Sir Simon William English is a New Zealand former politician who served as the 39th Prime Minister of New Zealand from 2016 to 2017. He was the leader of the National Party from 2001 to 2003 and 2016 to 2018 serving two terms as Leader of the Opposition. A farmer and public servant before entering politics, English was elected to the New Zealand Parliament in 1990 as the National Party's candidate in the Wallace electorate, he was elevated to Cabinet in 1996 and in 1999 was made Minister of Finance, although he served for less than a year due to his party's worst loss at the 1999 general election. In October 2001, English replaced Jenny Shipley as the leader of the National Party, he led the party to its worst defeat in the 2002 general election, as a consequence, in October 2003 he was replaced as leader by Don Brash. In November 2006, after Brash's resignation, English became deputy leader under John Key. After National's victory at the 2008 general election, he became Deputy Prime Minister and was made Minister for Finance for the second time.

Under English's direction New Zealand's economy maintained steady growth during National's three terms of government. He became a list-only MP after stepping down as an electorate MP at the 2014 general election. John Key resigned as leader of the National Party and prime minister in December 2016. English won the resulting leadership election unopposed and was sworn in as prime minister on 12 December 2016. In the 2017 general election, National fell short of a majority; the parties holding the balance of power declined to support the existing government, English was subsequently replaced as prime minister by Jacinda Ardern, leader of the Labour Party. English continued on as Leader of the Opposition, but resigned as leader of the National Party on 27 February 2018 and left parliament two weeks later. English is the eleventh of twelve children of Norah English, his parents purchased Rosedale, a mixed sheep and cropping farm in Dipton, Southland from Mervyn's uncle, Vincent English, a bachelor, in 1944.

English was born in the nearby town of Lumsden. English attended St Thomas's School in Winton boarded at St. Patrick's College in Upper Hutt, where he became head boy, he played in the first XV of the school's rugby team. English went on to study commerce at the University of Otago, where he was a resident at Selwyn College, completed an honours degree in English literature at Victoria University of Wellington. After finishing his studies, English farmed for a few years. From 1987 to 1989, he worked in Wellington as a policy analyst for the New Zealand Treasury, at a time when the free market policies favoured by Labour's finance minister Roger Douglas were being implemented. English joined the National Party in 1980, he served for a period as chairman of the Southland branch of the Young Nationals, became a member of the Wallace electorate committee. After moving to Wellington, he served for periods on the Island Bay and Miramar electorate committees, respectively. At the 1990 general election, English stood as the National candidate in Wallace, replacing the retiring Derek Angus, was elected with a large majority.

He and three other newly elected National MPs were soon identified as rising stars in New Zealand politics, at various points were dubbed the "brat pack", the "gang of four", the "Young Turks". In his first term in parliament, English chaired a select committee into social services, he was made a parliamentary under-secretary in 1993. In early 1996, English was elevated to cabinet by Prime Minister Jim Bolger, becoming the Minister for Crown Health Enterprises and Associate Minister of Education, he was 34 at the time. After the 1996 general election, the National Party was forced into a coalition with New Zealand First to retain government. In the resulting cabinet reshuffle, English emerged as Minister of Health. However, as a condition of the coalition agreement, NZ First's Neil Kirton was made Associate Minister of Health becoming English's deputy; this arrangement was described in the press as a "shotgun marriage", there were frequent differences of opinion between the two ministers. After their relationship became unworkable, Kirton was sacked from the role in August 1997, with the agreement of NZ First leader Winston Peters.

As Minister of Health, English was responsible for continuing the reforms to the public health system that National had begun after the 1990 general election. The reforms were unpopular, health was perceived as one of the government's weaknesses, with the health portfolio being viewed as a challenge. English believed that the unpopularity of the reforms was in part due to a failure in messaging, encouraged his National colleagues to avoid bureaucratic and money-focused language and instead talk about the improvements to services the government's reforms would bring, he rejected the idea that public hospitals could be run as commercial enterprises, a view which some of his colleagues had promoted. By early 1997, as dissatisfaction with Bolger's leadership began to grow, English was being touted as a potential successor, along with Jenny Shipley and Doug Graham, his age was viewed as the main impediment to a successful leadership run. National's leadership troubles were resolved in December 1997, when Bolger resigned and Shipley was elected to the leadership

Sphingosine kinase is a conserved lipid kinase that catalyzes formation sphingosine-1-phosphate from the precursor sphingolipid sphingosine. Sphingolipid metabolites, such as ceramide and sphingosine-1-phosphate, are lipid second messengers involved in diverse cellular processes. There are two forms of SphK, SphK1 and SphK2. SphK1 is found in the cytosol of eukaryotic cells, migrates to the plasma membrane upon activation. SphK2 is localized to the nucleus. S1P has been shown to regulate diverse cellular processes, it has been characterized as a lipid signaling molecule with dual function. On one hand, it exerts its actions extracellularly by binding to the five different S1P receptors that couple to a variety of G-proteins to regulate diverse biological functions, ranging from cell growth and survival to effector functions, such as proinflammatory mediator synthesis. On the other hand, it appears to act as an intracellular second messenger, although the relevant molecular target to which it binds within cells remains to be discovered.

The role of S1P in various functions of cells and tissues is established, including regulation of cell survival and motility and inflammatory responses. Sphingosine kinases types 1 and 2, the two enzymes identified so far in mammals that produce S1P by ATP-dependent phosphorylation of sphingosine, have therefore received considerable interest. Sphingolipids are ubiquitous membrane constituents of all eukaryotic cells. In general, the term sphingolipid refers to any of a number of lipids consisting of a head group attached to the 1-OH of ceramide. Ceramides consist of a sphingoid base referred to as a long-chain base, N-acylated. De novo synthesis of LCBs begins with the condensation of palmitoyl CoA with serine, forming 3-ketosphinganine; this product is reduced to sphinganine known as dihydrosphingosine. A 14– to 26-carbon fatty acid chain is added in an amide linkage with the 2-amino group, forming dihydroceramide. A head group, such as phosphocholine or a carbohydrate, can now be added to the 1-OH, forming a sphingolipid, although most sphingolipids of higher eukaryotes contain further modifications of the LCB.

During "100,000 Airplanes", a third season episode of The West Wing, sphingosine kinase is fictitiously described as "the enzyme believed to control all signal pathways to cancer growth." Learning of it inspires the protagonist of the series, President Josiah Bartlet, to consider launching an Apollo program to cure cancer. Sphingosine+kinase at the US National Library of Medicine Medical Subject Headings

In enzymology, a dephospho- kinase is an enzyme that catalyzes the chemical reaction ATP + dephospho- ⇌ ADP + Thus, the two substrates of this enzyme are ATP and, whereas its two products are ADP and. This enzyme belongs to the family of transferases those transferring a phosphate group to the sidechain oxygen atom of serine or threonine residues in proteins; the systematic name of this enzyme class is ATP:dephospho- phosphotransferase. Other names in common use include AMP-activated kinase, AMP-activated protein kinase kinase, hydroxymethylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase kinase kinase, hydroxymethylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase kinase kinase, reductase kinase, reductase kinase kinase, STK30. Beg ZH, Stonik JA, Brewer HB Jr. "Characterization and regulation of reductase kinase, a protein kinase that modulates the enzymic activity of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A reductase". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 76: 4375–9. Doi:10.1073/pnas.76.9.4375. PMC 411577. PMID 291971. Ingebritsen TS, Lee HS, Parker RA, Gibson DM.

"Reversible modulation of the activities of both liver microsomal hydroxymethylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase and its inactivating enzyme. Evidence for regulation by phosphorylation-dephosphorylation". Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 81: 1268–77. Doi:10.1016/0006-291X91273-1. PMID 666819. Beg ZH, Stonik JA, Brewer HB Jr. "Phosphorylation of hepatic 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase and modulation of its enzymic activity by calcium-activated and phospholipid-dependent protein kinase". J. Biol. Chem. 260: 1682–7. PMID 3155737. Clarke PR, Hardie DG. "Regulation of HMG-CoA reductase: identification of the site phosphorylated by the AMP-activated protein kinase in vitro and in intact rat liver". EMBO J. 9: 2439–46. PMC 552270. PMID 2369897. Sato R, Goldstein JL, Brown MS. "Replacement of serine-871 of hamster 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA reductase prevents phosphorylation by AMP-activated kinase and blocks inhibition of sterol synthesis induced by ATP depletion". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 90: 9261–5.

Doi:10.1073/pnas.90.20.9261. PMC 47547. PMID 8415689

Sardinian Literary Spring is a definition of the whole body of the literature produced in Sardinia from around the 1980s onwards. Sardinian Literary Spring known as Sardinian Literary Nouvelle Vague, is a denomination used to describe the literary works written by Sardinians from around the 1980s, it is described as being formed of novels and other written texts, which share stylistic and thematic constants. They form a kind of fiction with features that derive but not only, from the Sardinian and European context and history; the Sardinian Literary Spring is considered to be one of the most remarkable regional literatures in Italian, but sometimes written in one of the island's minority languages. The definition of'spring' or'nouvelle vague' or plainly'new Sardinian literature' is due to the new quality and international success of many works published by these Sardinian authors, translated in many world languages; the Sardinian Literary Spring was started, according to a shared canonical opinion, by a trio formed of Giulio Angioni, Sergio Atzeni and Salvatore Mannuzzu, continued by authors such as Salvatore Niffoi, Alberto Capitta, Giorgio Todde, Michela Murgia, Flavio Soriga, Milena Agus, Francesco Abate and many others.

The Sardinian Literary Spring is considered to be the contemporary result, in the European arena, of the works of Sardinian individual prominent figures such as Grazia Deledda, Nobel Prize winner for literature in 1926, Emilio Lussu, Giuseppe Dessì, Gavino Ledda, Salvatore Satta and others. Sergio Atzeni worked for some of the most important Sardinian newspapers. Member of the Italian Communist Party, but disillusioned with politics, he left Sardinia and travelled across Europe. All of Atzeni's works are set in Sardinia, he used a original language that fused elegant literary Italian and the "patter" used by the working-class in Cagliari and Sardinia. In some of his novels he used techniques akin to the magic realism style of many Southern American authors, he has been followed by other Sardinian authors, such as Alberto Capitta, Giorgio Todde and Salvatore Niffoi, who in 2006, with the novel La vedova scalza, won the popular Premio Campiello. Giulio Angioni is a leading Italian anthropologist.

He is well known as the author of about twenty books of fiction and poetry. Angioni writes in Italian, but in Sardinian, he has inaugurated a linguistic style which switches from the standard Italian to the regional Italian and other linguistic varieties, in an original mixture of his own, but followed by other Sardinian authors. Angioni's best novels are considered to be Le fiamme di Toledo, Assandira, La pelle intera, Doppio cielo, L'oro di Fraus.. Salvatore Mannuzzu’s most successful novel is Procedura, winner of Italy’s Premio Viareggio in 1989. In 2000 the director Antonello Grimaldi has made the film Un delitto impossibile from this novel, considered the origin of a genre of Sardinian detective stories. With authors such as Marcello Fois and Giorgio Todde, who gave birth to the Literary Festival of Gavoi, L'isola delle storie, with Giulio Angioni, Flavio Soriga and other authors. A. M. Amendola, L'isola che sorprende. La narrativa sarda in italiano, Cagliari, CUEC 200, 160-179. Giulio Angioni, Cartas de logu: scrittori sardi allo specchio, Cagliari, CUEC, 2007.

M. Broccia, The Sardinian Literary Spring: An Overview. A New Perspective on Italian Literature, in "Nordicum Mediterraneum", Vol. 9, no. 1 Carlo Dionisotti, Geografia e storia della letteratura italiana, Einaudi, 1999. E. Hall, Greek tragedy and the politics of subjectivity in recent fiction, "Classical Receptions Journal", 1, 23-42, Oxford University Press, 2009. H. Klüver, Gebrauchsanweisungen für Sardinien, München, Piper Verlag, 2012. C. Lavinio, Narrare un'isola. Lingua e stile di scrittori sardi, Bulzoni, 1991. F. Manai, Cosa succede a Fraus? Sardegna e mondo nel racconto di Giulio Angioni, Cagliari, CUEC, 2006. M. Marras, Ecrivains insulaires et auto-représentation, "Europaea", VI, 1-2, 17-77. A. Ottavi, Les romanciers italiens contemporains, Hachette, 1992, 142-145. S. Paulis, La costruzione dell'identità. Per un'analisi antropologica della narrativa in Sardegna fra'800 e'900, EdeS, 2006. L. Schröder, Sardinienbilder. Kontinuitäten und Innovationen in der sardischen Literatur und Publizistik der Nachkriegszeit, Peter Lang, 2000.

George Steiner, One thousand years of solitude: on Salvatore Satta, in G. Steiner, At the New Yorker, New York, New Directions Pub. Corp. 2009, ISBN 9780811217040 F. Toso, La Sardegna che non parla sardo, Cagliari, CUEC, University Press, 2012. S. Tola, La letteratura in lingua sarda. Testi, vicende, Cagliari, CUEC, 2006. B. Wagner, Insel im Dialog. Texte, Filme, Tübingen, Francke Verlag 2008. Sardinia Italian literature New Italian Epic Giulio Angioni Sergio Atzeni Salvatore Mannuzzu Flavio Soriga Salvatore Niffoi Sardinian language Dettori, Giovanni. Regional Identity in Contemporary Sardinian Writing, EuropeNow, Council for European Studies New Sardinian literature: Italica Press: Atzeni's Biography Italica Press: Bakunin's Son summary Atzeni's biography and work Sardinian Nouvelle vague: Sardegna Digital Library: About Accabadora in En

Heartbeat known as Danielle Steel's Heartbeat, is a 1993 television movie directed by Michael Miller and written by Jan Worthington based upon the 1991 novel of the same name by Danielle Steel for NBC. The film tells of a man, abused as a child and, as a result, has no interest in having children of his own; when Adrian reveals to her husband that she is pregnant, her husband pressures her to have an abortion. Adrian rebuffs her husband's orders and he neglects her; the showrunner and Adrian's boss for the soap opera she writes and produces becomes romantically involved with her marrying her and helping Adrian raise her baby. John Ritter stars as the television producer, Polly Draper as Adrian, Kevin Kilner portrays Adrian's husband. According to Hal Erickson, of Rovi, "the film was criticized by time of its release called a'yuppie love story.' " It received an Emmy Award nomination in 1993 for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Costuming for a Mini Series or a Special. Bill Grant is a successful television producer working on the soap opera A Life Worth Living.

He is a divorced man who does not see his sons often. Unbeknownst to him, he crosses paths with Adrian Towers, a career woman working as a writer for the news, she is married to Steven, a man who had an abusive childhood and therefore has no desire of having children. When she announces that she is pregnant, he forces her to have an abortion, she reluctantly is unable to go forward with the termination. When Steven finds out, he leaves her, threatens to file for divorce if she decides to keep the baby. Adrian has trouble accepting that Steven refuses to talk about it to anyone, she soon becomes acquainted with Bill. Although she likes him a lot, she is still upset over the divorce, which will be finalized only two weeks before she goes into delivery, she accompanies Bill on a camping trip with his two sons and soon notices. Although she fails to tell him about her pregnancy, they get to know each other more, he tells her that he once was afraid to become a father, but that it changed when he first held his sons.

After admitting to her that he never could marry again, he tries to kiss her, but she rejects him, claiming it is too soon for her. The next morning, one of Bill's sons, is hit by a car. Adrian pushes him away, only to be hit herself, she is injured and hospitalized, risks to suffer a miscarriage. Bill soon learns about her pregnancy and she informs him about everything concerning what has happened, he continues to support her. However, he admits that he is afraid he will fall in love with her and that she will return to Steven, her lawyer informs her that Steven has no desire of seeing his baby and wants her to sign a contract, in which he promises to support her financially, on condition that he won't be responsible for the baby. Adrian refuses claiming that he has to see his baby before making that decision. Crushed, she finds comfort with Bill and they end up becoming a romantic couple. A few months pass by. Adrian notices Steven in a restaurant and decides to confront him. Bill advises her to accept.

The next day, she is hospitalized for having contractions too early. A short time she decides to give in to the divorce and is proposed to by Bill, she makes it clear that she is still not over her marriage with Steven. On Christmas Eve, Adrian gives birth to a boy. Steven agrees to see him and admits that he wants to renew their relationship for their child's sake. Adrian, rejects him. Bill, having seen Steven with her, keeps his distance, they are married in the end, when Adrian assures him that he is the only one for her. John Ritter as Bill Grant, the showrunner and head writer of a sensational soap opera. Polly Draper as Adrian Towers, the television writer and producer for the same show whose pregnant. Kevin Kilner as Steven Towers, Adrian's demanding husband. Michael Lembeck as Ted Nancy Morgan as Zelda Christian Cousins as Tommy Grant Victor DiMattia as Adam Grant Heartbeat on IMDb

Ida Alexander Gibbs was an advocate of racial and gender equality, co-founded one of the first YWCAs in Washington, D. C. for African-Americans in 1905. She was the daughter of Judge Mifflin Wistar Gibbs, the wife of William Henry Hunt, a longtime friend of W. E. B. DuBois. Ida Alexander Gibbs was born on November 1862 in Victoria, British Columbia. Mifflin Wistar Gibbs was her father. Harriet Gibbs Marshall was her sister, their left California during the Gold Rush because of the race badges they were forced to wear and moved en masse to Victoria. In the 1860s, Gibbs moved to Oberlin, where her mother, Maria Ann, had studied at Oberlin College. Gibbs studied at the Oberlin Conservatory of Oberlin Public Schools. Afterwards, she completed Oberlin College's Preparatory Department and earned a bachelor of arts degree in English as a boarding student. At Oberlin College, she completed a classical and scientific academic course in the Department of Philosophy and the Arts as part of the first class of black women to graduate from the school in 1884 alongside Mary Church Terrell and Anna Julia Cooper.

In 1892, she received an MA degree. She taught Latin and mathematics before her marriage in 1904, she taught at Florida A&M Tallahassee and M Street High School, a prestigious African American college preparatory school in Washington DC. Promoting black education, civil rights and woman's suffrage, Gibbs made her mark as an educator and Pan-Africanist. Gibbs pursued her civil activism in a variety of ways. Internationally, she helped support W. E. B. DuBois in organizing many Pan-African Congresses and supported the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, she advocated for world disarmament at the 1923 London Third Pan-African Congress in a paper entitled “The Colored Races and the League of Nations" and along with W. E. B. DuBois, she co-chaired the Conference's Executive Committee. Nationally she was involved in the Niagara Movement and well as National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. After her marriage, Gibbs accompanied her husband on his diplomatic assignments, including Liberia, France and Guadeloupe.

Through her travels with her husband, Gibbs developed an international perspective on racial justice. After World War I, Gibbs began to write for The Crisis under the pen name Iola Gibson, she organized the first Young Women's Christian Association for black women. Ida Gibbs Hunt died in Washington, D. C. on December 19, 1957