The heart is a muscular organ in most animals, which pumps blood through the blood vessels of the circulatory system. Blood provides the body with oxygen and nutrients, as well as assisting in the removal of metabolic wastes. In humans, the heart is located in the middle compartment of the chest. In humans, other mammals, birds, the heart is divided into four chambers: upper left and right atria and lower left and right ventricles; the right atrium and ventricle are referred together as the right heart and their left counterparts as the left heart. Fish, in contrast, have an atrium and a ventricle, while reptiles have three chambers. In a healthy heart blood flows one way through the heart due to heart valves, which prevent backflow; the heart is enclosed in a protective sac, the pericardium, which contains a small amount of fluid. The wall of the heart is made up of three layers: epicardium and endocardium; the heart pumps blood with a rhythm determined by a group of pacemaking cells in the sinoatrial node.

These generate a current that causes contraction of the heart, traveling through the atrioventricular node and along the conduction system of the heart. The heart receives blood low in oxygen from the systemic circulation, which enters the right atrium from the superior and inferior venae cavae and passes to the right ventricle. From here it is pumped into the pulmonary circulation, through the lungs where it receives oxygen and gives off carbon dioxide. Oxygenated blood returns to the left atrium, passes through the left ventricle and is pumped out through the aorta to the systemic circulation−where the oxygen is used and metabolized to carbon dioxide; the heart beats at a resting rate close to 72 beats per minute. Exercise temporarily increases the rate, but lowers resting heart rate in the long term, is good for heart health. Cardiovascular diseases are the most common cause of death globally as of 2008, accounting for 30% of deaths. Of these more than three quarters are a result of coronary artery stroke.

Risk factors include: smoking, being overweight, little exercise, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, poorly controlled diabetes, among others. Cardiovascular diseases do not have symptoms or may cause chest pain or shortness of breath. Diagnosis of heart disease is done by the taking of a medical history, listening to the heart-sounds with a stethoscope, ECG, ultrasound. Specialists who focus on diseases of the heart are called cardiologists, although many specialties of medicine may be involved in treatment; the human heart is situated in the middle mediastinum, at the level of thoracic vertebrae T5-T8. A double-membraned sac called the pericardium attaches to the mediastinum; the back surface of the heart lies near the vertebral column, the front surface sits behind the sternum and rib cartilages. The upper part of the heart is the attachment point for several large blood vessels—the venae cavae and pulmonary trunk; the upper part of the heart is located at the level of the third costal cartilage.

The lower tip of the heart, the apex, lies to the left of the sternum between the junction of the fourth and fifth ribs near their articulation with the costal cartilages. The largest part of the heart is slightly offset to the left side of the chest and is felt to be on the left because the left heart is stronger and larger, since it pumps to all body parts; because the heart is between the lungs, the left lung is smaller than the right lung and has a cardiac notch in its border to accommodate the heart. The heart is cone-shaped, with its base positioned upwards and tapering down to the apex. An adult heart has a mass of 250–350 grams; the heart is described as the size of a fist: 12 cm in length, 8 cm wide, 6 cm in thickness, although this description is disputed, as the heart is to be larger. Well-trained athletes can have much larger hearts due to the effects of exercise on the heart muscle, similar to the response of skeletal muscle; the heart has four chambers, two upper atria, the receiving chambers, two lower ventricles, the discharging chambers.

The atria open into the ventricles via the atrioventricular valves, present in the atrioventricular septum. This distinction is visible on the surface of the heart as the coronary sulcus. There is an ear-shaped structure in the upper right atrium called the right atrial appendage, or auricle, another in the upper left atrium, the left atrial appendage; the right atrium and the right ventricle together are sometimes referred to as the right heart. The left atrium and the left ventricle together are sometimes referred to as the left heart; the ventricles are separated from each other by the interventricular septum, visible on the surface of the heart as the anterior longitudinal sulcus and the posterior interventricular sulcus. The cardiac skeleton is made of dense connective tissue and this gives structure to the heart, it forms the atrioventricular septum which separates the atria from the ventricles, the fibrous rings which serve as bases for the four heart valves. The cardiac skeleton provides an important boundary in the heart's electrical conduction system since collagen cannot conduct electricity.

The interatrial septum separates the interventricular septum separates the ventricles. The interventricular septum is much thicker than the interatrial septum, since the ventricles need to generate greater pressure when they contract; the heart has four valves. One valve lies between each atrium and ventricle, one valve rests at the exit of each ventricl

An Abwurfdach was an dismantled construction that protected the curtain walls and bastions of several early modern fortresses. It was once believed that this construction was as old as the 12th century, but most modern historians maintain that the first abwurfdachs were constructed around 1550. In the 19th century architectural historians, such as August Essenwein, developed the idea that, in the 12th century, the main buildings of a castle were universally topped by fighting platforms that were only covered by a "temporary" and dismantled protective roof; these temporary structures, known as abwurfdächer were supposed to have covered fortifications such as the bergfried as well as residential buildings like the palas and would have been removed in the event of a siege so that catapults could be erected on the fighting terraces in order to defend the castle. This perspective was being doubted by castle researcher, Otto Piper, as "something that could be imagined as practical, but which does not always reflect reality."

Piper points out, among other things, that there are no medieval sources that speak about abwurfdächer, but several reports of sieges mentioning that enemy shells were destroying the roofs of a castle, accounts which suggest that the castles had more conventional solid roof structures. More recent castle research suggests that the majority of the Central European castles were not designed for large-scale sieges, but rather against minor or surprise attacks. Since most castles were not built to provide the military function of a fortress, but at the same time were residences of the nobility, provisional roofs are unlikely to have been normal. In addition, hardly anything is known about the roof structures of high medieval castles, since they were rebuilt in times, or have not survived in the case of ruined castles. From about 1550 onwards, there is historical evidence of the actual use of such roof structures in fortifications. In the sphere of influence of the Franconian free imperial city of Nuremberg some abwurfdächer have survived to the present or been reconstructed.

For instance, some cavaliers and bastions at the imperial city fortress of Lichtenau at Ansbach are topped by such constructions. Numerous corbels on the curtain walls indicate the intention to build removable roofs, but contemporary illustrations show that these plans did not come to fruition. A bird's eye view at the time of the Thirty Years' War portrays a defensive system with removable roofs on four of the five bastions; the three cavaliers have correspondingly open superstructures. No roofs can be seen above the curtain walls; this illustration view corresponds to the present state of this Renaissance fortress. In the reconstruction of Nuremberg's city walls, that survived until the Second World War, several sections of the wall were re-covered in this way; the posts of the roof trusses rest on stone columns, which jut out of the wall line or are placed on the cornices. These Nuremberg forerunners were copied by other Franconian and Swabian imperial cities, for example in the fortifications of Nördlingen and the Spitalbastei bastion of Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

The history of this type of building remains unexplored by serious historians. In contemporary Italian fortress construction, removable roofs or light roof structures have been documented e.g. at the Fortezza da Basso in Florence. In the sixteenth century, Franconian military engineers leant on Italian innovations. Daniel Burger: Festungen in Bayern. Regensburg, 2008. ISBN 978-37954-1844-1

Maria Elisabeth "Maja-Lisa" Borgman, was the owner of a famed coffee house in Stockholm during the reign of Gustav III of Sweden and a known local profile in contemporary Gustavian Stockholm. Maja-Lisa Borgman founded and managed the coffee house Maja-Lisas on Riddarholmen, named after her and became one of the most successful in contemporary Sweden. Coffee houses became common in Stockholm in the 1720s and had a reputation as the center of public intellectual debate, as they offered newspaper-reading parlors, where the customers were offered to read the latest newspapers and discuss the latest news; the profession of coffee house-manager was dominated by women, of which Borgman was a celebrity within her profession in contemporary Sweden and known as "The High Priestess of the Goddess Coffea" in Stockholm. In the Stockholm register of 1790, Borgman is listed as an unmarried Mamsell of 33 or 38 years old, the head of a household including a boy at the age of nine, a foster daughter, two maidservants, a servant girl and a married woman as an assistant.

She was taxed for a gold watch and quite well off. During the 1780s, her coffee house was known as the first center for Chess games in Sweden, were the chess players Daniel Djurberg and Olof Samuel Tempelman were frequent guests, it is possible that she participated herself, she is referred to in older Swedish chess literature. A Chalcography in the National Library of Sweden depicts her with the text: "Here you may see a Lais in the taste of the time United love games and tobacco."Maja-Lisa Borgman died of a cold. Her coffee house, Maja-Lisas, was managed by its new owners under the same name, sometimes as "Former Maja-Lisas", at least until 1813. Barbara Ekenberg Clas på Hörnet Du Rietz, Kvinnors entreprenörskap: under 400 år, 1. Uppl. Dialogos, Stockholm, 2013 Gamla Stockholm. Anteckningar ur tryckta och otryckta källor Tfs. Tidskrift för Schack. Nr. 4. Årgång 95. 1989

Peachcroft, sometimes referred to as the James Wilson Brown House, is located along River Road between Walden and Montgomery in the Town of Montgomery, New York, United States. It is built in a combination of the Queen Anne architectural styles; the former came from the original builder of the house. Peachcroft remains the center of a working farm of a hundred acres that backs on the Wallkill River. In 1994 it and three outbuildings were listed on the National Register of Historic Places; the house and farm are along the east side of River Road 1.3 miles southwest of Walden. Mature trees surround the house, with the outbuildings to its northeast; the 98-acre farm extends to both sides of the road. The surrounding land on either side of the road is fields bounded by woodlots, its south boundary is the river. Its other boundaries are with neighboring farms, with some houses on nearby small roadside lots being the only other development in the area. A short unpaved driveway leads from River Road to the house.

It is a three-bay frame house on a raised stone foundation. It is topped by a gabled roof shingled in fish-scale slate. A tower with an octagonal peaked roof and finial rises from the south end, a brick chimney from the north. Most of the house is sided in clapboard, except for the gable of a projecting extension on the south end of the west facade, done in cedar shake and the front and side, shingled in asbestos; the front facade has a porch, with a shallow pitched hipped roof supported by turned columns running all the way to the addition. The projecting front bay, two stories in height, has a gabled roof of its own; the interior follows a side hall plan. Inside trim reflects both Victorian eras. From the former are the two keystone arches on either side of the parlor mantel, the cherry spindles and banister on the second floor and attic. At that level, the ribs of the house's original gambrel roof are still visible inside; the outbuilding complex is dominated by an old barn, a two-and-a-half-story frame building with an extension of similar height.

The original section is faced in wide horizontal siding while the extension is done in novelty siding. A nearby shed and chicken coop are the other two contributing outbuildings; the earliest known owner of the property was Philip Millspaugh, a German Palatine immigrant to the region in the early 18th century. A contemporary map shows him on the property in 1734. An old door still in the attic of Peachcroft may be a remnant of his house; the oldest portion of the current farmhouse appears to date to around 1800. The Millspaugh family kept the property until 1870, when Catherine Millspaugh sold it to Robert Wilson Brown for $10,000, he had made a fortune in the California gold rush and used the house as an investment property. In 1891 he gave it to her new husband as a wedding gift. Jonathan Hawkins, Brown's son-in-law and grandfather of the present owner, hired a carpenter from Montgomery to renovate the house. At this time the gambrel roof was covered over with the gable and the tower added, so Hawkins could watch over the whole property.

The front wing was added as well. Hawkins named the property Peachcroft, since, one of his initial crops, along with potatoes and sheep, he died in the property passed to his son, Clarence. The son's major change to the property was to split off a small lot on the west and sell it for the construction of two houses. For a long time these were the only ones visible from the farmhouse. Upon his death, it became the property of his wife and son, that of the son, Jonathan Curtis Hawkins, alone when the widow died in 1983. Prior to the listing on the Register Hawkins restored the house. In the late 20th century the town acquired the development rights as part of its farmland preservation efforts. National Register of Historic Places listings in Orange County, New York

Dr. Moira MacTaggert née Kinross, more known as Moira X, is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, she first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #96 and was created by writer Chris Claremont and artist Dave Cockrum. She is an expert in mutant affairs, she is most in association with the X-Men and has been a member of the Muir Island X-Men team and Excalibur. Olivia Williams played Dr. Moira MacTaggert in the 2006 feature film X-Men: The Last Stand. In the 2011 feature film X-Men: First Class, Rose Byrne played Dr. Moira MacTaggert, but in this film, the character is a CIA officer rather than a geneticist. Byrne returned as MacTaggert in the 2016 feature film X-Men: Apocalypse. Moira MacTaggert was created by Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum, first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #96. Moira was one of the major supporting characters in Claremont's Uncanny X-Men run, she was an expert in mutant affairs. She was romantically involved with Professor X, she would found a foundation center on Muir Island centered on mutant research.

Moira MacTaggert received an entry in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Update'89 #4. Grant Morrison wanted to use Moira on his run on New X-Men as the team scientist, but she was killed prior to the start of the series. Instead, he used Beast. Moira was one of the feature characters in the 2011 two-issue limited series Chaos War: X-Men, she is one of the main characters in House of Powers of X, written by Jonathan Hickman. House of X #2 retconned established continuity, by revealing that she was a mutant all along with the ability of reincarnation. Born Moira Kinross to Scottish parents, Moira MacTaggert was one of the world's leading authorities on genetic mutation, earning her a Nobel Prize for her work, she was the longest running human associate of the X-Men and was Professor Charles Xavier's colleague and once his fiancée, having met and fallen in love with him while they were postgraduates at Oxford University. She returned to Scotland, she was married to her old flame, the late politician Joseph MacTaggert which caused delays with her former engagement to Xavier.

Joe proved to be an abusive husband. She kept her son's existence a secret, when Joe refused her a divorce she allowed people to believe she was widowed, she created a Mutant Research Center on Muir Island, off the coast of Scotland. Moira was forced to contain and imprison her son Kevin called Proteus, when he developed reality warping abilities and severe psychosis. One of Moira's goals was to understand human/mutant genetics. However, it is suggested that she intentionally married Joseph and gave birth to Kevin in order to produce a mutant with reality-bending abilities. Moira's connection to the X-Men began; the silent partner in the founding of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters and co-creator of Cerebro, Moira assisted Xavier in helping the young Jean Grey recover after the traumatic triggering of her mutant abilities. Moira was a kind woman who took to helping mutants alike, she rescued a young Rahne Sinclair from an angry mob, adopted the girl. She attempted to treat Xavier's son, a mutant known as Legion who suffered from multiple personality disorder.

When a confused, traumatized Cable first arrived from the future, he washed up in Scotland unable to speak English, it was Moira who stood up for him against an angry mob. Taking him back to Muir Island, he scanned her mind and learned English in the process, as well as the truth about her son, promised to keep her secrets, she introduced him to Xavier. They became close friends since, being the first kind person Cable met in the present timeline, her death devastating him enough to leave the X-Men; when Magneto was reduced to infancy, he was entrusted to Moira's care on Muir Island, where she altered his genetic code in an attempt to keep him from reverting to villainy. Moira appeared at Xavier's call to act as "housekeeper" for the team. Though each of the X-Men formed some sort of relationship with the "Widow" MacTaggert and Sean Cassidy hit it off forming an on-and-off relationship that would last for the remainder of her life. Proteus' escape and eventual destruction at the hands of Colossus and the X-Men left Moira in a position of ethical compromise again: though Banshee stopped her from cloning her son, she saved his genetic structure on disk to allow herself the future option of bringing him back.

After finding out that her foster daughter, was a mutant, Moira was the catalyst for change. She talked a discouraged Xavier into opening his school to the next generation of New Mutants, with Rahne becoming an initial member, she was an integral part of the support for the X-Men and the New Mutants, providing medical aid including cloning Xavier after the Brood attacks, transferring his mind into a new body and restoring his ability to walk after a Brood embryo nearly killed him. With the apparent death of the X-Men and Banshee formed an alternate team based from Muir, carried on as the leader of the team without him when his duties with the X-Men called him away, her behavior became unpredictable, her temper impressive, her

The Private Secretary to the Sovereign is the senior operational member of the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. The Private Secretary is the principal channel of communication between the monarch and the governments in most of the Commonwealth realms, they have responsibility for the official programme and correspondence of the Sovereign. Through these roles the position wields considerable influence; the office of Private Secretary was first established in 1805. The current Private Secretary is Sir Edward Young who succeeded Sir Christopher Geidt in 2017. Colonel Herbert Taylor, appointed in 1805, is acknowledged as the first Private Secretary to the Sovereign. However, the office was not formally established until 1867. Constitutionally there was some opposition on the part of Ministers to the creation of an office which might grow to have considerable influence upon the Sovereign. However, it was soon realised that the Sovereign was in need of secretarial support, since his or her Ministers had ceased to provide daily advice and support with the growth of ministerial government.

Queen Victoria did not have a Private Secretary until she appointed General Charles Grey to the office in 1861. The principal functions of the office are: to act as a channel of communication between the Sovereign and his or her governments, to advise the Sovereign on constitutional, political or governmental questions; the position of Private Secretary is regarded as equivalent to that of the permanent secretary of a government department. The incumbent is always made a Privy Counsellor on appointment, has customarily received a peerage upon retirement; until 1965, peerages granted to Private Secretaries were hereditary baronies, with the exception of Lord Knollys, created a viscount in 1911. All Private Secretaries since the time of Lord Stamfordham have been created peers, with the exceptions of Sir Alexander Hardinge, Sir Alan Lascelles and Sir William Heseltine; the Private Secretary is head of only one of the several operational divisions of the Royal Household. However, he or she is involved in co-ordination between various parts of the Household, has direct control over the Press Office, the Queen's Archives, the office of the Defence Services Secretary.

The Private Secretary is responsible for liaising with the Cabinet Secretary, the Privy Council Office, the Ministry of Justice's Crown Office in relation to: appointments that are formally made by the Sovereign. Reporting to the Private Secretary is the role of Director for Security Liaison, established following a recommendation of the Security Commission in 2004; the post was first held by Brigadier Jeffrey Cook, OBE MC, in office 2004-2008. The Private Secretary has general oversight of security policy, though the Master of the Household is involved, the Keeper of the Privy Purse has responsibility for the ceremonial bodyguards, such as the Gentlemen at Arms and the Yeomen of the Guard. Canadian Secretary to the Queen Private Secretary