An emoticon, short for "emotion icon" known as an emote, is a pictorial representation of a facial expression using characters—usually punctuation marks and letters—to express a person's feelings or mood, or as a time-saving method. The first ASCII emoticons,:-) and:- and sad face:- or:-) was used in language. Many different forms of communication are now seen as precursors to emoticons and more emojis; the National Telegraphic Review and Operators Guide in April 1857 documented the use of the number 73 in Morse code to express "love and kisses". Dodge's Manual in 1908 documented the reintroduction of "love and kisses" as the number 88. Gajadhar and Green comment that both Morse code abbreviations are more succinct than modern abbreviations such as LOL. Aside from morse code, other communication tools such as generic prosigns were seen by some as an evolution of language; the first time an emoticon appeared in text was in the transcript of one of Abraham Lincoln's speeches written in 1862. It contained the following: According to the New York Times, there has been some debate whether the emoticon in Abraham Lincoln's speech was a typo, a legitimate punctuation construct, or the first emoticon.

In the late 1800s, the first emoticons were created as an art form in the U. S. satirical magazine Puck. In total, four different emoticon designs were displayed, all using punctuation to create different typographical emoticon faces; the emoticon designs were similar to that which formed many years in Japan referred to as "Kaomoji", due to their complicated design. Despite the innovation, complex emoticons didn't develop in Japan until nearly a century later. In 1912, American author Ambrose Bierce was the first to suggest that a bracket could be used to represent a smiling face, he stated, "an improvement in punctuation – the snigger point, or note of cachinnation: it is written thus ‿ and presents a smiling mouth. It is to be appended, with the full stop, to every jocular or ironical sentence". Following this breakthrough statement, other writers and linguistic experts began to put out theories as to how punctuations could be used in collections to represent a face. Moving on from Bierce's theory that a horizontal brackets could be used for a smiling face, Alan Gregg was the first recorded person to suggest that by combining punctuation marks, more elaborate emotions could be demonstrated.

There is an argument that this was the first real set of emoticons, despite designs becoming the standard for emoticons. Gregg published his theory in an Harvard Lampoon article, he suggested that by turning the bracket sideways, it could be used for the sides of the mouth or cheeks, with other punctuation used between the brackets to display various emotions. Gregg's theory took the step of creating more than one smiling face, with for a normal smile and for a laughing smile; the logic behind the design was. Two other emoticons were proposed with for a frown and for a wink. Emoticons had come into use in sci-fi fandom in the 1940s, although there seems to have been a lapse in cultural continuity between the communities; the September 1962 issue of MAD magazine included an article titled "Typewri-toons". The piece, featuring typewriter-generated artwork credited to "Royal Portable", was made up of repurposed typography, including a capital letter P having a bigger bust than a capital I, a lowercase b and d discussing their pregnancies, an asterisk on top of a letter to indicate the letter had just come inside

Masahiro Matsuoka is a Japanese drummer and actor. He is a member of a Johnny Entertainment musical group, his nicknames are Maa-kun. He starred as Shinichi Ozaki in Godzilla: Final Wars, comedy series Yasuko to Kenji. Matsuoka joined the pop/rock band Tokio as a drummer in 1990, although the band did not debut until 1994. Along with other Tokio members, he was a background dancer for idol bands such as Hikaru Genji. Matsuoka has had parts in over 20 dramas, his first lead role was in a 1997 mystery science fiction drama. In 2008 he starred a comedy series Yasuko based on a comical manga by artist Aruko. Matsuoka has endorsed many various brands by himself. With Tokio, he has endorsed among Eneos, a brand for Nippon Oil. Tokio Official Website Masahiro Matsuoka at Anime News Network's encyclopedia Masahiro Matsuoka on IMDb

The Uganda Retirement Benefits Regulatory Authority is a government-owned, semi-autonomous agency responsible for regulating, licensing and controlling the retirement sector in Uganda, the third-largest economy in the East African Community. The authority is responsible for issuing guidelines to allow the liberalization of the retirement sector in the country; the headquarters of URBRA are located at 3rd to 6th Floor, URBRA Towers, 1 Clement Hill Road, on Nakasero Hill, in Kampala, the capital and largest city of Uganda. The coordinates of the headquarters are 0°19'16.0"N, 32°35'12.0"E. URBRA was established by an Act of Parliament of Uganda in 2011; the agency is under the Uganda Ministry of Finance and Economic Development but is semi-autonomous, with a governing board and a management team led by an executive director as the chief executive officer. Before 2012, there were only two major retirement benefits plans in the country: the Public Employees Retirement Plan, for some civil servants, the National Social Security Fund, for employed people whose employers had at least five employees on payroll.

When URBRA was established, it was anticipated that new retirement benefits managers would be licensed and the sector would be liberalized and improved, with more choices and new retirement products introduced. As of June 2016, URBRA, had licensed the following pension funds: National Social Security Fund Kampala City Traders Association Retirement Fund Mazima Retirement Plan Bank of Uganda Economy of Uganda Insurance Regulatory Authority of Uganda Uganda Revenue Authority Uganda Retirement Benefits Regulatory Authority Website Ministry of Finance And Economic Development: Uganda Retirement Benefits Regulatory Authority NSSF holds 86% of all pension assets - report, as at December 2014: According to URBRA