title: Simplex algorithm

text: The first row defines the objective function and the remaining rows specify the constraints. The zero in the first column represents the zero vector of the same dimension as vector "b" (different authors use different conventions as to the exact layout). If the columns of A can be rearranged so that it contains the identity matrix of order "p" (the number of rows in A) then the tableau is said to be in "canonical form". The variables corresponding to the columns of the identity matrix are called "basic variables" while the remaining variables are called "nonbasic" or "free variables". If the values of the nonbasic variables are set to 0, then the values of the basic variables are easily obtained as entries in "b" and this solution is a basic feasible solution. The algebraic interpretation here is that the coefficients of the linear equation represented by each row are either formula_25, formula_26, or some other number. Each row will have formula_26 column with value formula_26, formula_29 columns with coefficients formula_25, and the remaining columns with some other coefficients (these other variables represent our non-basic variables). By setting the values of the non-basic variables to zero we ensure in each row that the value of the variable represented by a formula_26 in its column is equal to the formula_32 value at that row.


title: Simplex algorithm

text: Conversely, given a basic feasible solution, the columns corresponding to the nonzero variables can be expanded to a nonsingular matrix. If the corresponding tableau is multiplied by the inverse of this matrix then the result is a tableau in canonical form.


title: Simplex algorithm

text: be a tableau in canonical form. Additional row-addition transformations can be applied to remove the coefficients from the objective function. This process is called "pricing out" and results in a canonical tableau


title: Simplex algorithm

text: where "z" is the value of the objective function at the corresponding basic feasible solution. The updated coefficients, also known as "relative cost coefficients", are the rates of change of the objective function with respect to the nonbasic variables.


title: Simplex algorithm

text: The geometrical operation of moving from a basic feasible solution to an adjacent basic feasible solution is implemented as a "pivot operation". First, a nonzero "pivot element" is selected in a nonbasic column. The row containing this element is multiplied by its reciprocal to change this element to 1, and then multiples of the row are added to the other rows to change the other entries in the column to 0. The result is that, if the pivot element is in a row "r", then the column becomes the "r"-th column of the identity matrix. The variable for this column is now a basic variable, replacing the variable which corresponded to the "r"-th column of the identity matrix before the operation. In effect, the variable corresponding to the pivot column enters the set of basic variables and is called the "entering variable", and the variable being replaced leaves the set of basic variables and is called the "leaving variable". The tableau is still in canonical form but with the set of basic variables changed by one element.


title: Simplex algorithm

text: Let a linear program be given by a canonical tableau. The simplex algorithm proceeds by performing successive pivot operations each of which give an improved basic feasible solution; the choice of pivot element at each step is largely determined by the requirement that this pivot improves the solution.


title: Simplex algorithm

text: Since the entering variable will, in general, increase from 0 to a positive number, the value of the objective function will decrease if the derivative of the objective function with respect to this variable is negative. Equivalently, the value of the objective function is increased if the pivot column is selected so that the corresponding entry in the objective row of the tableau is positive.


title: Simplex algorithm

text: If there is more than one column so that the entry in the objective row is positive then the choice of which one to add to the set of basic variables is somewhat arbitrary and several "entering variable choice rules" such as Devex algorithm have been developed.


title: Simplex algorithm

text: If all the entries in the objective row are less than or equal to 0 then no choice of entering variable can be made and the solution is in fact optimal. It is easily seen to be optimal since the objective row now corresponds to an equation of the form


title: Simplex algorithm

text: By changing the entering variable choice rule so that it selects a column where the entry in the objective row is negative, the algorithm is changed so that it finds the minimum of the objective function rather than the maximum.


title: Simplex algorithm

text: Once the pivot column has been selected, the choice of pivot row is largely determined by the requirement that the resulting solution be feasible. First, only positive entries in the pivot column are considered since this guarantees that the value of the entering variable will be nonnegative. If there are no positive entries in the pivot column then the entering variable can take any non-negative value with the solution remaining feasible. In this case the objective function is unbounded below and there is no minimum.


title: Simplex algorithm

text: Next, the pivot row must be selected so that all the other basic variables remain positive. A calculation shows that this occurs when the resulting value of the entering variable is at a minimum. In other words, if the pivot column is "c", then the pivot row "r" is chosen so that


title: Simplex algorithm

text: is the minimum over all "r" so that "a" > 0. This is called the "minimum ratio test". If there is more than one row for which the minimum is achieved then a "dropping variable choice rule" can be used to make the determination.


title: Simplex algorithm

text: where columns 5 and 6 represent the basic variables "s" and "t" and the corresponding basic feasible solution is


title: Simplex algorithm

text: Columns 2, 3, and 4 can be selected as pivot columns, for this example column 4 is selected. The values of "z" resulting from the choice of rows 2 and 3 as pivot rows are 10/1 = 10 and 15/3 = 5 respectively. Of these the minimum is 5, so row 3 must be the pivot row. Performing the pivot produces


title: Simplex algorithm

text: Now columns 4 and 5 represent the basic variables "z" and "s" and the corresponding basic feasible solution is


title: Simplex algorithm

text: In general, a linear program will not be given in the canonical form and an equivalent canonical tableau must be found before the simplex algorithm can start. This can be accomplished by the introduction of "artificial variables". Columns of the identity matrix are added as column vectors for these variables. If the b value for a constraint equation is negative, the equation is negated before adding the identity matrix columns. This does not change the set of feasible solutions or the optimal solution, and it ensures that the slack variables will constitute an initial feasible solution. The new tableau is in canonical form but it is not equivalent to the original problem. So a new objective function, equal to the sum of the artificial variables, is introduced and the simplex algorithm is applied to find the minimum; the modified linear program is called the "Phase I" problem.


title: Simplex algorithm

text: The simplex algorithm applied to the Phase I problem must terminate with a minimum value for the new objective function since, being the sum of nonnegative variables, its value is bounded below by 0. If the minimum is 0 then the artificial variables can be eliminated from the resulting canonical tableau producing a canonical tableau equivalent to the original problem. The simplex algorithm can then be applied to find the solution; this step is called "Phase II". If the minimum is positive then there is no feasible solution for the Phase I problem where the artificial variables are all zero. This implies that the feasible region for the original problem is empty, and so the original problem has no solution.


title: Simplex algorithm

text: Introduce artificial variables "u" and "v" and objective function "W" = "u" + "v", giving a new tableau


title: Simplex algorithm

text: By construction, "u" and "v" are both basic variables since they are part of the initial identity matrix. However, the objective function "W" currently assumes that "u" and "v" are both 0. In order to adjust the objective function to be the correct value where "u" = 10 and "v" = 15, add the third and fourth rows to the first row giving


title: Simplex algorithm

text: The artificial variables are now 0 and they may be dropped giving a canonical tableau equivalent to the original problem:


title: Simplex algorithm

text: This is, fortuitously, already optimal and the optimum value for the original linear program is −130/7.


title: Simplex algorithm

text: The tableau form used above to describe the algorithm lends itself to an immediate implementation in which the tableau is maintained as a rectangular ("m" + 1)-by-("m" + "n" + 1) array. It is straightforward to avoid storing the m explicit columns of the identity matrix that will occur within the tableau by virtue of B being a subset of the columns of [A, I]. This implementation is referred to as the ""standard" simplex algorithm". The storage and computation overhead is such that the standard simplex method is a prohibitively expensive approach to solving large linear programming problems.


title: Simplex algorithm

text: In each simplex iteration, the only data required are the first row of the tableau, the (pivotal) column of the tableau corresponding to the entering variable and the right-hand-side. The latter can be updated using the pivotal column and the first row of the tableau can be updated using the (pivotal) row corresponding to the leaving variable. Both the pivotal column and pivotal row may be computed directly using the solutions of linear systems of equations involving the matrix B and a matrix-vector product using A. These observations motivate the ""revised" simplex algorithm", for which implementations are distinguished by their invertible representation of B.


title: Simplex algorithm

text: In large linear-programming problems A is typically a sparse matrix and, when the resulting sparsity of B is exploited when maintaining its invertible representation, the revised simplex algorithm is much more efficient than the standard simplex method. Commercial simplex solvers are based on the revised simplex algorithm.


title: Simplex algorithm

text: If the values of all basic variables are strictly positive, then a pivot must result in an improvement in the objective value. When this is always the case no set of basic variables occurs twice and the simplex algorithm must terminate after a finite number of steps. Basic feasible solutions where at least one of the "basic "variables is zero are called "degenerate" and may result in pivots for which there is no improvement in the objective value. In this case there is no actual change in the solution but only a change in the set of basic variables. When several such pivots occur in succession, there is no improvement; in large industrial applications, degeneracy is common and such ""stalling"" is notable.


title: Simplex algorithm

text: Worse than stalling is the possibility the same set of basic variables occurs twice, in which case, the deterministic pivoting rules of the simplex algorithm will produce an infinite loop, or "cycle". While degeneracy is the rule in practice and stalling is common, cycling is rare in practice. A discussion of an example of practical cycling occurs in Padberg. Bland's rule prevents cycling and thus guarantees that the simplex algorithm always terminates. Another pivoting algorithm, the criss-cross algorithm never cycles on linear programs.


title: Simplex algorithm

text: History-based pivot rules such as Zadeh's rule and Cunningham's rule also try to circumvent the issue of stalling and cycling by keeping track of how often particular variables are being used and then favor such variables that have been used least often.


title: Simplex algorithm

text: The simplex method is remarkably efficient in practice and was a great improvement over earlier methods such as Fourier–Motzkin elimination. However, in 1972, Klee and Minty gave an example, the Klee–Minty cube, showing that the worst-case complexity of simplex method as formulated by Dantzig is exponential time. Since then, for almost every variation on the method, it has been shown that there is a family of linear programs for which it performs badly. It is an open question if there is a variation with polynomial time, although sub-exponential pivot rules are known.


title: Simplex algorithm

text: In 2014, it was proved that a particular variant of the simplex method is NP-mighty, i.e., it can be used to solve, with polynomial overhead, any problem in NP implicitly during the algorithm's execution. Moreover, deciding whether a given variable ever enters the basis during the algorithm's execution on a given input, and determining the number of iterations needed for solving a given problem, are both NP-hard problems. At about the same time it was shown that there exists an artificial pivot rule for which computing its output is PSPACE-complete. In 2015, this was strengthened to show that computing the output of Dantzig's pivot rule is PSPACE-complete.


title: Simplex algorithm

text: Analyzing and quantifying the observation that the simplex algorithm is efficient in practice despite its exponential worst-case complexity has led to the development of other measures of complexity. The simplex algorithm has polynomial-time average-case complexity under various probability distributions, with the precise average-case performance of the simplex algorithm depending on the choice of a probability distribution for the random matrices. Another approach to studying "typical phenomena" uses Baire category theory from general topology, and to show that (topologically) "most" matrices can be solved by the simplex algorithm in a polynomial number of steps.


title: Simplex algorithm

text: Another method to analyze the performance of the simplex algorithm studies the behavior of worst-case scenarios under small perturbation – are worst-case scenarios stable under a small change (in the sense of structural stability), or do they become tractable? This area of research, called smoothed analysis, was introduced specifically to study the simplex method. Indeed, the running time of the simplex method on input with noise is polynomial in the number of variables and the magnitude of the perturbations.


title: Simplex algorithm

text: Other algorithms for solving linear-programming problems are described in the linear-programming article. Another basis-exchange pivoting algorithm is the criss-cross algorithm. There are polynomial-time algorithms for linear programming that use interior point methods: these include Khachiyan's ellipsoidal algorithm, Karmarkar's projective algorithm, and path-following algorithms.


title: Simplex algorithm

text: Linear–fractional programming (LFP) is a generalization of linear programming (LP). In LP the objective function is a linear function, while the objective function of a linear–fractional program is a ratio of two linear functions. In other words, a linear program is a fractional–linear program in which the denominator is the constant function having the value one everywhere. A linear–fractional program can be solved by a variant of the simplex algorithm or by the criss-cross algorithm.


title: Red Guardian

text: Red Guardian (Russian: Красный страж, "Krasnyy Strazh") is the name of several fictional superheroes appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The Red Guardian is an identity that was created as the Soviet equivalent of Captain America, although its use has continued after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.


title: Red Guardian

text: The Aleksei Shostakov incarnation of Red Guardian has made scattered appearances in animated media and video games, with David Harbour portraying him in the 2021 Marvel Cinematic Universe film "Black Widow". Harbour will reprise the role in the upcoming film "" (2024).


title: Red Guardian

text: Aleksey Lebedev (Russian: Алексей Лебедев), the Golden Age version of Red Guardian, first appeared in "Namor, The Sub-Mariner Annual" #1 (June 1991), created by writers Dana Moreshead and Mike Thomas, and artist Phil Hester. Very little is known of him, but he fought alongside Captain America (William Naslund) and the Sub-Mariner at the Potsdam Conference, in July 1945. He began his career during World War II, and met the All-Winners Squad (formerly the Invaders) on only one recorded occasion, clashing with them shortly after the war's end where he taunted Captain America (secretly the Patriot) that he was 'slowing down' after he was able to catch Captain America's shield. Like the other crusaders of the same name, he was created as a Soviet counterpart to Captain America. He was later apparently killed during the purges of the 1950s, opposing the brutal experiments that would later create his successor.


title: Red Guardian

text: Alexei Andreevich Shostakov was the first version of Red Guardian, and was created by Roy Thomas and John Buscema, first appearing in "Avengers" #43 (January 1967).


title: Red Guardian

text: Alexei Shostakov was born in Moscow, and was the husband of Natasha Romanova. Both he and his wife were agents of the Soviets: the latter as the Black Widow while the former became a test pilot and KGB agent and then trained as a Soviet counterpart to Captain America known as the "Red Guardian".


title: Red Guardian

text: Alexei Shostakov was one of the Soviet Union's most acclaimed pilots. During World War II on the Eastern Front, he shot down a large number of Luftwaffe fighter planes in aerial battles and was credited for helping the Soviet Air Forces win air supremacy over the skies of Stalingrad and Kursk. Because of his extraordinary skill, Shostakov was chosen for the most secret and dangerous tests and new aircraft for the Soviet Union. This included being the first pilot to test fly the MiG-15. The Soviet state controlled news media greatly publicized this and certain other missions of his such as his aerial battles against the U.S. Air Force over MiG Alley during the Korean War. As a result, Shostakov was decorated as a hero of the Soviet Union. Shostakov was also successful in his private life, having married the equally famous ballerina Natalia (familiarly known as Natasha) Romanova.


title: Red Guardian

text: As the Cold War flared up in the 1950s, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev realized that the Soviet Union needed its own equivalent to Captain America. Khrushchev chose Alexei Shostakov over Yuri Gagarin who would later become the first man in space. The KGB faked his death and trained him in secret, keeping his survival a secret from Natasha. He became a master of hand-to-hand combat and a highly skilled athlete. In addition, he carried a throwing disc on his belt which could be used against an opponent. Magnetic force returned the disc after throwing. The disc had the yellow hammer and sickle symbol on it and his costume was red with a star on his chest to symbolise the Soviet flag. While the Black Widow became disillusioned with KGB masters and defected to the United States, the Red Guardian remained loyal and became more ruthless and vindictive. The Red Guardian battled the Avengers with his Chinese ally Colonel Ling, to protect a Communist Chinese secret weapon located at a secret military base at an unrevealed location in the People's Republic of China, encountering the Black Widow and Captain America (Steve Rogers). When the Black Widow noticed "something familiar" about him, Red Guardian revealed his identity. He was shot and mortally wounded minutes later by Colonel Ling while saving the lives of the Black Widow and Captain America. He was buried under molten lava when a laser blast caused the eruption of a long-dormant volcano.


title: Red Guardian

text: Some time later, a Life Model Decoy patterned after the character was introduced in the "Widow Maker" crossover between the "Hawkeye & Mockingbird" and "Black Widow" titles as Ronin. The LMD initially started assassinating spies and eventually targeted Mockingbird and the Black Widow. After he was seemingly destroyed in his first battle with the Black Widow, the LMD was later revealed to be alive and had risen very high up in power within Bulgaria as Ronin. The LMD was responsible for a plot to capture and try his "former wife" for crimes as a Soviet super soldier, but his plan was foiled with the help of Daredevil and the Avengers.


title: Red Guardian

text: Dr. Tania Belinsky, a neurosurgeon from the USSR, later adopted the Red Guardian identity and joined the Defenders. Created by Steve Gerber and Sal Buscema, she first appeared in "The Defenders" #35 (May 1976).


title: Red Guardian

text: Josef Petkus is the fourth version of Red Guardian, first appearing in "Captain America" #352 (April 1989), and was created by writer Mark Gruenwald and artist Kieron Dwyer. The character subsequently appears in "The Avengers" #319-324 (July–October 1990), "The Incredible Hulk" (vol. 2) #393 (May 1992), and "Soviet Super-Soldiers" #1 (November 1992). The character subsequently appears as the Steel Guardian in "Iron Man" (vol. 2) #9 (October 1998). Petkus appeared as part of the "Supreme Soviets" entry in the "Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Update '89" #7.


title: Red Guardian

text: Josef Petkus was a special operative for the intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union, and appeared as a member of the militant Supreme Soviets. Alongside the Supreme Soviets, he attacked the Soviet Super-Soldiers for defecting from the Soviet Union. Alongside Captain America, he later battled a bear-like creature composed of the Darkforce. The Supreme Soviets were later renamed the post-Soviet Russian super-team called the Winter Guard. Alongside this confederacy, he teamed with the Avengers and Alpha Flight to battle the Peace Corpse, the Atlantean Army, and the Combine. Petkus later joined a Winter Guard splinter group called the People's Protectorate, now calling himself the "Steel Guardian". He and his team went off in search of the timelord Immortus, hoping to find a way to resurrect Vanguard's sister Lanyia. They agreed to fight off Dire Wraiths invading Immortus' realm in exchange for this favor; Josef being killed while in the line of duty.


title: Red Guardian

text: Krassno Granitsky, a fifth version of Red Guardian, appeared in "Maverick" #10 (June 1998), and was created by writer Jorge Gonzales and artist Leo Fernandez. The name "Krassno Granitsky" comes from the James Bond novel "From Russia With Love"; it is the Russianized name of the assassin Donovan "Red" Grant. He teamed up with the mercenary superhero Maverick to battle a crime lord. He also appeared in the first issue of Ed Brubaker's "Captain America", where he was executed by Aleksander Lukin.


title: Red Guardian

text: Anton, the sixth version of Red Guardian, made his first appearance in the first issue of Jeph Loeb's "Hulk" series as a member of the Winter Guard. Anton claims to be an engineer and a former pilot of the Crimson Dynamo armor, and was later revealed to be (at least partially) a Life Model Decoy. He was decapitated by a Dire Wraith, although his head was kept in storage, seemingly still alive.


title: Red Guardian

text: Nikolai Krylenko (also known as Vanguard) is the seventh version of Red Guardian, and leads the Winter Guard.


title: Red Guardian

text: None of the Red Guardian's various identity users have been revealed to possess superhuman powers or abilities, with the exception of Tania Belinsky after her mutation by the Presence, the Ultimate version, and Krylenko, the seventh Red Guardian. All are highly skilled athletes. Shostakov was an expert pilot, a master hand-to-hand combatant, and was trained in espionage techniques by the KGB. All of the Guardians but Alexei and Tania have used a steel shield similar to that used by Captain America. Alexei and Tania used a "belt-buckle" disc, a hurling weapon which magnetically returned to the wearer's hand when thrown, and was a part of their costume's belt buckle. The fourth Red Guardian, Josef Petkus, often employed an energized sword as a secondary weapon alongside his shield. The sixth Red Guardian was an LMD named Anton, whose powers are cybernetic based. His falsified backstory was that he was an expert engineer and former Crimson Dynamo pilot; his real strength lies in his moderate degree of enhanced cybernetic physicality. The latest Red Guardian is Nikolai Krylenko/Vanguard, brother to Laynia Petrovna, whose powers are derived from his mutation. which stems to a fullbody force field that repels electromagnetic and kinetic energy, forces he can best guide and direct through a medium like the technically advanced vibranium shield supplied to him by the Executive Security Committee. or through a crux like the former symbol of his home country, a hammer and sickle. He also directs this force against the earth itself to obtain flight. Nikolai wears a more advanced suit than previous Red Guardians, which is lined with circuitry that works in conjunction with the compact computer on his shield, not only enabling the guided flight and return through their digital connection, but the amplification of the effects of his own energy field.


title: Red Guardian

text: The Ultimate Marvel version of Alexei Shostakov is a Russian super soldier codenamed "Captain Russia". Meant to be the Russian counterpart of Captain America, this version is certifiably insane and uses a makeshift shield created partially from human remains, and possesses superhuman strength and durability. A fight between the two results in Captain America defeating him, by stabbing him with splintered wood that acts as a stake through the chest, declaring "Fighting is about winning." Shostakov was once married to Black Widow and is now deceased.


title: Red Guardian

text: Colonel Abdul al-Rahman from Azerbaijan (leader of the Liberators) was based on the Red Guardian. As the character was a parallel to Captain America, he wears a predominantly red costume and was transformed into a super-soldier by Russian scientists as well as uses a weapon which resembles a double bladed lightsaber. He faces off against Steve Rogers in front of the White House, one on one but is defeated when the Hulk throws the shield to sever his hands and Rogers kills him with his own weapon. His body is later taken into S.H.I.E.L.D.


title: Red Guardian

text: The Alexei Shostakov incarnation of Red Guardian appears in media set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), portrayed by David Harbour. This version is the Russian super-soldier counterpart to Captain America and a father-figure to Natasha Romanoff and Yelena Belova. Harbour said Shostakov has "tons of cracks all over him. And he's not the heroic, noble man that [people] want him to be. He both comically and tragically has a lot of flaws". For Harbour's portrayal, he and "Black Widow" director Cate Shortland discussed Ricky Gervais' performance in "The Office" and Philip Seymour Hoffman's in "The Savages" (2007), "comedy that comes out of real domestic need".


title: A Perfect Murder

text: A Perfect Murder is a 1998 American crime thriller film directed by Andrew Davis and starring Michael Douglas, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Viggo Mortensen. It is a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 film "Dial M for Murder", though the characters' names have been changed and much of the plot has been rewritten and altered from its original form. Loosely based on the play by Frederick Knott, the screenplay was written by Patrick Smith Kelly.


title: A Perfect Murder

text: Steven Taylor is a Wall Street financier married to Emily, a much younger (over 20 years) translator for the United Nations. When his risky personal investments start unraveling, he intends to access Emily's personal fortune of $100 million to cover his losses. Meanwhile, Emily enjoys an affair with painter David Shaw and is considering leaving Steven. Steven meets David at a gala, and asks to visit David's studio in Brooklyn.


title: A Perfect Murder

text: Steven arrives at David's studio the next day. He reveals that he knows about the affair, and used his influence to investigate David's criminal past as an ex-convict who cons rich women out of their money. Steven offers David $500,000 to murder Emily. When David responds that he and Emily are in love, Steven reminds him his next arrest will mean 15 years imprisonment.


title: A Perfect Murder

text: Steven hides the door key from Emily's keyring outside the service entrance to their lavish Manhattan co-op apartment. David is to use the key, kill her, and make it look like a robbery. At his card game, Steven takes a break and uses his cellphone to make a call to an automated bank system, adding to his alibi, while using a second phone to call Emily. Emily answers in the kitchen and is attacked by a masked assailant, but stabs him in the neck with a meat thermometer.


title: A Perfect Murder

text: Steven returns expecting Emily to be dead, but finds the assailant's body. He takes the key from the body and puts it back on Emily's keychain. Police arrive, led by Detective Karaman. They remove the assailant's mask and Karaman notices that Steven is surprisedthe body is not David's. Outside, David watches the body being removed from the building in a black bag and assumes it to be Emily.


title: A Perfect Murder

text: Karaman requests that Steven and Emily come down to the station so Emily can provide a statement. With their lawyer in tow, she provides the statement and they learn the identity of the intruder. In the meantime, Karaman takes an urgent call in the room from his wife about their infant child; Emily recognizes the Arabic conversation and inquires afterwards in fluent Arabic about the health of his son. Surprised and charmed, Karaman explains the child is suffering from colic, and they exchange blessings for good health with a mutual smile as the others in the room look on in confusion.


title: A Perfect Murder

text: Steven takes Emily to stay at her mother's. A sobbing David receives a call from Emily telling him she is fine, and will be back soon. Steven realizes Emily has called David by hitting the redial button on the phone, and he then organizes a meet on a ferry where they discuss the incident and next plans. Emily visits her coworker, Raquel, and they discuss what happened. Emily relates her suspicions about Steven and Raquel tries to assuage her fears by assuring her that Steven has his own money, and hers is protected by their prenuptial agreement. But Emily confides that they never had a prenup; Steven had offered one, and Emily had refused. Raquel immediately looks concerned, and Emily slowly realizes the inherent motive Steven may have for murdering her.


title: A Perfect Murder

text: Emily uses her connections to speak to a federal regulator, learning of Steven's financial troubles. She then informs Karaman, who says that Steven was no longer a suspect as his alibi is solid, though there is the lingering concern that the dead assailant did not have keys of any kind on his body, not even for his own apartment. This strikes Emily as an important clue as her own keys did not work in her apartment door when she had first returned home after being away.


title: A Perfect Murder

text: Still losing money, Steven receives a call from David, who plays an audio tape of the two discussing the plan to kill Emily. They agree to meet at a local deli, where David demands the full $500,000 or he will turn Steven in.


title: A Perfect Murder

text: Emily decides to go to the apartment of the assailant, discovering that her key on her keyring unlocks "his" door. Emily confronts Steven with this and his financial problems. Steven responds with evidence of Emily's affair with David, including incriminating photographs, as well as telling her details about David's sordid past and accuses him of being a blackmailer conning her and threatening him. When he saw the dead body in their kitchen, he assumed it was David and took the key from his pocket so as not to implicate Emily. She is distraught after learning this new information but seems convinced of Steven's story; he has an answer for every question she poses and does not seem rattled, until Emily mentions how she wants to go to the police with the information. He is immediately on the defensive, and advises her not to say anything to the detectives as he has admittedly tampered with a homicide scene and is paying off a blackmailer. She agrees to keep silent, and tells Steven that her wedding ring is still at David's loft, so Steven offers to go retrieve it for her.


title: A Perfect Murder

text: Steven then goes to David's loft with the cash, but finds a note with Emily's ring, directing him to a park. David's phone rings, and Steven answersit is a ticketing agent, confirming David's train to Montreal. Steven meets David in a park and swaps the money for the audio tape.


title: A Perfect Murder

text: Reaching the private compartment on the train, David opens the bathroom door; Steven lunges out and stabs him, taking David's gun and the money. A dying David laughs, revealing he mailed a copy of the tape to Emily via courier service. Steven rushes home and finds the mail still unopened. He hides the money, gun, and audio tape in his safe before Emily enters the room.


title: A Perfect Murder

text: Steven showers then dresses for dinner, but Emily suggests they stay in instead. As she heads out to pick up food, she mentions that they should have the locks changed since her key is missing. Steven checks the service entrance, finds the key he hid for David, and realizes that the attacker had put it back after unlocking the door. Emily suddenly appears, revealing that she knows everything now, having found the tape in the safe while he showered. When she turns to leave, Steven attacks her. A brief fight ensues, ending when Emily uses David's gun from the safe to shoot and kill Steven.


title: A Perfect Murder

text: Karaman and his officers arrive. Emily plays David's tape for them, then tearfully explains how Steven threatened to kill her, she tried to flee, and he attacked her. Karaman replies, "What else could you do?" He and Emily exchange an Arabic blessing as the film ends.


title: A Perfect Murder

text: In Hitchcock's "Dial M For Murder", the characters played by Ray Milland and Grace Kelly are depicted as living in a modest London flat, although it is implied that they are quite wealthy, as Milland's character, Tony Wendice, is a retired tennis champion. Michael Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow's characters are also shown as an extremely wealthy couple. Both Kelly and Paltrow's characters are shown as striking blondes. Both films make use of the mystery of the fact that no key was found on the dead man when he was killed by both Kelly and Paltrow's characters, as both their husbands had removed them in an attempt to pin the crime on their wives. Toward the beginning of "Dial M For Murder", when Kelly and Robert Cummings are shown together in the Wendice flat, and Milland comes home, Kelly greets him with "There you are!" and kisses him. Presumably in homage to the original film, Douglas's character greets Paltrow exactly the same way when she arrives home to their apartment at the beginning of "A Perfect Murder".


title: A Perfect Murder

text: Throughout the film, Emily carries an Hermès Kelly bag, named after Grace Kelly who was often photographed carrying the model of purse.


title: A Perfect Murder

text: The title "A Perfect Murder" matches the translation that was made in some countries of Hitchcock's film, known in Italian as "Il delitto perfetto" and in Spanish as "Crimen perfecto"; in French it was "Le crime était presque parfait."


title: A Perfect Murder

text: Principal photography began on October 14, 1997. Filming took place in & around New York City. The location of Steven & Emily's apartment was filmed at The Convent of The Sacred Heart building in Manhattan. The Bradford Mansion was filmed at the Salutation House in Long Island. Filming ended on January 13, 1998.


title: A Perfect Murder

text: An alternate ending exists and is presented, with optional commentary, on the original Blu-ray disc release. In this version, Steven comes back from finding the key replaced where he had hidden it and Emily confronts him in the kitchen rather than in their foyer. The scene plays out with the same dialogue, but Steven never physically attacks her. He still tells her that the only way she'll leave him is dead, and she shoots him. Steven then says "You won't get away with this" before dying and Emily purposely injures herself, making it look like self-defense.


title: A Perfect Murder

text: "A Perfect Murder" opened in second place at the box office behind "The Truman Show", grossing $16,615,704 during its first weekend. It ended up with a total worldwide gross of $128,038,368.


title: A Perfect Murder

text: "A Perfect Murder" received mixed reviews from critics: Stephen Holden of "The New York Times" called it a "skillfully plotted update of Frederick Knott's play". Owen Glelberman of "Entertainment Weekly" commented, " I’ve seen far worse thrillers than “A Perfect Murder,” but the movie is finally more competent than it is pleasurable. All that lingers from it is the color of money." Rita Kempley of "The Washington Post" noted, "The trouble is, we don't really much care about this philandering billionaire glamour puss, who seems perfectly capable of taking care of herself. We don't care about her husband or lover either. The story's most compelling character, an Arab American detective (the superb British actor David Suchet), becomes a minor player here. Nevertheless, like John Williams in the Hitchcock film, Suchet commits the film's only believable crime: He steals the show." Paul Clinton of CNN observed, "This production is stylishly mounted... Douglas is an excellent actor and a gifted producer. However, he should hang up his spurs when it comes to playing a romantic lead with women in their twenties." Roger Ebert, who gave the film 3 stars out of 4, wrote "[It] works like a nasty little machine to keep us involved and disturbed; my attention never strayed". Meanwhile, James Berardinelli wrote that the film "has inexplicably managed to eliminate almost everything that was worthwhile about "Dial M for Murder", leaving behind the nearly-unwatchable wreckage of a would-be '90s thriller." "A Perfect Murder" holds a 57% "Rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 53 reviews. The site's consensus states: "A slick little thriller that relies a bit too much on surprise events to generate suspense." It has a score of 50/100, based on 22 reviews ("mixed or average reviews") from Metacritic.


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: Elvis Presley had many close relationships throughout his career. The strongest of all the personal relationships of Elvis Presley, by far, was that he had with his mother Gladys, as described below.


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: In a newspaper interview with "The Memphis Press Scimitar", Elvis himself was open about the close relationship to his mother. "She was the number-one girl in his life, and he was dedicating his career to her." Throughout her life, "the son would call her by pet names," and they communicated by baby talk. Presley even shared his mother's bed "up until Elvis was a young teen," simply because the family was so extremely poor that they couldn't afford the luxury of two beds. According to Elaine Dundy, "it was agony for her to leave her child even for a moment with anyone else, to let anyone else touch Elvis." Presley himself said, "My mama never let me out of her sight. I couldn't go down to the creek with the other kids." His father, Vernon Presley, talked about Elvis's close relationship to his mother "after his son became famous, almost as if it were a source of wonder that anyone couldn't be that close to him."


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: During Presley's rising career, Gladys became despairing, depressed and lonely and began to neglect her health. She put on weight and began to drink every day. She "had" wanted Elvis to succeed, "but not so that he would be apart from her. The hysteria of the crowd frightened her." Doctors diagnosed liver problems, and Gladys's condition eventually worsened so much that she was admitted to hospital in August 1958. At that time, Elvis was in Fort Hood, Texas, to fulfill his military obligations, but he got emergency leave to see her, and a special plane was chartered to bring him home on August 12. Gladys died on August 14. Elvis and Vernon were deeply upset by her death, with Elvis "sobbing and crying hysterically," and eyewitnesses relate that he was "grieving almost constantly" for days. During and shortly after the funeral, Judy Spreckels and Nick Adams, Presley's best friends at that time, attempted to comfort the singer.


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: Presley's early experiences being teased by his classmates for being a "mama's boy" had a deep influence on his clumsy advances to girls. He didn't have any friends as a teen. Beginning in his early teens, Presley embarked upon the "indefatigable pursuit of girls," but was totally rebuffed. At school, anyone wishing to provoke a little girl to tears of rage had only to chalk "Elvis loves -" and then the girl's name on the blackboard when the teacher was out of the room." According to Greil Marcus, Elvis, "whatever his mother might have thought," seems to have spent some time "as a teenager in Memphis's black neighborhoods, having sex with black girls."


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: His first sweetheart was the fifteen-year-old Dixie Locke Emmons, whom the singer dated steadily after graduating from Humes and during his Sun Records time. While still a rising star, Presley also had a relationship with June Juanico, who is said to have been the only girl his mother ever approved of, but according to Juanico's own words, she "never had sex with Presley." In June Juanico's book "Elvis in the Twilight of Memory," she stated she was afraid of getting pregnant. However, since the singer's death, many claims to relationships have been made by women who were no more than acquaintances or had short affairs which were exaggerated for personal gain. Juanico even blames Elvis's manager, Colonel


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: Between 1954 and 1956, when his stardom began to rise, Presley became the subject of adulation and adoration of young Hollywood starlets such as Natalie Wood, Judy Tyler, Shelley Fabares, and Connie Stevens. His mother believed that Wood was a schemer who hoped to "snare" the singer only "for publicity purposes." When a columnist wanted to know if the romance with Presley was "serious," Natalie's cool answer was, "Not right now. But who knows what will happen?" One of her judgments of Elvis was, "He can sing but he can't do much else."


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: Several authors have written that "Elvis busied his evenings with various girlfriends" or that his "list of one-night stands would fill volumes." Actress Anne Helm, for instance, has stated that Presley "really liked sex." "I had fun", she says. "And it was special." She has further claimed that Elvis loved the flouncy, yellow baby-doll nightie he had bought her and that he gave her pills after having sex with her.


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: It is unclear whether Presley actually had sexual intercourse with most of the women he dated. His early girlfriends Judy Spreckels and June Juanico say that they had no sexual relationships with Presley, and there were several women with whom Elvis quickly bypassed sexuality altogether, settling into comfortable friendships. Spreckels, singer Betty Amos, hairstylist Patti Parry, and others close to Presley all filled sisterly roles for Elvis. Despite claiming no sexual relationship with Elvis, June Juanico did say in an interview for the movie "Elvis 1956", "I will not say what happened between us. It is personal." Byron Raphael and Alanna Nash have stated that the star "would never put himself inside one of these girls..." (for a number of reasons).


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: Albert Goldman speculated that Elvis preferred voyeurism over normal sexual relations with women. Goldman went on to suggest that during his military service, Elvis had "discovered prostitutes and picked up the intense fear of sexually transmitted diseases which led to claims that he had a morbid fear of sexual penetration." Alanna Nash, in her book, " 'Baby, Let's Play House': Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him" (2010), reveals a need in Presley to play Pygmalion and father to very young girls, whom he delighted in making over. A late-blooming "Mama's boy," she argues, young Elvis was a flop with girls and super-religious. Because of a fear of sexually transmitted diseases, he wouldn't actually go "inside" women, never undressed, and was more into watching elaborate tableaux, often involving feet.


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: Other women whom Elvis Presley dated included Dottie Harmony, Pat Sheehan, Pat Mowry, and Yvonne Lime.


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: June Juanico "recalls a time when she stood up to Elvis in front of his band of hangers-on, who even then were beginning to accompany him everywhere. He grabbed her arm, took her into the bathroom and declared: 'Look, you are so right, I am really sorry.' He kept her there for five minutes, then swaggered out, his image intact." Julie Parrish, Presley's co-star in "Paradise Hawaiian Style", relates, "One time on set I had a real pain in my side – a side-effect, I think – and Elvis scooped me up, carried me into his trailer and shut the door. Outside the crew was waiting and wondering, but Elvis was oblivious to the innuendo. He placed his hand over my side and tried to do some healing on me." Playboy star and actress June Wilkinson remembered that she "met Elvis on the set of "King Creole". He invited me to dinner at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. ... Then Elvis gave me a tour of his suite, sat me on the bed in his bedroom and sang to me for two hours. That was it. The next day ... we had dinner again. He was very sweet, and he was friendly. He had more than sex on his mind. He got me to the airport on time, and our paths never crossed again."


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: However, the singer was not always sweet and friendly towards women. When Christina Crawford, the adopted daughter of Joan Crawford, visited Presley, they were watching "Bonanza" in the TV room. "Elvis had been puffing on a cigar ... as Christina tickled him and kidded around, apparently seeking more direct attention." Suddenly, as Buzz Cason relates, "she slung the contents of her cocktail glass right into Elvis's face. ... The cigar went 'phhhtttt' and he jumped up. ... He grabbed her by the hair. 'Get this bitch out of here!' he screamed, leading her toward the front door as she struggled to keep up with the rather quick pace as he was pulling her locks. Turmoil ensued as the 'boys' scrambled to assist trying to prevent too big of a scene."


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: Peggy Lipton claims that Presley was "with me, at least, he was virtually impotent". Cassandra Peterson, better known as "Elvira', says she knew Presley for only one night and all they did was talk.


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: These claims are directly contradicted by comments from actresses like Cybill Shepherd, who acknowledged her affair with the singer and said to have introduced Elvis to certain amorous techniques. However, the "much-quoted claims that she taught him the joys of oral sex is viewed with skepticism by other lovers of the King." In an interview, Shepherd said that Presley kissed her all over her naked body – but refused to have oral sex with her. His slow tender kisses ended at her bellybutton. Elvis said to her, "Me and the guys talk and, well, we don't eat pussy." She always knew their relationship was doomed and they wouldn't last as a couple. She says, "The fact is, Elvis got hooked on speed in the army. ... Then it got out of control. Did I want to be with someone who would have dragged me down? The only way to have stayed with Elvis was by doing drugs."


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: In her memoir, Ann-Margret (Presley's co-star in "Viva Las Vegas") refers to Presley as her "soulmate", but very little is revealed about their long-rumored romance, only that "in a moment of tenderness" he bought her a round bed in hot pink colors.


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: On the other hand, Elvis dated many female co-stars from his movies primarily for publicity purposes. 17-year-old actress Lori Williams and the singer, for instance, went together for a while "between the making of "Roustabout" and "Kissin' Cousins"." She says their "courtship was not some bizarre story. It was very sweet and Elvis was the perfect gentleman." She also claims that Ann-Margret "was the love of his life." Significantly, there was a great publicity campaign about the romance between Elvis and Ann-Margret during the 1963 filming of "Viva Las Vegas" and the following weeks, which helped to increase the popularity of the young Hollywood beauty. Ann-Margret remained close to Presley for the remainder of his life and also attended his funeral.


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: The vast majority of books (including both of Guralnick's books) on Presley contain details of his many romances and alleged affairs including many while he was married to Priscilla. It has also been reported that Presley "adored to fondle and suck women's toes, and those in his entourage who were given the job of choosing companions for him would often be asked to check the girls' feet."


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: According to Alan Fortas, an all-Memphis football halfback who became a bodyguard and part of the Presley entourage, "Elvis needed someone to baby more than he needed a sex partner. He craved the attention of someone who adored him without the threat of sexual pressure, much as a mother would." Furthermore, "Elvis befriended some of the young girls who used to cluster adoringly in his driveway, or outside the fence ... Some of the girls were as young as fourteen. Fortas said they were frequent houseguests who attended his concerts as part of 'Elvis's personal traveling show.' Out in the backyard, they romped with Elvis in the Doughboy pool and challenged him to watermelon-seed spitting contests. They also slipped into his bedroom ... for rambunctious pillow fights. Sometimes they would all sit cross-legged with him on the bed, flipping through his fan magazines or admiring his stuffed-animal collection. Often they would all lie down together and cuddle. But what went on was horseplay, not foreplay." Therefore, Guralnick writes that for "the more experienced girls it wasn't like with other Hollywood stars or even with other more sophisticated boys they knew." Although they offered to do things for Presley, "he wasn't really interested. What he liked to do was to lie in bed and watch television and eat and talk all night..."


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: Dolores Hart was the female love interest from Elvis's second and fourth movies, and was his first onscreen kiss. She asserts that she did not have an intimate relationship with her costar. Five years after her last movie with Elvis, she left Hollywood to become a Benedictine nun. The 2011 documentary "God Is the Bigger Elvis" covers their relationship.


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: Anita Wood, another girl whom the singer's mother hoped Presley would eventually marry, was with him as he rose to superstardom, served in the US military and returned home in 1960. If he was planning to marry a girl, he wanted her to remain a virgin. Anita Wood lived at Graceland for a time, though the star, according to his own words, did not have sex with her. She moved out after confronting him over Priscilla Presley, then known as Priscilla Beaulieu.


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: Elvis and Priscilla Beaulieu first met in 1959 while Elvis was stationed in Germany with the U.S. Army. Priscilla was 14 years old when Elvis met her. Elvis' relationships with young women were pointed in "In his love life," by Reuben Fine, who observed that Elvis "quickly became attached to teenage girls, and he loved to have them wearing white panties in bed with him. For a long time he would not have sex with them, whom he described as 'jail bait.' " In similar terms, Brent D. Taylor has stated that "Elvis's closest female relationships were usually with young girls of around 13 or 14, ending as they reached late teens. He didn't have sex with these young girls, but had pajama parties, pillow fights and indulged in 'girl talk', just as he did with Gladys." "As a perpetual youth", Elvis was "attracted to young women", and "Elvis felt comfortable with these adolescent girls" because he "was so insecure ... That's why he needed younger girls." Elvis biographer Alanna Nash also confirms that the singer had a predilection for young adolescent girls. The author says that Presley was overly attached to his mother and could not relate normally to mature women; presumably, Presley sought out very young girls because he felt threatened by women who were older.


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: In 1962 or 1963, Elvis managed to talk the reluctant Beaulieus into allowing their teenage daughter to live with his father, Vernon, and stepmother, Dee Presley, at a home Elvis purchased on Hermitage Drive in Memphis located at the back of Graceland. However, that arrangement lasted only a matter of weeks, Priscilla slipping back and forth between Vernon's house and Graceland. In her 1985 autobiography, "Elvis and Me", written with author Sandra Harmon, Priscilla describes Presley as a very passionate man who was not overtly sexual towards her. According to her account, the singer told her that they had to wait until they were married before having intercourse. He said, "I'm not saying we can't do other things. It's just the actual encounter. I want to save it." Priscilla says in her autobiography that she and Elvis did not have sex until their wedding night. However, this claim is questioned by Suzanne Finstad.


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: They married on May 1, 1967, in Las Vegas, Nevada, and daughter Lisa Marie was born nine months later on February 1, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. In her book, "Elvis and Me", Priscilla describes her daily life with her husband. She also says that Presley became fascinated with the occult and metaphysical phenomena and an addict to prescription drugs, which dramatically changed his personality from playful to being passive and introverted. The Presleys separated on February 23, 1972, and divorced on October 9, 1973, agreeing to share custody of their daughter. When Priscilla left him for her karate teacher Mike Stone, the singer's "ego was damaged beyond repair. ... Considering Presley's status as a universal sex symbol ..., it is unlikely he was able to put this situation in any type of perspective other than having not been 'man enough' to hold his woman." According to Billy Stanley, he "wasn't the same person" as before. Priscilla says that she confronted Elvis about the divorce. According to her account, he forced himself upon her; "'This is how a real man makes love to a woman,' he said." However, Priscilla in an interview stated that she regretted her choice of words in describing the incident, and said it had been an overstatement.


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: Freudian and other sexual psychologists say that Presley is a "classic example of the mother/Madonna/whore split". He "adored his mother and never recovered from her early death." He met Priscilla "when she was 14. She became a mother at 23. It is said that Elvis never had sex with her again after the birth of his daughter, and would never have sex with a woman who had had a baby. He did not remarry after his divorce from Priscilla and did not have any more children." However, Priscilla Presley states in her autobiography that they did have sex again after the birth of their daughter, and actress Barbara Leigh, who had a relationship with the singer after the birth of her own child, claimed that they had sex often, despite Elvis' being aware of her child. Both accounts contradict claims made that Elvis would not have sex with a woman who had had a child.


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: Six months after Priscilla left, Presley dated beauty queen Linda Thompson. Although she was supposedly a virgin when they met, it has been claimed that they "started with marathon love-making sessions in Vegas hotel rooms." According to her own words, however, they did not consummate their relationship until after a few months of dating. She shared Presley's passion for gospel music and higher religious understanding, moved into Graceland in August 1972 and remained the singer's main girlfriend for nearly four and a half years. While constant companions for most of this period, their relationship eventually "disintegrated into a sexless and gloomy existence." According to Thompson, "There were times when he was very, very difficult. There was a lot of heartache and he exhibited a lot of self-destructive behaviour, which was very difficult for me, you know, watching someone I loved so much destroy himself." In 1976, she left Presley as Elvis began dating Mindi Miller from 1975 to 1976 and then Ginger Alden, his last serious girlfriend and the person who found his unresponsive body on the day he died. "Some doubt he ever had sex again," and Alden, whom Elvis had given a diamond engagement ring and presumably planned to marry, has been described as "too polite to say." However, Alden finally revealed in her 2014 memoir that they did "make love," indicating sexual intimacy.


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: Apart from his relationships with women, Presley had many male friends. He reportedly spent day and night with friends and employees whom the news media affectionately dubbed the Memphis Mafia. Among them were Joe Esposito, Sonny West, Red West, Billy Smith, Marty Lacker and Lamar Fike. Gerald Marzorati says that Elvis "couldn't go anywhere else without a phalanx of boyhood friends." Even the girls he dated deplored them, saying, "Whenever you were with Elvis for the most part you were with his entourage. Those guys were always around..."


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: According to Peter Guralnick, for Elvis and the guys "Hollywood was just an open invitation to party all night long. Sometimes they would hang out with Sammy Davis, Jr., or check out Bobby Darin at the Cloister. Nick Adams and his gang came by the suite all the time, not to mention the eccentric actor Billy Murphy ..." When Buzz Cason asked Lamar Fike "how Elvis did it – this partying nearly every night," he "answered, 'A little somethin' to get down and a little something to get up.' Obviously, he was referring to the pills that started a trend that sadly in only a few years would lead to Elvis's untimely death."


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: Samuel Roy says that "Elvis' bodyguards, Red and Sonny West and Dave Hebler, apparently loved Elvis—especially Red ... ; these bodyguards showed loyalty to Elvis and demonstrated it in the ultimate test. When bullets were apparently fired at Elvis in Las Vegas, the bodyguards threw themselves in front of Elvis, forming a shield to protect him." The author adds that the people who surrounded Presley "lived, for the most part, in isolation from the rest of the world, losing touch with every reality except that of his 'cult' and his power."


title: Personal relationships of Elvis Presley

text: According to Presley expert Elaine Dundy, "Of all Elvis' new friends, Nick Adams, by background and temperament the most insecure, was also his closest." Guralnick says that the singer "was hanging out more and more with Nick and his friends" and that Elvis was glad Colonel Tom Parker "liked Nick." June Wilkinson also confirms that the singer "had an entourage who spoke with Southern accents. The only one I remember was Nick Adams, the actor." In her recent Elvis biography, Kathleen Tracy writes that Adams was Elvis's regular friend and often met the singer backstage or at Graceland. "He and Elvis would go motorcycle riding late at night and stay up until all hours talking about the pain of celebrity."


title: Koei Tecmo

text: Koei Europe was the first subsidiary to change its name to Tecmo Koei Europe, Ltd and to release video games under the new moniker. In January 2010, Tecmo, Inc. and Koei Corporation followed suit by merging to form Tecmo Koei America Corporation.


title: Koei Tecmo

text: On April 1, 2010, Tecmo was declared disbanded in Japan. Its sister company Koei survived but was renamed Tecmo Koei Games (today Koei Tecmo Games) and is now the main publishing arm of the group in Japan. The former development divisions of Tecmo and Koei were briefly spun-off as separate companies in March 2010, but folded into Tecmo Koei Games in April 2011. In addition to its primary trademark, Koei Tecmo Games occasionally used until 2016 the "Tecmo" and "Koei" brand names on new video games for marketing purposes.


title: Koei Tecmo

text: Koei Co., Ltd. (株式会社コーエー "Kabushiki gaisha" Kōē, formerly 光栄 (Kōei)) was founded in July 1978 by husband-and-wife duo Yoichi and Keiko Erikawa. Yoichi was a student at Keio University, and when his family's rural dyestuffs business failed he decided to pursue his interest in programming. The company was (and, as Koei Tecmo, still is) located in the Hiyoshi area of Yokohama along with Yoichi's alma mater, and the company's name is simply a spoonerism of the school's.


title: Koei Tecmo

text: Kō Shibusawa and Eiji Fukuzawa, whose names are supposed to have made up the name of the company, do not really exist and are names used by the company to avoid giving credit to individual contributors, effectively acting as pen names for the Erikawas.


title: Koei Tecmo

text: The company initially focused on personal computer sales and made-to-order business software. In 1983 it released "Nobunaga's Ambition" (信長の野望 "Nobunaga no Yabō"), a historical strategy game set during the Sengoku period of Japanese history. The game went on to receive numerous awards, and Koei produced several more such games set against the backdrop of world history, including "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", set during the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history, and "Uncharted Waters" (大航海時代 "Dai Kōkai Jidai"; lit. "Great Navigation Era"), set in Portugal during the Age of Exploration.


title: Koei Tecmo

text: In 1988, Koei established a North American subsidiary, Koei Corporation, in California. This subsidiary localized Koei games for export to all territories outside Japan, as well as producing original games and concepts with the leadership of designer Stieg Hedlund, like "Liberty or Death", "", and "Gemfire" . After Hedlund's departure, this subsidiary ceased game development in 1995, focusing instead on localization, sales and marketing.


title: Koei Tecmo

text: A Canadian subsidiary, Koei Canada, Inc. was established in early 2001, and a European subsidiary, Koei Limited was established in early 2003 in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom. In 2004, a Lithuanian subsidiary was formed.


title: Koei Tecmo

text: , formerly known as , was founded by Yoshihito Kakihara on July 31, 1967, as a supplier of cleaning equipment. Two years later, in 1969, it started to sell amusement equipment. Tecmo had its headquarters in Kudankita, Chiyoda, Tokyo. Tecmo's United States offices were located in Torrance, California.


title: Koei Tecmo

text: In March 1981, a U.S. division was inaugurated as U.S. Tehkan, Inc.. A month later, in April 1981, Tehkan released in Japan its first arcade video game titled "Pleiades" (which was distributed in America by Centuri). When it was still called Tehkan, the company also released such classic games as "Bomb Jack" and "Tehkan World Cup". On January 8, 1986, Tehkan officially changed its name to Tecmo. In 1989 Tecmo was named as co-defendant in a lawsuit, when Indianapolis Colts running back Eric Dickerson sued the NFLPA over use of his likeness in the game Tecmo Bowl.


title: Koei Tecmo

text: On June 3, 2008, Team Ninja head Tomonobu Itagaki resigned from the company and filed a 145 million yen ($1.3 million) lawsuit for "unpaid completion bonuses" and "emotional distress". This was followed by another lawsuit filed on 16 June by two plaintiffs on behalf of Tecmo's 300 employees for unpaid wages amounting to ¥8.3 million.


title: Koei Tecmo

text: On August 20, 2008, Tecmo announced the resignation of president Yoshimi Yasuda, to be replaced by current Chairman of the Board Yasuharu Kakihara as of September 1. On August 28, Square Enix announced plans for a friendly takeover of Tecmo by purchasing shares at a 30 percent premium with a total bid of ¥22.3 billion. They gave Tecmo until September 4 to either accept or reject the proposal. Upon hearing this news on August 31, Kenji Matsubara, President and COO of Koei, called a board meeting for the next day, September 1. The board discussed the possibility of a merger with Tecmo, and began discussions with Tecmo that same day. On September 4, 2008 Tecmo officially declined Square Enix's proposal, and later that same day announced plans to merge with Koei.


title: Koei Tecmo

text: In November, the companies announced their specific plan of action, to complete the merger on April 1, 2009, forming Tecmo Koei Holdings. Koei stock was to be exchanged for Tecmo Koei stock at a rate of 1:1, and Tecmo stock exchanged at .9:1, giving Koei shareholders, in total, a three-quarter stake in the new company. Though the combined profits in 2007 were 8.5 billion yen, they anticipated that the merged company would net over 16 billion yen in the fiscal year ending March 2012. Effissimo Capital Management Pte, Tecmo's second-largest shareholder at 17.6%, openly opposed the merger. On January 26, 2009, the shareholders for both Koei and Tecmo reached separate agreements in favor of the merger. Effissimo raised some dissent during the meeting, and implied they may seek to sell their shares. Effissimo's director Takashi Kosaka stated “We have not had sufficient information from the company to make a judgment on the merger, such as the feasibility of their plan to raise shareholder value.” On February 12, Kenji Matsubara liquidated KOEI France SAS. On February 13, Tecmo announced it had received a repurchase claim (a request for the company to buy stock back) from a major shareholder, 15.64% of the stock (3,890,700 shares) from a shareholder that stood in opposition to the firm's upcoming merger with Koei. While the requesting shareholder was not mentioned, Reuters stated that it was likely Effissimo.


title: Koei Tecmo

text: Despite these misgivings, the holding company formed on April 1, 2009 as planned. The development divisions of both companies were spun-out into separate subsidiaries, created specifically for the planning and development of software, operating directly under the holding company. Kenji Matsubara became CEO of the new company, and former Tecmo CEO Yasuharu Kakihara became board chairman. As of May 26, Tecmo Koei had still not reached an agreement with Effissimo, prompting the investment fund to seek mediation with the Tokyo District Court. While Tecmo Koei favored a stock value in the mid-600 yen range, Effissimo was expected to ask for at least 900, in part due to the rejected Square Enix offer of 920 per share.


title: Koei Tecmo

text: On June 23, 2009, Tecmo Koei announced a planned restructure of its international subsidiaries. Koei Europe was renamed Tecmo Koei Europe in 2009 and became the first subsidiary to publish games under the new moniker, starting with "Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2". In August 2009 Tecmo Koei announced that it was setting up a subsidiary in Hanoi, Vietnam. In January 2010, Tecmo's sole subsidiary, the American Tecmo Inc., and Koei's American branch, Koei Corporation, were moved under a newly formed Tecmo Koei America Corporation, itself a direct subsidiary to Tecmo Koei Holdings. Koei's Canadian, Korean, and Taiwanese subsidiaries were re-branded Tecmo Koei, and also moved to direct subsidiaries of the holding company. Later that month the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) announced that Tecmo Koei was now a member.


title: Koei Tecmo

text: On April 1, 2010, Koei absorbed Tecmo in Japan to become Tecmo Koei Games, which renamed itself to Koei Tecmo Games in 2014. Koei Singapore was also re-branded as Tecmo Koei.


title: Koei Tecmo

text: On February 8, 2011, Tecmo Koei Holdings announced that the new individual developers Tecmo and Koei that were formed in March 2010 would be merged into Tecmo Koei Games in April 2011, though the company will continue to develop under the Tecmo and Koei brands.


title: Koei Tecmo

text: The continued operating loss prompted Kenji Matsubara, the former president and CEO of both Tecmo Koei Holdings and Tecmo Koei Games label, to render his resignation in November 2010. Yoichi Erikawa, co-founder of Koei, took over the four positions vacated by Matsubara.


title: Koei Tecmo

text: On July 1, 2014, the company and its related subsidiaries were renamed from Tecmo Koei to Koei Tecmo.


title: Koei Tecmo

text: On February 18, 2016, Koei Tecmo announced a second reorganization of the company, to support the expansion of the company. Brand names Team Tachyon, Koei and Tecmo, amongst others, were dropped.


title: Koei Tecmo

text: Gust Co. Ltd. was founded in 1993 and is best known for its long-running "Atelier" series. Koei Tecmo bought Gust Co. Ltd. in 2011 and absorbed it in 2014.


title: Koei Tecmo

text: On February 18, 2016, as part of the companies reconstruction, Koei Tecmo announced the establishment of Kou Shibusawa, named after the stage name of Koei's founder. It has handled the historically-based titles such as "Nobunaga's Ambition" series, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" series, "Uncharted Waters" series and "Nioh" series, as well as horse racing simulation "Winning Post" series. The division also worked as lead developer with Intelligent Systems on "".


title: Koei Tecmo

text: Omega Force (ω-Force) is a division of Koei. Omega Force are most well known for its "Dynasty Warriors" series, including spin-offs such as "Samurai Warriors", "Warriors Orochi", amongst others. As well as non-"Warriors" titles such as "", "WinBack", "Attack on Titan" and "Toukiden".


title: Koei Tecmo

text: Ruby Party specializes in games labeled as Neoromance: otome game visual novels and dating sims, usually with extra side-quests. Out of the three Neoromance series, the best known is "Angelique" series, which has been in production since 1994. The first game of "Angelique" series was the first otome game (visual novel and dating sims for women) in the world. "Harukanaru Toki no Naka de" is a newer Neoromance hit, with many sequels and an anime television series based on it. The newest game in the series, "Kin'iro no Corda", is gaining popularity partially because the manga series it was based on has been recently licensed by "Viz" for English language publishing, and an anime television series based on it began airing in October 2006. A sequel was also released on the PlayStation 2 in March 2007.


title: Koei Tecmo

text: Team Ninja (stylised as Team NINJA) is a video game development studio of Tecmo founded in 1995. It was formerly led by Tomonobu Itagaki and is best known for the "Dead or Alive" and "Ninja Gaiden" series.


title: Koei Tecmo

text: Team Tachyon is a Japanese video game development department of Koei Tecmo founded in 2007. Similar to Team Ninja, the group was formed to develop high-profile games, some of which relate to Tecmo Koei's classic franchises. The company says that they chose the name, "Team Tachyon", because a tachyon is a particle that exceeds the speed of light. Key members include Tecmo producers Keisuke Kikuchi ("Rygar", "Fatal Frame") and Kohei Shibata.


title: Koei Tecmo

text: So far, Team Tachyon has aided in the development of the 2008 game for the Wii, 2008 Wii game "", has released "Undead Knights" for the PlayStation Portable, and "Quantum Theory" for the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360, released in 2010. was developed for the Nintendo 3DS and released in 2012, was released on the same year for the Wii and was released in 2015 for the Wii U.


title: Koei Tecmo

text: As of February 18, 2016, Team Tachyon was absorbed into Team Ninja, with some staff now moved to Gust.


title: Koei Tecmo

text: Founded in 2001 as Koei Canada, Koei Tecmo Canada was the North American development arm of the company based in Toronto. It started out as a CG studio for Koei games but expanded into video game development in 2005, developing "Fatal Inertia", "Prey the Stars", and "". The studio was closed at the end of March 2013.


title: Cauterization

text: Cauterization (or cauterisation, or cautery) is a medical practice or technique of burning a part of a body to remove or close off a part of it. It destroys some tissue in an attempt to mitigate bleeding and damage, remove an undesired growth, or minimize other potential medical harm, such as infections when antibiotics are unavailable.


title: Cauterization

text: The practice was once widespread for treatment of wounds. Its utility before the advent of antibiotics was said to be effective at more than one level:


title: Cauterization

text: Cautery was historically believed to prevent infection, but current research shows that cautery actually increases the risk for infection by causing more tissue damage and providing a more hospitable environment for bacterial growth. Actual cautery refers to the metal device, generally heated to a dull red glow, that a physician applies to produce blisters, to stop bleeding of a blood vessel, and for other similar purposes.


title: Cauterization

text: The main forms of cauterization used today are electrocautery and chemical cautery—both are, for example, prevalent in cosmetic removal of warts and stopping nosebleeds. Cautery can also mean the branding of a human.


title: Cauterization

text: Cauterize is a Middle English word borrowed from the Old French "cauteriser", from Late Latin "cauterizare" "to burn or brand with a hot iron", from Greek καυτηριάζειν > kauteriazein, from καυτήρ, kauter, "burning or branding iron", and καίειν, "to burn" (cf caustic).


title: Cauterization

text: Cauterization has been used to stop heavy bleeding since antiquity. The process was described in the Edwin Smith Papyrus and Hippocratic Corpus. It was primarily used to control hemorrhages, especially those resulting from surgery, in ancient Greece. Archigenes recommended cauterization in the event of hemorrhaging wounds, and Leonides of Alexandria described excising breast tumors and cauterizing the resulting wound in order to control bleeding. The Chinese "Su wen" recommends cauterization as a treatment for various ailments, including dog bites. Indigenous peoples of the Americas, ancient Arabs, and Persians also used the technique.


title: Cauterization

text: Tools used in the ancient cauterization process ranged from heated lances to cauterizing knives. The piece of metal was heated over fire and applied to the wound. This caused tissues and blood to heat rapidly to extreme temperatures, causing coagulation of the blood and thus controlling the bleeding, at the cost of extensive tissue damage. In rarer cases, cauterization was instead accomplished via the application of cauterizing chemicals like lye.


title: Cauterization

text: Cauterization continued to be used as a common treatment in medieval times. While mainly employed to stop blood loss, it was also used in cases of tooth extraction and as a treatment for mental illness. In the Muslim world, scholars Al-Zahrawi and Avicenna wrote about techniques and instruments used for cauterization.


title: Cauterization

text: The technique of ligature of the arteries as an alternative to cauterization was later improved and used more effectively by Ambroise Paré.


title: Cauterization

text: Electrocauterization is the process of destroying tissue (or cutting through soft tissue) using heat conduction from a metal probe heated by electric current. The procedure stops bleeding from small vessels (larger vessels being ligated). Electrocautery applies high frequency alternating current by a "unipolar" or "bipolar" method. It can be a continuous waveform to cut tissue, or intermittent to coagulate tissue.


title: Cauterization

text: The electrically produced heat in this process inherently can do numerous things to the tissue, depending on the waveform and power level, including cauterize, coagulate, cut, and dry (desiccate). Thus electrocautery, electrocoagulation, electrodesiccation, and electrocurettage are closely related and can co-occur in the same procedure when desired. Electrodesiccation and curettage is a common procedure.


title: Cauterization

text: In unipolar cauterization, the physician contacts the tissue with a single small electrode. The circuit's exit point is a large surface area, such as the buttocks, to prevent electrical burns. The amount of heat generated depends on the size of contact area, power setting or frequency of current, duration of application, and waveform. A constant waveform generates more heat than intermittent. The frequency used in cutting the tissue is higher than in coagulation mode.


title: Cauterization

text: Bipolar electrocautery passes the current between two tips of a forceps-like tool. It has the advantage of not disturbing other electrical body rhythms (such as the heart) and also coagulates tissue by pressure. Lateral thermal injury is greater in unipolar than bipolar devices.


title: Cauterization

text: Electrocauterization is preferable to chemical cauterization, because chemicals can leach into neighbouring tissue and cauterize outside of intended boundaries. Concern has also been raised regarding toxicity of the surgical smoke electrocautery produces. This contains chemicals that, through inhalation, may harm patients or medical staff.


title: Cauterization

text: Many chemical reactions can destroy tissue, and some are used routinely in medicine, most commonly to remove small skin lesions such as warts or necrotized tissue, or for hemostasis. Because chemicals can leach into areas not intended for cauterization, laser and electrical methods are preferable where practical. Some cauterizing agents are:


title: Cauterization

text: Frequent nosebleeds are most likely caused by an exposed blood vessel in the nose, usually one in Kiesselbach's plexus.


title: Cauterization

text: Even if the nose is not bleeding at the time, a physician may cauterize it to prevent future bleeding. Cauterization methods include burning the affected area with acid, hot metal, or lasers. Such a procedure is naturally quite painful. Sometimes, a physician uses liquid nitrogen as a less painful alternative, though it is less effective. A physician may apply cocaine in the few countries that allow it for medical use. Cocaine is the only local anesthetic that also produces vasoconstriction, making it ideal for controlling nosebleeds.


title: Cauterization

text: More modern treatment applies silver nitrate after a local anesthetic. The procedure is generally painless, but after the anesthetic wears off, there may be pain for several days, and the nose may run for up to a week after this treatment.


title: Cauterization

text: Cauterization has been used for the circumcision of infants in the United States and Canada. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba advises against its use in neonatal circumcision. This method of circumcision resulted in several infants having their penises severely burned, with at least seven male children being reassigned as female.


title: Susanne Klatten

text: Susanne Hanna Ursula Klatten ("née" Quandt, born 28 April 1962) is a German billionaire heiress, the daughter of Herbert and Johanna Quandt. As of January 2022, her net worth was estimated at US$23.4 billion, and the richest woman in Germany and the 65th richest person in the world according to the "Bloomberg Billionaires Index".


title: Susanne Klatten

text: Klatten was born in Bad Homburg, West Germany. After gaining a degree in business finance, she worked for the advertising agency Young & Rubicam in Frankfurt from 1981 to 1983. This was followed by a course in marketing and management at the University of Buckingham, and an MBA from IMD Business School in Lausanne specialising in advertising.


title: Susanne Klatten

text: She gained further business experience in London with Dresdner Bank, the Munich branch of management consultants McKinsey and the bank Bankhaus Reuschel & Co.


title: Susanne Klatten

text: On her father's death she inherited his 50.1% stake in pharmaceutical and chemicals manufacturer Altana. She sits on Altana's supervisory board and helped transform it into a world-class corporation in the German DAX list of 30 top companies. In 2006 Altana AG sold its pharmaceutical activities to Nycomed for €4.5 billion, leaving only its speciality chemicals business. The €4.5 billion was distributed to shareholders as a dividend. Altana maintained its stock exchange listing and Klatten remained its majority shareholder. In 2009, she bought almost all shares she did not already own in Altana. Altana and SKion, which are both wholly owned by Susanne Klatten, are shareholder of Landa Digital Printing with together 46% since 2018. Landa Digital Printing is a company of the Israeli entrepreneur and inventor Benny Landa in the field of digital printing and nanotechnology.


title: Susanne Klatten

text: Her father also left her a 12.50% stake in BMW, but following the death of her mother in 2015, her stake in BMW is now 19.2%. She was appointed to the supervisory board of BMW with her brother Stefan Quandt in 1997.


title: Susanne Klatten

text: German graphite maker SGL Carbon said on 16 March 2009 that Klatten owns options to raise her stake in SGL from 8% to almost a quarter of the shares but no more than that.


title: Susanne Klatten

text: The Hanns Joachim Friedrichs Award winning documentary film "The Silence of the Quandts" by the German public broadcaster ARD described in October 2007 the role of the Quandt family businesses during the Second World War. The family's Nazi past was not well known, but the documentary film revealed this to a wide audience and confronted the Quandts about the use of slave labourers in the family's factories during World War II. As a result, five days after the showing, four family members announced, on behalf of the entire Quandt family, their intention to fund a research project in which a historian would examine the family's activities during Adolf Hitler's dictatorship. The independent 1,200-page study researched and compiled by Bonn historian, Joachim Scholtyseck, that was released in 2011 concluded: "The Quandts were linked inseparably with the crimes of the Nazis". , no compensation, apology or even memorial at the site of one of their factories, have been permitted. BMW was not implicated in the report.


title: Susanne Klatten

text: Susanne met Jan Klatten while she was doing an internship with BMW in Regensburg, where he worked as an engineer. It is reported that during this time she called herself Kant and did not tell him who she was until they were sure about each other, but Klatten himself denies the story. They married in 1990 in Kitzbühel and live in Munich. They have three children. The couple separated in 2018. She has been a member of the University Council of the Technical University of Munich since 2005. In 2007 she was awarded the "Bayerischer Verdienstorden", the Bavarian Order of Merit. She is one of the biggest donors of the centre-right political party, the Christian Democratic Union.


title: Susanne Klatten

text: In 2007 Klatten was blackmailed by Helg "Russak" Sgarbi, a 44-year-old Swiss national who threatened to release materials depicting the two having an affair. Sgarbi, who was charged with similar blackmail schemes against multiple women, was arrested in January 2009 and brought to court in Germany, where he was sentenced to six years in jail. His accomplice, the Italian hotel owner Ernano Barretta who allegedly filmed Sgarbi and Klatten with hidden cameras, was also arrested and was sentenced in 2012 to seven years in prison.


title: Artists and repertoire

text: Artists and repertoire (colloquially abbreviated to A&R) is the division of a record label or music publishing company that is responsible for talent scouting and overseeing the artistic development of recording artists (singers, instrumentalists, bands, and so on) and songwriters. It also acts as a liaison between artists and the record label or publishing company; every activity involving artists to the point of album release is generally considered under the purview, and responsibility, of A&R.


title: Artists and repertoire

text: The A&R division of a record label is responsible for finding new recording artists and bringing those artists to the record company. A&R staff may go to hear emerging bands play at nightclubs and festivals to scout for talent. Personnel in the A&R division are expected to understand the current tastes of the market and to be able to find artists that will be commercially successful. For this reason, A&R people are often young and many are musicians, music journalists or record producers.


title: Artists and repertoire

text: An A&R executive is authorized to offer a record contract, often in the form of a "deal memo": a short informal document that establishes a business relationship between the recording artist and the record company. The actual contract negotiations will typically be carried out by rival entertainment lawyers hired by the musician's manager and the record company.


title: Artists and repertoire

text: A&R executives rely mostly on the word of mouth of trusted associates, critics and business contacts, rather than on unsolicited demo tapes. They also tend to favor the bands that play in the same city as the record label's offices.


title: Artists and repertoire

text: The A&R division of a record label oversees the music style and recording process. This includes helping the artist to find the right record producer, scheduling time in a recording studio and advising the artist on all aspects of making a high-quality recording. They work with the artist to choose the best songs (i.e., ) to record. For artists who do not write their own music, the A&R person will assist in finding songs, songwriters, and arrangers. A&R staff will help find session musicians for the recording. A&R executives maintain contact with their counterparts at music publishing companies to get new songs and material from songwriters and producers.


title: Artists and repertoire

text: As the record nears completion, the A&R department works closely with the artist to determine whether the record is acceptable to the record company. This process may include suggesting that new songs need to be written, that existing songs need a new arrangement, or that some album tracks need to be re-recorded. A key issue is whether the album has a single: a particular track which can be used to market the record.


title: Artists and repertoire

text: Once the record is completed, the A&R department consults with marketing, promotion, the artist and their management to choose one or more singles to help promote the record.


title: Artists and repertoire

text: The tastes of particular A&R executives have influenced the course of music history. A&R man John H. Hammond discovered Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin and Bruce Springsteen. Hammond's colleagues were initially skeptical of these artists because none of them appeared to be creating "commercial" music. Hammond's instincts proved to be correct, and these artists went on to sell hundreds of millions of records. Gary Gersh signed the band Nirvana to David Geffen's DGC Records at a time when alternative rock music was not considered commercial. Gersh was able to convince his co-workers to push the record in spite of their misgivings. In cases like these, A&R people have radically changed the direction of popular musical tastes and introduced large numbers of people to new sounds.


title: Artists and repertoire

text: This kind of prescience is, however, the exception rather than the rule. Historically, A&R executives have tended to sign new artists that fit into recent trends and who resemble acts that are currently successful. For example, Columbia Records' A&R man in the 1950s, Mitch Miller, favored traditional pop singers like Guy Mitchell and Patti Page, and rejected early rock-'n'-rollers Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly.


title: Artists and repertoire

text: This "trend following" mindset has generated several waves of narrowly defined genres, leading to a perception of triteness, including teen pop (1998–2001), alternative rock (1993–1996), glam metal (1986–1991) and disco (1976–1978). Trend following can be counter-productive, since it has often led to over-promotion followed by backlash (as happened to the disco genre for example). Towards the end of the life of each wave or trend, record companies have found themselves faced with enormous losses, as consumers' tastes changed. For example, at the end of the disco boom in 1978, millions of records were returned by record retailers, causing a deep recession in the music business that lasted until 1982, when Michael Jackson's "Thriller" finally brought the public back into record stores in large numbers.


title: Artists and repertoire

text: The general move towards more conservative and business-minded signings from the 1980s onwards is seen to be symptomatic of an industry where the most powerful figures are no longer music fans or people with musical backgrounds but business executives, a group largely composed of individuals with uniform backgrounds. Traditionally A&R executives were composers, arrangers and producers – Atlantic Records's heads Jerry Wexler and Ahmet Ertegun were producers and composers respectively – but an A&R with musical ability and knowledge has become a rarity, with Ron Fair and Martin Kierszenbaum being notable recent exceptions. The composer and arranger Richard Niles has said,


title: Artists and repertoire

text: What you've got now is huge multinational companies where most of their A&R staff are businessmen. They’re people who look at music from the standpoint of marketing, not from the standpoint of music and talent. They will say, "Go out and get me anything that's popular now."


title: Artists and repertoire

text: Hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan referenced this stereotype of the business-minded A&R executive in their single "Protect Ya Neck", metaphorically likening them to "mountain climbers".


title: Artists and repertoire

text: According to Rhythm King Records and Lizard King Records founder Martin Heath, the A&R community in the UK is more integrated than it is in the US, being very London-centric and encompassing a relatively small number of people. "If scouts are chasing a band, you’ll see the same thirty people in one room. You get a herd mentality in the UK, but also some very diverse signings as well," he said in an interview with HitQuarters. Heath believes that in the USA it is more typical for A&R to wait until a band is established – having attracted other offers or achieved a level of sales – before taking action, a technique which often works out as being more expensive.


title: Artists and repertoire

text: New forms of digital distribution have changed the relationship between consumers and the music they choose. Gerd Leonhard and others argue that the wide selection of music on digital services has allowed music consumers to bypass the traditional role of A&R. In the wake of declining record sales, many A&R staffers have been terminated.


title: Kos

text: Kos or Cos (; ) is a Greek island, part of the Dodecanese island chain in the southeastern Aegean Sea. Kos is the third largest island of the Dodecanese by area, after Rhodes and Karpathos; it has a population of 36,986 (2021 census), making it the second most populous of the Dodecanese, after Rhodes. The island measures . Administratively, Kos constitutes a municipality within the Kos regional unit, which is part of the South Aegean region. The principal town of the island and seat of the municipality is Kos Town.


title: Kos

text: The name "Kos" (, genitive ) is first attested in the "Iliad", and has been in continuous use since. Other ancient names include Meropis, Cea, and Nymphaea.


title: Kos

text: In many Romance languages, Kos was formerly known as "Stancho", "Stanchio", or "Stinco", and in Ottoman and modern Turkish it is known as , all from the reinterpretation of the Greek expression 'to Kos'; "cf." the similar Istanbul and Stimpoli, Crete. Under the rule of the Knights Hospitaller of Rhodes, it was known as "Lango" or "Langò", presumably because of its length. In "The Travels of Sir John Mandeville", the author misunderstands this and treats Lango and Kos as distinct islands.


title: Kos

text: A person from Kos is called a "Koan" (or "Coan") in English. The word is also an adjective, as in "Koan goods".


title: Kos

text: The island has several promontories, some with names known in antiquity: Cape Skandari, anciently "Scandarium" or "Skandarion" in the northeast; Cape "Lacter" or "Lakter" in the south; and Cape "Drecanum" or "Drekanon" in the west.


title: Kos

text: In addition to the main town and port, also called Kos, the main villages of Kos island are Kardamena, Kefalos, Tingaki, Antimachia, Mastihari, Marmari and Pyli. Smaller ones are Zia, Zipari, Platani, Lagoudi and Asfendiou.


title: Kos

text: The present municipality of Kos was created in 2011 with the merger of three municipalities, which became municipal units:


title: Kos

text: Tourism is the main industry in Kos, the island's beaches being the primary attraction. The main port and population centre on the island, Kos town, is also a tourist and cultural centre, with whitewashed buildings including many hotels, restaurants and a number of nightclubs forming the town's "bar street". The seaside village of Kardamena is a popular resort for young holidaymakers (primarily from the United Kingdom and Scandinavia) and has a large number of bars and nightclubs.


title: Kos

text: Farming is the second principal occupation, with the main crops being grapes, almonds, figs, olives, and tomatoes, along with wheat and corn. Cos lettuce (romaine lettuce) is named after the island, from where it is said to have originated.


title: Kos

text: In classical mythology the founder-king of Kos was Merops, hence "Meropian Kos" is included in the archaic Delian amphictyony listed in the 7th-century Homeric hymn to Delian Apollo; the island was visited by Heracles. Kos was said to be the birthplace of the goddess Leto; the mother of Apollo. Supposedly Leto's father Coeus was the first inhabitant of the island.


title: Kos

text: The island was originally colonised by the Carians. The Dorians invaded it in the 11th century BC, establishing a Dorian colony with a large contingent of settlers from Epidaurus, whose Asclepius cult made their new home famous for its "sanatoria". The other chief sources of the island's wealth lay in its wines and, in later days, in its silk manufacture.


title: Kos

text: Its early history–as part of the religious-political amphictyonic league that included Lindos, Kamiros, Ialysos, Knidos and Halicarnassus, the Doric Hexapolis ( means 'six cities' in Greek),–is obscure. At the end of the 6th century, Kos fell under Achaemenid domination but rebelled after the Greek victory at the Battle of Mycale in 479. Archaeological finds have shown the existence of a small shrine to Hemera and Helios; gods of the day and the Sun respectively.


title: Kos

text: During the Greco-Persian Wars, before it twice expelled the Persians, it was ruled by Persian-appointed tyrants, but as a rule it seems to have been under oligarchic government. In the 5th century, it joined the Delian League, and, after the revolt of Rhodes, it served as the chief Athenian station in the south-eastern Aegean (411–407). In 366 BC, a democracy was instituted. In 366 BC, the capital was transferred from Astypalaea (at the west end of the island near the modern village of Kefalos) to the newly built town of Cos, laid out in a Hippodamian grid. After helping to weaken Athenian power, in the Social War (357-355 BC), it fell for a few years to the king Mausolus of Caria.


title: Kos

text: Proximity to the east gave the island first access to imported silk thread. Aristotle mentions silk weaving conducted by the women of the island. Silk production of garments was conducted in large factories by female slaves.


title: Kos

text: During the course of the Fourth War of the Diadochi Ptolemy I Soter captured Kos from Antigonus I Monophthalmus, incorporating it into his kingdom. In the Hellenistic period, Kos attained the zenith of its prosperity. Kos was valued by the Ptolemies, who used it as a naval outpost to oversee the Aegean. As a seat of learning, it arose as a provincial branch of the museum of Alexandria, and became a favorite resort for the education of the princes of the Ptolemaic dynasty. During the Hellenistic age, there was a medical school; however, the theory that this school was founded by Hippocrates (see below) during the Classical age is an unwarranted extrapolation. It was the home of the major Hellenistic poet-scholar Philitas.