Triad (anatomy)

In the histology of skeletal muscle, a triad is the structure formed by a T tubule with a sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) known as the terminal cisterna on either side. Each skeletal muscle fiber has many thousands of triads, visible in muscle fibers that have been sectioned longitudinally. (This property holds because T tubules run perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the muscle fiber.) In mammals, triads are typically located at the A-I junction; that is, the junction between the A and I bands of the sarcomere, which is the smallest unit of a muscle fiber.

Triads form the anatomical basis of excitation-contraction coupling, whereby a stimulus excites the muscle and causes it to contract. A stimulus, in the form of positively charged current, is transmitted from the neuromuscular junction down the length of the T tubules, activating dihydropyridine receptors (DHPRs). Their activation causes 1) a negligible influx of calcium and 2) a mechanical interaction with calcium-conducting ryanodine receptors (RyRs) on the adjacent SR membrane. Activation of RyRs causes the release of calcium from the SR, which subsequently initiates a cascade of events leading to muscle contraction. These muscle contractions are caused by calcium's bonding to troponin and unmasking the binding sites covered by the troponin-tropomyosin complex on the actin myofilament and allowing the myosin cross-bridges to connect with the actin.

Luornu Durgo

Triplicate Girl (Luornu Durgo) is a fictional character, a superhero in the 30th and 31st centuries of the DC Comics Universe and a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes. She has also had the aliases Duo Damsel, Triad, Una, Duplicate Damsel and Duplicate Girl and was ranked 33rd in Comics Buyer's Guide's 100 Sexiest Women in Comics list.

Fictional character biography

Original continuity

Luornu Durgo, codenamed Triplicate Girl, first appeared in Action Comics #276, written by Jerry Siegel. A native of the planet Cargg, she could split into three identical bodies, as could all Carggites, due to the planet Cargg having three suns. Her costume consisted of a purple dress, orange cape and belt, and black boots.

She was the fourth hero to join the Legion of Super-Heroes, and its first non-founder member. Unlike her post-Zero Hour counterpart, Triad, she had brown eyes, not split purple/orange ones. For a long time, she had an unrequited crush on Superboy.

One of her three bodies was killed by Brainiac 5's killer creation Computo The Conqueror (a rogue computer) early on, and she was thereafter known as Duo Damsel. Her surviving two bodies continued to remember the trauma of experiencing her/their death, with the result that Computo was the one villain whom Duo Damsel was too frightened to confront.

Triad (sculpture)

Triad is an outdoor sculpture by German American artist Evelyn Franz, located in Laurelhurst Park in southeast Portland, Oregon.

Description and history

Originally completed in 1980 and remade in 2003, Triad was designed by Evelyn Franz, who received her Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture in 1976 from Portland State University. The abstract stainless steel sculpture was funded by CETA and is installed between Southeast 37th Avenue and Southeast Ankeny in Laurelhurst Park. According to the Regional Arts & Culture Council, which administers the work, it measures 7 feet (2.1 m), 5 inches (13 cm) x 5 feet (1.5 m), 5 inches (13 cm) x 2 feet (0.61 m), 5 inches (13 cm). The Smithsonian Institution lists the measurements as approximately 50 inches (130 cm) x 8 feet (2.4 m) x 2 feet (0.61 m). The sculpture contains no inscriptions and rests on a stainless steel base which measures approximately 16 inches (41 cm) x 80 inches (200 cm) x 30 inches (76 cm). It is part of the City of Portland and Multnomah County Public Art Collection courtesy of the Regional Arts & Culture Council.

Fiasco (role-playing game)

Fiasco is a role-playing game by Jason Morningstar, independently published by Bully Pulpit Games. It is a GM-less game for 3–5 players, designed to be played in a few hours with six-sided dice and no preparation. It is billed as "A game of powerful ambition and poor impulse control" and "inspired by cinematic tales of small time capers gone disastrously wrong—films like Blood Simple, Fargo, The Way of the Gun, Burn After Reading, and A Simple Plan."

Fiasco was the winner of the eleventh Diana Jones Award and has been one of the featured games on Tabletop.

Setting/playsets

Fiasco is designed to simulate the caper-gone-wrong subgenre of film. It shares creative control of the story among the players, even when determining who each player's character is. Themes of the game include black comedy, and poor impulse control.

Although there is no one standard setting, each game of Fiasco uses a "playset" that indicates the setting of that specific game. The core rulebook contains playsets for Main Street (small town America), Boomtown (The Wild West), Tales from Suburbia, and The Ice (McMurdo Station, Antarctica). Bully Pulpit Games also released a free Playset of the Month on their website. These, and many more, are available for free online on the Bully Pulpit Games website, with many fan-made playsets available online, as well.The Fiasco Companion provides additional advice on creating playsets.

Fiasco (novel)

Fiasco (Polish: Fiasko) is a science fiction novel by Polish author Stanisław Lem, first published in a German translation in 1986. The book, published in Poland the following year, is a further elaboration of Lem's skepticism: in Lem's opinion, the difficulty in communication with alien civilizations is cultural, rather than spatial, distance. The failure to communicate with an alien civilization is the main theme of the book. It was translated into English by Michael Kandel (1988), and was nominated for Arthur C. Clarke Award.

The novel was written on order from publisher S. Fischer Verlag around the time Lem was emigrating from Poland due to the introduction of martial law. Lem stated that this was the only occasion he wrote something upon publisher's request, accepting an advance for a nonexistent novel.

Plot summary

The book begins with a story of a base on Saturn's moon Titan, where a young spaceship pilot, Parvis, sets out in a strider (a mecha-like machine) to find several missing people, among them Pirx, the spaceman appearing in Lem's Tales of Pirx the Pilot. He ventures to the dangerous geyser region, where the others were lost, but unfortunately he suffers an accident. Seeing no way to get out of the machine and return to safety, he triggers a built-in cryogenic device.