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A person is sent a money order, often from Western Union, or check for a larger sum than a mystery purchase he is required to make, with a request to deposit it into his bank account, use a portion for a mystery purchase and fee, and wire the remainder through a wire transfer company such as Western Union or MoneyGram; the money is to be wired immediately as response time is being evaluated. The cheque is fraudulent, and is returned unpaid by the victim's bank, after the money has been wired. One scam involved fraudulent websites using a misspelled URL to advertise online and in newspapers under a legitimate company's name.
It should be remembered that this is not the only type of mystery shopping scam taking place which involves money being paid, as it has been widely reported in the UK that shoppers should "Watch out for some online mystery shopping scams which will cost you money for either training or for signing up without the promise of any work." Valid mystery shopping companies do not normally send their clients cheques prior to work being completed, and their advertisements usually include a contact person and phone number. Some fraudulent cheques can be identified by a financial professional. On February 3, 2009, The Internet Crime Complaint Center issued a warning on this scam.
A legitimate company that occasionally sends prepayment for large transactions says "We do occasionally fund upfront for very large spend purchases but we use cheques or direct bank transfers which should mean you can see when they are cleared and so can be sure you really do have the money." It is standard practice for mystery shopping providers evaluating services such as airlines to arrange for the airfare to be issued beforehand at their own expenses (usually by means of a frequent flyer reward ticket). In any case, it is unlikely that any bona-fide provider would allocate a high-value assignment to a new shopper or proactively recruit new ones for that purpose, preferring instead to work with a pool of existing pre-vetted experienced shoppers.
Pigeon drop The pigeon drop, which is depicted early in the film The Sting, involves the mark or pigeon assisting an elderly, weak or infirm stranger to keep a large sum of money safe for him. In the process, the stranger (actually a confidence trickster) puts his money with the mark's money in an envelope or briefcase, with which the mark is then to be entrusted. The container is first switched for an identical one which contains no money, and a situation is engineered giving the mark the opportunity to escape, with the money, from a perceived threat (e.g., local police or rowdies).
If the mark does so, he is fleeing from his own money, which the con artist will have kept or handed off to an accomplice. Predatory journals A number of predatory journals target academics to solicit manuscripts for publication. The journals charge high publication fees but do not perform the functions of legitimate academic journals—editorial oversight and peer review—they simply publish the work for cash. In this case, the mark's need for publications is the incentive for them to pay the fees. In some cases, predatory journals will use fictional editorial boards or use respected academics' names without permission to lend a veneer of credibility to the journal.
A curated database of predatory journals can be found at "Scholarly Open Access". Promotional cheque The victim is sent a document which looks, on its face, to be a coupon or a cheque for some small amount as "prize winnings". Buried in the fine print is something entirely different; an authorisation to slam the victim to an alternative telephony provider or even an authorisation for monthly direct withdrawals from the victim's bank account for "services" which were neither used nor desired. Psychic surgery Psychic surgery is a con game in which the trickster uses sleight of hand to apparently remove malignant growths from the mark's body.
A common form of medical fraud in underdeveloped countries, it imperils victims who may fail to seek competent medical attention. The movie Man on the Moon depicts comedian Andy Kaufman undergoing psychic surgery. It can also be seen in an episode of Jonathan Creek. Rain making Rainmaking is a simple scam in which the trickster promises to use their power or influence over a complex system to make it do something favourable for the mark. Classically this was promising to make it rain, but more modern examples include getting someone's app 'featured' on an app store, obtaining pass marks in a university entrance exam, obtaining a job, or a politician implying that they can use their influence to get a contract awarded to the mark.
The trickster has no actual influence on the outcome, but if the favourable outcome happens anyway they will then claim credit. If the event does not happen of course then the trickster may be able to claim that they need more money until it finally does. Recovery room A recovery room scam is a form of advance-fee fraud where the scammer (sometimes posing as a law enforcement officer or attorney) calls investors who have been sold worthless shares (for example in a boiler-room scam), and offers to buy them, to allow the investors to recover their investments. A Nigerian 419 scam victim might receive a solicitation claiming to be from the Nigeria Economic and Financial Crimes Commission or another government agency.
The scam involves requiring an advance fee before the payment can take place, for example a "court fee". The red flag in the 'recovery scam' is that the supposed investigative agency, unsolicited, approaches the victim. A legitimate law enforcement agency would normally allow the victim to make the first contact, and will not solicit an advance fee. The recovery scam has the victim's number only because it is operated by an accomplice of the original scammer, using a "sucker list" from the earlier fraud. Rental scams An apartment is listed for rent, often on an online forum such as Craigslist or Kijiji, at or just below market value.
The vendor asks for first and last month's rent up front, sometimes also asking for references or personal information from the prospective tenants. The rent payment clears the bank, the new tenants arrive with a truckload of worldly possessions on moving day to find that the same unit has been rented to multiple other new tenants and that the supposed "landlord" is not the owner of the property and is nowhere to be found. This kind of scam is often performed online on students planning to study abroad and seeking accommodation, as their means of checking the property are limited.
Rip deal The Rip Deal is a swindle very popular in Europe and is essentially a pigeon drop confidence trick. In a typical variation scammers will target, say, a jeweler, and offer to buy some substantial amount of his wares at a large markup provided he perform some type of under-the-table cash deal, originally exchanging Swiss francs for euros. This exchange goes through flawlessly, at considerable profit for the mark. Some time later the scammers approach the mark with a similar proposition, but for a larger amount of money (and thus a larger return for the mark). His confidence and greed inspired by the previous deal, the merchant agrees—only to have his money and goods taken, by sleight-of-hand or violence, at the point of exchange.
This scam was depicted in the movie Matchstick Men. The same term is used to describe a crime where a vendor (especially a drug dealer) is killed to avoid paying for goods. Unsolicited goods Various schemes exist to bill victims for unsolicited goods or services. A common scam targeting businesses is the toner bandit swindle; an unsolicited caller attempts to trick front-office personnel into providing manufacturer/model or serial numbers for office equipment and/or the name of the employee answering the call. Often, the call will be misrepresented as a "survey" or a "prize" award. The business then receives inflated invoices for unsolicited copy paper, copy machine toner, cleaning supplies, light bulbs, trash bags or other supplies, using the name of the person who answered the call to falsely claim this person ordered the items.
When the business objects, the workers are threatened with lawsuits or harassed by bogus collection agencies. Another, targeting the elderly, claims a free medical alert device has been ordered for a patient by a family member or medical doctor. An automated message says "that someone has ordered a free medical alert system for you, and this call is to confirm shipping instructions" before the call is transferred to a live operator who requests the elderly patient's credit card and identity card numbers. The device is not free; there is a high monthly charge for "monitoring". The family did not buy or order it, nor did a practitioner; the call is fraudulent.
Wedding planner scam Wedding planner scams prey on the vulnerability of young couples, during a time when they are most distracted and trusting, to embezzle funds for the planner's personal use. In the first type of fraud, the wedding planner company may offer a free wedding in a tie-up with a media station for a couple in need of charity, and collect the donations from the public that were meant for the wedding. In a second type of fraud, the planner asks couples to write checks to vendors (tents, food, cakes) but leave the name field empty, which the planner promises to fill in.
As most vendors were never hired nor paid, the scam would then be exposed on the day of the wedding. A real life example is a Kansas TV station story of a wedding planner, Caitlin Hershberger Theis, who scammed three couples through her wedding planner consultancy, Live, Love and be Married using these two schemes. Blessing scam The blessing scam targets elderly Chinese immigrant women, convincing them that an evil spirit threatens their family and that this threat can be removed by a blessing ceremony involving a bag filled with their savings, jewelry or other valuables. During the ceremony, the con artists switch the bag of valuables with an identical bag with valueless contents and make off with the victim's cash or jewelry.
Pay up or be arrested scam This scam is perpetrated through the phone where the caller threatens the victim with a fictitious arrest warrant. To make this threat seem real, the caller ID identifies the caller as that of the local sheriff. Victims are told they must pay a fine to avoid arrest. Fines are in the hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars. The payment is requested through Western Union, Green Dot prepaid card, or similar form of untraceable currency exchange. Cases have been reported in Florida, Georgia, Kansas and Oregon. Public transport ticket control scam In this scam, the artists pose as ticket control staff on public transport connections.
They tend to look for tourists as easy marks, and therefore target train connections from the airport. They will ask to see the passenger's tickets, and once they have found a suitable mark, will claim that something is wrong with the ticket they hold. They will then claim that an instant payment is required to avoid further legal troubles. In some cases, this scam is even committed by actual public transport staff seeking to rip off tourists. Dropped wallet scam The dropped wallet scam usually targets tourists. The con artist pretends to accidentally drop his wallet in a public place.
After an unsuspecting victim picks up the wallet and offers it to the con artist, the scam begins. The artist accuses the victim of stealing money from the wallet and threatens to call the police, scaring the victim into returning the allegedly stolen money. Cases have been reported in eastern Europe and major cities or railway stations in China. See also Great Reality TV Swindle Kansas City Shuffle List of criminal enterprises, gangs and syndicates Psychological manipulation Sick baby hoax Spanish Prisoner References Confidence tricks *
The Parthian language, also known as Arsacid Pahlavi and Pahlawānīg, is a now-extinct ancient Northwestern Iranian language spoken in Parthia, a region of northeastern ancient Iran. Parthian was the language of state of the Arsacid Parthian Empire (248 BC – 224 AD), as well as of its eponymous branches of the Arsacid dynasty of Armenia, Arsacid dynasty of Iberia, and the Arsacid dynasty of Caucasian Albania. This language had a huge impact on Armenian, a large part of whose vocabulary was formed primarily from borrowings from Parthian. Many ancient Parthian words were preserved, and now can be seen only in Armenian.
Classification Parthian was a Western Middle Iranian language. Language contact made it share some features of the Eastern Iranian language group, the influence of which is attested primarily in loanwords. Some traces of Eastern influence survive in Parthian loanwords in Armenian. Taxonomically, Parthian, an Indo-European language, belongs to the Northwestern Iranian language group while Middle Persian belongs to the Southwestern Iranian language group. Written Parthian The Parthian language was rendered using the Pahlavi writing system, which had two essential characteristics: First, its script derived from Aramaic, the script (and language) of the Achaemenid chancellery (i.e. Imperial Aramaic). Second, it had a high incidence of Aramaic words, rendered as ideograms or logograms, that is, they were written Aramaic words but understood as Parthian ones (See Arsacid Pahlavi for details).
The Parthian language was the language of the old Satrapy of Parthia and was used in the Arsacids courts. The main sources for Parthian are the few remaining inscriptions from Nisa and Hecatompylos, Manichaean texts, Sasanian multi-lingual inscriptions, and remains of Parthian literature in the succeeding Middle Persian. Among these, the Manichaean texts, composed shortly after the demise of the Parthian power, play an important role for reconstructing the Parthian language. These Manichaean manuscripts contain no ideograms. Attestations Attestations of the Parthian language include: Some 3,000 ostraca (ca. 100-29 BCE) found in Nisā in southern Turkmenistan. A first century AD parchment dealing with a land-sale from Awraman in south-west Iran.
The first century BC ostraca from Shahr-e Qumis in Eastern Iran. The poem Draxt i Asurig Inscription of on the coins of Arsacid Kings in the first century AD. The bilingual inscription of Seleucia on the Tigris (150-151 AD). The inscription of Ardavan V found in Susa (215). Some third century documents discovered in Dura-Europos, On the Euphrates. The inscription at Kal-e Jangal, near Birjand in South Khorasan (first half of third century). The inscriptions of early Sassanian Kings and priests in Parthian including Ka'ba-ye Zartosht near Shiraz and Paikuli in Iraqi Kurdistan. The vast corpus of Manichaean Parthian which do not contain any ideograms.
In North Pakistan, Indo-Parthian culture in Taxila with Gondophares 20 BC–10 BC and Abdagases, Bajaur, Bajaur, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and down in to Sistan, Balochistan. Samples This sample of Parthian literature is taken from a Manichaean text fragment: Differences from Middle Persian Although Parthian was quite similar to Middle Persian in many aspects, we can still observe clear differences in lexical, morphological and phonological forms. In the text above, the following forms can be noticed: ⟨āγad⟩, came, instead of Middle Persian ⟨āyad⟩. ⟨wāxt⟩, said, instead of ⟨gōft⟩. This form for the verb to say can still be found in many contemporary Northwestern Iranian languages, e.g.
Mazandarani ⟨vātεn⟩ or Zazaki ⟨vatış; vaten⟩. It is also common in Tati and Talysh, though not in Gilaki, Kurmanji or Sorani. ⟨až⟩, from, instead of ⟨az⟩. Observe also in ⟨kanīžag⟩, handmaiden, instead of ⟨kanīzag⟩ and even in ⟨društ⟩, healthy, instead of ⟨drust⟩. The rendering of the Persian sound /z/ as /ʒ/, /tʃ / or /dʒ/ is also very common in Northwestern Iranian languages of today. ⟨ay⟩, you are (Singular), instead of ⟨hē⟩. ⟨zamīg⟩, land, instead of ⟨zamīn⟩. The form ⟨zamīg⟩ can be found in Balochi. The form ⟨zamin⟩ can be found in Persian. ⟨hō⟩, that or the, instead of ⟨(h)ān⟩.
The abstractive nominal suffix ⟨-īft⟩ instead of ⟨-īh⟩, as in ⟨šādīft⟩, joy, Middle Persian ⟨šādīh⟩. Other prominent differences, not found in the text above, include the personal pronoun ⟨az⟩, I, instead of ⟨an⟩ and the present tense root of the verb ⟨kardan⟩, to do, ⟨kar-⟩ instead of Middle Persian ⟨kun-⟩. Also, the Middle Persian linking particle and relative pronoun ⟨ī(g)⟩ was not present in Parthian, but the relative pronoun ⟨čē⟩, what, was used in a similar manner. Extinction In 224 AD, Ardashir I, the local ruler of Pars, deposed and replaced Artabanus IV, the last Parthian Emperor, and founded the fourth Iranian dynasty, and the second Persian dynasty, the Sassanian Empire.
Parthian was then succeeded by Middle Persian, which when written is known as Sasanian Pahlavi. Parthian did not die out immediately, but remains attested in a few bi-lingual inscriptions from the Sasanian era. See also Avestan language Old Persian language Middle Persian Persian language and history of Persian language Pahlavi literature Iranian languages vocabulary comparison table References Notes Sources External links Some valuable texts in Parthian including Boyce, Mary The Manichaean hymn-cycles in Parthian (London Oriental Series, Vol. 3). London: Oxford University Press, 1954. [ARMENIA AND IRAN iv. Iranian influences in Armenian Language Covers the massive lexical and vocabulary influences of Parthian on Armenian, (R. Schmitt, H. W. Bailey), originally published 1986.]
Category:Northwestern Iranian languages Category:Languages attested from the 1st century BC Language Category:Extinct languages of Asia Category:Armenian language
Cuneiform, or Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform, was one of the earliest systems of writing, invented by Sumerians in ancient Mesopotamia. It is distinguished by its wedge-shaped marks on clay tablets, made by means of a blunt reed for a stylus. The term cuneiform comes from cuneus, Latin for "wedge". Emerging in Sumer in the late fourth millennium BC (the Uruk IV period) to convey the Sumerian language, which was a language isolate, cuneiform writing began as a system of pictograms, stemming from an earlier system of shaped tokens used for accounting. In the third millennium, the pictorial representations became simplified and more abstract as the number of characters in use grew smaller (Hittite cuneiform).
The system consists of a combination of logophonetic, consonantal alphabetic, and syllabic signs. The original Sumerian script was adapted for the writing of the Semitic Akkadian (Assyrian/Babylonian), Eblaite and Amorite languages, the language isolates Elamite, Hattic, Hurrian and Urartian, as well as Indo-European languages Hittite and Luwian; it inspired the later Semitic Ugaritic alphabet as well as Old Persian cuneiform. Cuneiform writing was gradually replaced by the Phoenician alphabet during the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–612 BC). By the second century AD, the script had become extinct, its last traces being found in Assyria and Babylonia, and all knowledge of how to read it was lost until it began to be deciphered in the 19th century.
Geoffrey Sampson stated that Egyptian hieroglyphs "came into existence a little after Sumerian script, and, probably, [were] invented under the influence of the latter", and that it is "probable that the general idea of expressing words of a language in writing was brought to Egypt from Sumerian Mesopotamia". There are many instances of Egypt-Mesopotamia relations at the time of the invention of writing, and standard reconstructions of the development of writing generally place the development of the Sumerian proto-cuneiform script before the development of Egyptian hieroglyphs, with the suggestion the former influenced the latter. Between half a million and two million cuneiform tablets are estimated to have been excavated in modern times, of which only approximately 30,000–100,000 have been read or published.
The British Museum holds the largest collection ( 130,000), followed by the Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin, the Louvre, the Istanbul Archaeology Museums, the National Museum of Iraq, the Yale Babylonian Collection ( 40,000), and Penn Museum. Most of these have "lain in these collections for a century without being translated, studied or published", as there are only a few hundred qualified cuneiformists in the world. History The origins of writing appear during the start at of the pottery-phase of the Neolithic, when clay tokens were used to record specific amounts of livestock or commodities. These tokens were initially impressed on the surface of round clay envelopes and then stored in them.
The tokens were then progressively replaced by flat tablets, on which signs were recorded with a stylus. Actual writing is first recorded in Uruk, at the end of the 4th millennium BC, and soon after in various parts of the Near-East. An ancient Mesopotamian poem gives the first known story of the invention of writing: The cuneiform writing system was in use for more than three millennia, through several stages of development, from the 31st century BC down to the second century AD. Ultimately, it was completely replaced by alphabetic writing (in the general sense) in the course of the Roman era, and there are no cuneiform systems in current use.
It had to be deciphered as a completely unknown writing system in 19th-century Assyriology. Successful completion of its deciphering is dated to 1857. Pictographic and proto-cuneiform characters (circa 3500 BC) The cuneiform script was developed from pictographic proto-writing in the late 4th millennium BC, stemming from the near eastern token system used for accounting. These tokens were in use from the 9th millennium BC and remained in occasional use even late in the 2nd millennium BC. Early tokens with pictographic shapes of animals, associated with numbers, were discovered in Tell Brak, and date to the mid-4th millennium BC. It has been suggested that the token shapes were the original basis for some of the Sumerian pictographs.
Mesopotamia's "proto-literate" period spans roughly the 35th to 32nd centuries BC. The first unequivocal written documents start with the Uruk IV period, from circa 3,300 BC, followed by tablets found in Uruk III, Jemdet Nasr and Susa (in Proto-Elamite) dating to the period until circa 2,900 BC. Originally, pictographs were either drawn on clay tablets in vertical columns with a sharpened reed stylus or incised in stone. This early style lacked the characteristic wedge shape of the strokes. Certain signs to indicate names of gods, countries, cities, vessels, birds, trees, etc., are known as determinatives and were the Sumerian signs of the terms in question, added as a guide for the reader.
Proper names continued to be usually written in purely "logographic" fashion. Archaic cuneiform (circa 3000 BC) The first inscribed tablets were purely pictographic, which makes it technically impossible to know in which language they were written, but later tablets after circa 2,900 BC start to use syllabic elements, which clearly show a language structure typical of the non-Indo-European agglutinative Sumerian language. The first tablets using syllabic elements date to the Early Dynastic I-II, circa 2,800 BC, and they are clearly in Sumerian. This is the time when some pictographic element started to be used for their phonetical value, permitting the recording of abstract ideas or personal names.
Many pictographs began to lose their original function, and a given sign could have various meanings depending on context. The sign inventory was reduced from some 1,500 signs to some 600 signs, and writing became increasingly phonological. Determinative signs were re-introduced to avoid ambiguity. Cuneiform writing proper thus arises from the more primitive system of pictographs at about that time (Early Bronze Age II). The earliest known Sumerian king, whose name appears on contemporary cuneiform tablets, is Enmebaragesi of Kish (fl. c. 2600 BC). Surviving records only very gradually become less fragmentary and more complete for the following reigns, but by the end of the pre-Sargonic period, it had become standard practice for each major city-state to date documents by year-names commemorating the exploits of its lugal (king).
Early Dynastic cuneiform (circa 2500 BC) See also: Alphabetical list of all Unicode cuneiform signs Early cuneiform inscription used simple linear inscriptions, made by using a pointed stylus, sometimes called "linear cuneiform", before the introduction of new wedge-type styluses with their typical wedge-shaped signs. Many of the early dynastic inscriptions, particularly those made on stone continued to use the linear style as late as circa 2000 BCE. In the mid-3rd millennium BC, a new wedge-tipped stylus was introduced which was pushed into the clay, producing wedge-shaped ("cuneiform") signs; the development made writing quicker and easier, especially when writing on soft clay.
By adjusting the relative position of the stylus to the tablet, the writer could use a single tool to make a variety of impressions. For numbers, a round-tipped stylus was initially used, until the wedge-tipped stylus was generalized. The direction of writing remained to be from top-to-bottom and right-to-left, until the mid-2nd millennium BC. Cuneiform clay tablets could be fired in kilns to bake them hard, and so provide a permanent record, or they could be left moist and recycled if permanence was not needed. Many of the clay tablets found by archaeologists have been preserved by chance, baked when attacking armies burned the buildings in which they were kept.
The script was also widely used on commemorative stelae and carved reliefs to record the achievements of the ruler in whose honor the monument had been erected. The spoken language included many homophones and near-homophones, and in the beginning, similar-sounding words such as "life" [til] and "arrow" [ti] were written with the same symbol. After the Semites conquered Southern Mesopotamia, some signs gradually changed from being pictograms to syllabograms, most likely to make things clearer in writing. In that way, the sign for the word "arrow" would become the sign for the sound "ti". Words that sounded alike would have different signs; for instance, the syllable "gu" had fourteen different symbols.
When the words had a similar meaning but very different sounds they were written with the same symbol. For instance "tooth" [zu], "mouth" [ka] and "voice" [gu] were all written with the symbol for "voice". To be more accurate, scribes started adding to signs or combining two signs to define the meaning. They used either geometrical patterns or another cuneiform sign. As time went by, the cuneiform got very complex and the distinction between a pictogram and syllabogram became vague. Several symbols had too many meanings to permit clarity. Therefore, symbols were put together to indicate both the sound and the meaning of a compound.
The word "Raven" [UGA] had the same logogram as the word "soap" [NAGA], the name of a city [EREŠ], and the patron goddess of Eresh [NISABA]. Two phonetic complements were used to define the word [u] in front of the symbol and [gu] behind. Finally, the symbol for "bird" [MUŠEN] was added to ensure proper interpretation. For unknown reasons, cuneiform pictographs, until then written vertically, were rotated 90° to the left, in effect putting them on their side. This change first occurred slightly before the Akkadian period, at the time of the Uruk ruler Lugalzagesi (r.c. 2294 - 2270 BC).
The vertical style remained for monumental purposes on stone stellas until the middle of the 2nd millennium. Written Sumerian was used as a scribal language until the first century AD. The spoken language died out around the 18th century BC. Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform The archaic cuneiform script was adopted by the Akkadian Empire from the 23rd century BC (short chronology). The Akkadian language being Semitic, its structure was completely different from Sumerian. There was no way to use the Sumerian writing system as such, and the Akkadians found a practical solution in writing their language phonetically, using the corresponding Sumerian phonetic signs.
Still, some of the Sumerian characters were retained for their pictorial value as well: for example the character for "sheep" was retained, but was now pronounced immerū, rather then the Sumerian "udu-meš". The Semitic languages employed equivalents for many signs that were distorted or abbreviated to represent new values because the syllabic nature of the script as refined by the Sumerians was not intuitive to Semitic speakers. From the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age (20th century BC), the script evolved to accommodate the various dialects of Akkadian: Old Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian. In particular, the Old Assyrian cuneiform employed many modifications to Sumerian orthography.
At this stage, the former pictograms were reduced to a high level of abstraction, and were composed of only five basic wedge shapes: horizontal, vertical, two diagonals and the Winkelhaken impressed vertically by the tip of the stylus. The signs exemplary of these basic wedges are: AŠ (B001, U+12038) : horizontal; DIŠ (B748, U+12079) : vertical; GE23, DIŠ tenû (B575, U+12039) : downward diagonal; GE22 (B647, U+1203A) : upward diagonal; U (B661, U+1230B) : the Winkelhaken. Except for the Winkelhaken which has no tail, the length of the wedges' tails could vary as required for sign composition. Signs tilted by about 45 degrees are called tenû in Akkadian, thus DIŠ is a vertical wedge and DIŠ tenû a diagonal one.
If a sign is modified with additional wedges, this is called gunû or "gunification"; if signs are cross-hatched with additional Winkelhaken, they are called šešig; if signs are modified by the removal of a wedge or wedges, they are called nutillu. "Typical" signs have about five to ten wedges, while complex ligatures can consist of twenty or more (although it is not always clear if a ligature should be considered a single sign or two collated, but distinct signs); the ligature KAxGUR7 consists of 31 strokes. Most later adaptations of Sumerian cuneiform preserved at least some aspects of the Sumerian script.
Written Akkadian included phonetic symbols from the Sumerian syllabary, together with logograms that were read as whole words. Many signs in the script were polyvalent, having both a syllabic and logographic meaning. The complexity of the system bears a resemblance to Old Japanese, written in a Chinese-derived script, where some of these Sinograms were used as logograms and others as phonetic characters. Assyrian cuneiform This "mixed" method of writing continued through the end of the Babylonian and Assyrian empires, although there were periods when "purism" was in fashion and there was a more marked tendency to spell out the words laboriously, in preference to using signs with a phonetic complement.
Yet even in those days, the Babylonian syllabary remained a mixture of logographic and phonemic writing. Hittite cuneiform is an adaptation of the Old Assyrian cuneiform of c. 1800 BC to the Hittite language. When the cuneiform script was adapted to writing Hittite, a layer of Akkadian logographic spellings was added to the script, thus the pronunciations of many Hittite words which were conventionally written by logograms are now unknown. In the Iron Age (c. 10th to 6th centuries BC), Assyrian cuneiform was further simplified. From the 6th century, the Akkadian language was marginalized by Aramaic, written in the Aramaean alphabet, but Neo-Assyrian cuneiform remained in use in the literary tradition well into the times of the Parthian Empire (250 BC–226 AD).
The last known cuneiform inscription, an astronomical text, was written in 75 AD. The ability to read cuneiform may have persisted until the third century AD. Derived scripts Old Persian cuneiform (5th century BCE) The complexity of the system prompted the development of a number of simplified versions of the script. Old Persian was written in a subset of simplified cuneiform characters known today as Old Persian cuneiform, developed by Darius the Great in the 5th century BC. It formed a semi-alphabetic syllabary, using far fewer wedge strokes than Assyrian used, together with a handful of logograms for frequently occurring words like "god" (), "king" () or "country" ().
This almost purely alphabetical form of the cuneiform script (36 phonetic characters and 8 logograms), was specially designed and used by the early Achaemenid rulers from the 6th century BC. Ugaritic Ugaritic was written using the Ugaritic alphabet, a standard Semitic style alphabet (an abjad) written using the cuneiform method. Decipherment For centuries, travelers to Persepolis, located in Iran, had noticed carved cuneiform inscriptions and were intrigued. Attempts at deciphering these Old Persian writings date back to Arabo-Persian historians of the medieval Islamic world, though these early attempts at decipherment were largely unsuccessful. In the 15th century, the Venetian Giosafat Barbaro explored ancient ruins in the Middle East and came back with news of a very odd writing he had found carved on the stones in the temples of Shiraz and on many clay tablets.
Antonio de Gouvea, a professor of theology, noted in 1602 the strange writing he had had occasion to observe during his travels a year earlier in Persia which took in visits to ruins. In 1625, the Roman traveler Pietro Della Valle, who had sojourned in Mesopotamia between 1616 and 1621, brought to Europe copies of characters he had seen in Persepolis and inscribed bricks from Ur and the ruins of Babylon. The copies he made, the first that reached circulation within Europe, were not quite accurate but Della Valle understood that the writing had to be read from left to right, following the direction of wedges, but did not attempt to decipher the scripts.
Englishman Sir Thomas Herbert, in the 1638 edition of his travel book Some Yeares Travels into Africa & Asia the Great, reported seeing at Persepolis carved on the wall "a dozen lines of strange characters...consisting of figures, obelisk, triangular, and pyramidal" and thought they resembled Greek. In the 1677 edition he reproduced some and thought they were 'legible and intelligible' and therefore decipherable. He also guessed, correctly, that they represented not letters or hieroglyphics but words and syllables, and were to be read from left to right. Herbert is rarely mentioned in standard histories of the decipherment of cuneiform. Carsten Niebuhr brought the first reasonably complete and accurate copies of the inscriptions at Persepolis to Europe in 1767.
Bishop Friedrich Münter of Copenhagen discovered that the words in the Persian inscriptions were divided from one another by an oblique wedge and that the monuments must belong to the age of Cyrus and his successors. One word, which occurs without any variation towards the beginning of each inscription, he correctly inferred to signify "king". By 1802 Georg Friedrich Grotefend had determined that two kings' names mentioned were Darius and Xerxes (but in their native Old Persian forms, which were unknown at the time and therefore had to be conjectured), and had been able to assign correct alphabetic values to the cuneiform characters which composed the two names.
Although Grotefend's Memoir was presented to the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities on September 4, 1802, the Academy refused to publish it; it was subsequently published in Heeren's work in 1815, but was overlooked by most researchers at the time. In 1836, the eminent French scholar Eugène Burnouf discovered that the first of the inscriptions published by Niebuhr contained a list of the satrapies of Darius. With this clue in his hand, he identified and published an alphabet of thirty letters, most of which he had correctly deciphered. A month earlier, a friend and pupil of Burnouf's, Professor Christian Lassen of Bonn, had also published his own work on The Old Persian Cuneiform Inscriptions of Persepolis.
He and Burnouf had been in frequent correspondence, and his claim to have independently detected the names of the satrapies, and thereby to have fixed the values of the Persian characters, was consequently fiercely attacked. According to Sayce, whatever his obligations to Burnouf may have been, Lassen's Meanwhile, in 1835 Henry Rawlinson, a British East India Company army officer, visited the Behistun Inscriptions in Persia. Carved in the reign of King Darius of Persia (522–486 BC), they consisted of identical texts in the three official languages of the empire: Old Persian, Akkadian and Elamite. The Behistun inscription was to the decipherment of cuneiform what the Rosetta Stone was to the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs.
Rawlinson correctly deduced that the Old Persian was a phonetic script and he successfully deciphered it. In 1837, he finished his copy of the Behistun inscription, and sent a translation of its opening paragraphs to the Royal Asiatic Society. Before his article could be published, however, the works of Lassen and Burnouf reached him, necessitating a revision of his article and the postponement of its publication. Then came other causes of delay. In 1847, the first part of the Rawlinson's Memoir was published; the second part did not appear until 1849. The task of deciphering the Persian cuneiform texts was virtually accomplished.
After translating the Persian, Rawlinson and, working independently of him, the Irish Assyriologist Edward Hincks, began to decipher the others. (The actual techniques used to decipher the Akkadian language have never been fully published; Hincks described how he sought the proper names already legible in the deciphered Persian while Rawlinson never said anything at all, leading some to speculate that he was secretly copying Hincks.) They were greatly helped by the excavations of the French naturalist Paul Émile Botta and English traveler and diplomat Austen Henry Layard of the city of Nineveh from 1842. Among the treasures uncovered by Layard and his successor Hormuzd Rassam were, in 1849 and 1851, the remains of two libraries, now mixed up, usually called the Library of Ashurbanipal, a royal archive containing tens of thousands of baked clay tablets covered with cuneiform inscriptions.
By 1851, Hincks and Rawlinson could read 200 Babylonian signs. They were soon joined by two other decipherers: young German-born scholar Julius Oppert, and versatile British Orientalist William Henry Fox Talbot. In 1857, the four men met in London and took part in a famous experiment to test the accuracy of their decipherments. Edwin Norris, the secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society, gave each of them a copy of a recently discovered inscription from the reign of the Assyrian emperor Tiglath-Pileser I. A jury of experts was impaneled to examine the resulting translations and assess their accuracy. In all essential points, the translations produced by the four scholars were found to be in close agreement with one another.
There were, of course, some slight discrepancies. The inexperienced Talbot had made a number of mistakes, and Oppert's translation contained a few doubtful passages which the jury politely ascribed to his unfamiliarity with the English language. But Hincks' and Rawlinson's versions corresponded remarkably closely in many respects. The jury declared itself satisfied, and the decipherment of Akkadian cuneiform was adjudged a fait accompli. Proper names In the early days of cuneiform decipherment, the reading of proper names presented the greatest difficulties. However, there is now a better understanding of the principles behind the formation and the pronunciation of the thousands of names found in historical records, business documents, votive inscriptions, literary productions, and legal documents.
The primary challenge was posed by the characteristic use of old Sumerian non-phonetic logograms in other languages that had different pronunciations for the same symbols. Until the exact phonetic reading of many names was determined through parallel passages or explanatory lists, scholars remained in doubt or had recourse to conjectural or provisional readings. However, in many cases, there are variant readings, the same name being written phonetically (in whole or in part) in one instance and logographically in another. Transliteration Cuneiform has a specific format for transliteration. Because of the script's polyvalence, transliteration requires certain choices of the transliterating scholar, who must decide in the case of each sign which of its several possible meanings is intended in the original document.
For example, the sign DINGIR in a Hittite text may represent either the Hittite syllable an or may be part of an Akkadian phrase, representing the syllable il, it may be a Sumerogram, representing the original Sumerian meaning, 'god' or the determinative for a deity. In transliteration, a different rendition of the same glyph is chosen depending on its role in the present context. Therefore, a text containing DINGIR and MU in succession could be construed to represent the words "ana", "ila", god + "a" (the accusative case ending), god + water, or a divine name "A" or Water. Someone transcribing the signs would make the decision how the signs should be read and assemble the signs as "ana", "ila", "Ila" ("god"+accusative case), etc.
A transliteration of these signs, however, would separate the signs with dashes "il-a", "an-a", "DINGIR-a" or "Da". This is still easier to read than the original cuneiform, but now the reader is able to trace the sounds back to the original signs and determine if the correct decision was made on how to read them. A transliterated document thus presents the reading preferred by the transliterating scholar as well as an opportunity to reconstruct the original text. There are differing conventions for transliterating Sumerian, Akkadian (Babylonian), and Hittite (and Luwian) cuneiform texts. One convention that sees wide use across the different fields is the use of acute and grave accents as an abbreviation for homophone disambiguation.
Thus, u is equivalent to u1, the first glyph expressing phonetic u. An acute accent, ú, is equivalent to the second, u2, and a grave accent ù to the third, u3 glyph in the series (while the sequence of numbering is conventional but essentially arbitrary and subject to the history of decipherment). In Sumerian transliteration, a multiplication sign 'x' is used to indicate typographic ligatures. As shown above, signs as such are represented in capital letters, while the specific reading selected in the transliteration is represented in small letters. Thus, capital letters can be used to indicate a so-called Diri compound – a sign sequence that has, in combination, a reading different from the sum of the individual constituent signs (for example, the compound IGI.A – "eye" + "water" – has the reading imhur, meaning "foam").
In a Diri compound, the individual signs are separated with dots in transliteration. Capital letters may also be used to indicate a Sumerogram (for example, KÙ.BABBAR – Sumerian for "silver" – being used with the intended Akkadian reading kaspum, "silver"), an Akkadogram, or simply a sign sequence of whose reading the editor is uncertain. Naturally, the "real" reading, if it is clear, will be presented in small letters in the transliteration: IGI.A will be rendered as imhur4. Since the Sumerian language has only been widely known and studied by scholars for approximately a century, changes in the accepted reading of Sumerian names have occurred from time to time.
Thus the name of a king of Ur, read Ur-Bau at one time, was later read as Ur-Engur, and is now read as Ur-Nammu or Ur-Namma; for Lugal-zage-si, a king of Uruk, some scholars continued to read Ungal-zaggisi; and so forth. Also, with some names of the older period, there was often uncertainty whether their bearers were Sumerians or Semites. If the former, then their names could be assumed to be read as Sumerian, while, if they were Semites, the signs for writing their names were probably to be read according to their Semitic equivalents, though occasionally Semites might be encountered bearing genuine Sumerian names.
There was also doubt whether the signs composing a Semite's name represented a phonetic reading or a logographic compound. Thus, e.g. when inscriptions of a Semitic ruler of Kish, whose name was written Uru-mu-ush, were first deciphered, that name was first taken to be logographic because uru mu-ush could be read as "he founded a city" in Sumerian, and scholars accordingly retranslated it back to the original Semitic as Alu-usharshid. It was later recognized that the URU sign can also be read as rí and that the name is that of the Akkadian king Rimush. Syllabary The tables below show signs used for simple syllables of the form CV or VC.
As used for the Sumerian language, the cuneiform script was in principle capable of distinguishing at least 16 consonants, transliterated as b, d, g, g̃, ḫ, k, l, m, n, p, r, ř, s, š, t, z as well as four vowel qualities, a, e, i, u. The Akkadian language had no use for g̃ or ř but needed to distinguish its emphatic series, q, ṣ, ṭ, adopting various "superfluous" Sumerian signs for the purpose (e.g. qe=KIN, qu=KUM, qi=KIN, ṣa=ZA, ṣe=ZÍ, ṭur=DUR etc.) Hittite, as it adopted the Akkadian cuneiform, further introduced signs such as wi5=GEŠTIN. Sign inventories The Sumerian cuneiform script had on the order of 1,000 distinct signs (or about 1,500 if variants are included).
This number was reduced to about 600 by the 24th century BC and the beginning of Akkadian records. Not all Sumerian signs are used in Akkadian texts, and not all Akkadian signs are used in Hittite. A. Falkenstein (1936) lists 939 signs used in the earliest period (late Uruk, 34th to 31st centuries). (See #Bibliography for the works mentioned in this paragraph.) With an emphasis on Sumerian forms, Deimel (1922) lists 870 signs used in the Early Dynastic II period (28th century, Liste der archaischen Keilschriftzeichen or "LAK") and for the Early Dynastic IIIa period (26th century, Šumerisches Lexikon or "ŠL").
Rosengarten (1967) lists 468 signs used in Sumerian (pre-Sargonian) Lagash, and Mittermayer and Attinger (2006, Altbabylonische Zeichenliste der Sumerisch-Literarischen Texte or "aBZL") list 480 Sumerian forms, written in Isin-Larsa and Old Babylonian times. Regarding Akkadian forms, the standard handbook for many years was Borger (1981, Assyrisch-Babylonische Zeichenliste or "ABZ") with 598 signs used in Assyrian/Babylonian writing, recently superseded by Borger (2004, Mesopotamisches Zeichenlexikon or "MesZL") with an expansion to 907 signs, an extension of their Sumerian readings and a new numbering scheme. Signs used in Hittite cuneiform are listed by Forrer (1922), Friedrich (1960) and Rüster and Neu (1989, Hethitisches Zeichenlexikon or "HZL").
The HZL lists a total of 375 signs, many with variants (for example, 12 variants are given for number 123 EGIR). Numerals The Sumerians used a numerical system based on 1, 10, and 60. The way of writing a number like 70 would be the sign for 60 and the sign for 10 right after. Usage Cuneiform script was used in many ways in ancient Mesopotamia. It was used to record laws, like the Code of Hammurabi. It was also used for recording maps, compiling medical manuals, and documenting religious stories and beliefs, among other uses. Studies by Assyriologists like Claus Wilcke and Dominique Charpin suggest that cuneiform literacy was not reserved solely for the elite but was common for average citizens.
According to the Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture, cuneiform script was used at a variety of literacy levels: average citizens needed only a basic, functional knowledge of cuneiform script to write personal letters and business documents. More highly literate citizens put the script to more technical use, listing medicines and diagnoses and writing mathematical equations. Scholars held the highest literacy level of cuneiform and mostly focused on writing as a complex skill and an art form. Unicode As of version 8.0, the following ranges are assigned to the Sumero-Akkadian Cuneiform script in the Unicode Standard: U+12000–U+123FF (922 assigned characters) "Cuneiform" U+12400–U+1247F (116 assigned characters) "Cuneiform Numbers and Punctuation" U+12480–U+1254F (196 assigned characters) "Early Dynastic Cuneiform" The final proposal for Unicode encoding of the script was submitted by two cuneiform scholars working with an experienced Unicode proposal writer in June 2004.
The base character inventory is derived from the list of Ur III signs compiled by the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative of UCLA based on the inventories of Miguel Civil, Rykle Borger (2003) and Robert Englund. Rather than opting for a direct ordering by glyph shape and complexity, according to the numbering of an existing catalog, the Unicode order of glyphs was based on the Latin alphabetic order of their "last" Sumerian transliteration as a practical approximation. List of major cuneiform tablet discoveries See also Babylonokia: a 21st-century cuneiform artwork Elamite cuneiform Hittite cuneiform Journal of Cuneiform Studies List of cuneiform signs List of museums of ancient Near Eastern art Old Persian cuneiform Ugaritic alphabet Urartian cuneiform Notes References Bibliography Adkins, Lesley, Empires of the Plain: Henry Rawlinson and the Lost Languages of Babylon, New York, St. Martin's Press (2003) R. Borger, Assyrisch-Babylonische Zeichenliste, 2nd ed., Neukirchen-Vluyn (1981) Burnouf, E. (1836).
"Mémoire sur deux Inscriptions Cunéiformes trouvées près d'Hamadan et qui font partie des papiers du Dr Schulz", [Memoir on two cuneiform inscriptions [that were] found near Hamadan and that form part of the papers of Dr. Schulz], Imprimerie Royale, Paris. Cammarosano, M. (2017–2018) "Cuneiform Writing Techniques", cuneiform.neocities.org (with further bibliography) A. Deimel (1922), Liste der archaischen Keilschriftzeichen ("LAK"), WVDOG 40, Berlin. A. Deimel (1925–1950), Šumerisches Lexikon, Pontificum Institutum Biblicum. F. Ellermeier, M. Studt, Sumerisches Glossar vol. 1: 1979–1980, , vol. 3.2: 1998–2005, A-B , D-E , G vol. 3.3: (font CD ) vol. 3.5: vol 3.6: 2003, Handbuch Assur A. Falkenstein, Archaische Texte aus Uruk, Berlin-Leipzig (1936) Charpin, Dominique.
2004. 'Lire et écrire en Mésopotamie: une affaire dé spécialistes?’ Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres: 481–501. E. Forrer, Die Keilschrift von Boghazköi, Leipzig (1922) J. Friedrich, Hethitisches Keilschrift-Lesebuch, Heidelberg (1960) Jean-Jacques Glassner, The Invention of Cuneiform, English translation, Johns Hopkins University Press (2003), . Heeren (1815) "Ideen über die Politik, den Verkehr und den Handel der vornehmsten Volker der alten Welt", vol. i. pp. 563 seq., translated into English in 1833. René Labat, Manuel d'epigraphie Akkadienne, Geuthner, Paris (1959); 6th ed., extended by Florence Malbran-Labat (1999), . Lassen, Christian (1836) Die Altpersischen Keil-Inschriften von Persepolis. Entzifferung des Alphabets und Erklärung des Inhalts.
[The Old-Persian cuneiform inscriptions of Persepolis. Decipherment of the alphabet and explanation of its content.] Eduard Weber, Bonn, (Germany). Moorey, P.R.S. (1992). A Century of Biblical Archaeology. Westminster Knox Press. . O. Neugebauer, A. Sachs (eds. ), Mathematical Cuneiform Texts, New Haven (1945). Patri, Sylvain (2009). "La perception des consonnes hittites dans les langues étrangères au XIIIe siècle." Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie 99(1): 87–126. . Prichard, James Cowles (1844). "Researches Into the Physical History of Mankind", 3rd ed., vol IV, Sherwood, Gilbert and Piper, London. Rawlinson, Henry (1847) "The Persian Cuneiform Inscription at Behistun, decyphered and translated; with a Memoir on Persian Cuneiform Inscriptions in general, and on that of Behistun in Particular," The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, vol.
X. . Y. Rosengarten, Répertoire commenté des signes présargoniques sumériens de Lagash, Paris (1967) Chr. Rüster, E. Neu, Hethitisches Zeichenlexikon (HZL), Wiesbaden (1989) Sayce, Rev. A. H. (1908). "The Archaeology of the Cuneiform Inscriptions", Second Edition-revised, 1908, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, Brighton, New York; at pp 9–16 Not in copyright Nikolaus Schneider, Die Keilschriftzeichen der Wirtschaftsurkunden von Ur III nebst ihren charakteristischsten Schreibvarianten, Keilschrift-Paläographie; Heft 2, Rom: Päpstliches Bibelinstitut (1935). Wilcke, Claus. 2000. Wer las und schrieb in Babylonien und Assyrien. Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Philosophisch-historische Klasse. 2000/6. München: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Wolfgang Schramm, Akkadische Logogramme, Goettinger Arbeitshefte zur Altorientalischen Literatur (GAAL) Heft 4, Goettingen (2003), .
F. Thureau-Dangin, Recherches sur l'origine de l'écriture cunéiforme, Paris (1898). Ronald Herbert Sack, Cuneiform Documents from the Chaldean and Persian Periods, (1994) Category:Sumerian language Category:Akkadian language Category:Elamite language Category:Obsolete writing systems Category:Hittite language Category:Hurro-Urartian languages Category:Luwian language Category:Old Persian language Category:Ugaritic language and literature Category:4th-millennium BC establishments Category:1st-century disestablishments
In abstract algebra, a field extension L/K is called algebraic if every element of L is algebraic over K, i.e. if every element of L is a root of some non-zero polynomial with coefficients in K. Field extensions that are not algebraic, i.e. which contain transcendental elements, are called transcendental. For example, the field extension R/Q, that is the field of real numbers as an extension of the field of rational numbers, is transcendental, while the field extensions C/R and Q()/Q are algebraic, where C is the field of complex numbers. All transcendental extensions are of infinite degree. This in turn implies that all finite extensions are algebraic.
The converse is not true however: there are infinite extensions which are algebraic. For instance, the field of all algebraic numbers is an infinite algebraic extension of the rational numbers. If a is algebraic over K, then K[a], the set of all polynomials in a with coefficients in K, is not only a ring but a field: an algebraic extension of K which has finite degree over K. The converse is true as well, if K[a] is a field, then a is algebraic over K. In the special case where K = Q is the field of rational numbers, Q[a] is an example of an algebraic number field.
A field with no proper algebraic extensions is called algebraically closed. An example is the field of complex numbers. Every field has an algebraic extension which is algebraically closed (called its algebraic closure), but proving this in general requires some form of the axiom of choice. An extension L/K is algebraic if and only if every sub K-algebra of L is a field.
Properties The class of algebraic extensions forms a distinguished class of field extensions, that is, the following three properties hold: If E is an algebraic extension of F and F is an algebraic extension of K then E is an algebraic extension of K. If E and F are algebraic extensions of K in a common overfield C, then the compositum EF is an algebraic extension of K. If E is an algebraic extension of F and E>K>F then E is an algebraic extension of K. These finitary results can be generalized using transfinite induction: This fact, together with Zorn's lemma (applied to an appropriately chosen poset), establishes the existence of algebraic closures.
Generalizations Model theory generalizes the notion of algebraic extension to arbitrary theories: an embedding of M into N is called an algebraic extension if for every x in N there is a formula p with parameters in M, such that p(x) is true and the set is finite. It turns out that applying this definition to the theory of fields gives the usual definition of algebraic extension. The Galois group of N over M can again be defined as the group of automorphisms, and it turns out that most of the theory of Galois groups can be developed for the general case.
See also Integral element Lüroth's theorem Galois extension Separable extension Normal extension Notes References Category:Field extensions
Intermittent hypoxia (also known as episodic hypoxia) is an intervention in which a person or animal undergoes alternating periods of normoxia and hypoxia. Normoxia is defined as exposure to oxygen levels normally found in earth's atmosphere (~21% O2) and hypoxia as any oxygen levels lower than those of normoxia. Normally, exposure to hypoxia is negatively associated to physiological changes to the body, such as altitude sickness. However, when used in moderation, intermittent hypoxia may be used clinically as a means to alleviate various pathological conditions. General Mechanisms When used as a rehabilitative intervention, particularly for respiration and walking, intermittent hypoxia typically works by using long-term facilitation (LTF).
LTF, which is synonymous to long-term potentiation, occurs when there are long-term increases in synaptic strength due to synaptic plasticity. In the case of intermittent hypoxia, these increases in synaptic strength result in increased motor output. Reduced partial pressures of oxygen in the arteries due to intermittent hypoxia are sensed by and stimulate the carotid body, a chemoafferent receptor. The activated carotid body triggers the release of serotonin that attach to serotonin receptors on the surface of motoneurons, such as the phrenic motoneuron in the case of respiratory recovery. This signal transduction pathway then uses downstream molecules such as TrkB, BDNF, and PKA to increase the synaptic output of the involved motor neuron which in turn increases the motor output of the involved muscles and, thus, decreases functional impairment.
As the amount of intermittent hypoxia changes the amount of serotonin release and, as a result, the amount of LTF, this process exhibits metaplasticity. Metaplasticity occurs when the LTF is itself plastic or variable. Intermittent hypoxia-induced LTF has also been demonstrated in carotid denervated rats, suggesting that synaptic plasticity due to intermittent hypoxia also works through other mechanisms outside of carotid chemoafferents. Aside from this, intermittent hypoxia also alters overall nitric oxide production, concentration, and gene expression, which occurs due to cardiovascular adaptations to hypoxia. This mechanism is relevant when used as a means to decrease hypertension or increase bone mineral density Dosage An understanding of proper dosage is needed in order to design an effective intermittent hypoxia protocol, particularly due to the comorbidities associated with hypoxia.
For example, intermittent hypoxia has been shown to induce LTF in rats while continuous hypoxia does not. And acute IH shows no evidence of the hippocampal cell death found in rats while chronic intermittent hypoxia exposure does Though intermittent hypoxia has been used for various therapeutic applications across a number of physiological system, there is a general consensus in what can be considered a safe and beneficial amount of intermittent hypoxia. Such a protocol would involve a fraction of inspired oxygen (FiO2) ranging between 0.09 – 0.16 with 3 – 15 episodes per day with comorbidities found in the range of a FiO2 of 0.03 – 0.08 and 48 – 2400 episodes per day.
Pathological and beneficial effects Therapeutic applications Though intermittent hypoxia is initially involved with only the respiratory system, its downstream effects allow it to also be used as an effective rehabilitative intervention in a number of different biological systems in both animals and humans. LTF For the respiratory system, the LTF facilitated by intermittent hypoxia aids in increasing phrenic motor nerve output. This has been shown to help people with obstructive sleep apnea and COPD. The ability to increase muscle activity, specifically for walking, has also been demonstrated in both rats and humans after spinal cord injury. Hippocampal neurogenesis Hippocampal neurogenesis has also been demonstrated in rats subjected to intermittent hypoxia.
This neurogenesis has shown related cognitive improvements such as enhanced learning and memory as well as overall increases in spatial cognitive ability. Additionally, antidepressant-like effects are exhibited in rats undergoing such treatment. Nitric oxide production Nitric oxide level changes due to intermittent hypoxia also provide potential benefits. People with hypertension have shown decreases in blood pressure. Increases in bone mineral density in rats has also been attributed to this process. Such changes to nitric oxide levels also aid in protection from myocardial ischemia and perfusion. See also Hypoxia (medical) Hypoxia (disambiguation) Intermittent hypoxic training References Category:Medical treatments
The crowned eagle, also known as the African crowned eagle or the crowned hawk-eagle (Stephanoaetus coronatus) is a large bird of prey found in sub-Saharan Africa; in Southern Africa it is restricted to eastern areas. Its preferred habitats are principally riparian woodlands and various forests. The crowned eagle is the only extant member of the genus Stephanoaetus. A second species, the Malagasy crowned eagle (Stephanoaetus mahery) became extinct after humans settled on Madagascar. At least 90 per cent of the diet is mammalian; the usual prey taken by populations shows pronounced regional differences. Throughout its range the principal prey items are small ungulates (such as duikers, chevrotains), rock hyrax and small primates such as monkeys.
Birds and large lizards are barely taken. Although the crowned eagle's long tail imparts an overall length up to , it is somewhat less massive and has a considerably shorter wingspan than Africa's largest eagle, the martial eagle (Polemaetus bellicosus). It is nevertheless considered Africa's most powerful eagle when measured in terms of the weight of its prey items. It often preys on mammals such as bushbuck (Tragelaphus scriptus), exceptionally weighing up to albeit usually much less. The crowned eagle possesses unusually large talons and strong legs, and may kill by crushing the skull. The eagle is also ferocious; some records from beneath a nest show the remains of a large, male Sooty mangabey weighing .<ref name="McGraw, W. S. 2006">{{cite journal | last1 = McGraw |first1=W.
S. |last2=Cooke |first2=C. |last3=Shultz |first3=S. |last-author-amp=yes | year = 2006 | title = Primate remains from African crowned eagle (Stephanoaetus coronatus) nests in Ivory Coast's Tai Forest: implications for primate predation and early hominid taphonomy in South Africa | url = | journal = American Journal of Physical Anthropology | volume = 131 | issue = 2| pages = 151–165 | doi=10.1002/ajpa.20420|pmid=16596589 }}</ref> Due to their ecological similarities, the crowned eagle is Africa's best analogue of the harpy eagle (Harpia harpyja). Thanks to its bold and highly conspicuous behavior, it is exceptionally well-studied for a large, forest-dwelling eagle. Due to a relatively high level of habitat adaptability, it was until recently considered to be faring well by the standards of large, forest-dependent raptors.
However, today it is generally thought that it is decreasing far more than was previously perceived due to the almost epidemic destruction of native tropical African forest. It is now listed by the IUCN as Near Threatened. Taxonomy and systematics This species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in the 12th edition of Systema Naturae, published in 1766, as Falco coronatus. Since birds were grouped largely on superficial characteristics at that time, many unrelated species were grouped by Linnaeus in the genus Falco. The actual taxonomic alignment of the crowned eagle is apparent due to its feathering over its tarsus, which is generally rare in unrelated accipitrids.
The crowned eagle is actually part of the diverse "booted eagle" group, which has sometimes been considered a distinct subfamily (Aquilinae). Included in this grouping are the genus Aquila and all species described as "hawk eagles" including the genera Spizaetus and Nisaetus. Other assorted monotypical genera included amongst "booted eagles" are Lophaetus, Polemaetus, Lophotriorchis and Ictinaetus. At one time, the genus Stephanoaetus was considered a "specialized offshoot" of the Spizaetus hawk-eagles based on morphological attributes. DNA sequences utilizing one mitochondrial and three nuclear genes indicated the crowned eagle is a sister species to the Asian hawk-eagles, which are now considered a separate genus, Nisaetus, that are not closely related to the neotropical hawk-eagles, which are retained in Spizaetus.
However, another recent study, this time of sequences of two mitochondrial and one nuclear genes, did not reveal a close relationship of this eagle to any other accipitrid, including the Nisaetus species, and the genus was found to be genetically highly divergent from other "booted" eagles". In a case of convergent evolution, the much heavier harpy eagle, which is outside of the "booted eagle" group, has a similar skeletal morphology to the crowned eagle. Two less well-known, probably distantly related species, the mountain hawk-eagle (Nisaetus nipalensis) and the black-and-chestnut eagle (Spizaetus isidori), have also been found comparable to the crowned eagle.
While both are slimmer and smaller, these eagles are also large-bodied, strong-footed offshoots of the evolutionary radiation of forest-dwelling booted eagles, respectively distributed in East Asia and South America. The adult crowned eagle even has somewhat intermediate appearance between these birds, sharing the variable patterning of the mountain hawk-eagle and some of the colouring of the black-and-chestnut. Until possibly up to 1500, another crowned eagle species, the Malagasy crowned eagle (S. mahery) existed. Similar in size and form to the extant crowned eagle, the Malagasy crowned eagle probably filled a similar niche in Madagascar, but was likely to have preyed on lemurs in place of monkeys.
Apparently, the Malagasy crowned eagle became extinct due mainly to the loss of prey and habitat change, attributable to early humans on the island.Bustamante, J. S24. 3: Ecological factors affecting hunting behaviour during the post-fledging dependence period of raptors. To date, the living crowned eagle has no recognized subspecies. However, Simon Thomsett noted from field experience possible racial differences between crowned eagles in limited woodland habitats in East and South Africa (called by him the "bush eagles"), which have historically been the main populations studied, and those that live in denser West African rainforest, in the central part of the species distribution.
The latter population, he noted, appeared smaller but relatively larger footed, seemed chestier in build and appeared to have deeper eyebrows than the bush eagle; behaviorally the rainforest eagles seemed bolder and louder, which is reinforced in other accounts of the species. Description The crowned eagle is a very large eagle. Measuring from in length, it is the fifth longest extant eagle in the world. The female, at a weight of , is around 10–15% larger than the male, at a weight of . An average body mass of was given in one account. Elsewhere, an average of has been claimed.
Overall, they are the 9th heaviest living eagle species. The wingspan typically ranges from . The largest authenticated wingspan for a female was , with a claim of wingspans of up to needing confirmation. This eagle's wingspan is quite short for the bird's size, being around the same mean width as that of a tawny eagle (Aquila rapax) or a short-toed snake eagle (Circaetus gallicus), species that weigh about half as much as a crowned eagle. However, the somewhat boxy and rounded wings are quite broad, being broader than, for example, the much longer-winged golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos). The wing morphology of the species gives it maneuverability in its densely wooded environment.
The wing chord measures , with a median of in males and in females. While it, on average, is less heavy and has a smaller wingspan than the often sympatric martial eagle, its average total length exceeds that of the martial eagle thanks to its much longer tail. The crowned eagle's tail is from long, with a median of in males and in females. The bill is of a medium size relative to its body size, with one large museum specimen's bill measuring in length from the gape, in culmen length and in bill depth. The tarsus is of a modest length for a raptor of its size, at , and is clearly shorter than that of martial eagle.
However, the feet and legs are visibly thicker and heavier than those of the martial eagle and the talons are apparently quite massive in both length and width. While no comprehensive measurements of the talon size of wild crowned eagles are known, one female museum specimen reportedly had a hallux-claw (or hind claw, which is the largest talon on accipitrids) of , while another female was measured at 5 years of age, the age of sexual maturity, in the hallux-claw and an adult male measured . These figures put their talon size as around the same size as the largest golden eagles and close to those of a mid-sized harpy eagle.