The Amityville Terror

# The Amityville Terror

## Abstract

The Amityville Terror is a 2016 American horror film directed by Michael Angelo, and written by Amanda Barton. It was released direct-to-video, and is the sixteenth film to be inspired by Jay Anson 's 1977 novel The Amityville Horror. Nicole Tompkins stars as Hailey Jacobson, the daughter of a dysfunctional family that is terrorized by both evil spirits and malicious townspeople after moving into a haunted house in Amityville, New York.

## Plot

Jessica and Todd Jacobson, along with their teenage daughter Hailey and troubled aunt Shae, move into a haunted house in Amityville. Shae has unknowingly purchased the house from property manager Delilah McAllister. Hailey quickly meets a local teen, Brett, and they develop a relationship. Hailey begins to be bullied by classmates Theresa, Sally, and Claire.

While in the bathtub, Shae feels a strange experience, as if her flesh was burning. Proving to be a hallucination, Shae's behavior continues to grow stranger. When relaying this peculiar behavior to Brett, Hailey is introduced to a story about a little boy who used to live in that house. The boy, named Jimmy Oberest, drowned his baby sister in acid before killing his parents.

Mike, Todd's mechanic boss, comes to visit, as he used to date Shae in college. He finds her hovering behind Jessica while holding a scalpel. After this encounter, Mike immediately goes to see Delilah, the property manager, begging her to spare Shae. Delilah refuses this. Later, Mike dies when Todd inadvertently starts a fire in the auto shop. During this, Jessica works in the garden, repeatedly cutting herself and covering her in blood.

Later on, Todd is seen at a bar. While there, Delilah appears and tries to seduce him. When Todd arrives home, he is strangely seduced by his wife, who is revealed to be Shae in a supernatural disguise. Hailey is introduced to Brett's friend Jenny. Jenny is said to be psychic and reluctantly decides to help Hailey and her family by going to their house to cleanse it. Jenny is supernaturally attacked and thrown out an upstairs window as she does so.

Hailey finds her aunt Shae painting with a scalpel from a bag belonging to Dr. Willis R. Cranston. Upon researching Dr. Cranston, Hailey discovers that he disappeared in 2004. Hailey decides to track down David, Willis's brother, who informs Hailey that his brother bought the house from Delilah. Upon finding this out, Hailey breaks into Delilah's home. She finds a file cabinet full of folders with names of the families who had rented the Amityville property and disappeared. Delilah finds Hailey, the latter fleeing to the police station to call her father, telling him to get her mother and aunt and leave. Hailey also calls Brett, informing him about Delilah. Brett reveals that the little boy he was talking about prior, along with his family, practiced black magic in the house. They had opened a portal to Hell. Delilah is uncovered to be Jimmy Oberest's sister, who was not home at the time of Jimmy's murders. Hailey sees two men transporting Jenny's body, cutting her conversation with Brett short in order to follow. Back at the house Shae, fully possessed, attacks Jessica inside the house. Meanwhile, Theresa and her friends confront Brett, badgering him about helping Hailey and getting Jenny involved.

Hailey follows the two men, coming upon a makeshift graveyard. There she notices a marker that is reserved with the Jacobson name. Theresa and her friends confront Hailey, revealing the town's nature and its people. She explains that the townspeople must feed the house, or the evil spirit inside will come after them. Hailey attacks Theresa and her friends, killing one of them while Theresa kills the other for disloyalty. Taunting Hailey, Theresa reveals she has decapitated Brett, which infuriates Hailey. Hailey fights Theresa off, stabbing her and returning to the house. Once home, Hailey finds her parents butchered as Shae leaps to attack her. Shae and Hailey fight, the latter defending herself as she flees around the home. Hailey eventually fires an arrow into Shae's forehead, causing her to combust. This allows Hailey to flee the house.

In the epilogue, Delilah is seen showing the house to the family seen killed in the prologue scene.

## Cast

- Nicole Tompkins as Hailey Jacobson

- Kaiwi Lyman-Mersereau as Todd Jacobson

- Kim Nielsen as Jessica Jacobson

- Amanda Barton as Shae Jacobson

- Trevor Stines as Brett

- Christy St. John as Theresa

- Tonya Kay as Delilah McCallister

- Bobby Emprechtinger as Mike Arkos

- Lai-Ling Bernstein as Jenny Chan

- Klaudia Kaye as Karen

- Korey Knecht as Hank

- Sarah Lieving as Mrs. Taylor

- Cher Hubsher as Sally

- Priscilla Emprechtinger as Claire

- Jocelyn Saenz as Faith Douglas

- Tommy Nash as Ray Douglas

- Kingsley Knecht as Ben Douglas

- Philip J Day as David Cranston

- Julia Rae as Penny

## Release

Uncork'd Entertainment released The Amityville Terror on video on demand on August 2, 2016 and on DVD on October 4, 2016.

## Reception

Tex Hula ranked The Amityville Terror as the tenth best out of the twenty-one Amityville films that he reviewed for Ain't It Cool News, and succinctly stated, "Just as bland and generic as you can possibly get. Boring characters. Sub-plots are introduced and quickly forgotten. But surprisingly it has more gore, sex, and nudity than any other Amityville movie. Doesn't help though." Brandon Long of PopHorror was highly critical of The Amityville Terror, calling it "a generic knockoff of the original film" before concluding, "The one redeemable element to this film is a few brutally creative death scenes paired with Aunt Shae's deteriorating sanity." Kieran Fisher, in a review written for Scream magazine, was similarly contemptuous of the film, finding it to be "the epitome of generic and forgettable" and deeming it something, "I'd only recommend to diehard fans of the franchise."


# Federal Correctional Institution, Phoenix

## Abstract

The Federal Correctional Institution, Phoenix (FCI Phoenix) is a medium-security United States federal prison for male and female inmates in Arizona. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice. The facility houses female offenders in an adjacent minimum-security satellite prison camp. The campus houses 1,150 total inmates as of 7/15/2024.

FCI Phoenix is located approximately 25 miles north of downtown Phoenix, also west of Anthem, Arizona but still within the city limits.

## History

An environmental impact study was prepared in 1980 for the proposed prison, which was being planned while the federal prison system was overwhelmed with incoming inmates. The facility was opened in April 1985 with two housing units, each containing 66 rooms at the time. By 2002, it employed 349 staff and held 1,525 inmates.

## Notable events

On November 4, 2005, Earl Krugel, an activist for the Jewish Defense League, a far right pro-Israel organization, was in the exercise yard when another inmate bludgeoned him to death with a block of concrete. Krugel, who had been convicted for plotting to bomb the office of Arab-American Congressman Darrell Issa in California, had only been at the prison for three days. Inmate David Frank Jennings was subsequently identified as the attacker. In 2007, Jennings pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 35 years in prison in 2008.


The Anthropologist (film)

# The Anthropologist (film)

## Abstract

The Anthropologist is a 2015 American documentary film directed by Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller, and Jeremy Newberger of Ironbound Films. The film follows environmental anthropologist Susie Crate and her teenage daughter Katie as they visit indigenous communities threatened by climate change. Featuring commentary from Mary Catherine Bateson, daughter of famed anthropologist Margaret Mead, the film explores how human beings adapt to catastrophic change.

## Synopsis

The Anthropologist tells the parallel stories of Margaret Mead, who in the twentieth century popularized cultural anthropology around the world, and Susie Crate, an environmental anthropologist currently studying the impact of climate change.

Mead and Crate’s daughters are the film’s storytellers. Mead’s daughter is Mary Catherine Bateson, a 76-year-old cultural anthropologist. Crate’s daughter is Katie Yegorov-Crate, a teenager who begrudgingly travels with her mother. During the film, shot over the course of five years, Katie ages from 13 to 18.

The film weaves together accounts of humanity’s struggle with change, whether environmental, societal, or individual. Susie and Katie travel to Siberia, the South Pacific, the Andes, and the Virginia coast of the Chesapeake Bay. As a result of global warming, the communities they visit are forced to rethink how they live and whether it makes sense to move.

Mary Catherine Bateson talks about how her mother Margaret Mead also studied people facing unprecedented change, but that resulting from modernity, globalization, and war. Mary Catherine’s insights on how those communities adapted provide context for what Susie and Katie discover.

Katie also faces change in her own life. In Siberia, where Susie met Katie’s father while doing research, Katie’s family confronts the prospect of relocating from land it has occupied for centuries. At first hostile towards accompanying her mother on expeditions, Katie appreciates learning of similar struggles among other peoples of the world. Katie begins to learn the value and tools of her mother’s trade.

## Reception

The Anthropologist is a follow-up to Kramer, Miller, and Newberger’s The Linguists, which premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, aired on PBS, and was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2010. Both films were funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). On April 7, 2014, when Representative Lamar Smith (R-Texas), a climate change denier, learned that NSF had funded The Anthropologist, he demanded “every e-mail, letter, memorandum, record, note text message” regarding the project.

The Anthropologist world premiered at DOC NYC on November 13, 2015, to positive reviews. Called “the new guard of enviro-docs” by Realscreen, it was ranked by Indiewire among the top ten films of the festival. “A fresh look at the world (and applications) of anthropology,” Indiewire wrote, “‘ The Anthropologist ’ combines a uniquely human story with a new take on how to use an ever-evolving science.”

The Anthropologist was invited to screen at the UN Climate Change Conference COP21 in Paris on December 7, 2015, followed by a debate at UNESCO Headquarters. On February 18, 2016, more than 25 universities and theaters simultaneously screened the film for World Anthropology Day.


Asian fetish

# Asian fetish

## Abstract

An Asian fetish is a strong sexual or romantic preference for people of Asian descent or heritage. The term usually refers to women specifically of East or Southeast Asian descent, though this may also include those of South Asian descent.

The origins of the Asian fetish are unclear. White male Dutch colonists fetishized Southeast Asian women in colonial Indonesia, on the basis of the darker skin and hair color of the local women. Similar accounts were reported in other colonised territories such as British India where it was common for English men to have Indian mistresses against a backdrop where Indian women were sexualised through, what scholars describe as, a typical colonial gaze and viewed as seductive, sensual and exotic. After World War 2, Japanese women gained prominence in American beauty pageants, at a time when large numbers of Japanese war brides were entering the United States.

The psychological effects of the fetish are unclear. Some authors have suggested that the fetish may be flattering to Asian women, while others believe it is harmful to their self-esteem, as it can reduce their self-worth to their physical attributes. Further research has shown that the fetishization of Asian women may fuel resentment in white women, who feel that their status is downgraded by Asian women's popularity.

The derogatory term yellow fever is sometimes used to describe the fetishization of East Asians and Southeast Asian men/women by non-Asians, as well as having a preference for dating or marrying men/women of East Asian and Southeast Asian origin. The usage of "yellow" stems from the color terminology for race that is sometimes applied to people of East Asian descent.

## History

Although there are multiple theories about the origin of the Asian fetish, it has been posited that modern Asian fetishism in the United States emerged in the aftermath of US led wars in Asia.

In the 1800s, after the opening of Japan by Matthew Perry, word began to spread in the United States about the seductive femininity of Asian women. Nationalistic fears that Asian women would seduce White men and destroy White families led to the passage Page Act of 1875, which prevented Chinese women from entering the United States. However, another purpose of the ban was to limit the reproduction of the Chinese working class in America.

As early as the 1920s, it was noticed that White Dutch men preferred South East Asian women over White women. When Indonesia was a colony of the Netherlands, a new beauty ideal was established, which ranked local women with light brown skin and lustrous black hair at the top. The American consul general to Indonesia remarked that, to the average man, a mixed-race Indonesian woman was considered more attractive than a "pure" White woman, because White women's complexions were too pale.

After World War II, the U.S. military occupied Japan, and U.S. soldiers began to interact with Japanese women. Although the American military initially forbid relations with Japanese women; the U.S. servicemen were "enamored" by the femininity of Japanese women, and formed relationships with them anyway. There was a perception that Japanese women were superior to American women, and there was a widespread sentiment "that a Japanese woman's heart was twice as big as those of her American sisters".

In 1959, Akiko Kojima, a Japanese woman, became the first non-White woman to win the Miss Universe beauty pageant. That same year, Miyoshi Umeki, also a Japanese woman, won an Academy Award. This period marked the beginning of the phenomenon known as the 'Oriental wave' – during which Asian women first gained prominence in Western media. The wave mainstreamed a certain type of Asian femininity: slender, shy, and intelligent; yet also sexual. It also marked the beginning of the end of White women's dominance as the mainstream beauty ideal in America.

## Terminology and usage of yellow fever

A common term used for Asian fetishization (particularly with East and Southeast Asians) is yellow fever. The term is used as a derogatory pun on the disease of the same name, comparing those with a fetish for East and Southeast Asians or "Orientals" to people who are infected with a disease.

Yellow fever is used in Asian fetishization to refer to the color terminology of people of East Asian descent (and some Southeast Asians) because historically, persons of East Asian heritage have been described as "yellow people" based on the tone of their skin.

Hwang argues that this phenomenon is caused by the stereotyping of Asians in Western society. The term yellow fever is analogous to the term jungle fever, a derogatory expression used for racial fetishism associated with dating between different races.

## Research on racial preferences

In 2007, a study using a sample of 400 Columbia University students at a speed dating event did not find evidence of a preference among White men for women of East Asian descent. The study found that most people preferred to date within their own race.

A 2013 study using a sample of 126,000 OkCupid users in the US found that all races initiated chats with their own race the most.

Another 2013 study using a sample of 934,000 online daters in 20 US cities found that Asian women received the most messages on average, however, the authors also noted that own-race preference was the predominant trend. The authors noted that their results "contradict the popular belief that white men prefer Asian women over white women".

A 2015 study using a sample of 58,880 online daters in 9 Western European countries found that White women were the most preferred group of women by far, followed by Hispanic and then Asian women. This tendency surpassed own-race preference as the predominant trend.

A 2018 study using a sample of 187,000 online daters in 4 US cities found that Asian women were the most desired group of women.

In 2012, a UK study found that Asian women were rated as more attractive than White and Black women. It was proposed that because Asian women's features are perceived as more feminine, they are considered more attractive than other women, which could explain the high rate of interracial marriages between Asian women and White men in the UK and US. A 2018 facial manipulation experiment conducted in Australia was consistent with these hypotheses, finding both Asian and White participants chose to reduce Asian women's "masculine" facial traits less than White women's, which the authors conclude suggests that Asian faces may be more feminine to begin with.

In contrast, a 2013 Australian study on facial attractiveness with Asian and White participants found that Asian and White women's faces were not different in attractiveness overall, although a slight own-race bias was observed. However, when rating composite faces (the average of many faces, grouped by race, as opposed to real faces), all participants rated the composite faces more highly and rated White women's composite faces the highest. In a follow-up experiment, the researchers found that there was no difference in Asian and White women's perceived facial femininity.

While the perceived femininity and sexual capital of Asian women may depend on the population studied, Zheng (2016) argues that attraction is influenced significantly by culture, stating "sexualized stereotypes of Asian women contributes to an individual’s sexually preferring them, even if that contribution is not obvious or accessible to introspection."

## Harmful effects of fetishization

Encounters with Asian fetishists are a familiar experience for many Asian-American women. Asian women may pick up on clues, such as a history of only dating Asians, even warning each other about potential hotspots for Asian fetishists. While several authors have complicated feelings about the subject, most express frustration at opinions from non-Asians that fetishization is a good thing, pointing out its negative aspects and deconstructing the harmful meanings it entails.

Targets of Asian fetish report feeling depersonalized or homogenized, making them interchangeable with any other Asian woman. Depersonalization is particularly negative in a romantic context, where people want to be recognized as individuals. Depersonalization is a closely related concept to objectification.

Another reported harm of Asian fetishization is the feeling of being "othered", or conceived of outside mainstream norms. Being a "beautiful Asian", as opposed to just "beautiful", carries the meaning that the type of beauty is necessarily linked to being Asian. If this is the case, one can only attain beauty by fulfilling stereotypes about Asians. The struggle to have sexuality, but not be defined by racial sexuality, becomes very complicated.

These feelings and the psychological burden they entail can persist even when romantic suitors hold no fetishistic intent. The possibility of Asian fetish or even the perception of such looms in both men's and women's minds, creating anxiety and potentially discouraging romantic pursuit.

Nonetheless, some Asian women may embrace certain stereotypes about Asians, such as intelligence and rising Asian economic power. Others may find advantage in wielding the sexual power it grants, creating strategies to turn the tables and exploit the men who are drawn by racialized femininity.

Many authors draw parallels between Asian fetish and Anti-Asian violence. They note that perception of Asians as passive and submissive, the very same qualities which are a primary feature of Asian fetishization, makes Asians attractive targets for potential assaults. Perceiving Asians as homogeneous also means that anger toward any Asian person or issue means results in indiscriminate danger for every Asian person.

Some research has sought to determine how American culture might affect Asian-American body satisfaction. No clear consensus exists. In a meta-analysis of research, Asian-American women showed near-zero difference in average body satisfaction compared to White American women.

## Interracial marriages

A 1998 article in The Washington Post states that 36% of young Asian Pacific American men born in the United States married White women, and 45% of U.S.-born Asian Pacific American women took White husbands during the year of publication. In 2008, 9.4% of Asian American men married to White American women while 26.4% of Asian American women were married to White American men. 7% of married Asian American men have a non-Asian spouse, 17.1% of married Asian American women are married to a White spouse, and 3.5% of married Asian men have a spouse classified as "other" according to U.S. census racial categories. 75% of Asian/White marriages involve an Asian woman and a White man. There was a spike in White male, Asian female marriages during and following the U.S. Army's involvement with wars in Asia, including the Pacific War of World War 2, Korea, and Vietnam. In 2010, 219,000 Asian American men married White American women compared to 529,000 White American men who married Asian American women.

Kumiko Nemoto writes that since the beginning of the twentieth century, there has been a stereotype of the Asian woman as subservient, loyal, and family oriented. After World War II, particularly feminine images of Asian women made interracial marriage between Asian American women and White men popular. Asian femininity and White masculinity are seen as a sign of modern middle-class manhood. Postcolonial and model minority femininity may attract some White men to Asian and Asian American women and men see this femininity as the perfect marital dynamic. Some White men racialize Asian women as "good wives" or "model minorities" because of how Asian women are stereotyped as being particularly feminine.

In preparation for a documentary on Asian fetish called Seeking Asian Female, Chinese-American filmmaker Debbie Lum interviewed non-Asian men who posted online personal ads exclusively seeking Asian women. Things that the men found appealing in Asian women included long black hair, a "mysterious" appearance with dark eyes, possibly increased consideration for their partner, subtlety and quietness, as well as Asian women's eyelids. Lum characterized the preconceived stereotype associated with an Asian fetish as an obsession with seeking "somebody submissive, traditional, docile... the perfect wife who is not going to talk back", but found she had to overcome stereotypes and expectations just like the participants did.

In interviews done by Bitna Kim, "Caucasian" men explain their fetish for Asian women. The Caucasian men interviewed fantasize that an Asian woman possesses both beauty and brains, that she is "sexy, intelligent, successful, professional, caring, and family oriented"; that she does not wear "White girl clothes" and heavy makeup, and that they are not high maintenance. Hence, the men believe that Asian women have respectable mannerisms. These men see Asian women to be exotic, thus desirable, because of their supposed mysterious beauty and possession of a physical appearance perceived to be petite. Sexually, the men in these interviews had a commonality. While almost all disagreed with describing Asian women as submissive, they all believed that Asian women have submissive sex ("liking to explore new positions, being willing to experiment, or enjoying kinky sex, such as spanking"). They believed that an Asian woman was agreeable and did not mind pleasing men. These interviews show that some "Caucasian" men with Asian fetish believe that an Asian woman embodies a perfect wife as a "princess in public and a whore in the bedroom".

Historically, the number of Thai women marrying Western men began to rise in the 1950s and 1960s as a result of Prime Minister Sarit Thanarat 's economic policies which attracted foreign investment and Western men to Thailand. There is a social stigma in the country against Thai women marrying White men, who are also referred to as farang (a term used for people of European origin), but research published in 2015 indicated that an increasing number of young middle-class Thai women were marrying foreign men. A generation earlier, Thai women marrying foreign men had mostly been working class. Since 2002, marriages between Swedish men and Thai women have become increasingly common.

Sources indicate that Sri Lanka is popular among Western "marriage bureaus" which specialize in the pairing of men who were "Europeans, North Americans and other westerners" with foreign women. The first and largest wave of Sri Lankan immigrants to Denmark were Sinhalese women who came to the country in the 1970s to marry Danish men they had met back in Sri Lanka. Statistics also show that marriages of Danish, Swedish and Norwegian men with Thai or Indian women tend to last longer than those of Indian men marrying Danish, Swedish, or Norwegian wives.

Filipina, Thai, and Sri Lankan women have traveled as mail-order brides to Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Venny Villapando writes that many of the countries affected by the modern mail-order bride business, typically those in East and South-East Asia, have a history of US military involvement. Soldiers stationed in these countries developed ideas of Asian women as sex workers, bargirls and geishas, and applied the resultant stereotype of sexualized obedience to Asian-American women. The marketing techniques used by mail-order bride companies generally reinforce this stereotype. Statistics detailing the sponsorship of spouses and fiancées to Australia from 1988 to 1991 show that more women from the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Indonesia, South Korea, and India were sponsored for citizenship than men from the same countries.

## Tourism

Sex tourism refers to a phenomenon where individuals, generally heterosexual men from wealthier countries, will travel to other countries, in search for sexual experiences. Several countries in Southeast Asia, particularly with strong economic disparities with western countries, have become destinations for sex tourism. Some of these countries include Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Data published in 1999 indicated that an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 German men annually traveled abroad for sex tourism, with the Philippines, Thailand, South Korea, Sri Lanka, and Hong Kong as their main destinations. For some White men, sex tourism to countries such as Thailand is built around a fantasy that includes the possibility of finding love and romance. According to Dr. David Jedlicka's 1983 study, this idea is based on the stereotype of "the Oriental woman" who is considered to be beautiful and sexually exciting as well as caring, compliant, and submissive. Kimberly Hoang writes that there may be mistaken conflation of "submission" with "care".

Although not as widely recognized as male sex tourism, there have also been cases of western female sex tourism in Indonesia, including Bali.

Anecdotal reports have stated that some western women visiting South Korea seek Korean boyfriends in the hope of fulfilling a fantasy based on K-drama archetypes. This is one aspect of a larger trend called " Hallyu tourists". Some authors are concerned that this trend simplifies Korean men into stereotypes, ignoring their complexity as individuals and the realities of relationships.

## In popular media

Mirroring the larger mainstream culture, within hip-hop culture, Asian women have long been fetishized. The hip hop group 2 Live Crew eroticized Asian women in their 1988 hit single " Me So Horny ", which topped the charts in the Netherlands. The song was so sexually explicit that the State of Florida banned its sale, however the ban was later overturned after 2 Live Crew filed a free speech lawsuit. In later songs, 2 Live Crew spoke about their fetish for Asian women, and their desire to have sex with Japanese women. Asian models were featured prominently in their music videos.

According to Marenda Tran, Asian women in the media tend to be portrayed in two ways: as an exotic foreigner, docile and nonthreatening and sexual but also innocent; or as the nerd who is still aesthetically pleasing, but also emotionless and career-oriented. This leads many Asian women to believe that they have to be in one of these boxes. It tends to convey the message that if they are smart, they cannot be sexual; or, if they are sexual, they tend to not be aware of it. By the late 2010s, movies such as Crazy Rich Asians and The Farewell began to break these boundaries, but they are movies that center around the Asian experience, allowing for more diversity across Asian characters.

In her essay "Hateful Contraries: Media Images of Asian Women", British filmmaker Pratibha Parmar comments that the media's imagery of Asian women is "contradictory" in that it represents them as "completely dominated by their men, mute and oppressed" while also showing them as "sexually erotic creatures".

In her essay Lotus Blossoms Don't Bleed: Images of Asian Women, American filmmaker Renee Tajima-Peña identifies two basic stereotypes of Asian women in the United States.. The "Lotus Blossom Baby" is a feminine and delicate sexual-romantic object. In contrast, the " Dragon Lady " is treacherous and devious, and in some cases, a madam. Tajima suggests that this view of Asian women contributes to the existence of the Asian mail-order bride industry in the US.

## Pornography

Gossett and Byrne conducted a content analysis study of 31 "rape porn" websites in 2002 and found that nearly half of the sites contained either text references or images of Asian women. Thirty-four of the 56 clear images analyzed depicted Asian women as victims. They also found that Asian women were more often advertised as such, although some sites contained references to blondes or Hispanic women.

Studies of more general pornography have shown mixed results. One study of XVideos, the 2nd most popular porn website in the world, found that Asian women were less likely to be subject to sexual violence. However, another study of Pornhub, the most popular in the world, found that Asian women were about five times more likely to be subjected to sexual violence than White women. A full one-third of videos with Asian women depicted nonconsensual violence. Of the framing of these videos, the authors found Asian women were depicted stereotypically as "passive, submissive, or eager to please". Their "lack of resistance" emboldened the male aggressors in these videos, who readily ignored signs of pain.


The Arbor (film)

# The Arbor (film)

## Abstract

The Arbor is a 2010 British film about Andrea Dunbar, directed by Clio Barnard. The film uses actors lip-synching to interviews with Dunbar and her family, and concentrates on the strained relationship between Dunbar and her daughter Lorraine.

## Cast

- Christine Bottomley as Lisa Thompson

- Robert Emms as Young David

- Natalie Gavin as The Girl

- Jimi Mistry as Yousaf

- Kathryn Pogson as Pamela Dunbar

- Kate Rutter as The Mother

- Manjinder Virk as Lorraine Dunbar

- Danny Webb as Max Stafford-Clark / The Father

## Production

The film was shot in and around Brafferton Arbor, a street on the Buttershaw Estate in Bradford, West Yorkshire, where Andrea Dunbar lived and worked.

The film was inspired by so-called verbatim theatre, with audio recordings of Lorraine Dunbar and other family members, lip-synched by professional actors in set-designed environments. Barnard had used a similar technique for her 1998 short film Random Acts of Intimacy. The film also includes from Dunbar’s autobiographical play The Arbor performed outdoors by a mix of actors and estate residents, the 1986 film Rita, Sue and Bob Too written by Dunbar, Robin Soans ' 2000 play A State Affair, as well as archive footage.

Barnard's original intention for this film was not to make it about Andrea Dunbar, but after speaking with her eldest daughter, Lorraine, that is what emerged. The film was intended to be about the changes that had come to the Brafferton Arbor.

## Reception

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 96% based on 46 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Smart and inventive, The Arbor offers some intensely memorable twists on tired documentary tropes."

## Awards

- 2010: Nominated, BAFTA award for Outstanding Debut by a British Director, London

- 2010: Winner, Sutherland Trophy, 2010 London Film Festival Awards, London

- 2010: Winner, Sheffield Innovation Award at the 2010 Sheffield Doc/Fest, Sheffield

- 2010: Winner, British Independent Film Award – The Douglas Hickox Award

- 2011: Best New Documentary Filmmaker, Tribeca Festival, New York City


Spread spectrum

# Spread spectrum

## Abstract

In telecommunications, especially radio communication, spread spectrum are techniques by which a signal (e.g., an electrical, electromagnetic, or acoustic) generated with a particular bandwidth is deliberately spread in the frequency domain over a wider frequency band. Spread-spectrum techniques are used for the establishment of secure communications, increasing resistance to natural interference, noise, and jamming, to prevent detection, to limit power flux density (e.g., in satellite downlinks), and to enable multiple-access communications.

## Telecommunications

Spread spectrum generally makes use of a sequential noise -like signal structure to spread the normally narrowband information signal over a relatively wideband (radio) band of frequencies. The receiver correlates the received signals to retrieve the original information signal. Originally there were two motivations: either to resist enemy efforts to jam the communications (anti-jam, or AJ), or to hide the fact that communication was even taking place, sometimes called low probability of intercept (LPI).

Frequency-hopping spread spectrum (FHSS), direct-sequence spread spectrum (DSSS), time-hopping spread spectrum (THSS), chirp spread spectrum (CSS), and combinations of these techniques are forms of spread spectrum. The first two of these techniques employ pseudorandom number sequences — created using pseudorandom number generators — to determine and control the spreading pattern of the signal across the allocated bandwidth. Wireless standard IEEE 802.11 uses either FHSS or DSSS in its radio interface.

- Techniques known since the 1940s and used in military communication systems since the 1950s "spread" a radio signal over a wide frequency range several magnitudes higher than minimum requirement. The core principle of spread spectrum is the use of noise-like carrier waves, and, as the name implies, bandwidths much wider than that required for simple point-to-point communication at the same data rate.

- Resistance to jamming (interference). Direct sequence (DS) is good at resisting continuous-time narrowband jamming, while frequency hopping (FH) is better at resisting pulse jamming. In DS systems, narrowband jamming affects detection performance about as much as if the amount of jamming power is spread over the whole signal bandwidth, where it will often not be much stronger than background noise. By contrast, in narrowband systems where the signal bandwidth is low, the received signal quality will be severely lowered if the jamming power happens to be concentrated on the signal bandwidth.

- Resistance to eavesdropping. The spreading sequence (in DS systems) or the frequency-hopping pattern (in FH systems) is often unknown by anyone for whom the signal is unintended, in which case it obscures the signal and reduces the chance of an adversary making sense of it. Moreover, for a given noise power spectral density (PSD), spread-spectrum systems require the same amount of energy per bit before spreading as narrowband systems and therefore the same amount of power if the bitrate before spreading is the same, but since the signal power is spread over a large bandwidth, the signal PSD is much lower — often significantly lower than the noise PSD — so that the adversary may be unable to determine whether the signal exists at all. However, for mission-critical applications, particularly those employing commercially available radios, spread-spectrum radios do not provide adequate security unless, at a minimum, long nonlinear spreading sequences are used and the messages are encrypted.

- Resistance to fading. The high bandwidth occupied by spread-spectrum signals offer some frequency diversity; i.e., it is unlikely that the signal will encounter severe multipath fading over its whole bandwidth. In direct-sequence systems, the signal can be detected by using a rake receiver.

- Multiple access capability, known as code-division multiple access (CDMA) or code-division multiplexing (CDM). Multiple users can transmit simultaneously in the same frequency band as long as they use different spreading sequences.

## Invention of frequency hopping

The idea of trying to protect and avoid interference in radio transmissions dates back to the beginning of radio wave signaling. In 1899, Guglielmo Marconi experimented with frequency-selective reception in an attempt to minimize interference. The concept of Frequency-hopping was adopted by the German radio company Telefunken and also described in part of a 1903 US patent by Nikola Tesla. Radio pioneer Jonathan Zenneck 's 1908 German book Wireless Telegraphy describes the process and notes that Telefunken was using it previously. It saw limited use by the German military in World War I, was put forward by Polish engineer Leonard Danilewicz in 1929, showed up in a patent in the 1930s by Willem Broertjes (U.S. patent 1,869,659 issued Aug. 2, 1932), and in the top-secret US Army Signal Corps World War II communications system named SIGSALY.

During World War II, Golden Age of Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr and avant-garde composer George Antheil developed an intended jamming-resistant radio guidance system for use in Allied torpedoes, patenting the device under U.S. patent 2,292,387 "Secret Communications System" on August 11, 1942. Their approach was unique in that frequency coordination was done with paper player piano rolls, a novel approach which was never put into practice.

## Clock signal generation

Spread-spectrum clock generation (SSCG) is used in some synchronous digital systems, especially those containing microprocessors, to reduce the spectral density of the electromagnetic interference (EMI) that these systems generate. A synchronous digital system is one that is driven by a clock signal and, because of its periodic nature, has an unavoidably narrow frequency spectrum. In fact, a perfect clock signal would have all its energy concentrated at a single frequency (the desired clock frequency) and its harmonics.

### Background

Practical synchronous digital systems radiate electromagnetic energy on a number of narrow bands spread on the clock frequency and its harmonics, resulting in a frequency spectrum that, at certain frequencies, can exceed the regulatory limits for electromagnetic interference (e.g. those of the FCC in the United States, JEITA in Japan and the IEC in Europe).

Spread-spectrum clocking avoids this problem by reducing the peak radiated energy and, therefore, its electromagnetic emissions and so comply with electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) regulations. It has become a popular technique to gain regulatory approval because it requires only simple equipment modification. It is even more popular in portable electronics devices because of faster clock speeds and increasing integration of high-resolution LCD displays into ever smaller devices. As these devices are designed to be lightweight and inexpensive, traditional passive, electronic measures to reduce EMI, such as capacitors or metal shielding, are not viable. Active EMI reduction techniques such as spread-spectrum clocking are needed in these cases.

### Method

In PCIe, USB 3.0, and SATA systems, the most common technique is downspreading, via frequency modulation with a lower-frequency source. Spread-spectrum clocking, like other kinds of dynamic frequency change, can also create challenges for designers. Principal among these is clock/data misalignment, or clock skew. A phase-locked loop on the receiving side needs a high enough bandwidth to correctly track a spread-spectrum clock.

Even though SSC compatibility is mandatory on SATA receivers, it is not uncommon to find expander chips having problems dealing with such a clock. Consequently, an ability to disable spread-spectrum clocking in computer systems is considered useful.

### Effect

Note that this method does not reduce total radiated energy, and therefore systems are not necessarily less likely to cause interference. Spreading energy over a larger bandwidth effectively reduces electrical and magnetic readings within narrow bandwidths. Typical measuring receivers used by EMC testing laboratories divide the electromagnetic spectrum into frequency bands approximately 120 kHz wide. If the system under test were to radiate all its energy in a narrow bandwidth, it would register a large peak. Distributing this same energy into a larger bandwidth prevents systems from putting enough energy into any one narrowband to exceed the statutory limits. The usefulness of this method as a means to reduce real-life interference problems is often debated, as it is perceived that spread-spectrum clocking hides rather than resolves higher radiated energy issues by simple exploitation of loopholes in EMC legislation or certification procedures. This situation results in electronic equipment sensitive to narrow bandwidth(s) experiencing much less interference, while those with broadband sensitivity, or even operated at other higher frequencies (such as a radio receiver tuned to a different station), will experience more interference.

FCC certification testing is often completed with the spread-spectrum function enabled in order to reduce the measured emissions to within acceptable legal limits. However, the spread-spectrum functionality may be disabled by the user in some cases. As an example, in the area of personal computers, some BIOS writers include the ability to disable spread-spectrum clock generation as a user setting, thereby defeating the object of the EMI regulations. This might be considered a loophole, but is generally overlooked as long as spread-spectrum is enabled by default.

## Sources

- NTIA Manual of Regulations and Procedures for Federal Radio Frequency Management

- National Information Systems Security Glossary

- History on spread spectrum, as given in "Smart Mobs, The Next Social Revolution", Howard Rheingold, ISBN 0-7382-0608-3

- Władysław Kozaczuk, Enigma: How the German Machine Cipher Was Broken, and How It Was Read by the Allies in World War Two, edited and translated by Christopher Kasparek, Frederick, MD, University Publications of America, 1984, ISBN 0-89093-547-5.

- Andrew S. Tanenbaum and David J. Wetherall, Computer Networks, Fifth Edition.


The Art of Self-Defense (2019 film)

# The Art of Self-Defense (2019 film)

## Abstract

The Art of Self-Defense is a 2019 American martial arts black comedy film written and directed by Riley Stearns and starring Jesse Eisenberg, Alessandro Nivola and Imogen Poots. It had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 10, 2019, and was released in the United States on July 12, 2019, by Bleecker Street.

## Plot

Timid and awkward accountant Casey is brutally attacked on the street by a motorcycle gang. He comes across a dōjō led by a charismatic man referred to as " Sensei " and, after taking a trial class, decides to learn karate for protection instead of purchasing a firearm. Despite his physical weakness, Casey's determination impresses Sensei and he is promoted to yellow belt at their next promotion ceremony, while Anna, the sole female student and children's class teacher of the dōjō, is secretly denied promotion to black belt by Sensei because she is female.

As Casey learns the dōjō's strange customs - its unbreakable set of rules and the praising of its powerful grandmaster, who is promoted as someone who developed a technique of punching through an opponent's skull with his index finger - he himself becomes more toxically masculine: looking at pornography at work, attacking his boss, and listening to loud, angry music.

Further impressed, Sensei invites Casey to the exclusive night classes, where he breaks a student's arm and expels him from the dōjō for showing up uninvited. Anna brutally defeats Thomas, the student promoted to black belt over her, to prove her worth, but Sensei disqualifies her for her aggression despite him usually approving of it.

Sensei claims he has located one of the men who attacked Casey and they track him to a bar, where he pushes Casey to attack him as retribution. He later realizes the man was innocent and returns home to find his pet Dachshund dead, kicked to death by a technique he recognizes as Sensei's. Casey confronts him and threatens to report him to the authorities, only to find that Sensei videotaped him attacking the man. He tries to attack Sensei, but is easily defeated.

At the next night session, Sensei takes Casey and several other students to go out on motorcycles. They target a man who turns out to be an undercover cop. Anna is shot in the leg and Casey kills the cop. Sensei awards Casey a red stripe on his belt to signify his having killed a man. Anna, who also has a red stripe, confides in Casey that she got hers after killing a black belt who tried to sexually assault her. She urges him to leave the dōjō.

Casey returns home to find an aggressive German Shepherd gifted to him by Sensei, which will attack him unless he can control it. Pushed to his limit, he breaks into the dōjō at night, finding videotapes that document every attack Sensei ordered. He watches his own attack, in which Thomas is ordered to kill him but Anna stops him. He also finds that Sensei makes money by extorting former students.

The next morning, Sensei arrives at the dōjō to find the exiled student dead, hanging by his own belt, and he burns the body in a crematorium in the back office. Casey approaches Sensei and challenges him to a fight to the death, only to draw a handgun when the fight starts and shoot him in the head.

As the students arrive for the next class, Casey displays Sensei's body and claims he killed him with the grandmaster's technique, making him the new Sensei. He chooses to give his position to Anna instead and, after finding his Dachshund's bite mark on Thomas's arm, has him killed by his German Shepherd, which now obeys him. Anna proclaims that the dōjō will be centered around more compassionate, defensive teachings, and Casey becomes the new teacher of the children's class.

## Cast

- Jesse Eisenberg as Casey Davies

- Imogen Poots as Anna

- Alessandro Nivola as Leslie "Sensei"

- Steve Terada as Thomas

- Phillip Andre Botello as Kenneth

- David Zellner as Henry

- Hauke Bahr as Grant

- Jason Burkey as Alex

Leland Orser and Josh Fadem cameo as a detective and serial killer, respectively, in a film within a film watched by Casey. Caroline Amiguet voices a French language instructor.

## Production

In May 2016, it was announced Mary Elizabeth Winstead had joined the cast of the film, with her husband Riley Stearns directing from a screenplay he wrote. In 2017 Winstead announced her separation from Stearns. In September 2017, it was announced Jesse Eisenberg, Imogen Poots and Alessandro Nivola joined the cast of the film, with Poots replacing Winstead, and Andrew Kortschak, Cody Ryder, Stephanie Whonsetler and Walter Kortschak serving as producers on the film, while Bleecker Street distributed the film.

Principal photography began on September 11, 2017, in Kentucky.

## Release

The film had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 10, 2019. It was released in select theaters on July 12, 2019. The film was released nationwide on July 19, 2019.

### Home media

The film was released on Blu-ray and DVD in the United States on October 15, 2019.

## Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 84% based on 166 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads, " The Art of Self-Defense grapples compellingly with modern American masculinity and serves as an outstanding calling card for writer-director Riley Stearns." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 65 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Peter Debruge of Variety wrote, "This singular black comedy balances off-kilter humor with an unexpectedly thriller-esque undercurrent, to the extent that audiences will find it tough to anticipate either the jokes or the dark, Fight Club -like turn things eventually take — all to strikingly original effect."

Writing in Rolling Stone, Peter Travers gives the film 2.5 out of 3 stars, writing: " The Art of Self-Defense sets itself up as the 90-pound weakling destined to live forever in the shadow of Fight Club. The good news is that writer-director Riley Stearns gets in a few good licks at toxic masculinity before odious comparisons to David Fincher 's masterpiece blunt the film's comic and dramatic impact.


Kevin Stefanski

# Kevin Stefanski

## Abstract

Kevin Lawrence Stefanski / s t ə ˈ f ɛ n s k iː / (born May 8, 1982) is an American professional football coach who is the head coach of the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League (NFL). He began his NFL career as an assistant coach for the Minnesota Vikings from 2006 to 2019 and was the offensive coordinator during his final two seasons. Stefanski left Minnesota to become the Browns' head coach in 2020, where he led the team to their first playoff appearance since 2002. He was named NFL Coach of the Year after the season, becoming the first Browns coach to receive the honor since 1976 and the first following the franchise's 1999 return as an expansion team. He led the Browns to a second playoff appearance in 2023 and won a second NFL Coach of the Year award for his work that season.

## Early life and playing career

Stefanski graduated from St. Joseph's Preparatory School in 2000 and the University of Pennsylvania in 2004. Stefanski played defensive back while at Penn, being named the Quakers Freshman of the Year in 2000. He was part of the only undefeated Penn team of the decade and was twice an All- Ivy League selection.

## Coaching career

### Minnesota Vikings assistant

Stefanski joined the Minnesota Vikings in 2006 as an assistant to then-head coach Brad Childress. In 2009, he was promoted to assistant quarterbacks' coach, where he would serve until the 2013 season and had coached quarterbacks such as Brett Favre and Christian Ponder. Despite the Vikings' ups and downs during his tenure, Stefanski survived 3 coaching changes (Childress, Leslie Frazier, and Mike Zimmer).

In 2017, after the termination of Scott Turner, Stefanski was promoted to coach the Vikings quarterbacks, where he helped transform the Vikings into the NFL's 10th-highest scoring offense. Quarterback Case Keenum had his best season under Stefanski, throwing 22 touchdown passes and only seven interceptions. He previously worked with the running backs in 2016 and the tight ends in 2014 and 2015.

After the 2017 season, the New York Giants requested to interview and hire Stefanski as their new offensive coordinator, but the Vikings denied the request.

After offensive coordinator John DeFilippo was fired following a 21–7 loss to the Seattle Seahawks, Stefanski was named interim offensive coordinator. On January 9, 2019, Stefanski was promoted to full-time offensive coordinator.

### Cleveland Browns

On January 13, 2020, Stefanski signed a five-year contract to become the 18th head coach of the Cleveland Browns, two days after the Minnesota Vikings lost in the NFC playoffs. On September 13, 2020, Stefanski lost his head coaching debut to the Baltimore Ravens by a score of 38–6. The loss marked the 16th consecutive Week 1 without a win for the Browns. On September 17, Stefanski recorded his first career win as a head coach in the 35–30 win against the Cincinnati Bengals.

On December 6, Stefanski became the first Browns head coach since Romeo Crennel in 2007 to lead the franchise to a winning season, securing his ninth win with a 41–35 victory over the Tennessee Titans. Stefanski led the Browns to a 11–5 record, finishing third in the AFC North and clinching the Browns' first playoff berth since 2002. It was also the franchise's best record since their 1999 return. However, Stefanski tested positive for COVID-19 on the Tuesday before the game, preventing him from coaching the wild card game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Browns went on to defeat the Steelers 48–37, which was their first playoff win since 1994, as well as their first since their 1999 re-activation. He returned to the team on January 14. The Browns lost the following week to the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Divisional Round, 22–17. For his work during the 2020 season, Stefanski was named as the Associated Press NFL Coach of the Year. He was the first Browns coach to receive the honor since Forrest Gregg in 1976, in addition to being the first after Cleveland's return in 1999.

During the 2023 Browns season, Stefanski led the team to a second winning season (11-6) along with another playoff appearance becoming the first Browns head coach to lead the team to multiple postseason appearances since Marty Schottenheimer. He again was named Associated Press Coach of the Year.

On June 5, 2024, the Browns signed Stefanski to a contract extension.

## Personal life

Stefanski and his wife Michelle have three children together. He is the son of NBA executive Ed Stefanski.

He is a Roman Catholic, a member of St Luke parish in Lakewood.

https://www.dioceseofcleveland.org/news/2021/09/02/alleluia-ball-sponsorship-event-draws-bishop-browns-coach-kevin-stefanski


The Ataxian

# The Ataxian

## Abstract

The Ataxian is a documentary film of Kyle Bryant, a sufferer of Friedreich's ataxia. The film premiered at the Dances With Films Festival in 2015.

## Synopsis

The movie tells how Bryant lost the ability to play his favorite sports and walk. Bryant takes up cycling, biking long distances.

When Bryant is finally relegated to a wheelchair, he enlists the help of three friends and they embark on the Race Across America.

The outcome inspires a movement, known as rideATAXIA.


The Loss of Sexual Innocence

# The Loss of Sexual Innocence

## Abstract

The Loss of Sexual Innocence is a 1999 drama film written and directed by Mike Figgis. It tells the story of the sexual development of a filmmaker through three stages of his life, in a non-linear and disjointed manner. The film stars British actress Saffron Burrows, whom Figgis dated for several years.

## Plot

The story at the center of the movie is the tumultuous life of Nic (Julian Sands), a British director beginning a new film project in Tunisia.

## Cast

- Julian Sands as Adult Nic Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Nic, aged 16

- Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Nic, aged 16

- Saffron Burrows as English/Italian Twin

- Stefano Dionisi as Luca

- Kelly Macdonald as Susan

- Gina McKee as Susan's Mother

- Bernard Hill as Susan's Father

- Rossy de Palma as Blind Woman

- Justin Chadwick as Flash Man

- Femi Ogunbanjo as Adam

- Hanne Klintoe as Eve

## Production

The Loss of Sexual Innocence was based on a script called “Short Stories,” which Figgis had written in 1982. His original concept was to have been a multimedia show featuring film, live performance and music. The success of Leaving Las Vegas allowed him to finance the making of the nearly two-decades-old cinematic project.

## Reception

Stephen Holden of The New York Times wrote, "Those with no patience for avant-garde films will want to avoid The Loss of Sexual Innocence...Everyone else will find moments of surpassing beauty in this courageous, deeply flawed film." He was effusive in his praise for Figgis creating the film's atmosphere "through its mixture of music, beautiful outdoor cinematography and somber, silent acting." What he considered flaws were the Adam and Eve storyline and two scenes which he considered irrelevant involving an airport encounter between identical twins separated at birth and the humiliation of an obese 12-year-old Nic by a gym teacher.

Like Holden, Roger Ebert delineated what type of movie it is by explaining it as "an 'art film,' which means it tries to do something more advanced than most commercial films (which tell stories simple enough for children, in images shocking enough for adults)." He rated it three and a half out of four stars, adding that it "plays like a musical composition, with themes drifting in and out, and dialogue used more for tone than speech....Not all of it works, but you play along, because it's rare to find a film this ambitious."

Taking a more playful approach in his review, Jeff Millar of the Houston Chronicle came to a similar conclusion as Holden and Ebert and explained, "If you are an adventurous filmgoer, interested in technique, certainly go. If you like stories with 'stories,' which go from Point A to Point B with conflicts along the way, this film may be a little too atonal for you."

Emanuel Levy of Variety was critical of the movie as commentary on Nic’s loss of innocence and the entire state of civilization, stating that "it’s in this intent that the film fails most conspicuously, giving Figgis’ skeptics the strongest ammunition to dismiss his work as pretentious and overreaching." Desson Howe of The Washington Post was more scathing in his analysis and declared, "For me, at least, The Loss of Sexual Innocence is the highly cinematic equivalent of a smoke-and-mirrors job."

## Soundtrack


Rashad Hassan

# Rashad Hassan

## Abstract

Template:Infobox huge american businessman Rashad Enri Hassan (born 23 September 1989) is an American professional basketball player who currently plays for the CD Español de Osorno in the Liga Nacional de Básquetbol de Chile (LNB). He played college basketball for Savannah State Tigers.

## College career

Hassan played for the Savannah State Tigers in NCAA Division 1. In his freshman year, Hassan averaged 8.6 points and 3.6 rebounds per game and received Honorable Mention honors on the 2008–09 Division I All-Independent men's basketball team. In his sophomore year, he averaged 11 points and 5.5 rebounds per game was named in the 2010 All-Independent Men's Basketball Team. In his junior year Hassan averaged 13 points and 5.3 rebounds per game, and aided the team to the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference regular season title along with an appearance in the 2012 National Invitation Tournament. In his senior year Hassan averaged 12.6 points and 5.8 rebounds per game.

## Professional career

In 2013, Hassan signed his first professional contract for the Leicester Riders in the BBL. In his rookie season, Hassan averaged 15.7 points and 8 rebounds per game whilst helping the Riders to win the BBL Cup, with a 72–69 victory over Newcastle Eagles in the Final; Hassan scored 10 points and 9 rebounds. During his second season for the Leicester -based team, Hassan averaged 18.2 points and 7 rebounds per game, finishing as the team's top scorer and rebounder. He scored a career-high 35 points against Sheffield Sharks on 16 January 2015, and was named on the league's Team of the Year roster in the post-season awards.

After two successful seasons at Leicester, Hassan signed for Sparta Bertrange of Luxembourg in 2015. In 28 games, Hassan averaged 21.1 points and 12.9 rebounds per game, earning a place on the league's All-Star 2nd Team. After a brief appearance in Uruguay, playing 4 games for Montevideo BBC, Hassan returned to the British Basketball League for the 2016–17 season by signing with the London Lions. In his third season in the United Kingdom, Hassan averaged 19.7 points and 8.3 rebounds, leading the team as top scorer and rebounder and being named to the BBL Team of the Year for a second time.

Following the conclusion of the 2016–17 BBL season, Hassan embarked on a nomadic period with two spells in Australia, with Rockhampton Rockets and Albury Wodonga Bandits respectively, alongside a stint in France with Rueil Athletic Club and a short-lived return to Luxembourg and former team Sparta Bertrange. In October 2018 Hassan returned to the United Kingdom once more, signing with Plymouth Raiders for the 2018–19 season. Hassan lead the team in points scored, averaging 19.9 per game. In his second season for the Raiders, Hassan was averaging 18.5 points and 8.3 rebounds per game prior to the campaign being cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Following the resumption of the BBL for the 2020–21 season, Hassan appeared briefly for the Surrey Scorchers before moving to the Saudi Premier League in December 2020 to sign for Al Nasr Riyadh, before transferring to Al-Ahli Jeddah.

In December 2021 Hassan returned to the United Kingdom for a fifth time to sign for newly-formed Plymouth City Patriots. In his first season for the Patriots, Hassan averaged 16.3 points per game, whilst leading the team with 7.3 rebounds per game. On 23 June 2022, it was announced that Hassan had signed for a second season at the Patriots.

## International career

Hassan has dual American and Saudi Arabian citizenship and has had try-outs with the Saudi Arabia national team.


Gawad Urian Award

# Gawad Urian Award

## Abstract

The Gawad Urian Awards are annual film awards in the Philippines presented since 1977 by the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino (transl. Filipino Film Critics), a film critic organization composed of critics, writers, and scholars. It is the regarded as the highest award for a film given by critics in the Philippines and is seen as the counterpart of the United States' New York Film Critics Circle.

The name "Gawad Urian" is from Tagalog terms urian (a standard for gold) and gawad (award). It is the only major award-giving body in the Philippines to use the vernacular in awards shows and in the presentation of the awards. The official name for the Best Film category is Pinakamahusay na Pelikula, for example.

## History

The Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino was formed by a host of scholars, film writers and other award-winning writers on May 1, 1976, as a critics' voice to rival the then-only award-giving body in the Philippines, which is its Oscars, the FAMAS Awards. Three years earlier, what would be the members of the Manunuri were included in the judges' roster of the FAMAS after a shocking 1972 Best Actress tie materialized between major star Boots Anson-Roa and then-rising star Vilma Santos. A tie was unheard of at that time, which resulted in accusations of lessening prestige on the part of FAMAS. After a voting stint at the FAMAS, these future Manunuri members set up the Gawad Urian Awards.

The Gawad Urian Awards were established to "examine Filipino films, bolster the interest of the masses and the Philippine film industry, study and celebrate the achievement that will help define the good Filipino film, and cultivate the knowledge and skills that the film medium was designed for, which is to be a medium of communication and expression of our culture according to the standards and conditions of filmmaking in our country."

It then went on to become one of the most prestigious film award-giving bodies in the Philippines. Unlike the other award-giving bodies in the country, it has never been tainted with any accusations of vote buying or scandals. This distinction made the Gawad Urian a highly coveted award in the Philippine film industry that is only given to the most deserved winners.

The Gawad Urian is known for its infamous ties. At a time when the Filipino award-giving bodies were adamant about awarding ties after the FAMAS rock-up in 1972, the Gawad Urian has given ties in the Best Film category (3 ties), Best Screenplay category (1), Best Actress category (6) and Best Supporting Actress category (2), a dozen ties all in all. It is also known for awarding several lesser-known films produced by small independent production companies. In 2004, Ebolusyon ng Isang Pamilyang Pilipino, a landmark Filipino drama, was awarded Pinakamahusay na Pelikula (Best Film) by Gawad Urian, while it did not receive a single nomination from any award-giving body that year.

In 1988, the awards for the films of 1987 were not held because the Manunuri deemed that there was a "lack of deserving winners," which was a first in Filipino awards history.

In 2006, the Gawad Urian became the first award-giving body in the Philippine to welcome digital films into competition. Its nominees were swamped with achievement from digital films that year, which prompted the other award-giving bodies to include digital films in its roster of nominations the next year.

## Award categories

### Current categories

- Pinakamahusay na Pelikula (Best Film)

- Pinakamahusay na Direksyon (Best Direction)

- Pinakamahusay na Pangunahing Aktor (Best Actor)

- Pinakamahusay na Pangunahing Aktres (Best Actress)

- Pinakamahusay na Pangalawang Aktor (Best Supporting Actor)

- Pinakamahusay na Pangalawang Aktres (Best Supporting Actress)

- Pinakamahusay na Dulang Pampelikula (Best Screenplay)

- Pinakamahusay na Sinematograpiya (Best Cinematography)

- Pinakamahusay na Disenyong Pamproduksyon (Best Production Design)

- Pinakamahusay na Editing (Best Editing)

- Pinakamahusay na Musika (Best Music)

- Pinakamahusay na Tunog (Best Sound)

- Pinakamahusay na Maikling Pelikula (Best Short Film)

- Pinakamahusay na Dokyumentaryo (Best Documentary)

### Honorary awards

- Natatanging Gawad Urian (Lifetime Achievement Award) – for film artisans whose contributions have helped shape the Filipino film industry.

- Ginintuang Gawad Urian (Golden Urian Award) – given by the Manunuri to Mike de Leon in 1992, the first and the last time the award was given out.

## Decades lists

### Best Films of the Decade

Every end of a decade, the Manunuri publishes a list called Mga Natatanging Pelukula ng Dekada which recognizes the best films of the decade.

#### 1970s

- Pagdating sa Dulo (1971) dir. Ishmael Bernal

- Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang (1974) dir. Lino Brocka

- Maynila: Sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag (1975) dir. Lino Brocka

- Ganito Kami Noon, Paano Kayo Ngayon (1976) dir. Eddie Romero

- Insiang (1976) dir. Lino Brocka

- Itim (1976) dir. Mike de Leon

- Nunal sa Tubig (1976) dir. Ishmael Bernal

- Sakada (1976) dir. Behn Cervantes

- Pagputi ng Uwak, Pag-itim ng Tagak (1978) dir. Celso Ad. Castillo

- Jaguar (1979) dir. Lino Brocka

#### 1980s

- City After Dark (1980) dir. Ishmael Bernal

- Kisapmata (1981) dir. Mike de Leon

- Batch '81 (1982) dir. Mike de Leon

- Himala (1982) dir. Ishmael Bernal

- Oro, Plata, Mata (1982) dir. Peque Gallaga

- Karnal (1983) dir. Marilou Diaz-Abaya

- Bayan Ko: Kapit sa Patalim (1984) dir. Lino Brocka

- Sister Stella L. (1984) dir. Mike de Leon

- Hinugot sa Langit (1985) dir. Ishmael Bernal

- Orapronobis (1989) dir. Lino Brocka

#### 1990s

- Gumapang Ka Sa Lusak (1990) dir. Lino Brocka

- The Fatima Buen Story (1994) dir. Mario O'Hara

- Wating (1994) dir. Ishmael Bernal

- The Flor Contemplacion Story (1995) dir. Joel Lamangan

- Milagros (1997) dir. Marilou Diaz-Abaya

- Bata, Bata... Paano Ka Ginawa? (1998) dir. Chito Roño

- Jose Rizal (1998) dir. Marilou Diaz-Abaya

- Bayaning 3rd World (1999) dir. Mike de Leon

- Pila-balde (1999) dir. Jeffrey Jeturian

#### 2000s

- Batang West Side (2001) dir. Lav Diaz

- Tuhog (2001) dir. Jeffrey Jeturian

- Babae sa Breakwater (2003) dir. Mario O'Hara

- Magnifico (2003) dir. Maryo J. de los Reyes

- Ebolusyon ng Isang Pamilyang Pilipino (2004) dir. Lav Diaz

- Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros (2005) dir. Auraeus Solito

- Kubrador (2006) dir. Jeffrey Jeturian

- Serbis (2008) dir. Brillante Mendoza

- Kinatay (2009) dir. Brillante Mendoza

- Lola (2009) dir. Brillante Mendoza

#### 2010s

- Ang Damgo ni Eleuteria (2010) dir. Remton Siega Zuasola

- Ang Sayaw ng Dalawang Kaliwang Paa (2011) dir. Alvin Yapan

- Ang Paglalakbay ng mga Bituin sa Gabing Madilim (2012) dir. Arnel Mardoquio

- Norte, Hangganan ng Kasaysayan (2013) dir. Lav Diaz

- Women of the Weeping River (2016) dir. Sheron Dayoc

- Baboy Halas (2016) dir. Bagane Fiola

- Tu Pug Imatuy (2017) dir. Arnel Barbarona

- Respeto (2017) dir. Treb Monteras

- Balangiga: Howling Wilderness (2017) dir. Khavn de la Cruz

- BuyBust (2018) dir. Erik Matti

- Babae at Baril (2019) dir. Rae Red

#### 1970 - 1999

- Maynila: Sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag (1975) dir. Lino Brocka

- Ganito Kami Noon, Paano Kayo Ngayon (1976) dir. Eddie Romero

- Insiang (1976) dir. Lino Brocka

- Nunal sa Tubig (1976) dir. Ishmael Bernal

- City After Dark (1980) dir. Ishmael Bernal

- Kisapmata (1981) dir. Mike de Leon

- Batch '81 (1982) dir. Mike de Leon

- Himala (1982) dir. Ishmael Bernal

- Orapronobis (1989) dir. Lino Brocka

- Bayaning 3rd World (1999) dir. Mike de Leon

### Best Actors and Actresses of the Decade

The Mga Natatanging Aktor at Aktres ng Dekada awards are given every first year of the decade to actors and actresses who had made outstanding works in the past decade. The artists named on these lists are also honored during that year's awards ceremony.

- 1980s: Gina Alajar, Nora Aunor, Phillip Salvador, Vic Silayan, Vilma Santos

- 1990s: Nora Aunor, Richard Gomez, Vilma Santos

- 2000s: Coco Martin, Gina Pareño, Cherry Pie Picache

- 2010s: Nora Aunor, Angeli Bayani, John Lloyd Cruz, Alessandra de Rossi


Karpatiosorbus admonitor

# Karpatiosorbus admonitor

## Abstract

Karpatiosorbus admonitor, previously classified as Sorbus admonitor and also called the Watersmeet whitebeam, is a species of whitebeam tree found in Devon, United Kingdom. It is known only from the Watersmeet Valley at Lynton, with two stray plants growing on the coast above Sillery Sands, Countisbury. It has also been nicknamed the "no parking whitebeam" in some newspapers.

## Discovery

Its unusual nickname derives from the location of the first tree to be found (not the type specimen) – beside a lay-by near Watersmeet in North Devon, with a "no parking" sign nailed to the tree. Although first recognised as a distinct variety in the 1930s (by the botanist E. F. Warburg) because of its strongly lobed leaves, it was only accorded species status in 2009, after various biochemical analyses. It is believed at least 110 individuals of the species exist and represent a stable population A survey of Sorbus species at Watersmeet, North Devon, September 2007. The leaves of the Watersmeet whitebeam have more accentuated lobes than the Devon whitebeam, of which it was thought before to be a variety.

The research project that named the tree as a species was led by Dr. Tim Rich, head of vascular plants at the National Museum Wales, as well as academics from Bristol University, Exeter University, Oxford University and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The announcement of the species, and of thirteen other Sorbus species, was made in two papers in the BSBI 's journal Watsonia.

Dr Rich stated that the trees, along with other new whitebeam species, had "probably developed recently", and also considered them as "examples of on-going evolution of new species".

In 2017 Kurtto and Sennikov assigned many whitebeam species, including the Watersmeet whitebeam, to a new genus Karpatiosorbus. Members of Karpatiosorbus are hybrids of two divergent Malinae taxa that were previously all considered to part of the genus Sorbus.

## Details

The holotype is a large tree above scree at Watersmeet in Vice-county 4, North Devon, Grid Ref SS744490; the material studied was collected on 10 October 2007. It is a member of the Karpatiosorbus latifolia group.

It is similar to Karpatiosorbus devoniensis, but differing in having leaves more deeply lobed, 10–23% of the way to the midrib at the centre of the lamina – not 6–18% as in K. devoniensis; the leaves of K. admonitor are also glossier than those of K. devoniensis.

It is endemic to the Watersmeet area, where there are at least 108 trees in the East Lyn Valley and two trees nearby above Sillery Sands, Lynmouth. K. devoniensis does not grow in this area. The two species have not been confirmed as growing together.

A chromosome count showed that the species is tetraploid.

As a result of its small range, which is largely confined to North Devon, it has an IUCN conservation assessment of Endangered. However, its population trend is stable, and ex-situ conservation measures are in place. In addition, the majority of K. admonitor' s range exists in protected areas.


Norbert Wiener

# Norbert Wiener

## Abstract

Norbert Wiener (November 26, 1894 – March 18, 1964) was an American computer scientist, mathematician and philosopher. He became a professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher in stochastic and mathematical noise processes, contributing work relevant to electronic engineering, electronic communication, and control systems.

Wiener is considered the originator of cybernetics, the science of communication as it relates to living things and machines, with implications for engineering, systems control, computer science, biology, neuroscience, philosophy, and the organization of society. His work heavily influenced computer pioneer John von Neumann, information theorist Claude Shannon, anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, and others.

Wiener is credited as being one of the first to theorize that all intelligent behavior was the result of feedback mechanisms, that could possibly be simulated by machines and was an important early step towards the development of modern artificial intelligence.

## Biography

### Youth

Wiener was born in Columbia, Missouri, the first child of Leo Wiener and Bertha Kahn, Jewish immigrants from Lithuania and Germany, respectively. Through his father, he was related to Maimonides, the famous rabbi, philosopher and physician from Al Andalus, as well as to Akiva Eger, chief rabbi of Posen from 1815 to 1837.

Leo had educated Norbert at home until 1903, employing teaching methods of his own invention, except for a brief interlude when Norbert was seven years of age. Earning his living teaching German and Slavic languages, Leo read widely and accumulated a personal library from which the young Norbert benefited greatly. Leo also had ample ability in mathematics and tutored his son in the subject until he left home. In his autobiography, Norbert described his father as calm and patient, unless he (Norbert) failed to give a correct answer, at which his father would lose his temper.

In "The Theory of Ignorance", a paper he wrote at the age of 10, he disputed "man’s presumption in declaring that his knowledge has no limits", arguing that all human knowledge "is based on an approximation", and acknowledging "the impossibility of being certain of anything."

He graduated from Ayer High School in 1906 at 11 years of age, and Wiener then entered Tufts College. He was awarded a BA in mathematics in 1909 at the age of 14, whereupon he began graduate studies of zoology at Harvard. In 1910 he transferred to Cornell to study philosophy. He graduated in 1911 at 17 years of age.

### Harvard and World War I

The next year he returned to Harvard, while still continuing his philosophical studies. Back at Harvard, Wiener became influenced by Edward Vermilye Huntington, whose mathematical interests ranged from axiomatic foundations to engineering problems. Harvard awarded Wiener a PhD in June 1913, when he was only 19 years old, for a dissertation on mathematical logic (a comparison of the work of Ernst Schröder with that of Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell), supervised by Karl Schmidt, the essential results of which were published as Wiener (1914). He was one of the youngest to achieve such a feat. In that dissertation, he was the first to state publicly that ordered pairs can be defined in terms of elementary set theory. Hence relations can be defined by set theory, thus the theory of relations does not require any axioms or primitive notions distinct from those of set theory. In 1921, Kazimierz Kuratowski proposed a simplification of Wiener's definition of ordered pairs, and that simplification has been in common use ever since. It is (x, y) = {{x}, {x, y}}.

In 1914, Wiener traveled to Europe, to be taught by Bertrand Russell and G. H. Hardy at Cambridge University, and by David Hilbert and Edmund Landau at the University of Göttingen. At Göttingen he also attended three courses with Edmund Husserl "one on Kant's ethical writings, one on the principles of Ethics, and the seminary on Phenomenology." (Letter to Russell, c. June or July, 1914). During 1915–16, he taught philosophy at Harvard, then was an engineer for General Electric and wrote for the Encyclopedia Americana. Wiener was briefly a journalist for the Boston Herald, where he wrote a feature story on the poor labor conditions for mill workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, but he was fired soon afterwards for his reluctance to write favorable articles about a politician the newspaper's owners sought to promote.

Although Wiener eventually became a staunch pacifist, he eagerly contributed to the war effort in World War I. In 1916, with America's entry into the war drawing closer, Wiener attended a training camp for potential military officers but failed to earn a commission. One year later Wiener again tried to join the military, but the government again rejected him due to his poor eyesight. In the summer of 1918, Oswald Veblen invited Wiener to work on ballistics at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. Living and working with other mathematicians strengthened his interest in mathematics. However, Wiener was still eager to serve in uniform and decided to make one more attempt to enlist, this time as a common soldier. Wiener wrote in a letter to his parents, "I should consider myself a pretty cheap kind of a swine if I were willing to be an officer but unwilling to be a soldier." This time the army accepted Wiener into its ranks and assigned him, by coincidence, to a unit stationed at Aberdeen, Maryland. World War I ended just days after Wiener's return to Aberdeen and Wiener was discharged from the military in February 1919.

### After the war

Wiener was unable to secure a permanent position at Harvard, a situation he attributed largely to anti-Semitism at the university and in particular the antipathy of Harvard mathematician G. D. Birkhoff. He was also rejected for a position at the University of Melbourne. At W. F. Osgood's suggestion, Wiener was hired as an instructor of mathematics at MIT, where, after his promotion to professor, he spent the remainder of his career. For many years his photograph was prominently displayed in the Infinite Corridor and often used in giving directions, but by 2017 it had been removed.

In 1926, Wiener returned to Europe as a Guggenheim scholar. He spent most of his time at Göttingen and with Hardy at Cambridge, working on Brownian motion, the Fourier integral, Dirichlet's problem, harmonic analysis, and the Tauberian theorems.

In 1926, Wiener's parents arranged his marriage to a German immigrant, Margaret Engemann; they had two daughters. His sister, Constance (1898–1973), married mathematician Philip Franklin. Their daughter, Janet, Wiener's niece, married mathematician Václav E. Beneš. Norbert Wiener's sister, Bertha (1902–1995), married the botanist Carroll William Dodge.

Many tales, perhaps apocryphal, were told of Norbert Wiener at MIT, especially concerning his absent-mindedness. It was said that he returned home once to find his house empty. He inquired of a neighborhood girl the reason, and she said that the family had moved elsewhere that day. He thanked her for the information and she replied, "It's ok, Daddy, Mommy sent me to get you". Asked about the story, Wiener's daughter reportedly asserted that "he never forgot who his children were! The rest of it, however, was pretty close to what actually happened…"

In the run-up to World War II (1939–45) Wiener became a member of the China Aid Society and the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced German Scholars. He was interested in placing scholars such as Yuk-Wing Lee and Antoni Zygmund who had lost their positions.

### During and after World War II

During World War II, his work on the automatic aiming and firing of anti-aircraft guns caused Wiener to investigate information theory independently of Claude Shannon and to invent the Wiener filter. (The now-standard practice of modeling an information source as a random process—in other words, as a variety of noise—is due to Wiener.) Initially his anti-aircraft work led him to write, with Arturo Rosenblueth and Julian Bigelow, the 1943 article 'Behavior, Purpose and Teleology', which was published in Philosophy of Science. Subsequently his anti-aircraft work led him to formulate cybernetics. After the war, his fame helped MIT to recruit a research team in cognitive science, composed of researchers in neuropsychology and the mathematics and biophysics of the nervous system, including Warren Sturgis McCulloch and Walter Pitts. These men later made pioneering contributions to computer science and artificial intelligence. Soon after the group was formed, Wiener suddenly ended all contact with its members, mystifying his colleagues. This emotionally traumatized Pitts, and led to his career decline. In their biography of Wiener, Conway and Siegelman suggest that Wiener's wife Margaret, who detested McCulloch's bohemian lifestyle, engineered the breach.

Wiener later helped develop the theories of cybernetics, robotics, computer control, and automation. He discussed the modeling of neurons with John von Neumann, and in a letter from November 1946 von Neumann presented his thoughts in advance of a meeting with Wiener.

Wiener always shared his theories and findings with other researchers, and credited the contributions of others. These included Soviet researchers and their findings. Wiener's acquaintance with them caused him to be regarded with suspicion during the Cold War. He was a strong advocate of automation to improve the standard of living, and to end economic underdevelopment. His ideas became influential in India, whose government he advised during the 1950s.

After the war, Wiener became increasingly concerned with what he believed was political interference with scientific research, and the militarization of science. His article "A Scientist Rebels" from the January 1947 issue of The Atlantic Monthly urged scientists to consider the ethical implications of their work. After the war, he refused to accept any government funding or to work on military projects. The way Wiener's beliefs concerning nuclear weapons and the Cold War contrasted with those of von Neumann is the major theme of the book John Von Neumann and Norbert Wiener.

Wiener was a participant of the Macy conferences.

### Personal life

In 1926 Wiener married Margaret Engemann, an assistant professor of modern languages at Juniata College. They had two daughters.

Wiener admitted in his autobiography I Am a Mathematician: The Later Life of a Prodigy to abusing benzadrine throughout his life without being fully aware of its dangers.

Wiener died in March 1964, aged 69, in Stockholm, from a heart attack. Wiener and his wife are buried at the Vittum Hill Cemetery in Sandwich, New Hampshire.

### Awards and honors

- Wiener was a Plenary Speaker of the ICM in 1936 at Oslo and in 1950 at Cambridge, Massachusetts.

- Wiener won the Bôcher Memorial Prize in 1933 and the National Medal of Science in 1963, presented by President Johnson at a White House Ceremony in January, 1964, shortly before Wiener's death.

- Wiener won the 1965 U.S. National Book Award in Science, Philosophy and Religion for God & Golem, Inc.: A Comment on Certain Points where Cybernetics Impinges on Religion.

- The Norbert Wiener Prize in Applied Mathematics was endowed in 1967 in honor of Norbert Wiener by MIT's mathematics department and is provided jointly by the American Mathematical Society and Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

- The Norbert Wiener Award for Social and Professional Responsibility awarded annually by CPSR, was established in 1987 in honor of Wiener to recognize contributions by computer professionals to socially responsible use of computers.

- The crater Wiener on the far side of the Moon is named after him.

- The Norbert Wiener Center for Harmonic Analysis and Applications, at the University of Maryland, College Park, is named in his honor.

- Robert A. Heinlein named a spaceship after him in his 1957 novel Citizen of the Galaxy, a "Free Trader" ship called the Norbert Wiener mentioned in Chapter 14.

- The Norbert Wiener Center for Harmonic Analysis and Applications (NWC) in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Maryland, College Park is devoted to the scientific and mathematical legacy of Norbert Wiener. The NWC website highlights the research activities of the center. Further, each year the Norbert Wiener Center hosts the February Fourier Talks, a two-day national conference displaying advances in pure and applied harmonic analysis in industry, government, and academia.

### Doctoral students

- Shikao Ikehara (PhD 1930)

- Dorothy Walcott Weeks (PhD 1930)

- Norman Levinson (Sc.D. 1935)

- Brockway McMillan (PhD 1939)

- Abe Gelbart (PhD 1940)

- John P. Costas (engineer) (PhD 1951)

- Amar Bose (Sc.D. 1956)

- George Zames (Sc.D. 1960)

- Colin Cherry (PhD 1956)

## Work

Information is information, not matter or energy.

Wiener was an early studier of stochastic and mathematical noise processes, contributing work relevant to electronic engineering, electronic communication, and control systems. It was Wiener's idea to model a signal as if it were an exotic type of noise, giving it a sound mathematical basis. The example often given to students is that English text could be modeled as a random string of letters and spaces, where each letter of the alphabet (and the space) has an assigned probability. But Wiener dealt with analog signals, where such a simple example doesn't exist. Wiener's early work on information theory and signal processing was limited to analog signals, and was largely forgotten with the development of the digital theory.

Wiener is one of the key originators of cybernetics, a formalization of the notion of feedback, with many implications for engineering, systems control, computer science, biology, philosophy, and the organization of society. His work with cybernetics influenced Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead, and through them, anthropology, sociology, and education.

### Wiener equation

A simple mathematical representation of Brownian motion, the Wiener equation, named after Wiener, assumes the current velocity of a fluid particle fluctuates randomly.

### Wiener filter

For signal processing, the Wiener filter is a filter proposed by Wiener during the 1940s and published in 1942 as a classified document. Its purpose is to reduce the amount of noise present in a signal by comparison with an estimate of the desired noiseless signal. Wiener developed the filter at the Radiation Laboratory at MIT to predict the position of German bombers from radar reflections. What emerged was a mathematical theory of great generality — a theory for predicting the future as best one can on the basis of incomplete information about the past. It was a statistical theory that included applications that did not, strictly speaking, predict the future, but only tried to remove noise. It made use of Wiener's earlier work on integral equations and Fourier transforms.

### Nonlinear control theory

Wiener studied polynomial chaos, a key piece of which is the Hermite-Laguerre expansion. This was developed in detail in Nonlinear Problems in Random Theory.

Wiener applied Hermite-Laguerre expansion to nonlinear system identification and control. Specifically, a nonlinear system can be identified by inputting a white noise process and computing the Hermite-Laguerre expansion of its output. The identified system can then be controlled.

### In mathematics

Wiener took a great interest in the mathematical theory of Brownian motion (named after Robert Brown) proving many results now widely known, such as the non-differentiability of the paths. Consequently, the one-dimensional version of Brownian motion was named the Wiener process. It is the best known of the Lévy processes, càdlàg stochastic processes with stationary statistically independent increments, and occurs frequently in pure and applied mathematics, physics and economics (e.g. on the stock-market).

Wiener's tauberian theorem, a 1932 result of Wiener, developed Tauberian theorems in summability theory, on the face of it a chapter of real analysis, by showing that most of the known results could be encapsulated in a principle taken from harmonic analysis. In its present formulation, the theorem of Wiener does not have any obvious association with Tauberian theorems, which deal with infinite series; the translation from results formulated for integrals, or using the language of functional analysis and Banach algebras, is however a relatively routine process.

The Paley–Wiener theorem relates growth properties of entire functions on C and Fourier transformation of Schwartz distributions of compact support.

The Wiener–Khinchin theorem, (also known as the Wiener – Khintchine theorem and the Khinchin – Kolmogorov theorem), states that the power spectral density of a wide-sense-stationary random process is the Fourier transform of the corresponding autocorrelation function.

An abstract Wiener space is a mathematical object in measure theory, used to construct a "decent", strictly positive and locally finite measure on an infinite-dimensional vector space. Wiener's original construction only applied to the space of real-valued continuous paths on the unit interval, known as classical Wiener space. Leonard Gross provided the generalization to the case of a general separable Banach space.

The notion of a Banach space itself was discovered independently by both Wiener and Stefan Banach at around the same time.

## In popular culture

His work with Mary Brazier is referred to in Avis DeVoto 's As Always, Julia.

A flagship named after him appears briefly in Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert Heinlein.

The song Dedicated to Norbert Wiener appears as the second track on the 1980 album Why? by G.G. Tonet (Luigi Tonet), released on the Italian It Why label.

## Publications

Wiener wrote many books and hundreds of articles:

- 1914, Reprinted in

- 1930,

- 1933, The Fourier Integral and Certain of its Applications Cambridge Univ. Press; reprint by Dover, CUP Archive 1988 ISBN 0-521-35884-1

- 1942, Extrapolation, Interpolation and Smoothing of Stationary Time Series. A war-time classified report nicknamed "the yellow peril" because of the color of the cover and the difficulty of the subject. Published postwar 1949 MIT Press. http://www.isss.org/lumwiener.htm Archived 2015-08-16 at the Wayback Machine ])

- 1948, Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. Paris, (Hermann & Cie) & Camb. Mass. (MIT Press) ISBN 978-0-262-73009-9; 2nd revised ed. 1961.

- 1950, The Human Use of Human Beings. The Riverside Press (Houghton Mifflin Co.).

- 1958, Nonlinear Problems in Random Theory. MIT Press & Wiley.

- 1964, God & Golem, Inc.: A Comment on Certain Points Where Cybernetics Impinges on Religion. MIT Press.

- 1966, Generalized Harmonic Analysis and Tauberian Theorems. MIT Press.

- 1993, This was written in 1954 but Wiener abandoned the project at the editing stage and returned his advance. MIT Press published it posthumously in 1993.

Wiener's papers are collected in the following works:

- 1964, Selected Papers of Norbert Wiener. Cambridge Mass. 1964 (MIT Press & SIAM)

- 1976–84, The Mathematical Work of Norbert Wiener. Masani P (ed) 4 vols, Camb. Mass. (MIT Press). This contains a complete collection of Wiener's mathematical papers with commentaries, in the following volumes: Vol. 1, Mathematical philosophy and foundations; potential theory; Brownian movement, Wiener integrals, ergodic and chaos theories, turbulence and statistical mechanics (ISBN 0262230704); Vol. 2, Generalized harmonic analysis and Tauberian theory, classical harmonic and complex analysis (ISBN 0262230925); Vol. 3, The Hopf-Wiener integral equation; Prediction and filtering; Quantum mechanics and relativity; Miscellaneous mathematical papers (ISBN 0262231077); and Vol. 4, Cybernetics, science, and society; Ethics, aesthetics, and literary criticism; Book reviews and obituaries. (ISBN 0262231239)

Fiction:

- 1959, The Tempter. Random House (on Oliver Heaviside 's invention for lower distortion on telegraph lines and his fight with AT&T for the proper recognition of his analysis)

Autobiography:

- Includes both volumes of Wiener's autobiography.

- 1953, Ex-Prodigy: My Childhood and Youth. MIT Press.

- 1956, I am a Mathematician. London (Gollancz).

Under the name "W. Norbert":

- 1952, The Brain and other short science fiction in Tech Engineering News.