the BankAmericard credit card also debuted a similar offer, adding an introductory $0 balance transfer fee.
What’s in it for issuers?
When issuers let you pay down your balance interest-free and fee-free, they likely aren’t expecting to make money on the balance transfer itself. Instead, they’re aiming for:
Future interest revenue. Interest revenue is a major money-maker for issuers, generally bringing in more cash than swipe fees (paid by merchants) and service fees (paid by cardholders). As interest rates rise, banks are especially keen on attracting more “revolvers,” or people who carry balances, says Hank Israel, director at Novantas, a banking advisory firm.
“The bank is making a bet that enough people who are regular revolvers or even seasonal revolvers are going to stick with the card once they move over that balance and pay it off over time,” Israel says.
An edge on the competition. Issuers want to give you a reason to walk away from a competitor into their waiting arms. And they can woo you easily, because they know when you’re carrying debt with another issuer.
“It’s not a needle in the haystack,” says Nilson Report’s Robertson. “You know who’s in debt. That information is readily available from the credit bureaus.” Issuers can make “soft pulls” on your credit, or inquiries that don’t affect your score, to see where you stand.
Your loyalty. When issuers offer these rich balance transfer offers, they’re not just looking for a casual summer fling.
“With every customer we welcome ... we’re looking for a lifelong engaged relationship,” says Jeanlys of Chase. She notes that 3.6 million cardholders are enrolled in the Chase Slate Credit Dashboard, which tracks and explains their FICO credit score, and they are visiting Chase.com to check their credit.
Barclaycard’s Ruparel notes that the card also has an online community where members can suggest improvements to the product and vote on changes. "We want to meet all their credit card needs — not just the ability to transfer balances,” he said.
If you transfer a balance to a card and continue using it long term, even just to make purchases, the issuer gets more revenue.
What’s the catch?
Before you apply for a balance transfer card, you should know:
The promotional period is limited. After a card’s 0% APR period elapses, issuers will start applying interest charges to your remaining balance going forward. If you can pay off your balance in full early, you’ll save more money. Also, promotions for introductory balance transfer fees and balance transfer APRs may apply only to transfers made in the first couple of months after opening the account.
Your limit might not be high enough. Issuers give you a balance limit after you apply for a card, so you might not know ahead of time whether you’ll be able to transfer all your balances. If you don’t qualify for the limit you were hoping for, consider a personal loan instead.
It might not fit your long-term needs. The best balance transfer cards generally don’t offer rewards. If you’re looking for rewards after paying down your debt on such a card, call your issuer and see if you can switch to another card that’s a better fit.
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82336b94aca69860431b7221e3a52d0a | https://www.forbes.com/sites/clairevoon/2015/03/16/japan-society-cat-exhibition/ | The Viral Cat Pictures of Japan's Edo Period | The Viral Cat Pictures of Japan's Edo Period
In the age of the Internet, it's clear that cats don't fail to capture our attention and dominate our social media feeds. But long before they starred in viral videos and inspired memes, cats were frequently featured in paintings, sculpture, and other forms of art. In Japan, they appeared in the popular ukiyo-e woodblock prints of the Edo Period (1615-1868) that primarily portrayed beautiful women, actors of the dramatic kabuki theatre, and other pleasurable scenes. Life of Cats: Selections from the Hiraki Ukiyo-e Collection, a new exhibition at New York City's Japan Society Gallery, explores the fascinating representations of the feline in these historic images, from the playful to the sensual.
Featuring 90 prints on loan from the Hiraki Ukiyo-e Foundation, the exhibition also includes paintings, manga, porcelain figures, and sculpture to complement the ukiyo-e. Presented together, the artworks, over 120 in number, reveal the roles of cats in Japanese society as well as their relationships with humans.
Utagawa Hiroshige, "Cat Crossing to Eat" (1830–44). Color woodblock print; 22 ½ x 16 inches.... [+] Courtesy Hiraki Ukiyo-e Foundation.
“Much that is fundamental to the Japanese character can be gleaned from these historic popular prints that feature cats in everyday life and lore,” said Miwako Tezuka, the gallery's director.
Cats supposedly first reached Japan in the sixth century aboard a ship carrying sacred Buddhist scriptures from China, and their initial responsibilities were to protect these texts and prevent rodents from residing in Buddhist temples. They eventually became adored household pets, and many woodblock print artists included them in certain quotidian scenes that reflected the domestic lifestyle. In one of Utagawa Kunisada's prints currently on view, a cat perches innocently on the shoulder of a woman preparing to pour tea; in Utagawa Kuniyoshi's "Chrysanthemums" (1844–48), another cuddles with its owner who seems preoccupied with other matters. One white cat in a popular work by Utagawa Hiroshige simply observes the outside world from its windowsill, gazing at the rice fields below. Other images are more sensual, such as the print by Takahashi Hiroaki of a nude woman playing with a cat, the only garment in the scene being the blue cloth with which she teases the captivated creature.
Utagawa Kuniyoshi, "Cats Suggested by the Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaido" (1847). Color... [+] woodblock print; each sheet 14 5/8 x 10 inches. Courtesy Private Collection, New York.
There are prints that depict cats, being their mischievous selves, interfere in the lives of humans, too. A triptych by Utagawa Kuniyoshi shows a larger-than life cat crouching behind three smaller humans, preparing to pounce on them, its large, yellow eyes twinkling. The image follows the story from a kabuki play, The Scene of Okazaki from the Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido Road, in which a cat acquires the ability to speak. Kuniyoshi, who was apparently a cat lover and always had a dozen cats roaming his home, also created a series of ukiyo-e in which kabuki actors appear as cats; in one, a cat in a kimono leans on an octopus it just hit with a wooden spoon.
Cats also emerge in other prints in subtler ways, such as in Utagawa Kunisada's portrait of the famous kabuki actor Onoe Kikugoro III, whose costume as "Kayanoya Kanpei" features images of cats. Similarly, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi's "Sixth Month: Fukusuke of Shinbashi with Morning Glories at Iriya" (1880) shows an attractive woman wearing a purple garment patterned with a variety of cats.
The exhibition concludes with a selection of omocha-e, or "toy prints," which were mass-produced to teach children how to read and count in addition to expressing various moral lessons. This section includes 12 rarely seen prints, including the amusing " Popular Hotspring Spa [of Cats]" (1880) by Utagaway Yoshifuji, which depicts cats in an elaborate scene at a bathhouse, washing themselves and drinking tea. There won't be any cat GIFs on view, but these ukiyo-e won't fail to amuse and delight any cat lover.
Gallery: Life of Cats: Selections from the Hiraki Ukiyo-e Collection 20 images View gallery
Life of Cats: Selections from the Hiraki Ukiyo-e Collection continues at Japan Society Gallery through June 7, 2015. The exhibition will be presented in two stages, with half the prints on view through April 26 and the other half on view from April 29 onwards.
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61d78d4d42a6f8ca8869ba4b096a1ec4 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/claraknutson/2012/03/21/the-focus-of-corporate-philanthropy/ | The Focus of Corporate Philanthropy | The Focus of Corporate Philanthropy
The top issue, according to a study published by Forbes Insights, entitled “Corporate Philanthropy: The New Paradigm: Volunteerism. Competence. Results,” is social services. Forty-five percent of companies address social services in their corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts. At number two: environmental causes (44% of companies). Community development came in third with 40% support. These are followed by health services and economic development.
It’s not surprising that CEOs and other decision makers would want to promote these issues. The skeptics can say that this is self-serving and benefits business. On the other hand, it’s logical that corporate decision makers would be more interested and emotionally invested in business-related causes. Moreover, for those who question the motivation behind corporate philanthropy, it is telling that there is a clear breakdown in which causes are most supported.
Clearly, business leaders are aware of the importance of climate change and how it might affect the economy. Though many politicize the issue and consider it controversial, the fact that it is so widely recognized in CSR indicates that environmentalist causes are not considered hindrances to business development. In the Forbes Insights report, Conservation International’s Andy Wilson says companies are grasping the magnitude of the environmental issues. “We are living on a planet where the population is going to grow to 9.2 billion, and it is going to double the amount of food and energy we need. Figuring out how to promote economic growth and job creation and preserve the natural capital to generate food and water is a really critical issue, and many companies are rising to that challenge.”
Currently the three least supported causes are fostering entrepreneurship, the military and their families, and religion. By 2014 entrepreneurship is expected to become more important, with arts and culture sliding down the list—it makes intuitive sense that business leaders might be sympathetic to promoting entrepreneurship. It is unfortunate that these causes are not as well supported in corporate philanthropy but not surprising. Military families, religion and the arts all have a more limited scope than something as wide-ranging as the environment or general social services. In addition, while causes supporting the military might be encouraged and supported by many Americans, they may not help these international corporations in their image abroad. For broad international initiatives, the military could be seen as controversial. And religion can easily become controversial in any arena, even local ones.
We also asked where companies planned to focus their efforts in the next three years, and the results were very similar to the present list of supported causes. However, the promotion of entrepreneurship (27% of companies) is likely to be supported more in the future. Currently, two out of 10 companies say that they support entrepreneurship, but in 2014 that number increases to three in 10. With a lagging economy, more companies are trying to figure out ways to become job creators in the future. One company highlighted in the Forbes Insights study is MasterCard, which engages in entrepreneurial and economic empowerment initiatives around the world. MasterCard works with local partners to encourage training and entrepreneurship for women in the Philippines and China, and entrepreneurship for youths in India.
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1f5fd92ea3fccc3455246da461578def | https://www.forbes.com/sites/claralindhbergendorff/2018/10/24/content-community-commerce-consumer-startups-magic-formula/ | Content, Community, Commerce: Consumer Startups' Magic Formula | Content, Community, Commerce: Consumer Startups' Magic Formula
Glossier started as beauty blog “Into the Gloss” (content), then launched their own cosmetic... [+] products (commerce), and is currently building out their own beauty forum for user discussions and reviews (community). Joel Barhamand
Editorial content and high Engagement is driving today's E-commerce success stories. For online retailers, content is the equivalent of real estate and (borrowing Frederic Court’s--founder of Felix Capital--words) ‘engagement is the virtual queue.’
Glossier, founded by Emily Weiss, may be the ultimate example of what E-commerce looks like when you nail Editorial and Engagement. Glossier started as beauty blog “Into the Gloss” (content), then launched their own cosmetic products (commerce), and is currently building out their own beauty forum for user discussions and reviews (community). By giving a voice to their raving fans, Glossier not only managed to stand out in a crowded market, but to make consumers order makeup online without feeling the need to try it on first.
“The best way to move into commerce from content is when the customers are asking you to. That’s what we saw with both Goop and Glossier,” says Nicole Quinn, partner at Lightspeed and investor in Goop.
Goop is indeed another prime example of the content + community + commerce-model at work. “Goop started 10 years ago [as a newsletter] from Gwyneth Paltrow’s kitchen. She found that her readers were asking her where they could buy the items, so she started an e-commerce website with her favorite products. Customers then asked for her own version of those products which lead her to launch Goop’s private label,” shares Nicole.
Backtracking for a second, London-based Net-a-Porter can be thought of as the pioneer of editorial e-commerce. When Natalie Massenet launched the fashion site back in 2000, the concept of a magazine in website format, where readers could buy the products they read about, was completely novel.
Since then, and with the introduction of social networks in general and instagram in particular, content has become an integral part of online retail. There’s been an explosion of startups adopting versions of the net-a-porter model--such as fashion company Sézanne and newcomers like interior design startup The Socialite Family and men’s design marketplace Opumo--operating at the intersection of e-commerce and media.
Sézanne, for example, communicates the lifestyle surrounding their fashion pieces through an online journal; poetry-like articles; thematic Spotify playlists; and artistic videos. Every Wednesday, a new product drop is accompanied by a story around it--always anticipated by the brand’s followers and often selling out quickly.
The overwhelming amount of content now competing for consumers’ attention has contributed to me--as an investor playing close attention to the space--shifting my focus from looking at the size of a community surrounding a young brand, to how engaged that community is. It’s easier to multiply reach once you’ve found a magic sauce that makes people engage, than to turn your content’s reach into engagement.
To give a practical example, what got me excited to invest in Kyra--a media network for Generation Z producing personality-lead tv-shows distributed on YouTube, about beauty and fashion--wasn’t the number of eyeballs their logo reaches, but the religiousness with which hundreds of thousands of young people tune in every Tuesday and Thursday when an episode drops, and the tens of thousands of feverish online conversations that each episode generates. These engagement rates speaks to a cult-like following that far surpass that of more established competitors.
Nicole has a similar rationale. “When we first invested in Snapchat they only had about 10,000 users but the much more interesting aspect of the business at that time was the high engagement with half the users coming back every day and those daily active users were coming multiple times a day. That’s the kind of engagement in social that we really look for,” says Nicole.
Speaking in metrics, high engagement rate, high ratio of positive versus negative sentiment, NPS score, high repeat rates (or low churn rates), and referral rate, are some of the data points that demonstrate brand love.
Brand love is at the heart of what Frederic Court was referring to in his reference to "virtual queues."
"Virtual queue is an illustration of engagement, but more broadly of customer love. Waiting is painful, in a world of minimal attention span. So when we wait it’s either because we have to (no option), or we want to (many options but I really really want that product or experience). This is what we’re after, these virtual queues, where there’s so much customer love and eagerness that queuing is part of the experience," Frederic adds.
Acknowledging that brand love and community is key, the question remains whether this can be engineered, or if it is a result--a "mediator"--between stellar content and successful commerce?
“I believe it can through opening up the story in an authentic way. Messaging is most powerful when the true story behind a brand is unlocked. This will then drive word of mouth and your evangelist customers will passionately tell the story to others,” says Nicole.
"We know that the delta between a great product and a great brand is emotion, so we’ve focused on... [+] telling travel stories that capture the magic of exploration," says Steph and Jen, founders of Away. As part of their content strategy they publish a print and digital magazine called Here. Masha Maltsava
Steph Korey, co-founder of Away--every Millennial's favourite luggage brand--argues that emotional connection and excitement for a brand can't be "engineered" per se, but that it can be developed thoughtfully by listening to one's customers. "Our community is at the heart of every decision we make at Away, and they’re powering the future of our brand. Our direct-to-consumer model means that we have a relationship with every one of our customers, so we’re able to listen to their feedback and respond by creating what they’re asking for," she says.
"Before Away, luggage companies were talking about their products' features, but none were talking about travel," Steph's co-founder Jen Rubio adds. Away, on the other hand, built out their fanbase by telling travel stories that capture the magic of exploration instead of talking about the products themselves.
"Like all things at Away, our community's feedback is what's driving our content strategy and the kinds of stories we tell. Our in-house media division, which includes and print and digital magazine, Here, is a great example of that. Customers were calling us to ask for recommendations while planning their next trip, so we realised we had an opportunity to share our unique perspective while also offering something of value to our community. It was born out of a consumer need, and today it exists as a revenue-generating content arm of our business," Jen continues.
Peloton is an example of another thoughtfully developed, or perhaps even manufactured, community. If you’ve ever taken part in one of their live-streamed spinning classes, you’ll know that the leaderboard (where you see the performance of fellow cyclists) and the interactive component (where you can high-five and cheer on other users) is almost as front and center as the (influencer) fitness instructors.
The 10-second summary
Content is a brilliant segway into commerce when your fanbase asks for it, not only because you have an audience to sell to but because you can leverage the connection to that audience to validate what products they want. In an age of content-overload (and an unsustainably high cost to acquire customers via paid social marketing) authenticity is more key than ever in order to shape an engaged and loyal community. A community is superior to a following; while followers are people you speak at, a community is a group of ambassadors who engage with you and one another, and who feel connected by associating with your brand. If your product has an eager virtual queue--in a world of abundance--you've created a brand to love.
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d53b75b14db2bfa0e26df8f7fc9b0421 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/claralindhbergendorff/2021/03/12/from-the-attention-economy-to-the-creator-economy-a-paradigm-shift/?sh=148448acfaa7 | From The Attention Economy To The Creator Economy: A Paradigm Shift | From The Attention Economy To The Creator Economy: A Paradigm Shift
Ciao Attention Economy, Hello Creator Economy: Why creators and their communities are leading us ... [+] towards a more collaborative digital economy. SUPERSTOCK
We are at the beginning of the end of an era. The Attention Economy—the ad-based revenue model that has dominated the creative industries in the 21st century and made the incumbent social platforms some of the most valuable tech companies in the world—has paved the way for its own demise.
The Creator Economy—made up of the platforms, marketplaces and tools democratizing creative expression and entrepreneurship; empowering an independent creative class to make a living on their passions—represents a paradigm shift.
Over the last decades, we’ve gone from a material-based economy, to a digital and information-based. In the 2000s, as the amount of information exploded, our attention became more scarce and valuable and many digital products and services were made free in exchange for selling our attention and personal information to advertisers.
As the tired saying about free and ad-supported products goes, ‘if you aren’t paying for a product, you are the product.’ Companies have their customers best interest in mind and in the Attention Economy that doesn’t necessarily refer to the users creating or consuming content. And so the bills for the presumably free products started stacking up: the privacy scandals, the misinformation behind click-baiting headlines, an increasingly polarized society, the toll on mental health, a struggling longtail of creators…
To be clear, social platforms are not bad—quite the opposite—but to live up to their mission to bring the world closer together they need to treat content creators, big and small, as their primary users. The revenue model that made them their first trillion dollars won’t make them the next.
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In the early days of social media and the Attention Economy, the creators needed the platforms’ audience. As (1) the creators and their leverage increased, (2) the barriers to micro-entrepreneurship decreased, and (3) people with niche interests around the globe were able to discover like-minded to convene against the so-called mainstream, there was a subtle but acute power shift and the platforms now need the creators’ loyal communities. The Attention Economy monetizes an audience they speak at while the Creator Economy turns that audience into a real asset: a community they engage with. The audience itself is a liability dressed up as an asset in that it costs more to acquire than the value that you capture from it*.
The social players are responding to the power shift, in the content creator’s favour, by introducing a range of features to help individuals on the platforms monetize their fans—realizing that if they don’t the creators will take their communities and potential revenue streams somewhere else. As The Information recently put it, ‘there’s a paradigm shift away from ‘selling eyeballs at scale’ to the platforms ‘taking a cut of what the creators on the platform are getting paid directly.’’ It seems the future of digital capitalism is in the hands of many micro-entrepreneurs who are closer, more connected, and by virtue of being niche understand their patrons better than the big brands—whether selling content, products, or knowledge.
Investing in the Paradigm Shift
If the Creator Economy is the next big shift in our digital economy, then how can we understand and ultimately value that market?
To start, the Creator Economy sits at the intersection of the gig economy ($300BN market forecasted to reach $455BN by 2023, with 40% of the US workforce making at least 40% of their income via gigs and 64% of full-time workers saying they want to do “side hustles”) and the creative industries (generate around $2.25 trillion annual revenue and employ more 15-29 year-olds than any other sectors). The largest number of gig workers (14%) are in creative industries.
Example of existing Creator Economy darlings are Patreon (surpassed $1BN valuation this quarter; enabling individual creators to collect payments directly from fans), Shopify (quadrupled in size to £133BN during the pandemic, now the world’s 87th largest company) and Etsy (one of the best performing S&P 500 stocks 2020). On the earlier side, a16z fought their way to lead Stir’s (business management tool for creators) Series A last month at a $100m valuation.
If the community is the Creator Economy’s equivalent of an audience, then what is it worth and to whom? As a heuristic, top-earning writers are making $500k a year on Substack, the streamer Ninja earns over $500k a month on Twitch, eight-year-old Ryan is making $26 million a year reviewing toys on Youtube, and Kylie Jenner turned her Instagram fan base into a cosmetics empire becoming the world’s youngest self-made billionaire.
The longtail of smaller communities is arguably more valuable, if considered in aggregate, in the sense that niche communities tend to have more hardcore fans resulting in higher engagement, retention and conversion. So far, the longtail has been underserved and—as a result of lacking infrastructure to support them and misaligned business models—undervalued and ultimately underpaid. When considered along the fact that around 30% of kids in the US and UK want to be a Youtuber and that 70% of Americans say they would like to have their own business, it seems there is a lot of value to be captured in aggregating and empowering smaller passion pockets.
For investors looking at the space, the Creator Economy can be divvied up into four categories aimed at the creative class: platforms, tools, monetization enablers and creator-led businesses, with many companies combining building blocks from each.
The first include the social and professional platforms giving rise to new creators, democratizing access to an audience, allowing creators to showcase their talents more effectively or enabling new forms of digital entertainment. Most successful social networks solve a utility-oriented need with a new tool in a new category and then allow for platform-natives stars to develop (users come for the tool, stay for the network, and are locked in if you help them make money).
Second, there are the ‘picks and shovels’ powering micro-entrepreneurs and the creative tools improving the creative process itself. As the number of independent creators and micro-brands grow in number, the companies serving them by lowering the barriers to entrepreneurship will grow in value. Here, we talk about the “enterprization of individuals”: the tools often start out as easy-to-use consumer products that grow with the consumer as their passion becomes a business.
Third, there is the tech to help creators monetize in new ways or via direct payments from fans, whether that’s via NFTs, marketplaces, or novel payment solutions.
Finally, there are the creator-led businesses themselves—a small subset of the most ambitious businesses built by the creators leveraging the platforms and the infrastructure discussed in category 1-3. Those that can grow a community while keeping engagement high have many ways to monetize that asset.
Towards a creative digital utopia?
The business case for the Creator Economy is hopefully clear: the dollars and the power is shifting from the Attention Economy to the Creator Economy, from the audience to the community, with individual talent unbundling big corporations in the creative space.
Adding a bit of romanticism, if we reclaimed our Attention (ciao Attention Economy!) and interact directly with the Creators behind the media and the products we love (hello Creator Economy!) we return to a world in which makers and consumers are more connected. Over the last century, we’ve complicated supply- and value chains to the extent we’ve almost forgotten there’s a creator behind the things and the content we consume. The Creator Economy is a digital and global version of a world we used to know—one where we support and celebrate digital artisans directly.
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*Disclosure: Shamelessly stole the concept of ‘audience as a liability, community as an asset’ from a recent phone call with Mark Adams, Head of Innovation at Vice Media and former Chief Digital Officer WME.
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b848bdfe1444302c6d8a7014ab610f90 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/clarebettelley/2014/11/13/management-experience-is-overrated-heres-why/ | Management Experience Is Overrated: Here's Why | Management Experience Is Overrated: Here's Why
Consumers’ buying behavior is the holy grail of any business leader worth their salt, and there are oodles of willing marketing gurus who claim to hold the key that can unlock the secrets behind the latest trends.
But there is one approach that businesses could develop using their own in-house expertise, and that is behavioral economics.
In short, the approach is a collection of theories that challenge basic economical assumptions, with the most common being that consumers make rational decisions.
By their own admission, many business leaders have little understanding of behavioral economics, which has been used in the retail sector for some time, with the likes of retail giants such as Amazon and Google leading the way.
So, I thought I’d have a chat with Joe Gladstone, a behavioral scientist and independent consultant from the University of Cambridge, about what behavioral economics it is, what business leaders can learn from it and, importantly, how they can apply it to their own organizations.
What do you mean when you talk about behavioral economics?
There’s a slight issue when we talk about behavioral economics as a single thing because it’s actually a collection of different theories. At it’s most basic, it’s the systematic study of decision-making; how you make a decision today versus tomorrow, how you choose between different options. And what is called behavioral economics in industry and business is actually called judgment and decision-making research in academia.
But how does it work?
It’s about looking at the real world and seeing how people actually behave, rather than taking the traditional approach of economics where you create a mathematical theorem and say ‘this is how people should behave’.
Instead, behavioural scientists go out and run experiments either in the field or in the laboratory and show how people really do behave when making decision, and then we extrapolate from that.
Traditional economic assumptions suggest that people will act rationally and that they’ll do whatever they can to maximize their own self-interest. What we know from behavioral economics is that that’s not the case, and so that there’s a huge way to go in trying to apply these insights to that bigger picture and how we understand people and how big businesses can, say, make decisions about where to expand to.
Why is human behavior so difficult to understand?
The way I see is it that we are really bad intuitive psychologists. We are really bad at looking at the world and the behavior of someone and understanding why, for example, a person didn’t take a promotion. We are very unlikely to be correct about our assumptions, so in some ways I think at the moment we put way too much energy and effort into the value of management and the value of this experience.
So what’s a more effective substitute?
We need to rely on data and data testing. There’s a reason why companies like Amazon and Google are wiping the field – it’s because they’re evidence-based in their decision-making. They don’t assume that the employee who’s been working for them for 10 years necessarily knows best.
If they find a way to test between two different ideas – such as ‘do our employees leave for X reason or do they leave for Y reason?’ – finding out a clever answer to that should trump any knowledge base that’s accrued by a manager.
But that’s easy for companies with the resources to do this. What about everyone else?
It is more difficult for a small business, but in fairness I see a lot of money being spent within these organizations on things that are like this but nowhere near as good.
I promise you that hiring a consultancy that does market research and that offers innovation insight and runs interviews with 20 staff is more expensive than a clever little way of experimentally testing something.
Businesses need to continually review how their money’s spent on employee research because at the moment I think it’s upside down.
So how easy is it for business leaders to apply behavioral economics to their organizations?
What we know from academic literature isn’t exactly what to do in any situation, because obviously the insights that we’ve drawn from experiments or big studies are not things that can necessarily be picked up wholesale and applied to any situation.
For example, if a business is trying to get staff to sign up to their new pension scheme and want the maximum number to sign up, then behavioral economics doesn’t necessarily tell them what to do in that situation. It doesn’t tell them, for example, that they should just default all employees into their scheme and do X and Y to the email that goes out to them.
But what we have from this literature is like a toolbox that we can then test in organizations on what would be most effective.
Can you give me an example of how this might work in practice?
What would be better is for a company to say, ‘I know that these four or five things have really worked in the past, such as defaulting people into the scheme, and as it’s completely costless to me to send out four different kinds of emails, then I’ll just do that’. Whichever email results in the greatest number of staff sign ups is then the email that the company can use.
That’s the kind of learning process where companies can create massive efficiencies by just doing the test that one time and then using that insight on a large scale as they continue.
It’s not that everything has to be tested all the time; it’s just that some decisions are so important that it seems crazy that we’re relying on gut and not evidence to make them.
What are the most common business issues that employers are currently using behavioral economics to solve?
Most work is about understanding consumers better. Some of the work I’m asked to do relates to understanding how who we are as a person relates to our financial outcomes. From that, financial companies can use different forms of product segmentation and even change the way their credit models work.
But mostly it’s about companies wanting to know how they can achieve a particularl outcome, such as getting more consumers to sign up to a particular product.
And this involves experimenting with customer behaviors?
Experiment sounds scary, so I often have to change the language I use and say things like ‘we’re doing multi-variant AB testing’, which is less scary for companies for some reason that ‘we’re running an experiment’.
What would you say to readers who fear the work involved in such tests, particularly when there’s no guarantee that their desired outcome will be achieved?
That is a misconception - experiments are incredibly easy to do.
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b89d2792333a64d357d94b1b7993eaa1 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/House-American-television-program | House | House
…in the American television drama House. Laurie—whose American accent on the show was so convincing that people often thought he was joking around when he spoke with his natural British accent—garnered two Golden Globe Awards (2006 and 2007) for his role and gained extraordinary popularity in the United States.
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de5bff4e7b43be9381b9291de3940171 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/House-N | House N | House N
House N, a residential structure in Ōita, Japan, was also completed in 2008. Fujimoto’s design blurred the boundaries between domestic space and the street, and between the built environment and nature, with a series of progressively more intimate living spaces nested within one another. A…
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c2d099850de4de2e2455b98e434a1063 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/house-of-Bourbon/Solidarity-and-discord | Solidarity and discord | Solidarity and discord
The accession of the duc d’Anjou to Spain would never have been secured without the resolute support of his grandfather, the French king. Similarly, the Bourbon sovereignties in Italy owed their establishment chiefly to the Bourbon power in Spain. Dynastic harmony between France and Spain, however, was momentarily suspended in 1718–20, when France took part in the War of the Quadruple Alliance against Spain—for reasons arising in part from the internal affairs of the house of Bourbon. A series of sudden deaths in the French royal house between 1704 and 1714 had produced a situation in which, on Louis XIV’s death in 1715, no one but a five-year-old child, Louis XV, stood before Philip V of Spain in the natural line of succession of France. Philip, though he had renounced that succession, still felt himself better entitled, as the child’s uncle, to exercise the regency in France than the child’s cousin twice removed, Philippe, duc d’Orléans, against whom Spanish agents promoted a plot. The marriage (1722) of the Spanish king’s son to a daughter of the French regent sealed the reconciliation.
In 1733 the Treaty of the Escorial pledged the French and the Spanish Bourbons to collaborate with each other notwithstanding any previous obligations. This treaty and the similarly conceived Treaty of Fontainebleau (1743) are sometimes called the First and the Second Family Compact, and the term Family Compact, or Pacte de Famille, was actually used in a third treaty, signed in Paris in 1761, during the Seven Years’ War. By this last treaty France and Spain not only guaranteed one another against all enemies but also promised like protection to the Bourbon states in Italy in the event of their acceding to the compact, and no state not belonging to the house of Bourbon was to be allowed to accede.
The cooperation between the French and Spanish Bourbons came to a miserable end during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and the later decades of the 19th century brought new complications. A French Bourbon prince led a force into Spain in 1823 to crush the liberalism to which Ferdinand VII was succumbing, but such Bourbon solidarity could not survive two events which were to rend both the Spanish and French houses.
First, in March 1830 Ferdinand VII of Spain announced the revocation of the Salic Law of Succession, which Philip V had introduced into Spain in 1713. This meant that the sonless Ferdinand could be succeeded not by his brother Don Carlos, conde de Molina, but by his elder daughter Isabella (born after the revocation); though Ferdinand temporarily reinstated the Salic Law in September 1832, he revoked it again 13 days later. On his death in 1833 the partisans of the disappointed Don Carlos started the first of the Carlist Wars in protest against Isabella’s accession (see Spain, history of: The “ominous decade,” 1823–33).
Secondly, in France the July Revolution of 1830 overthrew the “legitimate” Bourbon monarchy and transferred the throne to Louis-Philippe, head of the collateral line of Orléans. Odious enough already because Louis-Philippe’s father, the self-styled Philippe Égalité, had voted in 1793 for the death sentence on Louis XVI, the house of Orléans became, by the usurpation of 1830, so much more odious to the Legitimists that some of the latter, when the “legitimate” male of France died out with the comte de Chambord in 1883, declined to recognize the head of the house of Orléans as the rightful pretender to France, as indeed he now was if the renunciation of 1713 was still to be observed. Instead, they preferred to disregard that renunciation and so to regard a Spanish prince as their rightful king. Those Legitimists were known in France as “Blancs d’Espagne” (“Spanish Whites”). Most Legitimists, however, followed the final advice of the comte de Chambord by recognizing the rights of the house of Orléans to France.
While the dispossessed Bourbons—Spanish Carlists and French Legitimists—naturally sympathized with each other, their opponents—Queen Isabella and the house of Orléans—conversely gravitated together. One result was the crisis of the “ Spanish Marriages” in the 1840s. While both Queen Isabella and her sister Luisa remained unmarried, the Spanish succession was an open prospect of great interest to governments concerned with maintaining the balance of power in Europe. If both sisters would marry princes of the house of Orléans, as Louis-Philippe and the sisters’ mother, Maria Cristina, originally suggested, French influence over Spain would become too strong for the liking of the British government, which proposed instead that Isabella should marry Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg (more intimately linked with Great Britain than with France). Then, in 1843, the French and the British came to an understanding: Isabella should marry some “neutral” prince, preferably a Spanish Bourbon cousin, and only after the birth of a child to Isabella should Luisa marry Louis-Philippe’s son Antoine, duc de Montpensier. Of Isabella’s eligible cousins, the conte de Montemolín was disfavoured by the Spanish government as a Carlist; the next senior was the doubtfully virile Don Francisco de Asis, who was generally thought unlikely to become a father; the third was Don Enrique, duque de Sevilla, whose outspoken liberalism recommended him to the British government but not to the Spanish. Inadvertently, however, the British government in 1846 gave the French the impression that it was still secretly trying to press Prince Leopold on Spain, and the French reacted by arranging the Spanish marriages in a way quite contrary to British desire: Isabella and Luisa were married on the same day, October 10, 1846, to Don Francisco de Asis and to Montpensier, respectively. The immediate upshot was that the house of Orléans, apparently intending that Montpensier or a son of his should eventually be king of Spain, incurred the serious resentment of its former friends in Great Britain.
Isabella, who would have preferred to marry Don Enrique, spent conspicuously long periods apart from her consort and behaved indiscreetly with other men. When she bore a son in 1857, ill-wishers had little difficulty in casting doubts on his paternity. Those doubts served the purposes of the extreme Carlists when the male line of Don Carlos died out in 1936, because they could argue that Isabella’s male descendants were not those of Don Francisco de Asis—whose issue, under Salic Law, would have been the next male heirs. Nearly all the other Bourbon princes, however, either had already recognized Isabella’s rights or were maintaining incompatible pretensions to other thrones. The Carlists therefore had to look far afield in their search for a new pretender.
Certain princes of Bourbon-Parma responded to Carlist overtures but did not at the same time renounce their Parmesan titles, which under the settlement of 1748 were incompatible with claims to sovereignty over Spain. Thus, they incurred the displeasure of the house of Orléans, which had to respect the settlement of 1748 because its own pretension to France depended on the analogous settlement of 1713.
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d472dec79b7408cb0fe141572d492796 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/House-of-Burgesses | House of Burgesses | House of Burgesses
House of Burgesses, representative assembly in colonial Virginia, which was an outgrowth of the first elective governing body in a British overseas possession, the General Assembly of Virginia. The General Assembly was established by Gov. George Yeardley at Jamestown on July 30, 1619. It included the governor himself and a council—all appointed by the colonial proprietor (the Virginia Company)—along with two elected burgesses (delegates) from each of the colony’s 11 settlements. The assembly met in Jamestown until 1700, when meetings were moved to Williamsburg, the newly established capital of colonial Virginia.
In 1643 Gov. Sir William Berkeley split the House of Burgesses off as a separate chamber of the thereafter bicameral assembly. Like the British House of Commons, the House of Burgesses granted supplies and originated laws, and the governor and council enjoyed the right of revision and veto as did the king and the House of Lords in England. The council also sat as a supreme court to review the county courts. This system remained unchanged until the American Revolution.
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027e9979e48b017cec1721cd039bf204 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/House-of-Commons-British-government | House of Commons | House of Commons
House of Commons, also called Commons, popularly elected legislative body of the bicameral British Parliament. Although it is technically the lower house, the House of Commons is predominant over the House of Lords, and the name “Parliament” is often used to refer to the House of Commons alone.
The origins of the House of Commons date from the second half of the 13th century, when landholders and other property owners in the counties and towns began sending representatives to Parliament to present grievances and petitions to the king and to accept commitments to the payment of taxes. In the 14th century the knights and burgesses chosen as representatives (i.e., the commons) began sitting in a separate chamber, or “house,” from that used by the nobles and high clergy (i.e., the lords).
The House of Lords was initially the more powerful of the two houses, but over the centuries its powers gradually diminished. By the late 17th century, the House of Commons had gained the sole right to initiate taxation measures. The House of Lords retained its veto power over bills passed by the Commons, however, and in 1832 the only recourse of the Liberal Party government was to threaten to flood the House of Lords with new Liberal peers in order to prevent it from rejecting that government’s Reform Bill. Eighty years later the same threat was used, again by a Liberal government, to compel the Lords to approve the Parliament Act of 1911, which enabled a majority of the House of Commons to override the Lords’ rejection of a bill. Under this act, the House of Lords lost the power to delay legislation passed by the Commons for the raising and spending of revenue; it also lost the power to delay other legislation for a period beyond two years (reduced in 1949 to one year). The act also reduced the maximum duration of a parliamentary session to five years.
The membership of the House of Commons stood at 658 from 1801—when Great Britain and Ireland were united by the Act of Union to form the United Kingdom—until 1885, when it was increased to 670. In 1918 it was increased to 707. It was also changed under subsequent acts. At the general election in May 2010, 650 members were returned—533 from England, 59 from Scotland, 40 from Wales, and 18 from Northern Ireland. Each constituency returns a single member.
Despite its large membership, the chamber of the House of Commons seats only 427 persons. After it was destroyed by a German bomb during World War II, there was considerable discussion about enlarging the chamber and replacing its traditional rectangular structure with a semicircular design. Among those who argued against this proposal was Winston Churchill, who maintained that a semicircular chamber
The chamber was rebuilt in 1950 to match its original size and shape.
The House of Commons is the effective legislative authority in Great Britain. It alone has the right to impose taxes and to vote money to, or withhold it from, the various public departments and services. The House of Lords has only infrequently held up major legislation passed by the Commons, and the British sovereign almost automatically provides the Royal Assent to any bill passed. Indeed, the last bill to be rejected by a monarch was the Scottish Militia Bill of 1707, which was vetoed by Queen Anne. Acts of Parliament are not subject to judicial review.
The passage of legislation is the House of Commons’ primary function. Almost all legislation proceeds from the majority party in the Commons, which forms the government and the cabinet; the latter is composed of senior ministers chosen by, and belonging to the party of, the prime minister, nearly all of whom serve in the House of Commons. The government’s main work in the Commons is to implement the legislative program on which it fought and won the last general election.
At the beginning of each new session of Parliament, the House elects from its members the speaker, who presides over and regulates debates and rules on points of order and members’ conduct. The speaker does not participate in debates and votes only in order to break a tie, a case that compels the speaker to vote in favour of the status quo. The calling of members to speak in debate is entirely in the speaker’s hands, the main concern being to ensure that a variety of points of view is heard. By a convention of the constitution not established until the 20th century, the prime minister is always a member of the House of Commons, instead of a member of either house. The government party appoints the leader of the House of Commons, who manages the party’s legislative program. Except for occasional independents, members of both the government and opposition parties are under the control of party management within the Commons, whose discipline—particularly over voting—is exercised by members called “whips.”
The tradition that a bill must be read three times in the Commons (and also in the Lords) before it can be voted on is based on the need to allow members adequate time to investigate the principles on which the bill is based and the details of its provisions. The first reading is purely formal, but the second reading provides the occasion for debate on the principles involved. The bill then goes into committee, where it is examined clause by clause. Most bills are sent to standing committees, each of which deals with bills belonging to a particular range of topics, with the committees reflecting in their makeup the respective strength of parties in the House. Having examined the bill, the committee then reports back to the House, and after further amendments may have been proposed in the course of more debate, the bill is read a third time and is then voted on. In addition to bills proposed by the government, a limited number of bills sponsored by individual members are considered by the House each session.
Beginning in 1999, power over a number of matters—including health, education, housing, transportation, the environment, and agriculture—was devolved from the British Parliament to the newly established Scottish Parliament, National Assembly of Wales, and (somewhat later) Northern Ireland Assembly. That reallocation of legislative responsibilities raised the issue of whether MPs from Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland should continue to vote on measures directed at England only. This so-called West Lothian question (so named because it was first posed in 1977 by the anti-devolutionist MP from West Lothian, Tam Dalyell) was addressed in 2015 by controversial legislation that established a new set of procedures known as English Votes for English Laws (EVEL). New stages were introduced into the standard lawmaking procedure during which legislation that was determined to affect England only was to be considered and voted upon by MPs from English constituencies (who were effectively granted veto power) before moving on to consideration by the House of Commons as a whole. (Similarly, legislation aimed at England and Wales only was to be addressed first by English and Welsh MPs only.) When it was not clear whether a measure was an England-only matter, the speaker of the House of Commons was tasked with making that determination.
Aside from passing legislation, the most important business of the full House is the question period, which is held on a regular basis. During this period, members can require government ministers to answer questions regarding their departments; it thus provides the opposition with an opportunity to attack government policy and to raise issues on which the government may be thought to have been negligent. It also generates regular policy debates between the prime minister and the leader of the opposition. These exchanges have been made more important by their public broadcast, first by radio in 1978, and then by television in 1989.
Members of the House of Commons must be 18 years of age or older. Peers of England, Scotland, or the United Kingdom may not be elected to the House of Commons, though Irish peers may be. Certain clergy, judicial officers, members of the armed forces, police officers, and civil servants are also ineligible for election. Women became eligible under an act of 1918. Members were paid beginning in 1911.
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02fc7e150e70f7c0bbc6395cd4b755de | https://www.britannica.com/topic/House-of-Glass | House of Glass | House of Glass
…Footsteps) and Rumah kaca (1988; House of Glass), had to be published abroad. These late works comprehensively depict Javanese society under Dutch colonial rule in the early 20th century. In contrast to Pramoedya’s earlier works, they were written in a plain, fast-paced narrative style.
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23995fcc6ddf74aeae4c73109580dcc6 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/House-of-Habsburg/Bloodlines-and-conflict | Bloodlines and conflict | Bloodlines and conflict
By a series of abdications toward the end of his life, Charles V transferred his Burgundian, Spanish, and Italian possessions to his son Philip II and his functions as emperor to his brother Ferdinand, who succeeded him formally as such after his death (1558). That division of the dynasty between imperial and Spanish lines was definitive: Ferdinand’s male descendants were Holy Roman emperors until 1740, Philip’s were kings of Spain until 1700. The imperial line was inevitably concerned to maintain its position in Bohemia and to assert itself against the Turks in divided Hungary, because the loss of the two kingdoms would have meant the reduction of its possessions to what the Habsburgs had had hereditarily before Frederick III’s time (the Austrian duchies and scattered holdings in Swabia and in Alsace)—a reduction that in turn would have compromised its chances of continuing to be elected to the German kingship. Philip II of Spain remained territorially the greatest sovereign in the Western world until his death in 1598; but the Revolt of the Netherlands (see Low Countries, history of), which he proved unable to subdue, was an irritation that his English and French enemies did their worst to inflame.
Cooperation between imperial and Spanish Habsburgs in the 17th century failed to maintain the hegemony that the dynasty had enjoyed in the 16th. For the imperial line, religious troubles in Germany and in central Europe went on even when the domestic conflict between the insane emperor Rudolf II and his brothers was over (1612); and the Bohemian insurrection of 1618 gave rise to that chain of wars involving the Austrian Habsburgs that, because it was prolonged until 1648, is known conventionally as the Thirty Years’ War. For the Spanish Habsburgs, their truce of 1609 with the Dutch ended in 1621, whereupon the renewed conflict in the Netherlands became merged with the struggles of their Austrian cousins. The Peace of Westphalia (1648) finally abolished Habsburg sovereignty over the northern Netherlands, severely restricted the emperor’s authority over the other German princes, and transferred the Habsburg lands in Alsace to France; however, the ordinance of 1627, whereby the Bohemian crown had been converted into a hereditary one for the Habsburgs, was permitted to stand.
France from the late 1620s had made the most of the Thirty Years’ War to distress the Habsburgs of both lines, and peace with the imperial line did not prevent France from continuing its war against the Spanish until 1659, when by the Peace of the Pyrenees it obtained Gravelines, most of Artois, and part of Hainaut, together with some places south of Luxembourg.
The next 30 years saw the end of the Habsburg dynasty’s claim to European hegemony in any real sense. The aggressions of Louis XIV of France, from 1667 onward, took territory after territory from the Spanish Habsburgs—large parts of Flanders, the rest of Artois, and other areas in the Netherlands, as well as the whole Franche Comté and, in 1684, the stronghold of Luxembourg—and demonstrated at the same time that the imperial Habsburgs, preoccupied as they were with the Turkish assault from Hungary, could not effectively defend the German frontier west of the Rhine. After being saved from the crisis of the Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683, the imperial Habsburgs did indeed obtain one dynastically significant success—the conversion, in 1687, of the Hungarian crown into an hereditary one for themselves—but by that time it was plain to Europe that the most formidable dynasty was no longer the Habsburg but the Bourbon. In the War of the Grand Alliance (1689–97) the rising powers that 100 years earlier had been Habsburg Spain’s principal enemies and feeble France’s most fluent encouragers, the Dutch and English, led those supporting the Habsburgs against Louis XIV.
Apart from the Bourbon ascendancy, there was a further reason for other powers to watch with jealous solicitude over the fate of Spain. The physical debility of Charles II of Spain was such that no male heir could be expected to be born to him, and the question of his succession was one of great concern to the European powers. Up to 1699 it was understood that his crowns would pass to the electoral prince of Bavaria, Joseph Ferdinand, son of his niece Maria Antonia, daughter of the emperor Leopold I. That arrangement was generally acceptable because, by transferring the Spanish inheritance to the Bavarian House of Wittelsbach, it would not necessarily upset the balance of power between the imperial Habsburgs and Bourbon France. In 1699, however, when Joseph Ferdinand died, the moribund Charles II’s next natural heirs were the descendants (1) of his half-sister, who had married Louis XIV of France, and (2) of his father’s two sisters, of whom one had been Louis XIV’s mother and the other the emperor Leopold I’s. Critical tension developed: on the one hand neither the imperial Habsburgs nor their British and Dutch friends could consent to their Bourbon enemy’s acquiring the whole Spanish inheritance; on the other neither Bourbon France nor its British and Dutch enemies wanted to see an imperial Habsburg reunite in one pair of hands most of what the emperor Charles V had had in 1519. Charles II in the meantime regarded any partition of his inheritance as a humiliation to Spain: dying in 1700, he named as his sole heir a Bourbon prince, Philip of Anjou, the second of Louis XIV’s grandsons. The War of the Spanish Succession ensued.
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0a3e1344d5b6803e678323fe3907aa1e | https://www.britannica.com/topic/House-of-Representatives-Japanese-government | House of Representatives | House of Representatives
…it within 60 days, the House of Representatives can make it law by repassing it by a two-thirds majority of the members present.
The House of Representatives (Shūgiin), or lower house, ultimately takes precedence over the House of Councillors (Sangiin), or upper house, in matters of passing legislation, controlling the budget, and approving treaties with foreign powers. Executive power is vested in the cabinet, which is organized and headed…
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072fbbeb32324e5cd6124ef70d4f2158 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/House-of-Representatives-Malaysian-government | House of Representatives | House of Representatives
…the upper house and the House of Representatives (Dewan Rakyat) as the lower. The paramount ruler appoints a prime minister from among the members of the House of Representatives. On the advice of the prime minister, the monarch then appoints the other ministers who make up the cabinet. The number…
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a6b85b7bc6fdb35a81177c67257a4c97 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/House-of-Trastamara | House of Trastámara | House of Trastámara
…dynastic rift and consolidated the house of Trastámara.
…from 1369, founder of the house of Trastámara, which lasted until 1504.
The Trastámara dynasty, which came to power in Castile in the late 14th century, gave a new impetus to the search for peninsular unity by using marriage, diplomacy, and war to acquire dominion over the neighbouring Christian kingdoms. At the same time, the Trastámaras struggled to…
…Anglo-Castilian army defeated Henry of Trastámara at Nájera in 1367. After Edward’s withdrawal, however, Henry and du Guesclin defeated and killed Peter at Montiel in 1369.
…was finally achieved, and the Trastámara became the second most powerful monarchs in Europe, after the Valois of France. The different royal houses of the Iberian Peninsula had long sought a union of their crowns and had practiced intermarriage for generations. Nevertheless, the union of the Crowns of Castile and…
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2c484093d9303d8e9dbea42eceb22b3e | https://www.britannica.com/topic/House-of-Wax | House of Wax | House of Wax
House of Wax, American horror film, released in 1953, that established Vincent Price as a leading actor in the genre. It was one of the first films shot in 3-D.
Price portrayed Prof. Henry Jarrod, an ingenious sculptor of wax statues and part owner of a wax museum that is burned down by his business partner in an attempt to collect insurance money. Soon thereafter, the partner and his girlfriend go missing, and Jarrod, who was thought to have died in the fire, shows up alive but disfigured and wheelchair-bound. He approaches a wealthy financier with a plan for a new wax museum, a “Chamber of Horrors” that will exhibit eerily lifelike wax figures. It is soon noticed, however, that the waxworks bear a striking resemblance to persons mysteriously missing from the community, and this leads to the horrific discovery that the figures on display are actual corpses dipped in wax. After a struggle in the museum, the murderous Jarrod (who had only feigned his paralysis) falls to his death into a cauldron of hot wax.
House of Wax proved a breakthrough for Price, who would later be credited with reestablishing the popularity of the horror genre. The film was a major box-office success, and it helped spark a wave of 3-D films in the 1950s. Ironically, the director Andre de Toth was blind in one eye and unable to discern the 3-D visual effects. Jarrod’s assistant Igor was played by a young Charles Bronson, billed as Charles Buchinsky.
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592fa9b5d8e81884bbb03fc0d570f917 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/House-of-Wessex | House of Wessex | House of Wessex
…of Anglo-Saxon England, whose ruling dynasty eventually became kings of the whole country. In its permanent nucleus, its land approximated that of the modern counties of Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire, and Somerset. At times its land extended north of the River Thames, and it eventually expanded westward to cover Devon and…
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1ab7b39b0600c7760f9793e7429af578 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/house-of-Windsor | House of Windsor | House of Windsor
House of Windsor, formerly (1901–17) Saxe-Coburg-Gotha or Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the royal house of the United Kingdom, which succeeded the house of Hanover on the death of its last monarch, Queen Victoria, on January 22, 1901. The dynasty includes Edward VII (reigned 1901–10), George V (1910–36), Edward VIII (1936), George VI (1936–52), and Elizabeth II (1952– ). The heir apparent is Charles, prince of Wales. His elder son, Prince William, duke of Cambridge, is second in line to the British throne.
The dynastic name Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (German: Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha, or Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha) was that of Victoria’s German-born husband, Albert, prince consort of Great Britain and Ireland. Their eldest son was Edward VII. During the anti-German atmosphere of World War I, George V declared by royal proclamation (July 17, 1917) that all descendants of Queen Victoria in the male line who were also British subjects would adopt the surname Windsor.
Queen Elizabeth II’s children would normally have borne their father’s surname, Mountbatten (which itself had been Anglicized from Battenberg). However, in 1952, soon after her accession, she declared in council that her children and descendants would bear the surname Windsor. That decision was modified (February 8, 1960) to the effect that issue other than those styled prince or princess and royal highness should bear the name Mountbatten-Windsor.
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5fa74e8e0cacf58a36768ff799c8e6a3 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/House-of-Wittenberg | House of Wittenberg | House of Wittenberg
…split by partition between the Wittenberg and Lauenburg branches; the Wittenberg line was formally granted an electoral vote by the Golden Bull of 1356. The strength of the duchy lay in the military and commercial qualities of its predominantly free population. But the vigour of its eastward expansion into the…
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d18e2bb11ed2993642c31b92229cfd5e | https://www.britannica.com/topic/How-German-Is-It-Wie-Deutsch-ist-es | How German Is It/Wie Deutsch ist es | How German Is It/Wie Deutsch ist es
How German Is It/Wie Deutsch ist es (1980), often considered Abish’s best work, is a multilayered novel about postwar Germany and its past. Other works by Abish include Duel Site (1970), a collection of poems; 99: The New Meaning (1990), a group of narratives; and…
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4d3cb417c9aea66d0b7ef8fe564eefda | https://www.britannica.com/topic/How-Many-Miles-to-Babylon | How Many Miles to Babylon? | How Many Miles to Babylon?
Johnston’s third novel, How Many Miles to Babylon? (1974), concerns the complex and tragic friendship of two young men who are sentenced to death during World War I. Shadows on Our Skin (1977) and The Railway Station Man (1984) focus on violence in Northern Ireland, and The Old…
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21ea81c10de06a9725437814c7c86f57 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/How-Stella-Got-Her-Groove-Back | How Stella Got Her Groove Back | How Stella Got Her Groove Back
…contract for her fourth novel, How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1996; film 1998), about a wealthy Black woman of middle age who falls in love with a young cook while vacationing in Jamaica. The novel was a roman à clef based on her own romance with Jonathan Plummer, a…
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6dad89ac21291ce2eb6a22156610dcf0 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/How-the-Grinch-Stole-Christmas-by-Dr-Seuss | How the Grinch Stole Christmas | How the Grinch Stole Christmas
…Cat in the Hat and How the Grinch Stole Christmas!. The former features a mischievous talking cat who entertains two bored children on a rainy day, while the latter introduces the Scrooge-like Grinch, who wants to ruin Christmas in Whoville but ultimately discovers that the holiday is more than just…
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1e5ba14ee7827480370f4a10eef928d6 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/How-the-West-Was-Won-film-by-Ford-Hathaway-and-Marshall | How the West Was Won | How the West Was Won
How the West Was Won, American western film, released in 1962, that was a sprawling epic about the transformation of the American West in the 19th century.
The story is told in five parts—“The Rivers,” “The Plains,” “The Civil War,” “The Railroad,” and “The Outlaws”—that follow several generations of the Prescott family as they face numerous challenges in the untamed West. The saga opens with them heading west to lay claim for a homestead. While attempting to navigate a river, they encounter treacherous rapids, and the mother and the father (Agnes Moorhead and Karl Malden, respectively) are killed. Their teenage daughters Eve (Carroll Baker) and Lilith (Debbie Reynolds), however, survive. Eve marries fur trapper Linus Rawlings (James Stewart) and settles down to fulfill her parents’ quest to have a farm. Lilith becomes a popular entertainer in saloons and on riverboats and eventually heads to California. During the difficult journey, she falls in love with Cleve Van Valen (Gregory Peck), a charismatic opportunist. They marry and move to San Francisco. The story then concentrates on Eve’s son Zeb (George Peppard), who survives the Civil War only to learn that his mother has passed away; his father had died earlier in the fighting. He leaves the farm to his younger brother and joins the U.S. Cavalry. While protecting railroad-construction workers, he befriends Jethro Stuart (Henry Fonda), a buffalo hunter. After a tragic confrontation with Native Americans, Zeb leaves and becomes a marshal in Arizona. He later confronts an old nemesis, outlaw Charlie Gant (Eli Wallach), and learns that he is planning to rob a train. In a shoot-out, Zeb succeeds in foiling Gant, but not before the train crashes and is destroyed. Zeb and his family are thus freed to resume their lives.
How the West Was Won was a triumph on numerous levels. Although three directors—Henry Hathaway, John Ford, and George Marshall—collaborated on the film, the story is told seamlessly, backed by the solid performances of its cast. Filmed in Cinerama, the movie featured stunning visuals accompanied by Alfred Newman’s thundering score. Spencer Tracy narrated the film.
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decdded66240c20b9da3d2b3bb015133 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Howard-family | Howard Family | Howard Family
Howard Family, a famous English family whose head, the duke of Norfolk, is the premier duke and hereditary earl marshal of England. The earls of Suffolk, Carlisle, and Effingham and the Lord Howard of Glossop and Lord Stafford represent the family in its younger lines.
The family was founded by William Howard, a lawyer in the county of Norfolk who was summoned to Parliament in 1295. His family acquired the duchy of Norfolk through the marriage of Robert Howard with Margaret, daughter of Thomas Mowbray, 1st duke of Norfolk. Their son, John, eventually succeeded to most of the Mowbray estates and was created duke of Norfolk and hereditary earl marshal in 1483 when the Mowbray line died out. John was killed fighting for Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field (1485). His son, Thomas Howard, 2nd duke of Norfolk (1443–1524), was a councillor and military commander for the kings Henry VII and Henry VIII. His son, Thomas, the 3rd duke (1473–1554), held various high offices under Henry VIII, who took two of Norfolk’s nieces—Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard—as wives. After Catherine’s execution, both Norfolk and his son, Henry Howard, earl of Surrey (1517–47), were accused of treason by Henry; Surrey was executed, but Norfolk survived and regained his dukedom during the reign of Queen Mary. Surrey’s son, Thomas Howard, the 4th duke (1538–72), was executed for his intrigues against Queen Elizabeth I on behalf of Mary Queen of Scots. The family’s most notable member during Elizabeth’s reign was Charles, 2nd Lord Howard of Effingham (1536–1624), who was lord high admiral and commanded the fleet that defeated the Spanish Armada.
It took the Howards until 1660 to regain the title of duke of Norfolk, which had been forfeited with the 4th duke’s execution in 1572. In 1672 the office of earl marshal was made hereditary to the dukes of Norfolk. However, the civil disabilities incurred by the Howards on account of their Roman Catholicism tended to discourage the family’s prominence in subsequent periods.
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c13219b1d38c158531a84a48aa9f9df1 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/hu-liquid-container | Hu | Hu
Hu, Wade-Giles romanization hu, type of ancient Chinese bronze vessel used to contain wine or water.
A pear-shaped container, the hu has a narrow neck that blends gracefully into an expanded midsection, which is sharply cut to a small base. The vessel can be suspended by means of lugs (ear-shaped protuberances) or rings attached to the body.
The hu, which had a pottery predecessor in the Neolithic Period (c. 5000–2000 bc), was found in the bronze art of the Shang dynasty (18th–12th century bc) and was especially common during the late Zhou dynasty (c. 600–256/255 bc), when its ample surface was handsomely decorated. With the increasing popularity and prestige of bronze vessels, inexpensive pottery duplicates were often made of the hu, especially during the Han dynasty (206 bc–ad 220).
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a7ca57cd12fbe92536b7816b63b909c2 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Huangdi-neijing | Huangdi neijing | Huangdi neijing
…earliest surviving medical book, the Huangdineijing, or “The Yellow Emperor’s Esoteric Classic” (3rd century bce?), presents itself as the teachings of a legendary Celestial Master addressed to the Yellow Emperor.
…of internal medicine called the Huangdi neijing (Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic) in the 3rd millennium bce; there is some evidence that in its present form it dates from no earlier than the 3rd century bce. Most of the Chinese medical literature is founded on the Huangdi neijing, and it is…
…supposed to have written the Huangdi neijing, although the work is now believed to have been composed in the 3rd century bce. Nevertheless, the Huangdi neijing has been the highest Chinese authority on medical matters for over 2,000 years and has appeared in many editions.
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b488f5f9facb177c20926f2ffb895946 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Huey-Smith-and-the-Clowns | Huey Smith and the Clowns | Huey Smith and the Clowns
For a time Huey Smith and the Clowns, which featured singer-comedian Bobby Marchan and outstanding New Orleans instrumentalists, toured widely as a result of their 1957–58 novelty hits “Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu” and “Don’t You Just Know It.” The latter, with its “Koobo, kooba, kooba,…
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fe00ab1f4ea80d79dbb880b9975c6d26 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hughes-Medical-Institute | Hughes Medical Institute | Hughes Medical Institute
Hughes Medical Institute, in full Howard Hughes Medical Institute, American philanthropic foundation, established in 1953 by the aviator and industrialist Howard Hughes. From its offices in Chevy Chase, Md., the organization subsidizes biomedical research at hospitals and universities throughout the United States, chiefly in genetics, immunology, cell biology, structural biology, and the neurosciences. It also provides educational funding. Although it was originally created by Hughes as a tax shelter, the institute is now one of the world’s largest and most powerful charities.
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1f3a8f491d2856437c48ec937cf28170 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/human-behavior/Development-in-adolescence | Development in adolescence | Development in adolescence
Adolescence may be defined as that period within the life span when most of a person’s characteristics are changing from what is typically considered childlike to what is typically considered adultlike. Changes in the body are the most readily observed, but other, less definitive attributes such as thoughts, behaviour, and social relations also change radically during this period. The rate of such changes varies with the individual as well as with the particular characteristic.
The physical and physiological changes of adolescence do not proceed uniformly; however, a general sequence for these changes applies to most people. It is useful to speak of phases of bodily changes in adolescence in order to draw important distinctions among various degrees and types of change. Bodily changes affect height, weight, fat and muscle distribution, glandular secretions, and sexual characteristics. When some of these changes have begun, but most are yet to occur, the person is said to be in the prepubescent phase. When most of those bodily changes that will eventually take place have been initiated, the person is in the pubescent phase. Finally, when most of those bodily changes have already occurred, the person is in the postpubescent phase; this period ends when all bodily changes associated with adolescence are completed.
The bodily changes of adolescence relate to both primary and secondary sexual characteristics. Primary sexual characteristics are present at birth and comprise the external and internal genitalia (e.g., the penis and testes in males and the vagina and ovaries in females). Secondary sexual characteristics are those that emerge during the prepubescent through postpubescent phases (e.g., breasts in females and pigmented facial hair in males).
Several important bodily changes occur specifically within each of the three periods that characterize adolescent physical maturation. The period of prepubescence begins with the first indication of sexual maturation. It ends with the initial appearance of pubic hair. In males, there is a continuing enlargement of the testicles, an enlargement and reddening of the scrotal sac, and an increase in the length and circumference of the penis. These changes all involve primary sexual characteristics. Insofar as secondary sexual characteristics are concerned, there is no true pubic hair at this stage, although down may be present. In females, prepubescent changes typically begin an average of two years earlier than in males. The first phenomena of female development in this period are the enlargement of the ovaries and the ripening of the ova. In contrast with those of males, these changes in primary sexual characteristics are not outwardly observable. However, changes involving secondary sex characteristics can be seen (e.g., the rounding of the hips and the first phase of breast development). The latter begins with an elevation of the areola surrounding the nipple, which produces a small conelike growth called the breast bud. As with the male, there is no true pubic hair, although down may be present.
The onset of pubescence in both sexes occurs with the appearance of pubic hair, and this period ends when pubic hair development is complete. The peak velocity of growth in height and weight also occurs during this phase. This so-called growth spurt occurs about two years earlier in females than in males. Another key change of pubescence in females is menarche, or the onset of menstruation, which occurs about 18 months after the maximum height increase of the growth spurt and typically is not accompanied initially by ovulation. In pubescence the primary sexual characteristics continue the development initiated in prepubescence. In females the vulva and clitoris enlarge; in males the testes continue to enlarge, the scrotum grows and becomes pigmented, and the penis becomes longer and increases in circumference. In regard to secondary sexual characteristics, in females there is increased breast development, with the breast buds enlarging to form the primary breast; in males, the voice deepens and pigmented axillary and facial hair appear, usually about two years after the emergence of pubic hair.
The phase of postpubescence starts when pubic hair growth is complete, a deceleration of growth in height occurs, changes in the primary and secondary sexual characteristics are essentially complete, and the person is fertile. Some changes in primary and secondary sexual characteristics occur in this phase. For instance, in males, it is during this period that the beard begins to grow; in females, there may be further breast development.
Although, as noted, the ordering of these bodily changes is fairly uniform among individuals, there is considerable variation in the rate of change. Some adolescents mature more rapidly and others more slowly than most of their peers. Of course, there are also youths who pass through the periods of bodily change at the average rate. Variations in the rate of bodily change in adolescence often affect psychological and social development. Early-maturing adolescent boys are typically better adjusted than late maturers and have more favourable interactions with peers and adults. These advantages of early maturation and disadvantages of late maturation tend to continue through the middle adult years for males. For females, however, early maturation is associated with more psychosocial disadvantages than is late maturation. Maturing at an average rate seems to be most advantageous for females. However, the relations between female maturation rates and personality and social functioning in later life have not been determined.
Bodily changes among adolescents can also differ according to sociocultural and historical influences. The age of menarche, for example, varies among countries and even among different cultures within one country. Moreover, there has been a historical trend downward in the average age of menarche, translating into a decrease of several months per decade from about 1840 to the present. This phenomenon is generally ascribed to the improved health and nutrition of children and adolescents.
The dramatic physical and physiological changes characteristic of adolescence have an equally dramatic impact on cognitive and social functioning. Adolescents think about their “new” bodies and their “new” selves in qualitatively new ways. In contrast with sensorimotor and more limited spatiotemporal modes of thinking—which according to Piaget characterize infancy and childhood—beginning at about puberty, the formal-operational mode of thought emerges, characterized by reasoning and abstraction. In the formal-operational stage, adolescents begin to discriminate between their thoughts about reality and reality itself and come to recognize that their assumptions have an element of arbitrariness and may not actually represent the true nature of experience. Thus, adolescent thinking becomes somewhat experimental in the scientific sense, employing hypotheses to test new ideas against outward reality.
In forming hypotheses about the world, adolescent cognition can be seen to grow along with formal, scientific, logical thinking. Consider, for example, a problem of combinatorial thought: An adolescent is presented with five jars, each containing a colourless liquid. Combining the liquids from three particular jars will produce a colour, whereas using the liquid from either of the two remaining jars will not produce a colour. The adolescent is told that a colour can be produced but is not shown which combination produces this effect. Children at the concrete-operational stage typically try to solve this problem by combining liquids two at a time, but after combining all pairs, or possibly trying to mix all five liquids together, their search for the workable combination usually stops. An adolescent at the formal-operational stage, on the other hand, will explore all possible solutions, systematically testing all possible combinations of two and three liquids until a colour is produced. As another example, consider adolescent thinking in respect to certain types of verbal problems—for instance, as represented by the question “If Jane is taller than Doris and shorter than Francine, who is the shortest of the three?” Concrete-operational children may be able to solve an analogous problem (e.g., one using sticks of various lengths, with the sticks actually present). Abstract verbal problems, however, are usually not solved until the capacity for formal operations has emerged.
Formal-operational thought does not seem to be a stage characterizing all adolescents. Studies of older adolescents and adults in Western cultures show that not all individuals attain formal operations. In turn, in some non-Western groups there is a failure ever to attain formal operations. Some researchers have attributed these differences to the differences between rural and urban societies and the different kinds of schooling offered by each. There is, however, little evidence for socioeconomic or educational differences being associated with the achievement of formal-operational thought.
Formal-operational thinking also has limitations, predicated in part on the fact that adolescents often think about their own thinking. Just as the infant is preoccupied with his physical self in a world of new stimuli, so the adolescent may be preoccupied with his own thinking in a world of new ideas. Such preoccupation often leads to a kind of egocentrism, which can manifest itself in two ways: First, the individual may presume that his own concerns, values, and preoccupations are equally important to everyone else; second, the urgency of this new thinking may paradoxically give rise to an overestimation of one’s uniqueness, often resulting in feelings of alienation or of being misunderstood. Although the formal-operational stage is the last stage of cognitive development in Piaget’s theory, the egocentrism of this stage diminishes over the course of the person’s life, largely as a consequence of interactions with peers and elders and—most importantly—with the assumption of adult roles and responsibilities.
The adolescent’s social context is broader and more complex than that of the infant and the child. The most notable social phenomenon of adolescence is the emergence of the marked importance of peer groups. The adolescent comes to rely heavily on the peer group for support, security, and guidance during a time when such things are urgently needed and since perhaps only others experiencing the same transition can be relied upon to understand what that experience is. Contrary to cultural stereotype, however, the family is quite influential for adolescents. Indeed, no social institution has as great an influence throughout development as does the family. Most studies indicate that most adolescents have relatively few serious disagreements with parents. In fact, in choosing their peers, adolescents typically gravitate toward those who exhibit attitudes and values consistent with those maintained by the parents and ultimately adopted by the adolescents themselves. For instance, while peers influence adolescents in regard to such issues as educational aspirations and performance, in most cases there is convergence between family and peer influences. While it is the case that adolescents and parents have somewhat different attitudes about issues of contemporary social concern (e.g., politics, drug use, and sexuality), most of these differences reflect contrasts in attitude intensity rather than attitude direction. That is to say, rather than adolescents’ and parents’ standing on opposite sides of a particular issue, most generational differences simply involve different levels of support for the same position. In sum, there is not much evidence supporting the cultural stereotype of adolescence as a period of storm and stress. Most adolescents continue their close and supportive relationships with their parents, and their relationships with peers tend to support parental ideals rather than run against them.
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a802d4c5c79df3e7eb8db7c1b52137ca | https://www.britannica.com/topic/human-rights/Liberte-civil-and-political-rights | Liberté: civil and political rights | Liberté: civil and political rights
The first generation, civil and political rights, derives primarily from the 17th- and 18th-century reformist theories noted above (i.e., those associated with the English, American, and French revolutions). Infused with the political philosophy of liberal individualism and the related economic and social doctrine of laissez-faire, the first generation conceives of human rights more in negative terms (“freedoms from”) than positive ones (“rights to”); it favours the abstention over the intervention of government in the quest for human dignity. Belonging to this first generation, thus, are rights such as those set forth in Articles 2–21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including freedom from gender, racial, and equivalent forms of discrimination; the right to life, liberty, and security of the person; freedom from slavery or involuntary servitude; freedom from torture and from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; freedom from arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile; the right to a fair and public trial; freedom from interference in privacy and correspondence; freedom of movement and residence; the right to asylum from persecution; freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; freedom of opinion and expression; freedom of peaceful assembly and association; and the right to participate in government, directly or through free elections. Also included are the right to own property and the right not to be deprived of it arbitrarily—rights that were fundamental to the interests fought for in the American and French revolutions and to the rise of capitalism.
Yet it would be wrong to assert that these and other first-generation rights correspond completely to the idea of “negative” as opposed to “positive” rights. The right to security of the person, to a fair and public trial, to asylum from persecution, or to free elections, for example, manifestly cannot be assured without some affirmative government action. What is constant in this first-generation conception is the notion of liberty, a shield that safeguards the individual—alone and in association with others—against the abuse of political authority. This is the core value. Featured in the constitution of almost every country in the world and dominating the majority of international declarations and covenants adopted since World War II (in large measure due to the brutal denial of the fundamentals of civic belonging and democratic inclusion during the Nazi era), this essentially Western liberal conception of human rights is sometimes romanticized as a triumph of the individualism of Hobbes and Locke over Hegel’s glorification of the state.
The second generation, composed of economic, social, and cultural rights, originated primarily in the socialist tradition, which was foreshadowed among adherents of the Saint-Simonian movement of early 19th-century France and variously promoted by revolutionary struggles and welfare movements that have taken place since. In large part, it is a response to the abuses of capitalist development and its underlying and essentially uncritical conception of individual liberty, which tolerated, and even legitimized, the exploitation of working classes and colonial peoples. Historically, economic, social, and cultural rights are a counterpoint to the first generation, civil and political rights, and are conceived more in positive terms (“rights to”) than in negative ones (“freedoms from”); they also require more the intervention than the abstention of the state for the purpose of assuring the equitable production and distribution of the values or capabilities involved. Illustrative are some of the rights set forth in Articles 22–27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, such as the right to social security; the right to work and to protection against unemployment; the right to rest and leisure, including periodic holidays with pay; the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of self and family; the right to education; and the right to the protection of one’s scientific, literary, and artistic production.
But in the same way that not all the rights embraced by the first generation (civil and political rights) can be designated as “negative rights,” so not all the rights embraced by the second generation (economic, social, and cultural rights) can be labeled as “positive rights.” For example, the right to free choice of employment, the right to form and to join trade unions, and the right to participate freely in the cultural life of the community (Articles 23 and 27) do not inherently require affirmative state action to ensure their enjoyment. Nevertheless, most of the second-generation rights do necessitate state intervention, because they subsume demands more for material than for intangible goods according to some criterion of distributive justice. Second-generation rights are, fundamentally, claims to social equality. However, in part because of the comparatively late arrival of socialist-communist and compatible “Third World” influence in international affairs, but more recently because of the ascendency of laissez-faire capitalism and the globalization of neoliberal, free-market economics since the end of the Cold War, the internationalization of these “equality rights” has been relatively slow in coming and is unlikely to truly come of age any time soon. On the other hand, as the social inequities created by unregulated national and transnational capitalism become more and more evident over time and are not directly accounted for by explanations based on gender or race, it is probable that the demand for second-generation rights will grow and mature, and in some instances even lead to violence. Indeed, this tendency was apparent already at the beginning of the 2010s, most notably in the widespread protests against austerity measures in Europe as the euro-zone debt crisis unfolded and in wider efforts (including social movements such as the “Occupy” movement) to regulate intergovernmental financial institutions and transnational corporations to protect the public interest.
Finally, the third generation, composed of solidarity or group rights, while drawing upon and reconceptualizing the demands associated with the first two generations of rights, is best understood as a product of both the rise and the decline of the state since the mid-20th century. Foreshadowed in Article 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which proclaims that “everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights set forth in this declaration can be fully realized,” this generation appears so far to embrace six claimed rights (although events of the early 21st century arguably suggest that a seventh claimed right—a right to democracy—may be in the process of emerging). Three of the claimed rights reflect the emergence of nationalism in the developing world in the 1960s and ’70s and the “revolution of rising expectations” (i.e., its demand for a global redistribution of power, wealth, and other important values or capabilities): the right to political, economic, social, and cultural self-determination; the right to economic and social development; and the right to participate in and benefit from “the common heritage of mankind” (shared Earth and space resources; scientific, technical, and other information and progress; and cultural traditions, sites, and monuments). The three remaining claimed solidarity or group rights—the right to peace, the right to a clean and healthy environment, and the right to humanitarian disaster relief—suggest the impotence or inefficiency of the state in certain critical respects.
All of these claimed rights tend to be posed as collective rights, requiring the concerted efforts of all social forces, to a substantial degree on a planetary scale. However, each of them also manifests an individual dimension. For example, while it may be said to be the collective right of all countries and peoples (especially developing countries and non-self-governing peoples) to secure a “new international economic order” that would eliminate obstacles to their economic and social development, so also may it be said to be the individual right of every person to benefit from a developmental policy that is based on the satisfaction of material and nonmaterial human needs. It is important to note, too, that the majority of these solidarity rights are more aspirational than justiciable in character and that their status as international human rights norms remains somewhat ambiguous.
Thus, at various stages of modern history, the content of human rights has been broadly defined, not with any expectation that the rights associated with one generation would or should become outdated upon the ascendancy of another, but expansively or supplementally. The history of the content of human rights reflects evolving and conflicting perceptions of which values or capabilities stand, at different times and through differing lenses, most in need of responsible attention and, simultaneously, humankind’s recurring demands for continuity and stability. Such dynamics are reflected, for example, in a rising consensus that human rights extend to the private as well as to the public sector—i.e., that non-state as well as state actors must account for their violations of human rights. Similarly reflecting the continuing pressure for human rights evolution is a current suggestion that there exists a “fourth generation” of human rights consisting of women’s and intergenerational rights (i.e., the rights of future generations, including existing children) among others.
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9f65a2e189086de2d3d6b7008d2cc31c | https://www.britannica.com/topic/human-sexual-activity/Development-and-change-in-the-reproductive-system | Development and change in the reproductive system | Development and change in the reproductive system
One’s anatomy and sexuality change with age. The changes are rapid in intra-uterine life and around puberty but are much slower and gradual in other phases of the life cycle.
The reproductive organs first develop in the same form for both males and females: internally there are two undifferentiated gonads and two pairs of parallel ducts (Wolffian and Müllerian ducts); externally there is a genital protrusion with a groove (urethral groove) below it, the groove being flanked by two folds (urethral folds). On either side of the genital protrusion and groove are two ridgelike swellings (labioscrotal swellings). Around the fourth week of life the gonads differentiate into either testes or ovaries. If testes develop, the hormone they secrete causes the Müllerian duct to degenerate and almost vanish and causes the Wolffian duct to elaborate into the sperm-carrying tubes and related organs (the vas deferens, epididymis, and seminal vesicles, for example). If ovaries develop, the Wolffian duct deteriorates, and the Müllerian duct elaborates to form the fallopian tubes, uterus, and part of the vagina. The external genitalia simultaneously change. The genital protrusion becomes either a penis or clitoris. In the female the groove below the clitoris stays open to form the vulva, and the folds on either side of the groove become the inner lips of the vulva (the labia minora). In the male these folds grow together, converting the groove into the urethral tube of the penis. The ridgelike swellings on either side remain apart in the female and constitute the large labia (labia majora), but in the male they grow together to form the scrotal sac into which the testes subsequently descend.
At birth both male and female have all the neurophysiological equipment necessary for sexual response, although the reproductive system is not at this stage functional. Sexual interests, sexual activity, and sexual response are seen with increasing frequency in most children from infancy on. Even newborn males have penile erections, and babies of both sexes seem to find pleasure in genital stimulation. What appears to be orgasm has been observed in infant boys and girls, and, later in childhood, orgasm definitely can occur in masturbation or sex play.
Puberty may be defined as that short period of time (generally two years) during which the reproductive system matures and the secondary sexual characteristics appear. The ovaries and testes begin producing much larger amounts of hormones, pubic hair appears, female breasts develop, the menstrual cycle begins in females, spermatozoa and viable eggs are produced, and males experience voice change and a sudden acceleration in growth. Puberty generally occurs in females around age 12–13 and in males at about 13–14, but there is much individual variation. With puberty there is generally an intensification or the first appearance of sexual interest. Puberty marks the beginning of adolescence.
Adolescence, from a physical viewpoint, is that period between puberty and the attainment of one’s maximum height. By the latter point, which occurs around age 16 in females and 18 in males, the individual has adult anatomy and physiology. In late adolescence the majority of individuals are probably at their peak in terms of sexual capacity: the ability to respond quickly and repeatedly. During this period the sex drive is at its maximum in males, although it is difficult to say whether this is also true of females, since female sexuality, in many societies, is frequently suppressed during adolescence.
Following adolescence there are about three decades of adult life during which physiological changes are slow and gradual. While muscular strength increases for a time, the changes may best be described as slow deterioration. This physical decline is not immediately evident in sexual activity, which often increases in quantity and quality as the individual develops more social skills and higher socio-economic status and loses some of the inhibitions and uncertainties that often impede adolescent sexuality. Indeed, in the case of the United States female, the deterioration is more than offset by her gradual loss of sexual inhibition, and the effect of age is not clear until menopausal symptoms begin. In the male, however, there is no such masking of deterioration, and the frequency of sexual activity and the intensity of interest and response slowly, but inexorably, decline.
If one must arbitrarily select an age to mark the beginning of old age, 50 is appropriate. By then, most females have experienced menopausal symptoms, and most males have been forced to recognize their increasing physical limitations. With menopause, the female genitalia gradually begin to atrophy and the amount of vaginal secretion diminishes—this is the direct consequence of the cessation of ovarian function and can be prevented, or the symptoms reversed, by administering estrogen. If a female has had a good sexual adjustment prior to menopause and if she does not believe in the fallacy that it spells the end of sexual life, menopause will have no adverse effect on her sexual and orgasmic ability. There is reason to believe that if a woman remains in good health and genital atrophy is prevented, she could enjoy sexual activity regardless of age. Males in good health are also capable of continuing sexual activity, although with an ever-decreasing frequency, throughout old age. The male has more difficulty in achieving erection, cannot maintain erection as long, and must have longer and longer “rest periods” between sexual acts. The amount of ejaculate becomes less, but most old males are still fertile. The Cowper’s gland secretion (called “precoital mucus”) diminishes or disappears entirely. According to Kinsey’s data, about one-quarter of males are impotent by age 65, one-half by age 75, and three-quarters by age 80. One must remember, however, that some unknown but certainly substantial proportion of this impotence may be attributed to poor health.
In general, the female withstands the onslaughts of age better than the male. The reduction in the frequency of marital intercourse or even its abandonment is more often than not the result of male deterioration.
Physiology sets only very broad limits on human sexuality; most of the enormous variation found among humans must be attributed to the psychological factors of learning and conditioning.
The human infant is born simply with the ability to respond sexually to tactile stimulation. It is only later and gradually that the individual learns or is conditioned to respond to other stimuli, to develop a sexual attraction to males or females or both, to interpret some stimuli as sexual and others as nonsexual, and to control in some measure his or her sexual response. In other words, the general and diffuse sexuality of the infant becomes increasingly elaborated, differentiated, and specific.
The early years of life are, therefore, of paramount importance in the development of what ultimately becomes adult sexual orientation. There appears to be a reasonably fixed sequence of development. Before age five, children develop a sense of gender identity, think of themselves as boys or girls, and begin to relate to others differently according to their gender. Through experience children learn what behaviour is rewarded and what is punished and what sorts of behaviour are expected of them. Parents, peers, and society in general teach and condition children about sex not so much by direct informational statements and admonitions as by indirect and often unconscious communication. Children soon learn, for example, that they can touch any part of their body or someone else’s body except the anal–genital region. Children rubbing their genitals find that this quickly attracts adult attention and admonishment or that adults will divert them from this activity. It becomes clear that there is something peculiar and taboo about this area of the body. This “genital taboo” is reinforced by the great concern over children’s excretory behaviour: bladder and bowel control is praised; loss of control is met by disappointment, chiding, and expressions of disgust. Obviously, the anal–genital area is not only a taboo area but a very important one as well. It is almost inevitable that the genitalia become associated with anxiety and shame. It is noteworthy that this attitude finds expression in the language of Western civilizations, as in “privates” (something to be kept hidden) and the German word for the genitals, Scham (“shame”).
While all children in Western civilizations experience this antisexual teaching and conditioning, a few have, in addition, atypical sexual experiences, such as witnessing or hearing sexual intercourse or having sexual contact with an older person. The effects of such atypical experiences depend upon how children interpret them and upon the reaction of adults if the experience comes to their attention. Seeing parental coitus is harmless if children interpret it as playful wrestling but harmful if they consider it as hostile, assaultive behaviour. Similarly, an experience with an adult may seem merely a curious and pointless game, or it may be a hideous trauma leaving lifelong psychic scars. In many cases the reaction of parents and society determines the child’s interpretation of the event. What would have been a trivial and soon-forgotten act becomes traumatic if the mother cries, the father rages, and the police interrogate the child.
Some atypical developments occur through association during the formative years. A child may associate clothing, especially underclothing, stockings, and shoes with gender and sex and thereby establish the basis for later fetishism or transvestism. Others, having been spanked or otherwise punished for self-masturbation or childhood sex play, form an association between punishment, pain, and sex that could escalate later into sadism or masochism. It is not known why some children form such associations whereas others with apparently similar experience do not.
About the age that children enter puberty, parents and society, who more often than not refuse to recognize that children have sexual responses and capabilities, finally face the inescapable reality and consequently begin inculcating children with their attitudes and standards regarding sex. This campaign by adults is almost wholly negative: the child is told what not to do. While dating may be encouraged, no form of sexual activity is advocated or held up as model behaviour. The message usually is: “Be popular [i.e., sexually attractive] but abstain from sexual activity.” This antisexualism is particularly intense regarding young females and is reinforced by reference to pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and, most importantly, social disgrace. To this list religious families add the concept of the sinfulness of premarital sexual expression. With young males the double standard of morality still prevails. The youth receives a double message: “Don’t do it, but we expect that you will.” No such loophole in the prohibitions is offered young girls. Meanwhile, the young male’s peer group is exerting a prosexual influence, and his social status is enhanced by his sexual exploits or by exaggerated reports thereof.
As a result of this double standard of sexual morality, the relationship between young males and females often becomes a ritualized contest, the male attempting to escalate the sexual activity and the female resisting his efforts. Instead of mutuality and respect, one often has a struggle in which the female is viewed as a reluctant sexual object to be exploited, and the male is viewed as a seducer and aggressor who must succeed in order to maintain his self-image and his status with his peers. This sort of pathological relationship causes a lasting attitude on the part of females: men are not to be trusted; they are interested only in sex; a girl dare not smile or be friendly lest males interpret it as a sign of sexual availability, and so forth. Such an aura of suspicion, hostility, and anxiety is scarcely conducive to the development of warm, trusting relationships between males and females. Fortunately, love or infatuation usually overcomes this negativism with regard to particular males, but the average female still maintains a defensive and skeptical attitude toward men.
Western society is replete with attitudes that impede the development of a healthy attitude toward sex. The free abandon so necessary to a full sexual relationship is, in the eyes of many, an unseemly loss of self-control, and self-control is something one is urged to maintain from infancy onward. Panting, sweating, and involuntary vocalization are incompatible with the image of dignity. Worse yet is any substance once it has left the body: it immediately becomes unclean. The male and female genital fluids are generally regarded with disgust—they are not only excretions but sexual excretions. Here again, societal concern over excretion is involved, for sexual organs are also urinary passages and are in close proximity to the “dirtiest” of all places—the anus. Lastly, many individuals in society regard menstrual fluid with disgust and abstain from sexual intercourse during the four to six days of flow. This attitude is formalized in Judaism, in which menstruating females are specifically labelled as ritually unclean.
In view of all these factors working against a healthy, rational attitude toward sex and in view of the inevitable disappointments, exploitations, and rejections that are involved in human relationships, one might wonder how anyone could reach adulthood without being seriously maladjusted. The sexual impulse, however, is sufficiently strong and persistent and repeated sexual activity gradually erodes the inhibitions and any sense of guilt or shame. Further, all humans have a deep need to be esteemed, wanted, and loved. Sexual activity with another is seen as proof that one is attractive, desired, valued, and possibly loved—a proof very necessary to self-esteem and happiness. Hence, even among the very inhibited or those with weak sex drive, there is this powerful motivation to engage in sociosexual activity.
Most persons ultimately achieve at least a tolerable sexual adjustment. Some unfortunates, nevertheless, remain permanently handicapped, and very few completely escape the effects of society’s antisexual conditioning. While certain inhibitions and restraints are socially and psychologically useful—such as deferring gratification until circumstances are appropriate and modifying activity out of regard for the feelings of others—most people labour under an additional burden of useless and deleterious attitudes and restrictions.
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f3b4a880168b014cc4faa801b148c66a | https://www.britannica.com/topic/human-sexual-activity/Sexually-transmitted-diseases | Sexually transmitted diseases | Sexually transmitted diseases
Infections transmitted primarily by sexual contact are referred to as sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Caused by a variety of microbial agents that thrive in warm, moist environments such as the mucous membranes of the vagina, urethra, anus, and mouth, STDs are diagnosed most frequently in individuals who engage in sexual activity with many partners.
In the past, a disease transmitted sexually was more commonly called a venereal disease, or VD, and was applied to only a few infections such as gonorrhea and syphilis. Actually more than 20 STDs have been identified, and infections caused by Chlamydia trachomatis, herpes simplex virus, and human papillomavirus, although underreported, are believed to be more prevalent than gonorrhea in the United States. Although the incidence of some STDs has reached epidemic proportions, it was not until the advent of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) that the need to restrain the transmission of these diseases gained serious attention.
AIDS is a deadly disease for which there is no known cure. This fact has made prevention of the spread of HIV (see below) infection a top priority of the health-care community, with education concerning safer sexual practices at the fore. The “safe sex” strategy, which includes encouraging the use of condoms or the practice of abstinence, has been introduced to prevent the spread not only of AIDS but of all STDs. Stemming the transmission of disease rather than relying on treatment, which in the case of AIDS does not even exist, is the basic tenet of the safe-sex doctrine.
Preventing the transmission of STDs is also important because many of these diseases do not produce initial symptoms of any significance. Thus, they often go untreated, increasing their spread and the incidence of serious complications; untreated chlamydial infections in women are the primary preventable cause of female sterility.
Bacteria, parasites, and viruses are the most common microbial agents involved in the sexual transmission of disease. Bacterial agents include Neisseria gonorrhoeae, which causes gonorrhea and predominantly involves the ureter in men and the cervix in women, and Treponema pallidum, which is responsible for syphilis. The parasite Chlamydia trachomatis causes a variety of disorders—in women, urethritis, cervicitis, and salpingitis (inflammation of the ureter, cervix, and fallopian tubes, respectively) and, in men, nongonococcal urethritis. Sexually transmitted viral agents include the human papillomavirus, which causes genital warts. Infection by this virus, of which there are more than 20 types, has been linked to cervical carcinoma. Herpes simplex virus II is the causative agent of genital herpes, a condition in which ulcerative blisters form on the mucous membranes of the genitalia.
AIDS is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a pernicious infectious agent that attacks the immune system, leading to its progressive destruction. The virus is found in highest concentrations in the blood, semen, and vaginal and cervical fluids of the human body and can be harboured asymptomatically for 10 years or more. Although the primary route of transmission is sexual, HIV also is spread by the use of infected needles among intravenous drug users, by the exchange of infected blood products, and from an infected mother to her fetus during pregnancy.
The progression of the syndrome does not follow a defined path; instead nonspecific symptoms reflect the myriad effects of a failing immune system. These symptoms are referred to as AIDS-related complex (ARC) and include fever, rashes, weight loss, and wasting. Opportunistic infections such as Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, neoplasms such as Kaposi’s sarcoma, and central nervous system dysfunction are also common complications. The patient eventually dies, unable to mount an immunologic defense against the constant onslaught of infections.
A blood test can be used to detect HIV infection before the symptoms begin to manifest themselves, and all individuals who may be at even the slightest risk of infection are encouraged to be tested in order to prevent the unknowing spread of HIV to others. Identification of infection before the onset of the disease, however, does not promise a better prognosis; the vast majority of those infected with HIV will ultimately succumb to AIDS. Although development of a vaccine is being pursued, it is not yet available and education remains the best way to prevent transmission of this lethal disease.
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2da53c18a97db03d899d9434b02c8737 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/human-sexual-activity/Social-and-cultural-aspects | Social and cultural aspects | Social and cultural aspects
The effects of societal value systems on human sexuality are, as has already been mentioned, profound. The American anthropologist George P. Murdock summarized the situation, saying:
The historical heritage is, of course, the foundation upon which the current situation rests. Western civilizations are basically Greco-Roman in social organization, philosophy, and law, with a powerful admixture of Judaism and Christianity. This historical mixture contained incompatible elements: individual freedom was cherished, yet there was a great emphasis on law and proper procedure; the polytheism of the Greeks and Romans clashed with Judeo-Christian monotheism; and the sexual permissiveness of Hellenistic times was answered by the antisexuality of early Christianity.
In terms of sex, the most important factor was Christianity. While other vital aspects of human life, such as government, property rights, kinship, and economics, were influenced to varying degrees, sexuality was singled out as falling almost entirely within the domain of religion. This development arose from an ascetic concept shared by a number of religions, the concept of the good spiritual world as opposed to the carnal materialistic world, the struggle between the spirit and the flesh. Since sex epitomizes the flesh, it was obviously the enemy of the spirit. Beginning in the 2nd century, Western Christianity was heavily influenced by this dichotomous philosophy of the gnostics; sex in any form outside of marriage was an unmitigated evil and, within marriage, an unfortunate necessity for purposes of procreation rather than pleasure. The powerful antisexuality of the early Christians (note that neither God nor Christ has a wife and that marriage does not exist in heaven) was in part due to their apocalyptic vision of life: they anticipated that the end of the world and the Last Judgment would soon be upon them. There was no time for a gradual weaning away from the flesh; an immediate and drastic approach was necessary. Indeed, such excessive antisexuality developed that the church itself was finally moved to curb some of its more extreme forms.
As it became evident that human existence was going to continue for some unforeseeable length of time and as occasional intelligent theologians made themselves felt, antisexuality was ameliorated to some extent but still remained a foundation stone of Christianity for centuries. This attitude was particularly unfortunate for women, to whom most of the sexual guilt was assigned. Women, like the original temptress Eve, continued to attract men to commit sin. They were spiritually weak creatures prone to yield to carnal impulses. This is, of course, a classic example of projecting one’s own guilty desires upon someone else.
Ultimately, legal control over sexual activity passed from the church to the state, but in most instances the latter simply perpetuated the attitudes of the former. Priests and clergy frequently continued to exert powerful extralegal control: denunciations from the pulpit can be as effective as statute law in some cases. Although religion has weakened as a social control mechanism, even today liberalization of sex laws and relaxation of censorship have often been successfully opposed by religious leaders. On the whole, however, Christianity has become progressively more permissive, and sexuality has come to be viewed not as sin but as a God-given capacity to be used constructively.
Apart from religion, the state sometimes imposes restrictions for purely secular reasons. The more totalitarian a government, the more likely it is to restrict or direct sexual activity. In some instances, this comes about simply as the consequence of a powerful individual (or individuals) being in a position to impose ideas upon the public. In other instances, one cannot escape the impression that sex, being a highly personal and individualistic matter, is recognized as antithetical to the whole idea of strict governmental control and supervision of the individual. This may help explain the rigid censorship exerted by most totalitarian regimes over sexual expression. It is as though such a government, being obsessed with power, cannot tolerate the power the sexual impulse exerts on the population.
Societies differ remarkably in what they consider socially desirable and undesirable in terms of sexual activity and consequently differ in what they attempt to prevent or promote. There appear, however, to be four basic sexual controls in the majority of human societies. First, to control endless competition, some form of marriage is necessary. This not only removes both partners from the competitive arena of courtship and assures each of a sexual partner, but it allows them to devote more time and energy to other necessary and useful tasks of life. Despite the beliefs of earlier writers, marriage is not necessary for the care of the young; this can be accomplished in other ways.
Second, control of forced sexual relationships is necessary to prevent anger, feuding, and other disruptive retribution.
Third, all societies exert control over whom one is eligible to marry or have as a sexual partner. Endogamy, holding the choice within one’s group, increases group solidarity but tends to isolate the group and limit its political strength. Exogamy, forcing the individual to marry outside the group, dilutes group loyalty but increases group size and power through new external liaisons. Some combination of endogamy and exogamy is found in most societies. All have incest prohibitions. These are not based on genetic knowledge. Indeed, many incest taboos involve persons not genetically related (father–stepdaughter, for example). The prime reason for incest prohibition seems to be the necessity for preventing society from becoming snarled in its own web: every person has a complex set of duties, rights, obligations, and statuses with regard to other people, and these would become intolerably complicated or even contradictory if incest were freely permitted.
Fourth, there is control through the establishment of some safety-valve system: the formulation of exceptions to the prevailing sexual restrictions. There is the recognition that humans cannot perpetually conform to the social code and that well-defined exceptions must be made. There are three sorts of exceptions to sexual restrictions: (1) Divorce: while all societies encourage marriage, all realize that it is in the interest of society and the individual to terminate marriage under certain conditions. (2) Exceptions based on kinship: many societies permit or encourage sexual activity with certain kin, even after marriage. Most often these kin are a brother’s wife or a wife’s sister. In addition, sexual “joking relationships” are often expected between brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, and cousins. While coitus is not involved, there is much explicit sexual banter, teasing, and humorous insult. (3) Exceptions based on special occasions, ranging from sexual activity as a part of religious rites to purely secular ceremonies and celebrations wherein the customary sexual restrictions are temporarily lifted.
Turning to particular forms of sexual activity, one learns from anthropology and history that extreme diversity in social attitude is common. Most societies are unconcerned over self-masturbation since it does not entail procreation or the establishment of social bonds, but a few regard it with disapprobation. Sexual dreams cause concern only if they are thought to be the result of the nocturnal visitation of some spirit. Such dreams were once attributed to spirits or demons known as incubi and succubi, who sought out sleeping humans for sexual intercourse.
Petting among most preliterate societies is done only as a prelude to coitus—as foreplay—rather than as an end in itself. In some parts of sub-Saharan Africa, however, petting is used as a premarital substitute for coitus in order to preserve virginity and avoid pregnancy. There is great variation in petting and foreplay techniques. Kissing is by no means universal, as some groups view the mouth as a biting and chewing orifice ill-suited for expressing affection. While some societies emphasize the erotic role of the female breast, others—such as the Chinese—pay little attention to it. Still others regard oral stimulation of the breast unseemly, being too akin to infantile suckling. Although manual stimulation of the genitalia is nearly universal, a few peoples abstain because of revulsion toward genital secretions. Not much information exists on mouth–genital contact, and one can say only that it is common among some peoples and rare among others.
A considerable number of societies manifest scratching and biting in conjunction with sexual activity, and most of this is done by the female. Sadomasochism in any other form, however, is conspicuous by its absence in preliterate societies.
An enumeration of the societies that permit or forbid premarital coitus is complicated not only by the double standard but also by the fact that such prohibition or permission is often qualified. As a rough estimate, however, 40 to 50 percent of preliterate or ancient societies allowed premarital coitus under certain conditions to both males and females. If one were to count as permissive those groups that theoretically disapprove but actually condone such coitus, the percentage would rise to perhaps 70.
In marital coitus, when sexual access is not only permitted but encouraged, one would expect considerable uniformity in frequency of coitus. This expectation is not fulfilled: social conditioning profoundly affects even marital coitus. On one Irish island reported upon by a researcher, for example, marital coitus is best measured in terms of per year, and among the Cayapas of Ecuador, a frequency of twice a week is something to boast of. The coital frequencies of other groups, on the other hand, are nearer to human potential. In one Polynesian group, the usual frequency of marital coitus among individuals in their late 20s was 10 to 12 per week, and in their late 40s the frequency had fallen to three to four. The African Bala, according to one researcher, had coitus on the average of once or twice per day from young adulthood into the sixth decade of life.
Marital coitus is not unrestricted. Coitus during menstruation or after a certain stage of pregnancy is generally taboo. After childbirth a lengthy period of time must often elapse before coitus can resume, and some peoples abstain for magical reasons before or during warfare, hunting expeditions, and certain other important events or ceremonies. In modern Western society one finds menstrual, pregnancy, and postpartum taboos perpetuated under an aesthetic or medical guise, and coaches still attempt to force celibacy upon athletes prior to competition.
Extramarital coitus provides a striking example of the double standard: it is expected, or tolerated, in males and generally prohibited for females. Very few societies allow wives sexual freedom. Extramarital coitus with the husband’s consent, however, is another matter. Somewhere between two-fifths and three-fifths of preliterate societies permit wife lending or allow the wife to have coitus with certain relatives (generally brothers-in-law) or permit her freedom on special ceremonial occasions. The main concern of preliterate societies is not one of morality, but of more practical considerations: does the act weaken kinship ties and loyalty? Will it damage the husband’s social prestige? Will it cause pregnancy and complicate inheritance or cause the wife to neglect her duties and obligations? Most foreign of all to Western thinking is that of those peoples whose marriage ceremony involves the bride having coitus with someone other than the groom, yet it is to be recalled that this practice existed to a limited extent in medieval Europe as jus primae noctis, the right of the lord to the bride of one of his subjects.
Sexual deviations and sex offenses are, of course, social definitions rather than natural phenomena. What is normative activity in one society may be a deviation or crime in another. One can go through the literature and discover that virtually any sexual act, even child–adult relations or necrophilia, has somewhere at some time been acceptable activity. Homosexuality is permitted in perhaps two-thirds of human societies. In some groups it is normative activity, whereas in others it is not only absent but beyond imagination. Generally, it is not an activity involving most of the population but exists as an alternative way of life for certain individuals. These special individuals are sometimes transvestites—that is, they dress and behave like the opposite sex. Sometimes they are regarded as curiosities or ridiculed, but more often they are accorded respect and magical powers are attributed to them. It is noteworthy, however, that aside from these transvestites, exclusive homosexuality is quite rare in preliterate societies.
In conclusion, the cardinal lesson of anthropology is that no type of sexual activity or attitude has a universal, inherent social or psychological value for good or evil—the whole meaning and value of any expression of sexuality is determined by the social context within which it occurs.
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b3975dbab8b45b3b7ce345ac8da619c0 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Human-Torch | Human Torch | Human Torch
Human Torch, fictional superhero.
Human Torch was one of the “big three” heroes of Marvel (then known as Timely) Comics, along with Captain America and the Sub-Mariner—and one of the most popular Marvel superheroes of the 1940s. Like the Sub-Mariner, he was first seen on the newsstands in Marvel Comics #1, in late 1939. Historians believe that the Sub-Mariner came first and that the Torch was created by Carl Burgos as a counterpart to his friend Bill Everett’s aquatic hero. Both artists worked in the Funnies Inc. sweatshop and were among several creators involved in packaging together the first of a new comic line for pulp publisher Martin Goodman. The comic, and particularly the Torch and Sub-Mariner characters, proved a hit, and Timely soon grew to become one of the era’s biggest companies, eventually emerging as the Marvel Comics that readers know today.
As the story in Marvel Comics #1 reveals, the Torch is an android created by Professor Phineas T. Horton that accidentally bursts into flames when exposed to oxygen (due to a design flaw). Disappointed by his failure, Horton buries the poor creature in a glass tomb and sinks it in concrete. But when an explosion accidentally releases the Torch, he rampages through a nearby town, causing chaos wherever he goes. Befriended by a crook called Sardo, the Torch is lured into a life of crime until rescued by Horton, who has his own agenda. Seeing that the Torch can now control his flame, Horton plans to exploit the Torch’s powers for his own gain. Disgusted by the professor’s greed, the Torch heads off on his own, to right injustices wherever he encounters them; and he soon signs up as a member of the police department (adopting the alter ego Jim Hammond, though this temporary device is not well-remembered today), rushing to the scene of any crime or disaster.
Although he had no tool or weapons to speak of, and his scant bodysuit costume disappeared when he ignited into flames, the Torch’s persona as a red-hot flame intrigued readers. He could melt bullets shot his way, fly, and create ropes of flame and fireballs to subdue even the most dastardly ne’er-do-wells. In his Torch persona, the hero was unaffected by electricity and explosions, although the force of a powerful blast was known to knock him over. His number one vulnerability, of course, was water.
In 1939, the superhero was still a very new concept and only nine heroes preceded the Torch and Sub-Mariner, many of them (Wonder Man, the Green Mask, the Masked Marvel) eminently forgettable. So Timely’s pair made a massive impact. The Torch’s regular spot in Marvel Mystery Comics (the new name for Marvel Comics) was soon joined by his own quarterly solo title, and as the United States entered World War II, the Axis-smashing Torch began to pop up elsewhere as well. Between 1939 and 1949, the Torch starred in almost 300 adventures, in such titles as All Winners, Daring, All-Select, Captain America, and Mystic Comics—almost tying Captain America for the greatest number of stories published for a 1940s Marvel hero.
For Human Torch #1, Burgos created a junior sidekick for the hero (possibly inspired by the recent emergence of Robin in Detective Comics), a young counterpart called Toro, the Flaming Kid. Following the death of his parents in a train crash, Toro was adopted by a circus fire-eating act that had discovered that he could control fire and was unharmed by it. When the Torch happened upon him, they teamed up, and Toro eventually moved in with his mentor as his ward. The pair became inseparable for the rest of the strip’s run. Toro later went on to join the Young Allies, who starred in twenty issues of their own comic as well as a lengthy run in Kid Komics.
The war was a boost to Timely/Marvel’s heroes, and they were among the first to take the fight to the Axis powers. While the Torch never really developed any arch-enemies, he was constantly battling the Nazis and Japanese, in between rooting out spy rings and racketeers. Another innovative feature of Human Torch strip was his many battles with his co-star and rival the Sub-Mariner. The first of these appeared in Marvel Mystery Comics #8. The pair’s longest battle stretched to an astonishing sixty pages (in Human Torch #5) and ranged across the whole planet, taking in Axis plots and vast warring armies. Burgos, Everett, and their Funnies Inc. colleagues would hole themselves up in hotel rooms and work for days on end, churning out these mammoth tales, to meet their fans’ insatiable demand. While sometimes crude, these epics have an incredible energy and dynamism to them that still excites today.
Burgos was drafted, in 1942, and other creators were brought in to take over his work, including artists Harry Sahle and Don Rico and a promising young writer named Mickey Spillane. After the war, Burgos contributed a few new tales but the strip was in decline and, in mid-1949, Human Torch Comics suffered the indignity of being transformed into Love Tales. Not even the late innovation of replacing Toro with a female assistant— the light ray-emitting Sun Girl—could halt the sudden collapse of the superhero market. Marvel concentrated on romance, war, and horror comics until the mid-1950s, when they evidently felt that the time was right for a revival of their heroic stars. Young Men #24 (December 1953) starred all the big three, with the Torch as cover star, and reintroduced the heroes to a new audience.
The Torch, it seems, had been covered by a flame-retardant solution and buried in the desert by “the crime boss” until he was freed by a nuclear test blast five years later. Toro had been captured and brainwashed by the Koreans, and the Torch’s first task was to free him from their control. Together again at last, the pair took up from where they had left off, tackling organized crime (and bashing the occasional communist “red” in the process). Their resurrection led to the revival of the Torch’s own comic and to appearances—many by Burgos—in further issues of Young Men, Sub-Mariner, Captain America, and Men’s Adventures, but within a year the Torch was canceled once again.
When, in 1961, fans next discovered a comic starring Human Torch on the stands (Fantastic Four #1), it was a totally different Torch, Johnny Storm. Following DC Comics’ success with its new superhero line, Martin Goodman decided that the time was right for his own company to reenter the genre, and when writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby set about dreaming up a new title, someone clearly remembered the first Torch’s success. Although Johnny Storm is an integral member of the Fantastic Four, he has rarely enjoyed solo success; his main ventures outside the group have been an early run in Strange Tales (issues #101–#134) in the early 1960s (one episode of which was drawn by Burgos), and a solo series targeted at young readers that flared up in 2003. In 2011, Johnny Storm was seemingly killed off, but it is surely inevitable that he will eventually turn up alive.
Fans had not quite seen the last of the original Human Torch and Toro, however. The first Torch reappeared to fight the new version in the 1966 Fantastic Four Annual, having been reactivated by the Mad Thinker, while Toro made an appearance in Sub-Mariner #14. Sadly, both died. However, over in the Avengers comic, the evil robot Ultron acquired the Torch’s remains and took them off to Prof. Horton (who had actually been killed off back in 1939; but clearly, no one at Marvel remembered that). Horton then managed to fix the flaw that had caused his creation to self-immolate. Using the new, improved android, Ultron fashioned a new super-being—the Vision—who soon became an Avenger, as chronicled in Avengers #57 and #58 (though his synthetic lineage was not fully revealed until #135, as part of a time-travel saga that also brought the original Torch and his later self face-to-face).
Writer and comics historian Roy Thomas always had a fondness for the first Torch, and in 1975 created The Invaders to recount further wartime adventures of the Timely Comics “big three” (including Captain America and SubMariner, and adding Toro and Captain America’s sidekick Bucky to the group). That title’s cancellation, in 1979, might have marked the last hurrah for the first Torch. But one should never say never where marketable properties are concerned, and by the late 1980s continuity had been revised so that the original Torch had not been transformed into the Vision and could fly again, first as a member of the West Coast Avengers and later with the Heroes for Hire. Writer Kurt Busiek further amended continuity in Avengers Forever (1998–1999), establishing that due to a time paradox.
The Torch joined the contemporary team, the New Invaders, but sacrificed his life to save his teammates. Toro was resurrected by the all-powerful Cosmic Cube in Avengers/Invaders #12 (August 2009). In the limited series The Torch (2009–2010), the Mad Thinker resurrects the original Human Torch, who is reunited with Toro. Thus it was, that the original Human Torch, one of the very first “Marvels,” triumphantly returned to the pages of Marvel Comics in time for the seventieth anniversary of both the company and his own debut in Marvel Comics #1.
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520fb853fe9581ab5702699828304796 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Humayuns-Tomb | Humāyūn's Tomb | Humāyūn's Tomb
Humāyūn’s Tomb, one of the earliest extant examples of the garden tomb characteristic of Mughal-era architecture, situated in Delhi, India. In 1993 it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site.
A landmark in the development of Mughal architecture, Humāyūn’s Tomb was commissioned in 1569, after the death of the Mughal emperor Humāyūn in 1556, by his Persian queen Ḥamīdah Bānū Begam. It was designed by Persian architect Mīrak Mīrzā Ghiyās̄. The structure inspired several other significant architectural achievements, including the Taj Mahal.
The 10-hectare (25-acre) plot on which the building stands is one of the first to have been laid out in a manner based on the description of an Islamic char bagh (“paradise garden”). The garden is divided into four large squares by means of causeways and water channels. Each of the four squares is further subdivided in like manner so that the whole is subdivided into 36 smaller squares. The tomb occupies the four central squares. Within the premises are a baradari (pillared pavilion) and a hammam (bath chamber). Inspired by the structural splendour of this garden, Edwin Lutyens, the noted English architect and planner of New Delhi, re-created a similar design around what is now the Rashtrapati Bhavan (Presidential House) in the early 20th century.
During the Indian Mutiny (1857–58), Humāyūn’s Tomb served as a garrison and a final refuge for the last Mughal emperor, Bahādur Shāh II. The tomb houses the remains of several additional eminent personalities of the Mughal era, including those of its founder, the emperor Bābur.
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c1a0575d5661db34e764198e95bda1b4 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Humphrey-Chimpden-Earwicker | Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker | Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker
Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, fictional character, a middle-aged tavern owner who is the protagonist of James Joyce’s novel Finnegans Wake (1939). Earwicker (often designated by variations on his initials, H.C.E., one form of which is “Here Comes Everybody”) is Joyce’s Everyman. His wife, Anna (also called Anna Livia Plurabelle and A.L.P.), is his female counterpart.
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f54eff386139cbc450fdc22054755118 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/hung-Parliament | Hung Parliament | Hung Parliament
…outright majority led to a hung Parliament. Conservative and Labour Party leaders met with the Liberal Democrats over the ensuing days in an effort to secure enough seats to form a new government. When it appeared that those talks would result in a formal “Lib-Con” coalition, Brown announced his resignation…
The resulting “hung parliament” ironically placed the Liberal Democrats as potentially holding the balance of power. Labour finished with 258 seats, a fall of 91 seats over the 2005 election. When negotiations to form a Liberal Democratic–Labour coalition failed, the Liberal Democrats joined the Conservatives in a…
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bcdb836ed7c6f2760cb918c1ea58e57e | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hurlyburly | Hurlyburly | Hurlyburly
…a go-go dancer in Philadelphia; Hurlyburly (1985; film 1998) and Those the River Keeps (1991), two related dramas about disillusionment in Hollywood; A Question of Mercy (1998); The Dog Problem (2002); The Black Monk (2004), based on a Chekhov short story; An Early History of Fire
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ede477a9b1f5a934fae0fcb7ea329093 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/husband | Husband | Husband
…of ill treatment by her husband and his family. A dowry used in this way is actually a conditional gift that is supposed to be restored to the wife or her family if the husband divorces, abuses, or commits other grave offenses against her. Land and precious metals have often…
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0687e8a4d929f3b7bbc7466bed0b0a61 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/HushHush-Sweet-Charlotte | Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte | Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte
Its success led to Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), with Davis joined by Olivia de Havilland, Agnes Moorehead, and Joseph Cotten in a surprisingly effective thriller. The Flight of the Phoenix (1965) was exciting in its own right, a survival yarn set in the Sahara desert. Although the film is…
…in a Cage (1964), and Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964). She also appeared in a number of television plays.
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e368ddd9a2311bd19e52ec2cc4f0708b | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Husker-Du | Hüsker Dü | Hüsker Dü
Hüsker Dü, American band of the 1980s that melded pop melodies and lyricism with punk music, helping to set the stage for the alternative rock boom of the 1990s. The members were Bob Mould (b. October 12, 1960, Malone, New York, U.S.), Greg Norton (b. March 13, 1959, Rock Island, Illinois), and Grant Hart (in full Grantzberg Vernon Hart; b. March 18, 1961, St. Paul, Minnesota—d. September 13/14, 2017).
Taking the name of a 1950s Scandinavian board game, Hüsker Dü (“Do you remember?”) formed in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1979, when the Minneapolis area was becoming a hotbed of pop music. They won a loyal following by touring steadily, recording frequently, and gaining college radio airplay. Although the band’s musical style on early recordings, such as their debut album, Land Speed Record (1981), was aggressively hardcore punk, their later music revealed the influence of jazz, pop, and psychedelic rock; their Zen Arcade (1984) was one of the few punk-oriented double albums. Celebrated for maintaining their artistic integrity eve*n after moving to a major label with Candy Apple Grey (1986), Hüsker Dü disbanded in 1988 after having produced a string of critically acclaimed albums including New Day Rising (1985), Flip Your Wig (1985), and Warehouse: Songs and Stories (1987). Mould later had success with solo projects and as a member of the band Sugar.
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f6b580e0cbcebde98d7b06a91643f950 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/hussar | Hussar | Hussar
Hussar, member of a European light-cavalry unit employed for scouting, modeled on the 15th-century Hungarian light-horse corps. The typical uniform of the Hungarian hussar was brilliantly coloured and was imitated in other European armies. It consisted of a busby, or a high, cylindrical cloth cap; a jacket with heavy braiding; and a dolman, or pelisse, a loose coat worn hanging from the left shoulder. Several hussar regiments of the British army were converted from light dragoons in the 19th century. The name survives in regiments converted to armour. During the Korean War, for example, the 29th British brigade group included the 8th Royal Irish Hussars as the tank unit.
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430dd0b142eef509d31b9dd8d8d00c14 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/hyangchal | Hyangch’al | Hyangch’al
…extended system of transcription, called hyangch’al, followed shortly thereafter, in which entire sentences in Korean could be written in Chinese. In another system, kugyŏl, abridged versions of Chinese characters were used to denote grammatical elements and were inserted into texts during transcription. Extant literary works indicate, however, that before the…
Most important, hyangch’al, a writing system that used Chinese characters to represent spoken Korean, originated in Silla, where hyangga (“native songs”; see above Poetry) also first appeared. Such developments reflect the fact that Silla led the other two kingdoms both artistically and politically (the latter demonstrated by…
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1738ae6eb9a973890b2e8e4d78a48f2d | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hygieia | Hygieia | Hygieia
Hygieia, in Greek religion, goddess of health. The oldest traces of her cult are at Titane, west of Corinth, where she was worshipped together with Asclepius, the god of medicine. At first no special relationship existed between her and Asclepius, but gradually she came to be regarded as his daughter; later literature, however, makes her his wife. The cult of Hygieia spread concurrently with his and was introduced at Rome from Epidaurus in 293 bc, when she was gradually identified with Salus (q.v.). In later times, Hygieia and Asclepius became protecting deities. Hygieia’s animal was a serpent, sometimes shown drinking from a saucer held in her hand.
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6e98e3f478e33fd02fc0dc6540664798 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hyperborean | Hyperborean | Hyperborean
Hyperborean, in Greek religion, one of a mythical people intimately connected with the worship of Apollo at Delphi and of Artemis at Delos. The Hyperboreans were named with reference to Boreas, the north wind, and their home was placed in a paradisal region in the far north, “beyond the north wind.” They lived for 1,000 years; if any desired to shorten that period, he decked himself with garlands and threw himself from a rock into the sea. According to Herodotus, several Hyperborean maidens had been sent with offerings to Delos, but, the offerings having been delivered, the maidens died. Thereafter the Hyperboreans wrapped their offerings in wheat straw and requested their neighbours to hand them on, from nation to nation, until they finally reached Delos.
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e0975ba28167d6c151133e05d357c0ce | https://www.britannica.com/topic/hypergeometric-distribution | Hypergeometric distribution | Hypergeometric distribution
Hypergeometric distribution, in statistics, distribution function in which selections are made from two groups without replacing members of the groups. The hypergeometric distribution differs from the binomial distribution in the lack of replacements. Thus, it often is employed in random sampling for statistical quality control. A simple everyday example would be the random selection of members for a team from a population of girls and boys.
In symbols, let the size of the population selected from be N, with k elements of the population belonging to one group (for convenience, called successes) and N − k belonging to the other group (called failures). Further, let the number of samples drawn from the population be n, such that 0 ≤ n ≤ N. Then the probability (P) that the number (X) of elements drawn from the successful group is equal to some number (x) is given by using the notation of binomial coefficients, or, using factorial notation,
The mean of the hypergeometric distribution is nk/N, and the variance (square of the standard deviation) is nk(N − k)(N − n)/N2(N − 1).
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a03e55153a7f1edc55ba2437bd1f4126 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hyperion-by-Keats | Hyperion | Hyperion
Hyperion, fragmentary poetic epic by John Keats that exists in two versions. The first was begun in 1818 and published, unfinished, in 1820. The second, The Fall of Hyperion, a revised edition with a long prologue, was also left unfinished and was published posthumously in 1856. The poem is the last of Keats’s many attempts to come to terms with the conflict between absolute value and mortal decay.
The first poem narrates the story of Hyperion, the sun god of the Titans, the earlier race of gods who were supplanted by the Olympians. When the poem begins, the Titans have already been deposed. Their one hope for regaining their former influence lies with Hyperion, who has retained his powers. But the Titans’ era ends with the coming of Apollo, the Olympian god of poetry, music, and knowledge.
The Fall of Hyperion is narrated by the poet, who, in a dream, is allowed to enter a shrine. The goddess Moneta reveals to the dreamer that the function of the poet in the world is to separate himself from the mere dreamer and to enter into and embrace the suffering of humanity.
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d0de5e89532d1a8e16586809ff3854ef | https://www.britannica.com/topic/hyphen | Hyphen | Hyphen
The hyphen, to mark words divided at the ends of lines, appeared late in the 10th century; single at first, it was often doubled in the period between the 14th and 18th centuries.
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30430bf400948e08ab5127934665fc01 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/I-Am-Legend | I Am Legend | I Am Legend
In I Am Legend (2007), Smith appeared as a scientist who is perhaps the last human on Earth following an epidemic. Hancock (2008) featured Smith as a superhero trying to revamp his unpopular image, and in Seven Pounds (2008) he played a man seeking redemption after…
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1983c73be4ebcab68d827197d5a99c6d | https://www.britannica.com/topic/I-Brought-You-My-Bullets-You-Brought-Me-Your-Love | I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love | I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love
…to releasing its first album, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love, on independent label Eyeball Records in 2002, building a reputation on its darkly striking look and dramatic performance style. The following year the band signed with Reprise Records.
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652588c583ae77cef526a3881ba11b8b | https://www.britannica.com/topic/I-dialoghi | I dialoghi | I dialoghi
…of their city, and in I dialoghi and other dialogues he continues the examination of carnality and corruption among Romans.
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62d3cafcab29230d9f49a7892dc54a87 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/I-Go-Back-to-May-1937 | I Go Back to May 1937 | I Go Back to May 1937
…her parents’ marriage in “I Go Back to May 1937” and explores their relationship in other poems in the collection. The Matter of This World: New and Selected Poems (1987) and The Father (1992) continue her intimate meditations—free of bitterness and self-pity—on her own life, as does The Wellspring…
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94fbbd2fbd49a739569577e2a81b92a9 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/I-Greet-You-at-the-Beginning-of-a-Great-Career-The-Selected-Correspondence-of-Lawrence-Ferlinghetti-and-Allen-Ginsberg-1955-1997 | I Greet You at the Beginning of a Great Career: The Selected Correspondence of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg, 1955–1997 | I Greet You at the Beginning of a Great Career: The Selected Correspondence of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg, 1955–1997
…with Ginsberg were published as I Greet You at the Beginning of a Great Career: The Selected Correspondence of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg, 1955–1997 (2015). Shortly before his 100th birthday, Ferlinghetti published the autobiographical novel Little Boy (2019).
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39a7cc390fa13f2f561dc32317142857 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/I-Heart-Huckabees | I Heart Huckabees | I Heart Huckabees
…starred opposite Lily Tomlin in I Heart Huckabees, a comedy about a husband-and-wife detective team that helps clients solve their existential problems, and with Robert De Niro in the broad comedy Meet the Fockers.
Huppert’s subsequent films included I Heart Huckabees (2004), a comedy about detectives who solve their clients’ existential problems; Gabrielle (2005), which chronicles the demise of a marriage; and L’Ivresse du pouvoir (2006; The Comedy of Power), in which she starred as a judge who heads an investigation into corporate…
…making of Three Kings and I Heart Huckabees helped him secure directorial duties for the Wahlberg-starring vehicle The Fighter (2010), the story of a boxer training for his presumed breakout bout; it costarred Amy Adams and Christian Bale. The film was a box-office success and was nominated for seven Academy…
…Dench, and Maggie Smith; Russell’s I Heart Huckabees (2004), in which Tomlin played an existential detective; and A Prairie Home Companion (2006), Altman’s adaptation of Garrison Keillor’s radio series. In Grandma (2015) Tomlin deployed her trademark acidity as the supportive but no-nonsense grandmother of a pregnant teenager.
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398c17e17afad16bb2f80081705fa9dc | https://www.britannica.com/topic/I-Love-Lucy | I Love Lucy | I Love Lucy
I Love Lucy, American television situation comedy that aired on CBS from 1951 to 1957 and was the most popular show in America for four of its six prime-time seasons. The series won five Emmy Awards, including best situation comedy (1953 and 1954) and best actress (Lucille Ball, 1956).
I Love Lucy centred on the lives of Lucy Ricardo (played by Ball) and her bandleader husband, Ricky Ricardo (played by Ball’s real-life husband, Desi Arnaz). Ricky and Lucy lived on Manhattan’s Upper East Side (though ultimately they relocated to suburban Connecticut). She was a housewife who longed for a career in show business, while Ricky entertained at the Tropicana nightclub. Despite her lack of talent and Ricky’s firm belief that a woman’s place is in the home, Lucy continually dreamed of a life beyond domesticity and concocted hilarious (and ultimately doomed) schemes to finagle her way out of the kitchen and into the limelight. Often the unraveling of Lucy’s best-laid plans took the form of physical comedy, as in the classic scene in which Lucy fought a losing battle against a conveyor belt in a candy factory. Ball played the role with aplomb, displaying her own comedic virtuosity while highlighting Lucy’s shortcomings. The Cuban-born Ricky frequently launched into rapid tirades of Spanish when frustrated with his wife. The couple often played pranks on each other to make a point. Also contributing to the mirth were the Ricardos’ landlords, the miserly yet kind Fred Mertz (William Frawley) and his wife, Ethel (Vivian Vance), who usually tried to reason Lucy out of her wilder plots. Former vaudevillians, the Mertzs sang and danced, and they acted as foils or accomplices to the Ricardos. Ricky and Lucy eventually had a child, Little Ricky (Keith Thibodeaux), whose presence shifted the show’s focus to parenthood. After I Love Lucy ended, the antics continued in The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (1957–60). Ball was the star of another situation comedy, The Lucy Show, which aired from 1962 to 1968.
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1031f674cbe12d64db4edee699c2c6f6 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/I-promessi-sposi-novel-by-Manzoni | I promessi sposi | I promessi sposi
I promessi sposi, novel by Alessandro Manzoni, published in three volumes in 1825–26; the complete edition was issued in 1827. It was initially translated into English as The Betrothed Lovers, but it was more commonly translated as simply The Betrothed. Set in early 17th-century Lombardy during the period of the Thirty Years’ War and the plague, the novel is a sympathetic portrayal of the struggle of two peasant lovers whose wish to marry is thwarted by a vicious local tyrant and the cowardice of their parish priest. A courageous friar takes up the lovers’ cause and helps them through many adventures to safety and marriage. The novel brought Manzoni immediate acclaim and had enormous patriotic appeal for Italians of the nationalistic Risorgimento period. It became a model for many later Italian writers.
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ea26100e2430c7fa1532a41033b15631 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/I-Wanna-Hold-Your-Hand | I Wanna Hold Your Hand | I Wanna Hold Your Hand
…and Gale’s first full-length film, I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978). Zemeckis directed the comedy about three young girls who are obsessed with the Beatles. Zemeckis and Gale subsequently scripted the Spielberg-directed 1941 (1979), and Spielberg served as executive producer for several other films that Zemeckis directed, including his next…
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33e430258c0090592ad0c35a3750d979 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/I-Want-to-Hold-Your-Hand | I Want to Hold Your Hand | I Want to Hold Your Hand
…version of the Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” in 1969, which exhibited his awe-inspiring vocal agility, Green recorded a fine remake of the Temptations’ “I Can’t Get Next to You,” and it reached number one on the soul charts in 1971. But it was “Tired of Being…
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c48916f45f4cc4a08ea7725d4dec57ba | https://www.britannica.com/topic/I-Will-Always-Love-You | I Will Always Love You | I Will Always Love You
…at number one with “I Will Always Love You,” Boyz II Men came back to tie her with “I’ll Make Love to You.” The release of their follow-up single, “On Bended Knee,” put them with an elite group of artists (Presley and the Beatles) who succeeded themselves at the…
…her most popular songs, “I Will Always Love You” (1974). (Whitney Houston later recorded the song for the film The Bodyguard [1992], and it went on to sell millions of copies.) In 1989 Parton played a principal role in Steel Magnolias. In the 1990s and 2000s she guest-starred in…
…rendition of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You,” which stayed at number one for 14 weeks. The film’s soundtrack dominated the Grammys the following year, with Houston winning the awards for album of the year, record of the year, and best female pop vocal performance. In the mid-1990s…
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04176ceceddfb569649ca8a658b02c80 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Iago-fictional-character | Iago | Iago
Iago, fictional character, the villain of William Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello (written 1603–04). One of Shakespeare’s most intriguing and plausible villains, Iago frequently takes the audience or reader into his confidence, a device that encourages close observation of his skillful manipulations and their disastrous results. He is a complex character, the full development of a type that Shakespeare first explored in the person of Don John in Much Ado About Nothing (written probably in 1598–99).
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9c5b5ec4e6d4c87d7027af42b0989916 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ice-Age-animated-film | Ice Age | Ice Age
…father, in the animated feature Ice Age (2002); he reprised the character in four sequels (2006, 2009, 2012, and 2016). In the dark comedy Eulogy (2004) he was cast as the maladjusted eldest son mourning the death of the family patriarch. That year he also appeared in Welcome to Mooseport,…
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e9808949d438cbbdda64221a6475e678 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ice-Palace-film-by-Sherman | Ice Palace | Ice Palace
Ice Palace (1960), from the Edna Ferber novel, was an ambitious period adventure set in Alaska, with Richard Burton and Robert Ryan. After the courtroom drama A Fever in the Blood (1961), Sherman directed The Second Time Around (1961), a pleasant western with Debbie Reynolds…
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071565af86c0c75d20d0811a2111c874 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Icelander-people | Icelander | Icelander
The inhabitants are descendants of settlers who began arriving in ad 874 and continued in heavy influx for about 60 years thereafter. Historians differ on the exact origin and ethnic composition of the settlers but agree that between 60 and 80 percent of them were of…
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08906481ee374ba48a0677daf86c8bab | https://www.britannica.com/topic/ideal-type | Ideal type | Ideal type
Ideal type, a common mental construct in the social sciences derived from observable reality although not conforming to it in detail because of deliberate simplification and exaggeration. It is not ideal in the sense that it is excellent, nor is it an average; it is, rather, a constructed ideal used to approximate reality by selecting and accentuating certain elements.
The concept of the ideal type was developed by German sociologist Max Weber, who used it as an analytic tool for his historical studies. Some writers confine the use of ideal types to general phenomena that recur in different times and places (e.g., bureaucracy), although Weber also used them for historically unique occurrences (e.g., his famous Protestant ethic).
Problems in using the ideal type include its tendency to focus attention on extreme, or polar, phenomena while overlooking the connections between them, and the difficulty of showing how the types and their elements fit into a conception of a total social system.
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72e8ad7a600dcfbb5ed775af772e5528 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/identification-memory | Identification | Identification
The identification level of a signal determines the number of different units that must be distinguished by unique signal variants. Identification levels, listed in order of increasing number of variants required, include species, sex, age groups, colonies, family groups, and individuals. The larger the number of…
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2cacabebea880e995837dd248f9a7bc2 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/identity-theory | Identity theory | Identity theory
Identity theory, in philosophy, one view of modern Materialism that asserts that mind and matter, however capable of being logically distinguished, are in actuality but different expressions of a single reality that is material. Strong emphasis is placed upon the empirical verification of such statements as: “Thought is reducible to motion in the brain.”
The double-aspect theory is similar to this, with one notable exception: reality is not material; it is either mental or neutral. The latter case is illustrated by an undulating line that is both concave and convex at the same time; each aspect is an integral, but only a partial, expression of the total reality.
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88ef8ba24cb6a653fde2cc1e929051f8 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ideology-philosophical-movement | Ideology | Ideology
Ideology, French Idéologie, French philosophic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries that reduced epistemological problems (concerning the nature or grounds of knowledge) to those of psychology (as in the work of Étienne Condillac), before advancing to ethical and political problems. The Idéologues, by analysis of ideas, viewed the simple sensory elements of Condillac’s sensationalism as generating, by successive composition, the totality of the psychic and spiritual sentiments and, finally, of the social, moral, and political sentiments as well. Named by Destutt de Tracy, the movement had as active members the Marquis de Condorcet, Maine de Biran, and Pierre-Jean-Georges Cabanis.
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186e3babd0dbb88fffe4463768c140ec | https://www.britannica.com/topic/idiorrhythmic-monasticism | Idiorrhythmic monasticism | Idiorrhythmic monasticism
Idiorrhythmic monasticism, also called eremitic monasticism (from Greek eremos, “desert”), the original form of monastic life in Christianity, as exemplified by St. Anthony of Egypt (c. 250–355). It consisted of a total withdrawal from society, normally in the desert, and the constant practice of mental prayer. The contemplative and mystical trend of eremitic monasticism is also known as Hesychasm. In the Christian East, the “idiorrhythmic” system (from Greek idios, “particular”; rhythmos, “rule,” or “discipline”) always coexisted with cenobitic monasticism. It is still practiced on modern Mount Athos, Greece. See also cenobitic monasticism.
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c3959b8ac1f648f2a0eb3e77a09049b0 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/IG-Farben | IG Farben | IG Farben
IG Farben, in full Interessengemeinschaft Farbenindustrie Aktiengesellschaft, (German: “Syndicate of Dyestuff-Industry Corporations”), world’s largest chemical concern, or cartel, from its founding in Germany in 1925 until its dissolution by the Allies after World War II. The IG (Interessengemeinschaft, “syndicate” or, literally, “community of interests”), partly patterned after earlier U.S. trusts, grew out of a complex merger of German manufacturers of chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and dyestuffs (Farben). The major members were the companies known today as BASF Aktiengesellschaft, Bayer AG, Hoechst Aktiengesellschaft, Agfa-Gevaert Group (Agfa merged with Gevaert, a Belgian company, in 1964), and Cassella AG (from 1970 a subsidiary of Hoechst).
The movement toward association had begun in 1904, with the merger of Hoechst and Cassella—a merger that immediately prompted a rival merger by BASF and Bayer, later joined by Agfa. (This latter group was called the Dreibund, or “Triple Confederation.”) In 1916, at the height of World War I, the rival groups joined forces and, with the addition of other firms, formed the Interessengemeinschaft der Deutschen Teerfarbenfabriken (“Syndicate of German Coal-Tar Dye Manufacturers”). This “little IG” was no more than a loose association: member companies remained independent, while dividing production and markets and sharing information. In 1925, after protracted legal and fiscal negotiations, the “big IG” was formed: assets of all constituent companies were merged, with all stock being exchanged for BASF shares; BASF, the holding company, changed its name to IG Farbenindustrie AG; headquarters were set up in Frankfurt; and central management was drawn from the executives of all constituent companies. (Cassella at first held out and was not absorbed by IG Farben until 1937.)
Policy-making was fused, but operations were decentralized. Regionally, production was split into five industrial zones—Upper Rhine, Middle Rhine, Lower Rhine, Middle Germany, and Berlin. In terms of vertical organization, the company’s production was split among three “technical” commissions, each governing a different range of products. Marketing was split among four sales commissions. In the course of the late 1920s and ’30s, IG Farben also became international, with trust arrangements and interests in major European countries, the United States, and elsewhere.
During World War II, IG Farben established a synthetic oil and rubber plant at Auschwitz in order to take advantage of slave labour; the company also conducted drug experiments on live inmates. After the war several company officials were convicted of war crimes (nine being found guilty of plunder and spoliation of property in occupied territory and four being found guilty of imposing slave labour and inhumane treatment on civilians and prisoners of war).
In 1945 IG Farben came under Allied authority; its industries (along with those of other German firms) were to be dismantled or dismembered with the stated intent “to render impossible any future threat to Germany’s neighbours or to world peace.” In the western zones of Germany, however, especially as the Cold War advanced, this disposition toward liquidation lessened. Eventually the Western powers and West Germans agreed to divide IG Farben into just three independent units: Hoechst, Bayer, and BASF (the first two being refounded in 1951; BASF in 1952).
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5d1480dee295f671b7d9bf35d8dbf051 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Igarashi-family | Igarashi Family | Igarashi Family
Igarashi Family, (flourished 17th century), Japanese lacquerware artists who specialized in the maki-e technique, wherein a design is made by sprinkling minute gold, silver, or copper flakes over a lacquer ground. The founder of the Igarashi family, Shinsai, contributed to the art by perfecting two techniques of lacquer design. The taka-maki-e technique employs a mixture of lacquer putty, white lead, lampblack, powder, camphor, and gold or silver foil in relief against a lacquer ground. In the nashiji method, numerous layers of lacquer, each sprinkled with tiny flakes of gold or silver, are superimposed and polished to produce an effect like that of the skin of a golden or brown pear. Shinsai’s son, Hosai, served the military ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi, while his grandson Dōho worked for the Maeda family in Kaga province (now Ishikawa prefecture), creating the Kaga maki-e lacquer design. The name Dōho and the family’s association with the Maeda clan were continued by Dōho’s son and grandson.
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6cc5c71f19a9c68fb775c73bc6c22038 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Igboid-languages | Igboid languages | Igboid languages
Igboid languages, a language cluster that constitutes a subbranch of the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo language family. There are nearly 20 million speakers of Igboid languages in southeastern Nigeria. In the early years of the 20th century an attempt to develop an artificial form of Igbo called Union-Igbo, based on four Igbo dialects, was not successful. Later a standard literary form developed based on the Owerri and Umuahia dialects. There is a growing body of literature in Igbo, and such Igbo writers as Chinua Achebe, Cyprian Ekwensi, and Christopher Okigbo are internationally known. Igbo also is used as a second language by others who live in this area of Nigeria.
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1ddffde055270a8ba6907caa189ed641 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/ihram | Ihram | Ihram
Ihram, Arabic iḥrām, sacred state into which a Muslim must enter in order to perform the hajj (major pilgrimage) or the ʿumrah (minor pilgrimage). At the beginning of a pilgrimage, the Muslim stops at a designated station to perform certain ritual cleansing ceremonies; each male shaves his head, cuts his nails, and trims his beard before donning a white, seamless, two-piece garment. Women also wear white; although no particular dress is prescribed, by tradition they wear long robes. During the period of sanctification, sexual activity, shaving, and cutting one’s nails all are forbidden in accordance with the pilgrim’s special relationship to God during the ihram.
The word is also used for the state of a worshiper during the performance of the salat, the ritual prayer repeated five times daily.
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b0c3134a1391d39d1795d917f4e19ca8 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/ijma | Ijmāʿ | Ijmāʿ
Ijmāʿ, (Arabic: “consensus”) in Islamic law, the universal and infallible agreement of either the Muslim community as a whole or Muslim scholars in particular. The consensus—sometimes justified through a saying from the Hadith (traditions of the sayings and actions of Muhammad), “My people will never agree in an error”—constitutes one of the sources of Islamic jurisprudence, uṣūl al-fiqh.
In Muslim history, ijmāʿ has always referred to consensuses reached in the past, near or remote, and never to contemporaneous agreement. It is thus a part of traditional authority. Ijmāʿ also has come to operate as a principle of toleration of different traditions within Islam. It thus allows, for example, the four legal schools (madhhabs) equal authority and has probably validated many non-Muslim practices taken into Islam by converts.
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4239fabb882de67dfdd8279480a8c541 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ijo | Ijo | Ijo
Ijo, also called Ijaw, people of the forests of the Niger River delta in Nigeria comprising a large number of formerly autonomous groups. They speak languages of the Ijoid branch of the Niger-Congo language family.
West of the main Niger outlets each group occupies a cluster of villages linked by loose ties of cooperation, mainly against outsiders. Its members claim descent from a common ancestor. At group and village levels government is by assemblies of elders, often presided over by priests. The economy is based on fishing, palm oil collecting, and floodland agriculture.
Formerly, when the economy was based primarily on fishing, each group claimed a distinctive culture and political autonomy. After contact with European merchants about 1500, however, the communities of Bonny, Calabar, and Nemke began trading first in slaves and then in palm oil. Wealthy traders became very powerful and governed in council with a hereditary king. Each trader purchased numerous slaves for incorporation into his own section of the community; if the trader had no suitable heir, an able slave succeeded him. Competition with other groups over hinterland markets and an emphasis on cultural separation rather than on links of common descent meant that ability was valued more than pedigree, permitting the emergence of such slave-born (i.e., non-Ijo) leaders as George of Calabar and Chief Jaja of Opobo.
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4160bf11e8231f2ef7bc7c5a72032587 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/ijtihad | Ijtihād | Ijtihād
Ijtihād, (Arabic: “effort”) in Islamic law, the independent or original interpretation of problems not precisely covered by the Qurʾān, Hadith (traditions concerning the Prophet Muhammad’s life and utterances), and ijmāʿ (scholarly consensus). In the early Muslim community every adequately qualified jurist had the right to exercise such original thinking, mainly in the form of raʾy (personal judgment) and qiyās (analogical reasoning), and those who did so were termed mujtahids. But with the crystallization of legal schools (madhhabs) under the ʿAbbāsids (reigned 750–1258), jurists of the majority Sunni branch of Islam came to be associated with one or another of the schools of law and formulated their legal thought within the framework of their school’s interpretive principles and against the backdrop of its doctrinal precedent. Over time, individuals’ qualifications to exercise ijtihād were organized into levels, ranging from the absolute mujtahid, who was bound by no precedent and free to develop his own interpretive principles, to the absolute muqallid (“follower,” “layperson”), who was required to follow authoritative jurists unquestioningly.
By the 16th century, Sunni jurists had widely come to the conclusion that ijtihād was no longer an option in any but truly novel legal cases. But since the 19th century, reformers have used the call for renewed ijtihād as a rallying cry to campaign for legal reforms and to critique the schools of law.
A broadly similar understanding of ijtihād and its antithesis taqlīd (unquestioning conformity to precedent and tradition) exists in contemporary Shīʿism, although Shīʿites generally consider ijtihād to be an ongoing process. Lay individuals are required to follow a living practitioner of ijtihād who is certified as a mujtahid through study in a seminary.
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0ca51d57175da42171e99ca204a82484 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ikiru | Ikiru | Ikiru
Ikiru (“To Live”) is regarded by many critics as one of the finest works in the history of the cinema. It concerns a petty governmental official who learns he has only half a year until he will die from cancer. He searches for solace in…
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d6118c9edb1fddd0c02749b16172a61d | https://www.britannica.com/topic/ikonostasis | Ikonostasis | Ikonostasis
the Eastern Orthodox iconostasis (image screen), which hides the chancel from the view of the faithful except on certain ritual occasions when it is opened to them. Hindu sanctuaries also are concealed by hangings. In Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Anglican churches the chancel has usually been separated from…
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f4ce82d2503c7b6f177f2e2baa736341 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Il-Bambino | Il Bambino | Il Bambino
…is the home of “Il Bambino,” a wooden statue (originally a 15th-century statue; now a copy) of the Christ Child, who is called upon to save desperately ill children.
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3c22e30ab064b4daec44893ae7c84618 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Il-Politecnico | Il Politecnico | Il Politecnico
…the Risorgimento and whose journal, Il Politecnico (“The Polytechnic”), not only served as a vehicle for his political views but also was influential in introducing new scientific and technical improvements into Italy.
In Milan, Carlo Cattaneo’s journal, Il politecnico (“The Polytechnic”), founded in 1839, argued that the progress of science and technology necessary to fuel economic growth depended upon government reforms. In the same year, a congress of Italian scientists held its first annual meeting in Pisa. Through 1847 each subsequent meeting…
…published the influential politico-cultural periodical Il Politecnico (1945–47) and later edited the Milan literary quarterly Il Menabò with Italo Calvino. He then became head of the foreign-literature section of a major Italian publishing house.
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a58091284d2a221779cf96dba3ebe91f | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Il-Popolo-dItalia | Il Popolo d’Italia | Il Popolo d’Italia
…of his party’s daily newspaper, Il Popolo. He was the author of De Gasperi e il suo tempo (1956; “De Gasperi and His Time”) and other books.
…he assumed the editorship of Il Popolo d’Italia (“The People of Italy”), in which he unequivocally stated his new philosophy: “From today onward we are all Italians and nothing but Italians. Now that steel has met steel, one single cry comes from our hearts—Viva l’Italia! [Long live Italy!]” It was…
…his own alternative, pro-war newspaper, Il Popolo d’Italia (“The People of Italy”). Futurists and nationalists (including Gabriele D’Annunzio) agitated for intervention. In April–May 1915 the government, helped by a series of noisy demonstrations by pro-war activists (the so-called “Radiant Days of May”), pushed through its war policy despite the opposition…
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d200fb91e5c06cafdf471381a497a994 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Il-Tempo | Il Tempo | Il Tempo
Il Tempo, (Italian: “Time”) morning daily newspaper published in Rome, one of Italy’s outstanding newspapers and one with broad appeal and influence in the Roman region. It was founded in 1944 by Renato Angiolillo as a conservative paper with a strong anticommunist bias. Il Tempo quickly became recognized as a serious morning daily with excellent, balanced news coverage. It has maintained its independence of political parties, and, because its operation has been profitable, it has been able to remain largely independent of the direct commercial or industrial subsidies common in Italy.
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307c503c0ba29a829bbcb29ce1fe972f | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Il-vecchio-della-montagna | Il vecchio della montagna | Il vecchio della montagna
With Il vecchio della montagna (1900; “The Old Man of the Mountain”) she began to write about the tragic effects of temptation and sin among primitive human beings.
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a58cd4984d136eb397604df865a0e5c4 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ill-Be-Seeing-You-film-by-Dieterle | I’ll Be Seeing You | I’ll Be Seeing You
Selznick, for whom he directed I’ll Be Seeing You (1944), starring Ginger Rogers as a woman convicted of manslaughter who, while on furlough during the holidays, falls in love with a shell-shocked soldier (Joseph Cotten). Love Letters (1945) was another glossy Selznick melodrama, with Jennifer Jones as an
…included a shell-shocked veteran in I’ll Be Seeing You (1944), a serious Scotland Yard detective in Gaslight (1944), and the steady friend of a soldier’s wife in Since You Went Away (1944). In Love Letters (1945), he was cast as a sensitive and literate soldier. Also notable were Duel in…
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988aa35ebe9051128b55fca0455a659a | https://www.britannica.com/topic/illegal-immigration | Illegal immigration | Illegal immigration
…deport a large number of illegal immigrants who had been coming into the state, mainly from Bangladesh and especially since the early 1970s. Over time it developed a broader goal of protecting and promoting the regional identity of the state vis-à-vis the central government in New Delhi.
In fact, the phenomenon of illegal immigration became one of the most significant legacies of the Chinese-exclusion era in the United States. Despite the disproportionate time and resources spent by U.S. immigration officials to control Chinese immigration, many Chinese migrated across the borders from Canada and Mexico or used fraudulent…
…swelled largely because of foreign immigrants, many of whom had entered the country illegally. More of those immigrants lived in southern California than in any other region of the United States. A welfare-to-work reform program instituted by national legislation in 1996 reduced caseloads significantly and connected people with social services.…
…to more than four million illegal immigrants. The action would delay deportation and allow parents of children who were legal residents or U.S. citizens to apply for three-year work permits, provided that they had been in the country for five years or more. The order also removed the age limitation…
-Mexico border to prevent illegal immigration from Latin America; and to ban immigration by Muslims. Trump mused about those and other issues in Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again (2015).
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965117ef1b32a9f73d1e8a53c926a40c | https://www.britannica.com/topic/illicit-antiquities | Illicit antiquities | Illicit antiquities
Illicit antiquities, archaeological objects that have been illegally excavated or exported from their country of origin for monetary gain. Most countries place sovereign claims on their archaeological heritage. In countries with strong patrimony laws, it is illegal for an unauthorized individual to excavate or own antiquities (which are in effect taken into state ownership); in those with less stringent legislation, it is legal to own antiquities but not to export them.
There is a thriving trade in such material, whether it be Paracas textiles from Peru, stone Khmer sculpture from Cambodia, ceramic vases from Italy, coins from England, terra-cotta statuettes from West Africa, or bronze Nataraja statues from India. Trade in illicit antiquities is a multibillion-dollar industry, comparable in size to the illegal traffic in drugs and arms. Every antiquity, it seems, can command a price, and every country has a supply.
Most of the demand for illicit antiquities is created by museums and private collectors in Europe, North America, and Japan. Historically, antiquities have been collected as “works of art.” However, when compared with mainstream art, they are thought to be undervalued, so they are increasingly being collected for their investment potential.
Archaeologists are concerned about the trade in illicit antiquities, because the method of their acquisition entails destruction of archaeological context and a loss of archaeological provenance. In other words, if it is not known with what other objects an antiquity was found, or even where it was found, its potential as an object of historical study is sharply diminished. For example, the monetary value of a small Roman pot can be readily established, but the historical interest of such a pot found in India far outweighs that of an identical specimen found in Italy. Furthermore, archaeologists rely on meticulous recovery and examination of all available evidence—the microscopic and everyday as much as the beautiful and valuable—yet fragile material or material thought to be of no value is routinely destroyed during illicit excavation. Again, archaeologists view this as a loss of historical knowledge.
Many collectors and dealers disagree. They argue that their actions are not harmful, because they are “rescuing” material that would otherwise be destroyed during agricultural, urban, or industrial development projects. They also suggest that the aesthetic merit of a piece—its beauty—may outweigh its historical interest and that its destructive or clandestine excavation can therefore be justified. Better to be seen than left in the ground, they claim.
Governments are concerned about the trade in illicit antiquities because it is a challenge to the sovereignty of the state and an attack on the national heritage. This heritage increasingly is seen to have an economic potential, because intact archaeological sites and monuments can provide a base for the development of cultural tourism. Law-enforcement agencies are concerned not only because the trade in illicit antiquities is itself criminal but also because it has links with other criminal enterprises, including drug trafficking, money laundering, and even terrorism.
From a criminological perspective, the trade in illicit antiquities is unique for two reasons. First, it has a widely dispersed—indeed, global—pattern of supply but relatively focused areas of demand. Thus, most countries of the world have an archaeological heritage that can be plundered, but the ultimate demand lies mainly in the West, with a small (albeit growing) group of private and institutional collectors. Second, the trade is neither totally licit nor totally illicit. In Europe and North America, antiquities are sold openly at public auctions and reputable galleries and bought by law-abiding citizens. Thus, an antiquity that was originally obtained through illegal means must, at some point in its trading history, enter the legitimate market so that its purchase will not contravene the law and its ownership will not attract public censure. In effect, it must be laundered. During this laundering process, a respectable ownership history is substituted for an originally illicit one. Often it is claimed that the antiquity is from an old family collection that dates back several generations—so that original, documentary proof of legal acquisition has long been lost—and that the vendor or previous owner wishes to remain anonymous—so that inquiries into its history are blocked. Thus, it is not possible for a discerning buyer to carry out a rigorous check on the pedigree of a potential purchase, and the licit cannot be distinguished from the illicit.
There are two circumstances that conspire to facilitate antiquities laundering. First, most illicit antiquities were not registered on any inventory of museum acquisitions or stolen property before they entered circulation. Thus, they cannot be securely identified as stolen property. Even when it can be recognized that an antiquity is from a country that claims state ownership (a vase from southern Italy, for instance), it will not be treated as stolen property unless the country in question can prove that the piece was exported after the date of the relevant patrimony statute. Obviously, if the antiquity has been secretly excavated and smuggled, the date of export is unlikely to be revealed.
Second, many antiquities are sold in the civil-law countries of continental Europe, whose property law differs from that of the United Kingdom and United States in that title to a stolen object can be obtained by means of a good-faith purchase and may subsequently become a legitimate object of commerce. So, even if it can be demonstrated unequivocally that an antiquity was taken illegally from its country of origin, it will no longer be regarded in law as stolen if it was subsequently bought in good faith in a country such as Switzerland, which is a major centre of the antiquities trade. This loophole has led to the development of the concept of due diligence—the level of diligence that a prospective purchaser must exercise when investigating the history of a piece in order to establish a claim to have acted in good faith.
Thus, although quantitative studies of market trends, together with evidence of on-the-ground destruction, can demonstrate which categories of antiquities are likely to be largely illicit, it is generally not possible to determine definitively in any particular instance that an antiquity was originally obtained illicitly.
The trade in illicit antiquities, and indeed in other types of cultural material, was recognized as a threat to the world’s archaeological heritage in the late 1960s. Two international conventions were drafted as a result.
The first was the 1970 UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. By the early 21st century it had been ratified by nearly 80 countries. The second convention was the 1995 UNIDROIT (International Institute for the Unification of Private Law) Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects. Intended to remedy some of the deficiencies of the UNESCO convention, it had been ratified by more than 30 countries by the early 21st century.
The relevant U.S. legislation is the 1983 Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act (CCPIA, or CPIA), which allows the U.S. government to respond to requests from other states party to the UNESCO convention to impose import restrictions on certain classes of archaeological or ethnographic material. Import restrictions apply even if material is exported to the United States from a country other than that of its origin. The CCPIA is not retrospective; therefore, its emphasis is on the protection of material with a still undisturbed context rather than on the return of material whose context is already lost.
Several solutions to the trade in illicit antiquities have been suggested, but none have gained the assent or even the acquiescence of all interested parties. A supply-side strategy is favoured by many collectors and dealers. First, they ask that the so-called source countries make greater efforts to protect their own heritage. Second, they suggest that if those countries made a greater number of licit objects available on the open market, then the incentive to buy or trade in illicit material would diminish. Opponents argue that collectors would not want to buy the poorer-quality material that would probably be released onto the market—both collectors and governments would want to own unique pieces, not the mundane ones.
Demand-side strategies tend to be favoured by archaeologists and international organizations such as UNESCO and ICOM (International Council of Museums). In their view, campaigns of public education should be carried out to convince potential collectors that the trade and collection of illicit antiquities are economically as well as culturally destructive enterprises. In addition, they argue, there should be greater regulation of the international market to render it more transparent and to make it more difficult to launder antiquities. Advocates of deregulation oppose this solution, arguing that increased regulation might serve only to drive the trade further underground and lead to greater criminalization.
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1759215f14c4dc662470f9f850684268 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Illinois-Central-Railroad | Illinois Central Railroad | Illinois Central Railroad
Illinois Central Railroad (IC), former U.S. railroad founded in 1851 that expanded service from Illinois to much of the Midwest before merging with the Canadian National Railway Company (CN) in 1999.
With its charter in 1851, the Illinois Central Railroad was the first of many railroads to receive a grant of land upon completion of its line. In 1856 the line from Chicago to Cairo, Illinois, was opened, thereby earning the company 2.5 million acres (1,011,750 hectares). At Cairo passengers and freight transferred to Mississippi River steamers for further travel until a bridge across the Mississippi was opened in 1889. While it was expanding, the IC absorbed more than 100 smaller railroads, including the Waterloo, Cedar Falls, and Northern Railroad in 1956. In 1962 the Illinois Central became a component of parent company IC Industries, a holding company that eventually acquired interests in soft drink bottlers and auto parts companies, among others.
In 1971 all passenger service was assumed by Amtrak, which retained the City of New Orleans train route made famous by folksinger Steve Goodman’s song of the same name. After a merger in 1972 with the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio, the newly renamed Illinois Central Gulf Railroad provided service from Chicago to the Gulf of Mexico and linked 13 states. Its tracks extended from Chicago in the north to New Orleans, Louisiana, and other gulf ports in the south and from Indianapolis, Indiana and Louisville, Kentucky in the east to Omaha, Nebraska, in the west. IC initiated piggyback (truck trailer) service in 1975 as a means of competing with the trucking industry. The railroad, returning to the name Illinois Central in 1988, was eventually spun off from IC Industries and in 1990 continued operations as a public corporation, the Illinois Central Railroad Company, until its 1999 merger with CN. The IC logo was eventually phased out in favour of CN branding, although it remained on much of the former railroad’s rolling stock for a number of years.
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525c3a9031e42f2e47618ae0f76028ab | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Illustrated-London-News | Illustrated London News | Illustrated London News
Illustrated London News, historic magazine of news and the arts, published in London, a forerunner in the use of various graphic arts. It was founded as a weekly in 1842 by Herbert Ingram, and it became a monthly in 1971. It was London’s first illustrated periodical, with 32 woodcuts in the 16 pages of its first issue. It was also the first periodical to make extensive use of woodcuts and engravings and the first to use photographs. The Illustrated London News was an instant success, and when, shortly after it appeared, it won the approval of the archbishop of Canterbury, it also won the support of the churchgoing public. At first its illustrations focused mainly on English social life. Later, it broadened its scope to embrace general news and the arts and began to send its artists all over the world to record events as they occurred. In 1912 it became the first periodical using rotogravure to publish an integrated picture and text section. When the Illustrated London News became a monthly, it had gained note for its worldwide photographic coverage of cultural activities. In the early 21st century it was published twice yearly.
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7c1de283dc106ad09263c1bebe7348c4 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Illyrian | Illyrian | Illyrian
The next to arrive were Illyrians from the Balkans, who occupied Venetia and Apulia. At the beginning of the historical period, Greek colonists arrived in Italy, and after 400 bce the Celts, who settled in the plain of the Po.
…and shattered a coalition of Illyrians who had invaded Macedonia. Meanwhile, a rumour of his death had precipitated a revolt of Theban democrats; other Greek states favoured Thebes, and the Athenians, urged on by Demosthenes, voted help. In 14 days Alexander marched 240 miles from Pelion (near modern Korçë,
…Perdiccas was killed meeting an Illyrian invasion. The Illyrians prepared to close in; the Paeonians were raiding from the north, and two claimants to the throne were supported by foreign powers. In this crisis Philip showed a good sense of priorities by buying off his dangerous neighbours and, with a…
The origins of the Albanian people are not definitely known, but data drawn from history and from archaeological and anthropological studies have led some researchers to consider the Albanians to be the direct descendants of the ancient Illyrians. The linguistic evidence in that regard…
…peoples dominated the area: the Illyrians to the west and the Thracians to the east of the great historical divide defined by the Morava and Vardar river valleys. The Thracians were advanced in metalworking and in horsemanship. They intermingled with the Greeks and gave them the Dionysian and Orphean cults,…
…to 7th century ce, encountering Illyrian-speaking peoples. Although the Slavs acculturated large numbers of Illyrians, many of the latter retained their distinctive language and customs in the complex hills and valleys of present-day Albania.
…recorded inhabitants of Dalmatia were Illyrians (the name Dalmatia probably comes from the name of an Illyrian tribe, the Delmata, an Indo-European people who overran the northwestern part of the Balkan Peninsula beginning about 1000 bce). The Greeks began to settle there from the 4th century, founding a number of…
…century bce onward by the Illyrians, an Indo-European people. At the height of their power, the Illyrian frontiers extended from the Danube River southward to the Adriatic Sea and from there eastward to the Šar Mountains.
Before the arrival of the Slav peoples in the Balkans in the 6th and 7th centuries ce, the area now known as Montenegro was inhabited principally by people known as Illyrians. Little is known of their origins or language, but they…
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194b5d2d6e7fe9a4f0c56abb7164693f | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Illyrian-language | Illyrian language | Illyrian language
Illyrian language, Indo-European language spoken in pre-Roman times along the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea and in southeastern Italy. The language of the Illyrian fragments found in Italy is usually called Messapic, or Messapian. Some scholars believe the modern Albanian language (q.v.) to be descended from Illyrian. See also Messapic language.
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d9a24330b28a76c78639949f419c24e1 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Illyrian-movement | Illyrian movement | Illyrian movement
Illyrian movement, South Slav nationalist movement (c. 1835–48). Begun in the 1830s, largely through the efforts of the poet and journalist Ljudevit Gaj, the movement involved the revival of Serbo-Croatian literary activity and sought the unification of all the South Slavs in the Habsburg Empire.
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