title: 1983 Formula One World Championship

text: The next race was the first of two to be held in the US, the United States Grand Prix West, held at Long Beach, California. Tambay started the race from pole, and led until lap 25. On that lap, Rosberg attempted to overtake, but the two cars touched and span. Tambay retired, but Rosberg continued in the lead. Soon afterwards, Laffite took the lead, pushing Rosberg into a collision as he did so. The McLaren pair of John Watson and Niki Lauda had started from 22nd and 23rd on the grid, but both Laffite and Patrese were struggling with worn tyres, and were being caught quickly by the McLarens. Patrese attempted to pass Laffite on lap 44 but slid wide, and was passed by both McLarens. They also both found a way past Laffite on the next lap. From there Watson was left to lead home his teammate for a 1–2 victory, and one that still stands as the victory from the lowest qualifying position. Patrese suffered an engine failure three laps from the end, leaving third position to Arnoux, with Laffite following home, a lap down in fourth. The points were rounded out by Surer in the Arrows and Johnny Cecotto in the Theodore. Chico Serra had been replaced in the second Arrows by 1980 World Champion Alan Jones, but the Australian's return to F1 was unsuccessful, and Serra would be back in the car for the next race.


title: 1983 Formula One World Championship

text: This was the last United States Grand Prix West, as race organiser Chris Pook had decided that Formula One was too expensive. From 1984 onwards, the race would instead be part of the CART IndyCar series.


title: 1983 Formula One World Championship

text: As the F1 circus headed to Europe, Lauda led the championship despite not having yet won a race. The two winners, Piquet and Watson, were joint second, just one point behind. This meant that McLaren held a commanding lead in the Constructors' Championship, ten points ahead of Brabham.


title: 1983 Formula One World Championship

text: For the French Grand Prix at the Circuit Paul Ricard near Marseille, the RAM team entered a second car for local driver Jean-Louis Schlesser, who failed to qualify.


title: 1983 Formula One World Championship

text: This race was being held in mid-April instead of its usual late June/early July date, in order to avoid the southern French summer heat. The race was dominated by another home driver, Alain Prost. He took pole position, victory and fastest lap and led all but three laps of the race. These three were led by Piquet during the pit stops; the Brazilian eventually finished second to reclaim his championship lead. Eddie Cheever came home third in the second Renault. Tambay was fourth in front of his home crowd, with the two Williams of Rosberg and Laffite fifth and sixth respectively.


title: 1983 Formula One World Championship

text: Piquet now led the championship by five points from Lauda, with Watson and Prost just one further point behind. McLaren's lead in the Constructors' Championship had been severely narrowed by their failure to score, and Brabham were now just four points behind, with Renault also in close attendance.


title: 1983 Formula One World Championship

text: Arnoux on Ferrari took the pole position, while his teammate Tambay surged up from the second row to join him at the head of the pack in the opening laps. Local driver Riccardo Patrese, however, overcame them both to put his Brabham in the lead. Despite the best efforts of first Arnoux and then Tambay after they swapped places during the pitstops, he stayed there. On lap 34, Tambay finally found a way past, and he remained in the lead until a small misfire allowed Patrese to take the lead 6 laps from the end on the approach to Tosa. However, on the exit to Aqua Minerale Patrese ran wide and ran into the tyre wall. This allowed Tambay to retake the lead and take the chequered flag, giving Ferrari a win on home ground. Prost passed Arnoux in the last five laps to prevent a Ferrari 1–2 finish. Arnoux came home third, however, to make it an all-French podium, leading home the last points scorers: Rosberg, Watson and Surer yet again. Piquet's failure to score due to an engine failure, a common occurrence for the Brabham-BMWs, meant that he and Prost were now tied at the top of the standings with Tambay only one point behind. The McLaren pair of Watson and Lauda were also in close attendance. Ferrari seized the lead in the Constructors' Championship, but were only separated from McLaren and Renault by a total of three points. Brabham's inconsistency saw them slip to fourth, some way behind.


title: 1983 Formula One World Championship

text: Prost took his second pole of the year in Monaco. Arnoux completed an all French front row. However, both were passed at the start by Keke Rosberg who, despite the damp track, took the gamble of starting on slicks while those around him were either on full wets or intermediate tyres, and as Prost dropped back through the field after a few laps the Finn was left with no serious challengers. Despite the rain, and multiple collisions further down the field, including Arnoux, Rosberg led every lap to record his first victory of the year. Jacques Laffite had looked set to record a Williams 1–2, but he was stopped by a gearbox failure. This gave the two remaining podium spots to Piquet and Prost, allowing Piquet to open up a two-point lead in the championship. Tambay was fourth, ahead of Danny Sullivan's Tyrrell and Mauro Baldi's Alfa Romeo. Patrese suffered from an electrics problem ten laps from home.


title: 1983 Formula One World Championship

text: Prost remained second in the championship, with Tambay only two further points behind. Rosberg's victory moved him up to fourth, while Ferrari retained their lead in the Constructors' Championship, two points ahead of Renault, who were, in turn, two points ahead of Brabham, McLaren and Williams, all on 21.


title: 1983 Formula One World Championship

text: The 1983 race was, for Spa-Francorchamps circuit in southern Belgium, the first time it had hosted a Grand Prix since 1970; although the circuit had been shortened in 1979 to 7 km from 14 km, and had been made a lot safer than its extremely fast original version but had still managed to retain the fast, flowing nature of the old circuit. Zolder and Nivelles had hosted the Belgian Grand Prix for most of the 1970s and early 1980s.


title: 1983 Formula One World Championship

text: Prost took pole yet again at Spa for the Belgian Grand Prix, although his qualifying performances were not reflected in his points tally at that point in the season. Andrea de Cesaris leapt into the lead from the second row of the grid, and spent the first twenty laps pulling away from Prost. The Italian looked set for a maiden victory before a slow pit stop dropped him to second and engine trouble slowed and finally stopped his Alfa Romeo. This left Prost free to record a victory only briefly challenged by Piquet, who slipped away at the end to fourth. Tambay was second with Cheever third, making it two Renaults on the podium again, while Rosberg and Laffite rounded out the points, their Cosworth powered cars proving no match for the turbo's on the fast Spa layout.


title: 1983 Formula One World Championship

text: Prost had a four-point lead over Piquet, with Tambay only one further point behind. Renault also assumed the lead in the Constructors' Championship by five points from Ferrari, with Brabham, Williams and McLaren slipping farther behind. Arrows, seemingly determined to get rid of Chico Serra, replaced him for a second time, this time with local rookie Thierry Boutsen. The Belgian, more known at that point for driving sportscars, kept his drive for the rest of the season.


title: 1983 Formula One World Championship

text: The teams then travelled to Detroit for their customary mid-season visit to North America. The Detroit street circuit had been changed slightly from the previous year's race; a hairpin on Jefferson Avenue and Chrysler Drive had been bypassed and eliminated, so that the course stayed on Chrysler Drive up until it turned left onto Congress Street.


title: 1983 Formula One World Championship

text: Arnoux scored his second pole of the year, but Piquet took the lead at the start. Arnoux retook the lead on lap 9, and held off both Piquet and Rosberg until the electrics failed on his Ferrari, leaving Piquet back in the lead again. Michele Alboreto's Tyrrell inherited Piquet's lead when the Brazilian developed a slow rear puncture, dropping him to fourth. This was Alboreto's second career victory, both of which had come in the United States. Rosberg came home second with Watson third, while Piquet recovered to finish fourth. Laffite was fifth and Nigel Mansell came home 6th to score Lotus's first point of 1983. Prost's failure to score left him just one point ahead of Piquet with Tambay and Rosberg both in close attendance. Renault's lead in the Constructors' Championship was reduced to four points, with Williams moving into second, one point ahead of Ferrari.


title: 1983 Formula One World Championship

text: The Canadian Grand Prix at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal a week after Detroit saw the debut of Jacques Villeneuve, brother of the late Gilles Villeneuve. He was given a debut by RAM at his home Grand Prix, replacing Eliseo Salazar. He failed to qualify for the race. Arnoux took pole again and led for most of the race, his lead only being surrendered during the pit stops. He became the year's seventh victor in eight races as he won for Ferrari for the first time. Patrese had looked set for second before yet another technical failure, this time a gearbox failure, saw him continue to fail to score points in 1983. This left Cheever free to come home second, his best result of the year, with Tambay putting the second Ferrari on the podium in third place. Rosberg, Prost and Watson rounded out the points. Prost held on to his championship lead, now just three points, with Tambay and Piquet joint second. Rosberg was just two farther points behind. Renault and Ferrari now held a joint lead in the Constructors' Championship, with Williams, Brabham and McLaren all slipping off the pace.


title: 1983 Formula One World Championship

text: The teams returned to Europe for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, the fastest circuit of the year. Although Salazar had been expected to return to the RAM in place of Villeneuve, British driver Kenny Acheson was hired instead. He performed well enough to retain the seat for the rest of the season. The race also saw the debut of the Honda-funded Spirit team. The team would run a limited programme in 1983 with a view to running a full season in 1984. Stefan Johansson would drive the car. For qualifying Arnoux took his third successive pole position in the brand new Ferrari 126C3. He lost the lead to his teammate Tambay at the start and held second ahead of Prost. Although the Ferraris had a straight-line speed advantage over the Renault, overall Prost was the fastest of the three, and he passed both Arnoux and Tambay by lap 20. But for pit stops, he remained in the lead until the finish. Piquet also overcame the Ferraris before the end to finish second, with Tambay in third. Mansell, with Renault turbo power for the first time in his Lotus, took his best result of the year to be the highest home driver in fourth ahead of Arnoux and Lauda. This allowed both Prost and Renault to extend their championship leads. Piquet was now six points behind, with Tambay two points further back. Rosberg was now more than a victory behind and it was clear that teams without turbo power such as Williams, McLaren, Tyrrell and Ligier were at a significant disadvantage. The Constructors' Championship was becoming a two-horse race, with Renault leading Ferrari by three points.


title: 1983 Formula One World Championship

text: The next race was the German Grand Prix at the very fast Hockenheim circuit near Stuttgart, and Tambay secured Ferrari's fourth consecutive pole position. He lost the lead to Arnoux early on, however, and later suffered an engine failure to promote Piquet to second. The Brazilian inherited the lead briefly during Arnoux's pit stop, but the Frenchman could not be stopped and recorded his second victory of the year. A fire three laps from home prevented Piquet from picking up second, which instead went to Andrea de Cesaris, collecting some points for Alfa Romeo. Patrese was third, scoring his first points of the year ahead of Prost, Lauda and Watson.


title: 1983 Formula One World Championship

text: Prost extended his points lead to nine points over Piquet, but both Tambay and Arnoux were nearing. Ferrari also reassumed their points lead, three ahead of Renault.


title: 1983 Formula One World Championship

text: It was another pole for Tambay and Ferrari in Austria at the fast Österreichring circuit near Graz. He led until the first pit stops, when low oil pressure forced his retirement. This should have allowed teammate Arnoux to pick up the victory, but he was passed by Prost in the closing stages. Piquet finished third with Cheever fourth, Mansell sixth and Lauda rounding out the points. Prost now held a 14-point lead over Piquet, 51 points to 37, with Arnoux on 34 and Tambay on 31. Renault went back into the lead of the Constructors' Championship, three points ahead of Ferrari.


title: 1983 Formula One World Championship

text: Piquet took his first pole of the season at the Dutch Grand Prix at the Zandvoort circuit near Amsterdam, and led until lap 41, when Prost attempted to pass him. The two collided, and both were out on the spot. This left Arnoux to take victory for Ferrari, which turned into a 1–2 when Patrese suffered a problem near the end which dropped him to an eventual 9th. John Watson was third. A race of high attrition allowed for an unusual top six, with Derek Warwick, Mauro Baldi and Michele Alboreto rounding out the points. Johansson came home 7th for the new Spirit team. Arnoux now moved into second in the championship, eight points behind Prost. Tambay and Piquet were now joint third, 14 points behind the leader. Ferrari's lead in the Constructors' Championship, however, was now 12 points over Renault. Piquet's pole ended a run of ten consecutive pole positions by French drivers. This race saw McLaren join the turbo ranks when Lauda debuted the new TAG V6 engine, though Watson still drove the Cosworth-powered car.


title: 1983 Formula One World Championship

text: With three races left to run, the teams headed to Italy in early September. The Monza Autodrome near Milan, saw the Ferrari lose pole to Patrese, placing second and third. Piquet jumped both Ferraris to run second behind his teammate in the opening laps, but it did not last long, as electric problems forced Patrese to retire on lap 3. Piquet was then unchallenged for the rest of the race, and came home to record his first victory since the opening race in Brazil, some six months before. Arnoux took second with Cheever third and Tambay fourth. Elio de Angelis scored his first points of the year with fifth, with Derek Warwick scoring points for the second time in a row in sixth. The performances of Piquet and Arnoux, coupled with Prost's failure to score, left the championship in an uncertain position with two races left. Prost still led with 51, Arnoux had 49, Piquet 46 and Tambay 40 with 18 points left on the board. Ferrari maintained their lead, now with 17 points back to Renault.


title: 1983 Formula One World Championship

text: A third Grand Prix in the United States was supposed to be held at the Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in the New York City borough of Queens, but was canceled at short notice due to local protests. The British Brands Hatch circuit, just outside London, was able to organise a European Grand Prix in its place. Theodore travelled to the race with just one car, having insufficient funds for Johnny Cecotto to compete in the last two races. After the race, the team folded completely, and did not appear at all at the last race. The Spirit team also announced they would not travel to the last race, in preparation for their first full season in 1984. Williams had run a third car in the Brands Hatch race, for Jonathan Palmer. The British driver finished 13th, the only Williams to finish after Rosberg retired with an engine failure and Laffite failed to qualify.


title: 1983 Formula One World Championship

text: The race saw de Angelis take the pole position for Lotus. The Italian was overtaken at the start by compatriot Patrese, who led until the first pit stops. After this, he slipped away from the pace, and an engine failure for de Angelis gave the lead to Piquet. He led until the finish, becoming the first driver all season to win two consecutive races. Prost fought through for second, with Mansell taking Lotus's first podium of the year with third. De Cesaris was fourth, while Toleman had both cars in the points, with Warwick ahead of Bruno Giacomelli.


title: 1983 Formula One World Championship

text: The race left both championships in the balance with one race left. Prost still led, but now by only two points above Piquet. Arnoux could also be champion, but it would require him to win with Prost not scoring and Piquet no higher than fifth. Renault were still 11 points behind Ferrari.


title: 1983 Formula One World Championship

text: The season finale was the South African Grand Prix at the fast, high-altitude Kyalami circuit between Johannesburg and Pretoria. Tambay took pole with Piquet, the best-positioned of the title contenders, in second. Arnoux was fourth with Prost fifth. If the race finished like that, Piquet would be champion. Piquet assumed the lead at the start to further enhance his chances. Prost fought his way up to third, while an early engine failure for Arnoux put him out of the running. With Prost in third and Patrese in second, Piquet's teammate kept Prost behind him. However, when Prost's turbo failed on lap 44, Piquet needed only to finish in the top four. He backed off, and eventually surrendered the lead to Patrese, who became the season's eighth winner. Piquet also allowed Lauda through into second place, but the Austrian's electrics failed three laps later. De Cesaris also passed Piquet before the end, securing his second podium of the year for Alfa Romeo. Third for Piquet was enough to secure him his second world championship, while Warwick once again finished in the points for Toleman in fourth. Rosberg and Cheever rounded out the points. Only two points separated Piquet and Prost at the end, the Frenchman having led in the title race for most of the season. Renault also lost the Constructors' Championship, with Ferrari securing the title for the second year in succession.


title: 1983 Formula One World Championship

text: The 1983 season also included a single race which did not count towards the World Championship, the 1983 Race of Champions. This remains the most recent non-championship Formula One race.


title: Dorados de Sinaloa

text: Dorados de Sinaloa, or Dorados, is a Mexican professional football club based on Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico.


title: Dorados de Sinaloa

text: Dorados de Sinaloa was founded on August 9, 2003. The Dorados was the youngest team to play on First Division de México, having joined the division for the first time for the "Apertura 2004" tournament when the club was only one year old. The Dorados currently play in the Liga de Expansión MX, the second tier of the Mexican league.


title: Dorados de Sinaloa

text: On 20 December 2003, the Dorados won their first title in the Apertura 2003 tournament of Primera División A. Guadalupe Castaneda scored the goal, beating the Cobras of Ciudad Juárez. They finished as runners-up in the Apertura 2004, and won the play-off promotion beating Club León with a goal from Roberto Dominguez and winning the promotion to Liga MX just one year after the club was founded. The club was relegated to the Apertura in a 2006 tournament after playing for just two years in the top tier.


title: Dorados de Sinaloa

text: On July 27, 2015, the Dorados played their first game in the First Division after 8 seasons in the Second Division. The game was celebrated in the Banorte Stadium versus Jaguares de Chiapas, with a 0–0 final score. Their first 3 points came in the second game of the season on July 31, against Xoloitzcuintles de Tijuana in the Caliente Stadium. Dayro Moreno scored for the North Californian team, but Mauricio Martín Romero scored the first goal of Dorados in the 2015–16 Liga MX season. The Dorados played and won their first game in the first division in 9 years, 1–2. The previous game being on April 22, 2006, when the Dorados beat Jaguares de Chiapas 4–2, with goals from Andrés Orozco, Cristian Patiño, and Pepe Guardiola.


title: Dorados de Sinaloa

text: On April 16, 2016, after losing 5–2 to Tigres UANL, the Dorados were demoted after just one season in Liga MX, finishing last in the relegation table of 2015–16 Liga MX season marking the second time the club was relegated to Ascenso MX.


title: Dorados de Sinaloa

text: When the Dorados de Sinaloa arrived at Primera División A in 2003, a rivalry was born. When the franchise was first created in 2003, Dorados became champions in their first tournament, becoming the first team to ever accomplish this feat in Primera A. In their second tournament, Dorados made it to the final once again, falling to Club León. Despite losing this final, Dorados and León played the promotion game to Primera División de México where Dorados were victorious. Dorados and Leon have played a total of four finals, with each team winning two.


title: Tatya Tope

text: Tantia Tope (also spelled Tatya Tope, : ]; 16 February 1814 – 18 April 1859) was a general in the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and one of its notable leaders. Despite lacking formal military training, Tantia Tope is widely considered as one of the best and most effective courageous generals in the Indian struggle for independence.


title: Tatya Tope

text: Born as Ramachandra Panduranga Yawalkar to a Marathi Deshastha Brahmin family, in Yeola, (near Nasik). Tantia took on the title "Tope", meaning commanding officer. His first name Tantia means General. A personal adherent of Nana Saheb of Bithur, he progressed with the Gwalior contingent after the British reoccupied Kanpur (then known as Cawnpore) and forced General Windham to retreat from the city. Later on, Tantia Tope came to the relief of Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi and with her seized the city of Gwalior. However, he was defeated by General Napier's British Indian troops at Ranod and after a further defeat at Sikar, he abandoned the campaign.


title: Tatya Tope

text: According to an official statement, Tantia Tope's father was Pandiaranga, an inhabitant of Jola Pargannah, Patoda Zilla Nagar, in present-day Maharashtra. Tope was a Maraṭha Vashista Brahman by birth. In a government letter, he was said to be the minister of Baroda, while he was held identical to Nana Saheb in another communication. A witness at his trial described Tantia Tope as "a man of middling stature, with a wheat complexion and always wearing a white chukri-dar turban".


title: Tatya Tope

text: After the rebellion in Cawnpore (Kanpur) broke out on 5 June 1857, Nana Saheb became the leader of the rebels.


title: Tatya Tope

text: When the British forces at Cawnpore surrendered on 25 June 1857, Nana was declared Peshwa in late June. After a defeat, Nana's troops had to withdraw to Bithur, after which Havelock crossed the Ganges and retreated to Awadh. Tantia Tope began to act in Nana Saheb's name from Bithur.


title: Tatya Tope

text: Tantia Tope was one of the leaders of the massacre of Cawnpore, which occurred on 27 June 1857. Afterwards, Tope held a good defensive position until he was driven out by the British force on 16 July 1857. Afterward, he defeated General Cyrill in the Second Battle of Cawnpore, which started on 19 November 1857 and continued for seventeen days. Tope and his army were defeated when the British counterattacked under Sir Colin Campbell. Tope and other rebels fled the scene and had to take shelter with the Rani of Jhansi, while aiding her as well.


title: Tatya Tope

text: Later on Tantia and Rao Saheb, after assisting Jhansi during the British assault successfully helped Rani Lakshmibai escape the attack. Together with Rani Lakshmibai, they took control of Gwalior Fort declaring Hindavi Swaraj (Free Kingdom) under the name of Nana Saheb Peshwa from Gwalior. After losing Gwalior to the British, Tope and Rao Saheb, nephew of Nana Saheb, fled to the Rajputana. He was able to induce the army of Tonk to join him.


title: Tatya Tope

text: Tope was unable to enter the town of Bundi though, and while announcing he would go south, he headed west in reality and towards Nimach. A British flying column commanded by Colonel Holmes was in pursuit of him, while the British commander in Rajputana, General Abraham Robert was able to attack the rebel force when they had reached a position between Sanganer and Bhilwara. Tope again fled from the field towards Udaipur and, after visiting a Hindu shrine on 13 August, he drew up his forces on the Banas River. They were defeated again by Roberts's forces and Tope fled again. He crossed the Chambal River and reached the town of Jhalrapatan in the state of Jhalawar.


title: Tatya Tope

text: Even after the Revolt of 1857 was put down by the British, Tantia Tope continued resistance as a guerrilla fighter in the jungles. He induced the state forces to rebel against the Raja and was able to replace the artillery he had lost at the Banas River. Tope then took his forces towards Indore, but was pursued by the British, now commanded by General John Michel as he fled towards Sironj.


title: Tatya Tope

text: Tope, accompanied by Rao Saheb, decided to divide their combined forces so that he could make his way to Chanderi with a bigger force, and Rao Saheb, on the other hand, with a smaller force to Jhansi. However, they combined again in October and suffered yet another defeat at Chhota Udaipur.


title: Tatya Tope

text: By January 1859, they arrived to the state of Jaipur and experienced two more defeats. At this point, he met Man Singh, Raja of Narwar, and his household and decided to stay with at his court. Man Singh was in dispute with the Maharaja of Gwalior while the British were successful in negotiating with him to hand Tope to them in return for his life and protection of his family from any reprisals by the Maharaja. After this event, Tope was handed to the British and left to face his fate.


title: Tatya Tope

text: Tantia Tope admitted the charges brought before him, but noted that he might be held accountable only before his master, the Peshwa. He was executed on 18 April 1859 in Shivpuri.


title: Cost accounting

text: Cost accounting is defined as "a systematic set of procedures for recording and reporting measurements of the cost of manufacturing goods and performing services in the aggregate and in detail. It includes methods for recognizing, classifying, allocating, aggregating and reporting such costs and comparing them with standard costs." (IMA) Often considered a subset of managerial accounting, its end goal is to advise the management on how to optimize business practices and processes based on cost efficiency and capability. Cost accounting provides the detailed cost information that management needs to control current operations and plan for the future.


title: Cost accounting

text: Cost accounting information is also commonly used in financial accounting, but its primary function is for use by managers to facilitate their decision-making.


title: Cost accounting

text: All types of businesses, whether manufacturing, trading or producing services, require cost accounting to track their activities. Cost accounting has long been used to help managers understand the costs of running a business. Modern cost accounting originated during the industrial revolution when the complexities of running large scale businesses led to the development of systems for recording and tracking costs to help business owners and managers make decisions. Various techniques used by cost accountants include standard costing and variance analysis, marginal costing and cost volume profit analysis, budgetary control, uniform costing, inter firm comparison, etc. Evaluation of cost accounting is mainly due to the limitations of financial accounting. Moreover, maintenance of cost records has been made compulsory in selected industries as notified by the government from time to time.


title: Cost accounting

text: In the early industrial age most of the costs incurred by a business were what modern accountants call "variable costs" because they varied directly with the amount of production. Money was spent on labour, raw materials, the power to run a factory, etc., in direct proportion to production. Managers could simply total the variable costs for a product and use this as a rough guide for decision-making processes.


title: Cost accounting

text: Some costs tend to remain the same even during busy periods, unlike variable costs, which rise and fall with volume of work. Over time, these "fixed costs" have become more important to managers. Examples of fixed costs include the depreciation of plant and equipment, and the cost of departments such as maintenance, tooling, production control, purchasing, quality control, storage and handling, plant supervision and engineering.


title: Cost accounting

text: In the early nineteenth century, these costs were of little importance to most businesses. However, with the growth of railroads, steel and large scale manufacturing, by the late nineteenth century these costs were often more important than the variable cost of a product, and allocating them to a broad range of products led to bad decision making. Managers must understand fixed costs in order to make decisions about products and pricing.


title: Cost accounting

text: For example: A company produced railway coaches and had only one product. To make each coach, the company needed to purchase $60 of raw materials and components and pay 6 labourers $40 each. Therefore, the total variable cost for each coach was $300. Knowing that making a coach required spending $300, managers knew they couldn't sell below that price without losing money on each coach. Any price above $300 became a contribution to the fixed costs of the company. If the fixed costs were, say, $1000 per month for rent, insurance and owner's salary, the company could therefore sell 5 coaches per month for a total of $3000 (priced at $600 each), or 10 coaches for a total of $4500 (priced at $450 each), and make a profit of $500 in both cases.


title: Cost accounting

text: The materials directly contributed to a product and those easily identifiable in the finished product are called direct materials. For example, paper in books, wood in furniture, plastic in a water tank, and leather in shoes are direct materials. Other, usually lower cost items or supporting material used in the production of in a finished product are called indirect materials. For example, the length of thread used in a garment.


title: Cost accounting

text: Furthermore, these can be categorized into three different types of inventories that must be accounted for in different ways; raw materials, work-in-progress, and finished goods.


title: Cost accounting

text: Any wages paid to workers or a group of workers which may directly co-relate to any specific activity of production, maintenance, transportation of material, or product, and directly associate in the conversion of raw material into finished goods are called direct labour . Wages paid to trainee or apprentices does not come under the category of direct labour as they have no significant value.


title: Cost accounting

text: These categories are flexible, sometimes overlapping as different cost accounting principles are applied.


title: Cost accounting

text: Standard Costing is a technique of Cost Accounting to compare the actual costs with standard costs (that are pre-defined) with the help of Variance Analysis. It is used to understand the variations of product costs in manufacturing. Standard costing allocates fixed costs incurred in an accounting period to the goods produced during that period. This allowed the "full cost" of products that were not sold in the period they were produced to be recorded as 'inventory' in the Balance sheet to be carried forward to the next accounting period, using a variety of complex accounting methods, which was consistent with the principles of GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles). It also essentially enabled managers to ignore the fixed costs, and look at the results of each period in relation to the "standard cost" for any given product.


title: Cost accounting

text: This method tended to slightly distort the resulting unit cost, but in mass-production industries that made one product line, and where the fixed costs were relatively low, the distortion was very minor.


title: Cost accounting

text: An important part of standard cost accounting is a variance analysis, which breaks down the variation between actual cost and standard costs into various components (volume variation, material cost variation, labor cost variation, etc.) so managers can understand "why costs were different from what was planned" and take appropriate action to correct the situation.


title: Cost accounting

text: As business became more complex and began producing a greater variety of products, the use of cost accounting to make decisions to maximize profitability came into question. Management circles became increasingly aware of the Theory of Constraints in the 1980s and began to understand that "every production process has a limiting factor" somewhere in the chain of production. As business management learned to identify the constraints, they increasingly adopted throughput accounting to manage them and "maximize the "throughput dollars"" (or other currency) from each unit of constrained resource.


title: Cost accounting

text: Throughput accounting aims to make the best use of scarce resources (bottleneck) in a JIT (Just in time) environment.


title: Cost accounting

text: "Throughput", in this context, refers to the amount of money obtained from sales minus the cost of materials that have gone into making them.


title: Cost accounting

text: Activity-based costing (ABC) is a system for assigning costs to products based on the activities they require. In this case, activities are those regular actions performed inside a company. "Talking with the customer regarding invoice questions" is an example of activity inside most companies.


title: Cost accounting

text: Companies may be moved to adopt ABC by a need to improve costing accuracy, that is, understand better the true costs and profitability of individual products, services, or initiatives. ABC gets closer to true costs in these areas by turning many costs that standard cost accounting views as indirect costs essentially into direct costs. By contrast, standard cost accounting typically determines so-called indirect and overhead costs simply as a percentage of certain direct costs, which may or may not reflect actual resource usage for individual items.


title: Cost accounting

text: Under ABC, accountants assign 100% of each employee's time to the different activities performed inside a company (many will use surveys to have the workers themselves assign their time to the different activities). The accountant then can determine the total cost spent on each activity by summing up the percentage of each worker's salary spent on that activity.


title: Cost accounting

text: A company can use the resulting activity cost data to determine where to focus its operational improvements. For example, a job-based manufacturer may find that a high percentage of its workers are spending their time trying to figure out a hastily written customer order. Via (ABC) Activity-based costing, the accountants now have a currency amount pegged to the activity of "Researching Customer Work Order Specifications". Senior management can now decide how much focus or money to budget for resolving this process deficiency. Activity-based management includes (but is not restricted to) the use of activity-based costing to manage a business.


title: Cost accounting

text: While (ABC) Activity-based costing may be able to pinpoint the cost of each activity and resources into the ultimate product, the process could be tedious, costly and subject to errors.


title: Cost accounting

text: As it is a tool for a more accurate way of allocating fixed costs into a product, these fixed costs do not vary according to each month's production volume. For example, the elimination of one product would not eliminate the overhead or even direct labour cost assigned to it. Activity-based costing (ABC) better identifies product costing in the long run, but may not be too helpful in day-to-day decision-making.


title: Cost accounting

text: Recently, Mocciaro Li Destri, Picone & Minà (2012). proposed a performance and cost measurement system that integrates the Economic Value Added criteria with Process-Based Costing (PBC). The EVA-PBC methodology allows us to implement the EVA management logic not only at the firm level, but also at lower levels of the organization. EVA-PBC methodology plays an interesting role in bringing strategy back into financial performance measures.


title: Cost accounting

text: Lean accounting has developed in recent years to provide the accounting, control, and measurement methods supporting lean manufacturing and other applications of lean thinking such as healthcare, construction, insurance, banking, education, government and other industries.


title: Cost accounting

text: There are two main thrusts for Lean Accounting. The first is the application of lean methods to the company's accounting, control, and measurement processes. This is not different from applying lean methods to any other processes. The objective is to eliminate waste, free up capacity, speed up the process, eliminate errors & defects, and make the process clear and understandable.


title: Cost accounting

text: The second (and more important) thrust of Lean Accounting is to fundamentally change the accounting, control, and measurement processes so they motivate lean change & improvement, provide information that is suitable for control and decision-making, provide an understanding of customer value, correctly assess the financial impact of lean improvement, and are themselves simple, visual, and low-waste. Lean Accounting does not require the traditional management accounting methods like standard costing, activity-based costing, variance reporting, cost-plus pricing, complex transactional control systems, and untimely & confusing financial reports. These are replaced by:


title: Cost accounting

text: As an organization becomes more mature with lean thinking and methods, they recognize that the combined methods of lean accounting in fact creates a lean management system (LMS) designed to provide the planning, the operational and financial reporting, and the motivation for change required to prosper the company's on-going lean transformation.


title: Cost accounting

text: The cost-volume-profit analysis is the systematic examination of the relationship between selling prices, sales, production volumes, costs, expenses and profits. This analysis provides very useful information for decision-making in the management of a company. For example, the analysis can be used in establishing sales prices, in the product mix selection to sell, in the decision to choose marketing strategies, and in the analysis of the impact on profits by changes in costs. In the current environment of business, a business administration must act and take decisions in a fast and accurate manner. As a result, the importance of cost-volume-profit is still increasing as time passes.


title: Cost accounting

text: A relationship between the cost, volume and profit is the contribution margin. The contribution margin is the revenue excess from sales over variable costs. The concept of contribution margin is particularly useful in the planning of business because it gives an insight into the potential profits that a business can generate. The following chart shows the income statement of a company X, which has been prepared to show its contribution margin:


title: Cost accounting

text: The contribution margin can also be expressed as a percentage. The contribution margin ratio, which is sometimes called the profit-volume ratio, indicates the percentage of each sales dollar available to cover fixed costs and to provide operating revenue. For the company Fusion, Inc. the contribution margin ratio is 40%, which is computed as follows:


title: Cost accounting

text: The contribution margin ratio measures the effect on operating income of an increase or a decrease in sales volume. For example, assume that the management of Fusion, Inc. is studying the effect of adding $80,000 in sales orders. Multiplying the contribution margin ratio (40%) by the change in sales volume ($80,000) indicates that operating income will increase $32,000 if additional orders are obtained. To validate this analysis the table below shows the income statement of the company including additional orders:


title: Cost accounting

text: Variable costs as a percentage of sales are equal to 100% minus the contribution margin ratio. Thus, in the above income statement, the variable costs are 60% (100% - 40%) of sales, or $648,000 ($1,080,000 X 60%). The total contribution margin $432,000, can also be computed directly by multiplying the sales by the contribution margin ratio ($1,080,000 X 40%).


title: Bus factor

text: The bus factor is a measurement of the risk resulting from information and capabilities not being shared among team members, derived from the phrase "in case they get hit by a bus". It is also known as the bus problem, lottery factor, truck factor, beer truck factor, bus/truck number, or lorry factor.


title: Bus factor

text: The concept is similar to the much older idea of key person risk, but considers the consequences of losing key technical experts, versus financial or managerial executives (who are theoretically replaceable at an insurable cost). Personnel must be both key and irreplaceable to contribute to the bus factor; losing a replaceable or non-key person would not result in a bus-factor effect.


title: Bus factor

text: The term was first applied to software development, where a team member might create critical components by crafting code that performs well, but which also is unavailable to other team members, such as work that was undocumented, never shared, encrypted, obfuscated or not published. Thus a key component would be effectively lost as a direct consequence of the absence of that team member, making the member key. If this component was key to the project's advancement, the project would stall.


title: Bus factor

text: The "bus factor" is the minimum number of team members that have to suddenly disappear from a project before the project stalls due to lack of knowledgeable or competent personnel.


title: Bus factor

text: The expression "hit by a bus" describes a person either dying or more generally disappearing suddenly from the project. It is used to describe hypothetical future disappearances in a darkly humorous way. Team members do not literally have to get "hit by a bus" for the "bus factor" to apply—any number of events could occur in which a team member could be suddenly and substantially prevented from working on the project. This could include a person taking a new job, going on parental leave, or changing lifestyle or life status.


title: Bus factor

text: For instance, say a team of 30 people produces bread in three necessary steps: mixing ingredients, kneading the dough, and baking. Ten people know how to mix ingredients, all 30 people know how to knead the dough, and 5 people know how to bake. If all 5 people who know how to bake disappear, then the team cannot produce bread, so the team's bus factor is 5.


title: Bus factor

text: There is a rare alternative definition for the bus factor, namely: the number of people who are indispensable for the project. In other words, it is the minimum number of people who are a single point of failure. If using this definition, then a high bus factor is considered a bad thing (since the loss of any person included destroys the project), and zero is considered the ideal bus factor.


title: Bus factor

text: An early instance of this sort of query was when Michael McLay publicly asked, in 1994, what would happen to the Python language if Guido van Rossum were hit by a bus.


title: Bus factor

text: "Truck number" was already a recurring concept in the "Organizational Patterns" book published in 2004, itself an evolution of the work published in the first book of the "Pattern Languages of Program Design" series in 1995, which was the publication record of the first Pattern Languages of Programs conference in August 1994, where it was referenced in patterns including "Solo Virtuoso". The term had become commonplace in business management by 1998 and was used in mental health in the same year. It was seen in software engineering papers in Association for Computing Machinery and Information Systems Frontiers by 1999, in engineering by 2003, and the Debian project in 2005.


title: Bus factor

text: Studies conducted in 2015 and 2016 calculated the bus/truck factor of 133 popular GitHub projects. The results show that most of the systems have a small bus factor (65% have bus factor ≤ 2) and the value is greater than 10 for less than 10% of the systems.


title: Bus factor

text: In many software development projects, one goal is to share information in order to improve the bus factor, potentially to the size of the entire team. A good bus factor means many individuals know enough to carry on and the project could still succeed even in very adverse events.


title: Mikael Åkerfeldt

text: Lars Mikael Åkerfeldt (; born 17 April 1974) is a Swedish musician. He is the lead vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter of progressive metal band Opeth, and the former vocalist of death metal supergroup Bloodbath. He was also guitarist for the "one-off" band Steel, and is part of the collaboration Storm Corrosion with Steven Wilson.


title: Mikael Åkerfeldt

text: Åkerfeldt is known for his progressive rock-influenced songwriting style and his frequent use of both clean baritone and growled vocals. Åkerfeldt was ranked #42 out of 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Guitarists of All Time by "Guitar World", and #11 among "The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists" on MetalSucks.


title: Mikael Åkerfeldt

text: A native of Stockholm, Mikael Åkerfeldt was the vocalist for Eruption, a death metal band that he formed in 1987 at 13 years old. After Eruption came to an end in 1989, he joined Opeth, ostensibly as a keyboardist. When their original bassist left Opeth two years later, Åkerfeldt replaced him as bassist; Isberg then assumed guitar duties. When Isberg left Opeth three years later, Åkerfeldt replaced him as the vocalist.


title: Mikael Åkerfeldt

text: Åkerfeldt performed the death vocals on Katatonia's album "Brave Murder Day" and their EP "Sounds of Decay".


title: Mikael Åkerfeldt

text: Åkerfeldt revealed in September 2009 that he is contemplating recording a singer-songwriter acoustic solo album.


title: Mikael Åkerfeldt

text: However, in 2014 he expressed the view that he didn't have the need for a special solo project and that he can put pretty much anything into Opeth.


title: Mikael Åkerfeldt

text: In an interview on STIM magazine, he revealed that one of the highlights of his career was Opeth's performance at the Royal Albert Hall.


title: Mikael Åkerfeldt

text: In 2020, Åkerfeldt was approached by director Jonas Åkerlund to compose the soundtrack for the swedish six-part Netflix series "Clark", released in May 2022. It is his first foray into film scoring.


title: Mikael Åkerfeldt

text: Åkerfeldt is a collector of obscure 1970s rock and heavy metal albums. He also tends to show his influence from these obscure bands, making reference to them in Opeth album titles such as "Blackwater Park", "Still Life" and "My Arms, Your Hearse", as well as songs such as "Master's Apprentices" and "Goblin". He is also influenced extensively by jazz, the musician Ritchie Blackmore, Magma and its founder Christian Vander, and Hideki Ishima.


title: Mikael Åkerfeldt

text: When asked what the album was that 'made him a metalhead', Åkerfeldt answered that it was probably "The Number of the Beast" by Iron Maiden, but also mentioned "Lick It Up" by Kiss. In a different interview he stated that he usually cites Black Sabbath's "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" as the best (and favourite) heavy metal album of all time. He also has considered Judas Priest's "Sad Wings of Destiny" as his favourite metal album.


title: Mikael Åkerfeldt

text: On 15 August 2003, Mikael Åkerfeldt married his longtime girlfriend, Anna. In 2004 Anna gave birth to their first daughter, Melinda. The couple had their second daughter, Mirjam, in 2007. In 2016, in an interview with "The Quietus", Åkerfeldt revealed he had gone through a divorce.


title: Mikael Åkerfeldt

text: Åkerfeldt is known to be friends with Steven Wilson, the frontman of one of his favorite bands, Porcupine Tree, who also produced the Opeth albums "Blackwater Park", "Deliverance" and "Damnation"; Mike Portnoy, former drummer of Dream Theater (who is featured in their music video for Wither); and Jonas Renkse of Katatonia. He is also presumed to be the basis for the character Toki Wartooth from the popular cartoon "Metalocalypse", as divulged in an interview with Ultimate Guitar. Åkerfeldt doesn't practice any religion and considers himself an atheist.


title: Mikael Åkerfeldt

text: Åkerfeldt has almost exclusively used PRS guitars since the Deliverance/Damnation era and has his own signature model. He also occasionally uses guitars by a variety of other brands as well, including Gibson and Jackson.


title: Nurses (Canadian TV series)

text: Nurses is a Canadian drama television series that premiered on Global on January 6, 2020. "Nurses" was created by much of the same team behind the series "Rookie Blue", including Ilana Frank, Adam Pettle, Vanessa Piazza and Tassie Cameron. The series was renewed for a second season by Global in early 2020.


title: Nurses (Canadian TV series)

text: NBC ran the first season in the United States beginning on December 7, 2020, due to the shortage of programs during the lockdowns from the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, but did not pick up the second season.


title: Nurses (Canadian TV series)

text: The series is produced by Corus Entertainment, which partnered with ICF Films and eOne in association with Piazza Entertainment. It was renewed for a second season by Global, which went into production in March 2020. As of October 2022, there has yet to be an announcement for a third season.


title: Nurses (Canadian TV series)

text: On November 10, 2020, "Nurses" was picked up by NBC in the United States for a December 7, 2020 premiere.


title: Nurses (Canadian TV series)

text: The series debuted in Romania on the channel Diva on September 20, 2020, under the title "Asistenți medicali".


title: Nurses (Canadian TV series)

text: The show's portrayal of Hasidic Jews in a plotline of the "Achilles Heel" episode was labeled as antisemitic by members of the Jewish community. In the episode, when the Hasidic Jewish patient is checked in for his leg injury, the patient's father objects to who the dead donor's bone graft might come from (along with his son participating in sports, in an extreme portrayal of a Hasidic archetype) and says "a goyim leg. From anyone. An Arab, a woman?" The patient then refuses the bone graft procedure. In reality, Jewish law has no objections or prohibitions against such a procedure.


title: Nurses (Canadian TV series)

text: Seffi Kogen of the American Jewish Committee called the scene 'the most antisemitic thing I have ever seen in a TV show", and that Jewish law "puts precedent on healing and saving lives [and] there is no prohibition on the kind of bone graft in this clip." B’nai Brith Canada said the portrayal "perpetuates false and dangerous antisemitic stereotypes" and called for the producers to apologize. The Simon Wiesenthal Center said in a statement, "the writers of this scene check all the boxes of ignorance and pernicious negative stereotypes" and that "Orthodox Jews are targeted for violent hate crimes – in the city of New York, Jews are number one target of hate crimes in US; this is no slip of the tongue. It was a vile, cheap attack masquerading as TV drama."


title: Nurses (Canadian TV series)

text: In response, NBC pulled the episode from their digital platforms. The episode was also removed domestically in Canada by Global parent company Corus from Global's website and viewing apps, with no plans to air it in repeats in the future.


title: Caul

text: A caul or cowl (, literally, "helmeted head") is a piece of membrane that can cover a newborn's head and face. Birth with a caul is rare, occurring in fewer than 1 in 80,000 births. The caul is harmless and is immediately removed by the attending parent, physician, or midwife upon birth of the child.


title: Caul

text: An en-caul birth is different from a caul birth in that the infant is born inside the entire amniotic sac (instead of just a portion of it). The sac balloons out at birth, with the amniotic fluid and child remaining inside the unbroken or partially broken membrane.


title: Caul

text: A child 'born with the caul' has a portion of a birth membrane remaining on the head. There are two types of caul membranes, and such cauls can appear in four ways.


title: Caul

text: The most common caul type is a piece of the thin translucent inner lining of the amnion that breaks away and forms tightly against the head during birth. Such a caul typically clings to the head and face but on rarer occasions drapes over the head and partly down the torso.


title: Caul

text: The caul is harmless and is immediately removed by the attending parent, physician, or midwife upon birth of the child. If the membrane is of the amniotic tissue, it is removed by easily slipping it away from the child's skin. The removal of the thicker membrane is more complex. If done correctly, the attending practitioner will make a small incision in the membrane across the nostrils so that the child can breathe. The loops are then carefully removed from behind the ears. The remainder of the caul is then either peeled back very carefully from the skin or else gently rubbed with a sheet of paper, which is then peeled away. If removed too quickly, the caul can leave wounds on the infant's flesh at the attachment points, which might leave permanent scars.


title: Caul

text: Birth with a caul is rare, occurring in fewer than 1 in 80,000 births. This statistic includes en-caul births, which occur more frequently than authentic caul births; therefore, authentic caul births are even more rare than indicated by the raw statistic. Most en-caul births are premature.


title: Caul

text: According to Aelius Lampridius, the boy-emperor Diadumenian (208–218) was so named because he was born with a diadem formed by a rolled caul.


title: Caul

text: In medieval times, the appearance of a caul on a newborn baby was seen as a sign of good luck. It was considered an omen that the child was destined for greatness. Gathering the caul onto paper was considered an important tradition of childbirth: the midwife would rub a sheet of paper across the baby's head and face, pressing the material of the caul onto the paper. The caul would then be presented to the mother, to be kept as an heirloom. Some Early Modern European traditions linked caul birth to the ability to defend fertility and the harvest against the forces of evil, particularly witches and sorcerers.


title: Caul

text: Folklore developed suggesting that possession of a baby's caul would bring its bearer good luck and protect that person from death by drowning. Cauls were therefore highly prized by sailors. Medieval women often sold them to sailors for large sums of money; a caul was regarded as a valuable talisman.


title: Caul

text: In Polish the idiom ' ('born in a bonnet'), in Italian ' ('born with a shirt') and in French "né(é) coiffé(e)" ('born with a hat on') all describe a person who is always very lucky.


title: Caul

text: The Russian phrase ("rodilsya v rubashke", literally 'born in a shirt') refers to caul birth and means 'born lucky'. It is often applied to someone who is oblivious to an impending disaster that is avoided only through luck, as if the birth caul persists as supernatural armor, and in this sense commonly appears in titles or descriptions of Russian dashcam videos.


title: Caul

text: Not all cultural beliefs about cauls are positive. In Romanian folklore babies born with a caul are said to become strigoi upon death. It was also believed that "he who is born to be hanged will never drown" - that anyone born with a caul was destined to leave the world in a hangman's hood in place of the caul with which they were born. The belief in cauls as omens persisted well into the 20th century.


title: Caul

text: The 16th century Dutch physician Levinus Lemnius, author of The Secret Miracles of Nature, remained skeptical of superstitious claims about preserved cauls. Comic writer Thomas Hood even ended his poem "The Sea-Spell" with a lament about a drowning sailor's futile reliance on a protection charm:


title: Caul

text: In the classic 1850 novel "David Copperfield" by Charles Dickens, the title character and novel narrator describes his own birth: "I was born with a caul, which was advertised for sale, in the newspapers, at the low price of fifteen guineas." Copperfield goes on to describe the fate of his caul, which was re-sold and raffled over the subsequent decade as a talisman believed to protect its owner from death by drowning.


title: Caul

text: An "en caul" birth is depicted in the episode "Heavy Hangs the Head" (S03E01) of the Apple TV+ science fiction series "See".


title: Alice and Bob

text: Alice and Bob are fictional characters commonly used as placeholders in discussions about cryptographic systems and protocols, and in other science and engineering literature where there are several participants in a thought experiment. The Alice and Bob characters were invented by Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman in their 1978 paper "A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public-key Cryptosystems". Subsequently, they have become common archetypes in many scientific and engineering fields, such as quantum cryptography, game theory and physics. As the use of Alice and Bob became more widespread, additional characters were added, sometimes each with a particular meaning. These characters do not have to refer to people; they refer to generic agents which might be different computers or even different programs running on a single computer.


title: Alice and Bob

text: Alice and Bob are the names of fictional characters used for convenience and to aid comprehension. For example, "How can Bob send a private message M to Alice in a public-key cryptosystem?" is believed to be easier to describe and understand than if the hypothetical people were simply named "A" and "B" as in "How can B send a private message M to A in a public-key cryptosystem?"


title: Alice and Bob

text: The names are conventional, and where relevant may use an alliterative mnemonic to associate the name with the typical role of that person.


title: Alice and Bob

text: Scientific papers about thought experiments with several participants often used letters to identify them, "A", "B", and "C", etc.


title: Alice and Bob

text: The first mention of Alice and Bob in the context of cryptography was in Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman's 1978 article "A method for obtaining digital signatures and public-key cryptosystems." They wrote, "For our scenarios we suppose that A and B (also known as Alice and Bob) are two users of a public-key cryptosystem". Previous to this article, cryptographers typically referred to message senders and receivers as A and B, or other simple symbols. In fact, in the two previous articles by Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman, introducing the RSA cryptosystem, there is no mention of Alice and Bob. Possibly the choice of the first three names came from the film "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice".


title: Alice and Bob

text: Within a few years, however, references to Alice and Bob in cryptological literature became a common trope. Cryptographers would often begin their academic papers with reference to Alice and Bob. For instance, Michael Rabin began his 1981 paper, "Bob and Alice each have a secret, SB and SA, respectively, which they want to exchange." Early on, Alice and Bob were starting to appear in other domains, such as in Manuel Blum's 1981 article, "Coin Flipping by Telephone: A Protocol for Solving Impossible Problems," which begins, "Alice and Bob want to flip a coin by telephone."


title: Alice and Bob

text: Although Alice and Bob were invented with no reference to their personality, authors soon began adding colorful descriptions. In 1983, Blum invented a backstory about a troubled relationship between Alice and Bob, writing, "Alice and Bob, recently divorced, mutually distrustful, still do business together. They live on opposite coasts, communicate mainly by telephone, and use their computers to transact business over the telephone." In 1984, John Gordon delivered his famous "After Dinner Speech" about Alice and Bob, which he imagines to be the first "definitive biography of Alice and Bob."


title: Alice and Bob

text: In addition to adding backstories and personalities to Alice and Bob, authors soon added other characters, with their own personalities. The first to be added was Eve, the "eavesdropper." Eve was invented in 1988 by Charles Bennet, Gilles Brassard, and Jean-Marc Robert, in their paper, "Privacy Amplification by Public Discussion." In Bruce Schneier's book "Applied Cryptography", other characters are listed.


title: Alice and Bob

text: The most common characters are Alice and Bob. Eve, Mallory, and Trent are also common names, and have fairly well-established "personalities" (or functions). The names often use alliterative mnemonics (for example, Eve, "eavesdropper"; Mallory, "malicious") where different players have different motives. Other names are much less common and more flexible in use. Sometimes the genders are alternated: Alice, Bob, Carol, Dave, Eve, etc.


title: Alice and Bob

text: The names Alice and Bob are also often used to name the participants in thought experiments in physics. More alphabetical names are used as required, e.g. "Alice and Bob (and Carol and Dick and Eve)".


title: Syringa vulgaris

text: Syringa vulgaris, the lilac or common lilac, is a species of flowering plant in the olive family Oleaceae, native to the Balkan Peninsula, where it grows on rocky hills. Grown for its scented flowers in spring, this large shrub or small tree is widely cultivated and has been naturalized in parts of Europe, Asia and North America. It is not regarded as an aggressive species. It is found in the wild in widely scattered sites, usually in the vicinity of past or present human habitations.


title: Syringa vulgaris

text: "Syringa vulgaris" is a large deciduous shrub or multistemmed small tree, growing to high. It produces secondary shoots from the base or roots, with stem diameters up to , which in the course of decades may produce a small clonal thicket. The bark is grey to grey-brown, smooth on young stems, longitudinally furrowed, and flaking on older stems. The leaves are simple, and 3–8 cm broad, light green to glaucous, oval to cordate, with pinnate leaf venation, a mucronate apex, and an entire margin. They are arranged in opposite pairs or occasionally in whorls of three. The flowers have a tubular base to the corolla 6–10 mm long with an open four-lobed apex 5–8 mm across, usually lilac to mauve, occasionally white. They are arranged in dense, terminal panicles long. The fruit is a dry, smooth, brown capsule, 1–2 cm long, splitting in two to release the two-winged seeds.


title: Syringa vulgaris

text: "Syringa vulgaris" was first formally described by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and the description was published in "Species Plantarum". The Latin specific epithet "vulgaris" means "common" (in the sense of "widespread").


title: Syringa vulgaris

text: Lilacs—both "S. vulgaris" and "S." × "persica" the finer, smaller "Persian lilac", now considered a natural hybrid—were introduced into northern European gardens at the end of the 16th century, from Ottoman gardens, not through botanists exploring the Balkan habitats of "S. vulgaris". The Holy Roman Emperor's ambassador, Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, is generally credited with supplying lilac slips to Carolus Clusius, about 1562. Well-connected botanists, such as the great herbalist John Gerard, soon had the rarity in their gardens: Gerard noted that he had lilacs growing "in very great plenty" in 1597, but lilacs were not mentioned by Shakespeare, and John Loudon was of the opinion that the Persian lilac had been introduced into English gardens by John Tradescant the elder. Tradescant's Continental source for information on the lilac, and perhaps ultimately for the plants, was Pietro Andrea Mattioli, as one can tell from a unique copy of Tradescant's plant list in his Lambeth garden, an adjunct of his "Musaeum Tradescantianum"; it was printed, though probably not published, in 1634: it lists "Lilac Matthioli". That Tradescant's "lilac of Mattioli's" was a white one is shown by Elias Ashmole's manuscript list, "Trees found in Mrs Tredescants Ground when it came into my possession" (1662): "Syringa alba".


title: Syringa vulgaris

text: In the American colonies, lilacs were introduced in the 18th century. Peter Collinson, F.R.S., wrote to the Pennsylvania gardener and botanist John Bartram, proposing to send him some, and remarked that John Custis of Virginia had a fine "collection", which Ann Leighton interpreted as signifying common and Persian lilacs, in both purple and white, "the entire range of lilacs possible" at the time.


title: Syringa vulgaris

text: It is also slowly making its way into the world of bonsai where it is loved for its flowers and multistem features.


title: Syringa vulgaris

text: The lilac is a very popular ornamental plant in gardens and parks, because of its attractive, sweet-smelling flowers, which appear in early summer just before many of the roses and other summer flowers come into bloom.


title: Syringa vulgaris

text: In late summer, lilacs can be attacked by powdery mildew, specifically "Erysiphe syringae", one of the Erysiphaceae. No fall color is seen and the seed clusters have no aesthetic appeal.


title: Syringa vulgaris

text: Common lilac tends to flower profusely in alternate years, a habit that can be improved by deadheading the flower clusters after the color has faded and before seeds, few of which are fertile, form. At the same time, twiggy growth on shoots that have flowered more than once or twice can be cut to a strong, outward-growing side shoot.


title: Syringa vulgaris

text: It is widely naturalised in western and northern Europe. In a sign of its complete naturalization in North America, it has been selected as the state flower of the state of New Hampshire, because it "is symbolic of that hardy character of the men and women of the Granite State". Additional hardiness for Canadian gardens was bred for in a series of "S. vulgaris" hybrids by Isabella Preston, who introduced many of the later-blooming varieties. Their later-developing flower buds are better protected from late spring frosts. The "Syringa "×" prestoniae" hybrids range primarily in the pink and lavender shades.


title: Syringa vulgaris

text: Most garden plants of "S. vulgaris" are cultivars, the majority of which do not exceed tall. Between 1876 and 1927, the nurseryman Victor Lemoine of Nancy, France, introduced over 153 named cultivars, many of which are considered classics and still in commerce today. Lemoine's "French lilacs" extended the limited color range to include deeper, more saturated hues, and many of them are double-flowered "sports", with the stamens replaced by extra petals.


title: Syringa vulgaris

text: In the UK the following cultivars of "Syringa vulgaris" have received the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit:


title: Prodrug

text: A prodrug is a medication or compound that, after intake, is metabolized (i.e., converted within the body) into a pharmacologically active drug. Instead of administering a drug directly, a corresponding prodrug can be used to improve how the drug is absorbed, distributed, metabolized, and excreted (ADME).


title: Prodrug

text: Prodrugs are often designed to improve bioavailability when a drug itself is poorly absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. A prodrug may be used to improve how selectively the drug interacts with cells or processes that are not its intended target. This reduces adverse or unintended effects of a drug, especially important in treatments like chemotherapy, which can have severe unintended and undesirable side effects.


title: Prodrug

text: Many herbal extracts historically used in medicine contain glycosides (sugar derivatives) of the active agent, which are hydrolyzed in the intestines to release the active and more bioavailable aglycone. For example, salicin is a β-D-glucopyranoside that is cleaved by esterases to release salicylic acid. Aspirin, acetylsalicylic acid, first made by Felix Hoffmann at Bayer in 1897, is a synthetic prodrug of salicylic acid. However, in other cases, such as codeine and morphine, the administered drug is enzymatically activated to form sugar derivatives (morphine-glucuronides) that are more active than the parent compound.


title: Prodrug

text: The first synthetic antimicrobial drug, arsphenamine, discovered in 1909 by Sahachiro Hata in the laboratory of Paul Ehrlich, is not toxic to bacteria until it has been converted to an active form by the body. Likewise, prontosil, the first sulfa drug (discovered by Gerhard Domagk in 1932), must be cleaved in the body to release the active molecule, sulfanilamide. Since that time, many other examples have been identified.


title: Prodrug

text: Terfenadine, the first non-sedating antihistamine, had to be withdrawn from the market because of the small risk of a serious side effect. However, terfenadine was discovered to be the prodrug of the active molecule, fexofenadine, which does not carry the same risks as the parent compound. Therefore, fexofenadine could be placed on the market as a safe replacement for the original drug.


title: Prodrug

text: Loratadine, another non-sedating antihistamine, is the prodrug of desloratadine, which is largely responsible for the antihistaminergic effects of the parent compound. However, in this case the parent compound does not have the side effects associated with terfenadine, and so both loratadine and its active metabolite, desloratadine, are currently marketed.


title: Prodrug

text: Approximately 10% of all marketed drugs worldwide can be considered prodrugs. Since 2008, at least 30 prodrugs have been approved by the FDA. Seven prodrugs were approved in 2015 and six in 2017. Examples of recently approved prodrugs are such as dabigatran etexilate (approved in 2010), gabapentin enacarbil (2011), sofosbuvir (2013), tedizolid phosphate (2014), isavuconazonium (2015), aripiprazole lauroxil (2015), selexipag (2015), latanoprostene bunod (2017), benzhydrocodone (2018), and tozinameran (2020).


title: Prodrug

text: Prodrugs can be classified into two major types, based on how the body converts the prodrug into the final active drug form:


title: Prodrug

text: Both major types can be further categorized into subtypes, based on factors such as (Type I) whether the intracellular bioactivation location is also the site of therapeutic action, or (Type 2) whether or not bioactivation occurs in the gastrointestinal fluids or in the circulation system.


title: Prodrug

text: Type IA prodrugs include many antimicrobial and chemotherapy agents (e.g., 5-flurouracil). Type IB agents rely on metabolic enzymes, especially in hepatic cells, to bioactivate the prodrugs intracellularly to active drugs. Type II prodrugs are bioactivated extracellularly, either in the milieu of GI fluids (Type IIA), within the systemic circulation and/or other extracellular fluid compartments (Type IIB), or near therapeutic target tissues/cells (Type IIC), relying on common enzymes such as esterases and phosphatases or target directed enzymes. Importantly, prodrugs can belong to multiple subtypes (i.e., Mixed-Type). A Mixed-Type prodrug is one that is bioactivated at multiple sites, either in parallel or sequential steps. For example, a prodrug, which is bioactivated concurrently in both target cells and metabolic tissues, could be designated as a "Type IA/IB" prodrug (e.g., HMG Co-A reductase inhibitors and some chemotherapy agents; note the symbol " / " applied here). When a prodrug is bioactivated sequentially, for example initially in GI fluids then systemically within the target cells, it is designated as a "Type IIA-IA" prodrug (e.g., tenofovir disoproxil; note the symbol " - " applied here). Many antibody- virus- and gene-directed enzyme prodrug therapies (ADEPTs, VDEPTs, GDEPTs) and proposed nanoparticle- or nanocarrier-linked drugs can understandably be Sequential Mixed-Type prodrugs. To differentiate these two Subtypes, the symbol dash " - " is used to designate and to indicate sequential steps of bioactivation, and is meant to distinguish from the symbol slash " / " used for the Parallel Mixed-Type prodrugs.


title: Boeing 367-80

text: The Boeing 367-80, known simply as the Dash 80, is an American quadjet prototype aircraft built by Boeing to demonstrate the advantages of jet propulsion for commercial aviation. It served as basis for the design of the KC-135 tanker and the 707 airliner.


title: Boeing 367-80

text: The Dash 80 first flew in 1954, less than two years from project launch. Its US$16 million cost (equivalent to $ million today) was an enormous risk for Boeing, which at the time had no committed customers. Only one example was built, which has been preserved and is currently on public display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia.


title: Boeing 367-80

text: By the late 1940s two developments encouraged Boeing to begin considering building a passenger jet. The first was the maiden flight in 1947 of the B-47 Stratojet. The second was the maiden flight in 1949 of the world's first jet airliner, the de Havilland Comet. Boeing President Bill Allen led a company delegation to the UK in summer 1950, where they saw the Comet fly at the Farnborough Airshow, and also visited the de Havilland factory at Hatfield, Hertfordshire where the Comets were being built. Boeing felt it had mastered the swept wing and podded engines which it saw as key technologies that would enable it to improve on the Comet.


title: Boeing 367-80

text: In 1950, Boeing tentatively produced a specification for a jet airliner dubbed the "Model 473-60C". The airlines were unconvinced because they had no experience with jet transports and were enjoying success with piston engined aircraft such as the Douglas DC-4, DC-6, Boeing Stratocruiser and Lockheed Constellation.


title: Boeing 367-80

text: Boeing was experienced at selling to the military but had not enjoyed the same success with civil airliners. This market was dominated by Douglas which was adept at meeting the needs of airlines by refining and developing its range of propeller-driven aircraft, and in 1950 was marketing the forthcoming DC-7. Boeing decided the only way to overcome the airlines' suspicion of the jet – and of itself – was to show them a completed aircraft.


title: Boeing 367-80

text: As the first of a new generation of passenger jets, Boeing wanted the aircraft's model number to emphasize the difference from its previous propeller-driven aircraft which bore 300-series numbers. The 400-, 500- and 600-series were already used by missiles and other products, so Boeing decided that the jets would bear 700-series numbers, and the first would be the 707. The marketing department at Boeing chose 707 because they thought it was more appealing than 700.


title: Boeing 367-80

text: Boeing had studied developments of its existing Model 367 (the KC-97 Stratofreighter) incorporating swept wings and podded engines; and chose to build the , which retained little of the KC-97 except the upper fuselage diameter (and the possibility of building some of the fuselage with existing tooling). Although the design was announced publicly as the Model 707, the prototype was referred to within Boeing simply as the Dash 80 or "-80".


title: Boeing 367-80

text: The Dash 80 fuselage was wide enough at for five-abreast seating; two on one side of the aisle and three on the other. The fuselage diameter for the production KC-135 was widened to and Boeing originally hoped to build the 707 fuselage with that width. By the time the Boeing company committed to production, the decision had been made to design the production model 707 as a six-abreast design, with a larger fuselage, after C. R. Smith, CEO of American Airlines, told Boeing he wouldn't buy the 707 unless it was an inch wider than the then-proposed Douglas DC-8 passenger jet. This decision did not unduly delay the introduction of the production model since the -80 had been largely hand-built, using little production tooling.


title: Boeing 367-80

text: Tex Johnston noted, "Months before the Comet's tragic vulnerability became known, Boeing engineers specified aluminum skin of a significantly thicker gauge. In addition, they welded titanium 'tear stoppers' at frequent intervals inside the skin, including plug-type doors that sealed tighter as the cabin pressure differential increased at higher altitudes, switched to triple-strength round-corner windows, and used spot welds (instead of rivets) and a twenty-inch circumferential rib spacing. Boeing subjected a Dash 80 (707) fuselage of that design to thousands of pressurization cycles, proving the validity of the structure."


title: Boeing 367-80

text: By early 1952 the designs were complete and in April the Boeing board approved the program. Construction of the Dash 80 started in November in a walled-off section of Boeing's Renton plant. As a proof of concept prototype there was no certification and no production line and most of the parts were custom built. The aircraft was not fitted with an airline cabin; a plywood lining housed the instrumentation for the flight test program.


title: Boeing 367-80

text: The Dash 80 rolled out of the factory on May 15, 1954, two years after the project was approved and 18 months after construction had started. During a series of taxi trials the port landing gear collapsed on May 22; the damage was quickly repaired and the first flight was on July 15, 1954.


title: Boeing 367-80

text: Following flights revealed a propensity to "Dutch roll" - an alternating yawing and rolling motion. Boeing already had experience with this on the B-47 Stratojet and B-52 Stratofortress and had developed a yaw damper system on the B-47 that could be adapted to the Dash 80. Other problems were found with the engines and brakes, the latter once failing completely on landing causing the aircraft to overshoot the runway.


title: Boeing 367-80

text: Boeing used the Dash 80 on demonstration flights for airline executives and other industry figures. These focused attention on the question of what the cabin of a passenger jet should look like. In a departure from its usual practice Boeing hired industrial design firm Walter Dorwin Teague to create a cabin as radical as the aircraft itself.


title: Boeing 367-80

text: Prior to demonstration for passenger airlines, the Dash 80 was fitted with Boeing's Flying Boom for aerial refueling which served as a prototype for the KC-135 Stratotanker and its later derivatives.


title: Boeing 367-80

text: As part of the Dash 80's demonstration program, Bill Allen invited representatives of the Aircraft Industries Association (AIA) and International Air Transport Association (IATA) to the Seattle's 1955 Seafair and Gold Cup Hydroplane Races held on Lake Washington on August 6, 1955. The Dash 80 was scheduled to perform a simple flyover, but Boeing test pilot Alvin "Tex" Johnston instead performed two barrel rolls to show off the jet airliner.


title: Boeing 367-80

text: The next day, Allen summoned Johnston to his office and told him not to perform such a maneuver again, to which Johnston replied that he was simply "selling airplanes" and asserted that doing so was completely safe.


title: Boeing 367-80

text: Boeing Chief Test Pilot John Cashman stated that just before he piloted the maiden flight of the Boeing 777 on June 12, 1994, his last instructions from then-Boeing President Phil Condit were "No rolls."


title: Boeing 367-80

text: After the arrival of the first production 707 in 1957 the Dash 80 was adapted into a general experimental aircraft and used by Boeing to test a variety of new technologies and systems. One of its most important tasks during the late 1950s was to test systems for the new Boeing 727, including the fitting of a fifth engine in the rear fuselage. Other tests included experiments with different airfoil shapes and a number of high lift devices such as blown flaps, in which compressed air bled from the engines is directed over the flaps to increase lift during takeoff and landing.


title: Boeing 367-80

text: After 2,350 hours and 1,691 flights the aircraft was withdrawn from use in 1969 and placed in storage. On May 26, 1972 Boeing donated the to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, which had designated it one of the 12 most significant aircraft of all time. For the next 18 years the aircraft was stored at a "desert boneyard" now called the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG) at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base near Tucson, Arizona before being retrieved by Boeing in 1990 for restoration. The Dash 80's final flight was to Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C. on August 27, 2003. Repainted to its original yellow and brown Boeing livery, it was put on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, an annex of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, located adjacent to Dulles Airport in Chantilly, Virginia.


title: Ernie Els

text: Theodore Ernest Els (; born 17 October 1969) is a South African professional golfer. A former , he is known as "The Big Easy" due to his imposing physical stature (he stands ) along with his fluid golf swing. Among his more than 70 career victories are four major championships: the U.S. Open in 1994 at Oakmont and in 1997 at Congressional, and The Open Championship in 2002 at Muirfield and in 2012 at Royal Lytham & St Annes. He is one of six golfers to twice win both the U.S. Open and The Open Championship.


title: Ernie Els

text: Other highlights in Els's career include topping the 2003 and 2004 European Tour Order of Merit (money list), and winning the World Match Play Championship a record seven times. He was the leading career money winner on the European Tour until overtaken by Lee Westwood in 2011, and was the first member of the tour to earn over €25,000,000 from European Tour events. He has held the number one spot in the Official World Golf Ranking and until 2013 held the record for weeks ranked in the top ten with 788. Els rose to fifteenth in the world rankings after winning the 2012 Open Championship. He was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2010, on his first time on the ballot, and was inducted in May 2011.


title: Ernie Els

text: Els now primarily plays on the PGA Tour Champions. When not playing, he has a golf course design business, a charitable foundation that supports golf among underprivileged youth in South Africa, and a winemaking business.


title: Ernie Els

text: Growing up in Lambton, Germiston, South Africa, Els played rugby, cricket, tennis and, starting at age 8, golf. He was a skilled junior tennis player and won the Eastern Transvaal Junior Championships at age 13. Els first learned the game of golf from his father Neels, a trucking executive, at the Germiston Golf course, He was soon playing better than his father (and his older brother, Dirk), and by the age of 14 he was a scratch handicap. It was around this time that he decided to focus exclusively on golf.


title: Ernie Els

text: Els first achieved prominence in 1984, when he won the Junior World Golf Championship in the Boys 13–14 category. Phil Mickelson was second to Els that year. Els won the South African Amateur a few months after his 17th birthday, becoming the youngest-ever winner of that event, breaking the record which had been held since 1935 by Bobby Locke. Els contested the 1987 British Amateur Championship, qualifying from stroke play for the 64-player match play segment, but was knocked out there.


title: Ernie Els

text: Els married his wife Liezl in 1998 in Cape Town, and they have two children, Samantha and Ben. In 2008, after Els started to display an "Autism Speaks" logo on his golf bag it was announced that their then five-year-old son was autistic. Their main residence is at the Wentworth Estate near Wentworth Golf Club in the south of England. However, they also split time between South Africa and their family home in Jupiter, Florida, in order to get better treatment for Ben's autism.


title: Ernie Els

text: In 1989, Els won the South African Amateur Stroke Play Championship and turned professional the same year. Els won his first professional tournament in 1991 on the Southern Africa Tour (today the Sunshine Tour). He won the Sunshine Tour Order of Merit in the 1991/92 and 1994/95 seasons. In 1993, Els won his first tournament outside of South Africa at the Dunlop Phoenix in Japan. In 1994 Els won his first major championship at the U.S. Open. Els was tied with Colin Montgomerie and Loren Roberts after 72 holes and they went to an 18-hole playoff the next day. In spite of starting the playoff bogey-triple bogey, Els was able to match Roberts' score of 74. Els birdied the second hole of sudden death to win his first U.S. Open title.


title: Ernie Els

text: Els brought his game all around the world in his young career winning the Dubai Desert Classic on the European Tour, and the Toyota World Match Play Championship defeating once again Colin Montgomerie 4 & 2. The following year, Els defended his World Match Play Championship, defeating Steve Elkington 3 & 1. Els won the GTE Byron Nelson Classic in the United States then headed back home to South Africa and won twice more. In 1996, Els won his third straight World Match Play Championship at Wentworth, defeating Vijay Singh in the final 3 & 2. No player in history had ever managed to win three successive titles in the one-on-one tournament. Els finished the year with a win at his home tournament at the South African Open.


title: Ernie Els

text: 1997 was a career year for Els first winning his second U.S. Open (once again over Colin Montgomerie) this time at Congressional Country Club, making him the first foreign player since Alex Smith (1906, 1910) to win the U.S. Open twice. He defended his Buick Classic title and added the Johnnie Walker Classic to his list of victories. Els nearly won the World Match Play Championship for a fourth consecutive year, but lost to Vijay Singh in the final. 1998 and 1999 continued to be successful years for Els with 4 wins on both the PGA and European tours.


title: Ernie Els

text: 2000 started with Els being given a special honour by the Board of Directors of the European Tour awarding him with honorary life membership of the European Tour because of his two U.S. Opens and three World Match Play titles. 2000 was the year of runners-up for Els; with three runner-up finishes in the Majors (Masters, U.S. Open and The Open Championship) and seven second-place finishes in tournaments worldwide. In 2001 Els failed to win a US PGA tour event for the first time since 1994 although he ended the year with nine second-place finishes.


title: Ernie Els

text: 2002 was arguably Els's best year, which started with a win at the Heineken Classic at the Royal Melbourne Golf Club. Then went to America and outplayed World Number one Tiger Woods to lift the Genuity Championship title. The premier moment of the season was surely his Open Championship triumph in very tough conditions at Muirfield. Els overcame a four-man playoff to take home the famous Claret Jug trophy for the first time, also quieting his critics about his mental toughness. The South African also won his fourth World Match Play title, along with his third Nedbank Challenge in the last four years, dominating a world-class field and winning by 8 shots.


title: Ernie Els

text: 2003 gave Els his first European Tour Order of Merit. Although playing fewer events than his competitors Els won four times and had three runners-up. He also performed well in the United States with back to back victories at the Mercedes Championship – where he set the all-time PGA Tour 72-hole record for most strokes under par at 31 under – and Sony Open and achieved top-20 spots in all four majors, including a fifth-place finish at the U.S Open and sixth-place finishes at both the Masters and PGA Championship. To top off the season Els won the World Match Play title for a record-tying fifth time. In 2003 he was voted 37th on the SABC3's Great South Africans.


title: Ernie Els

text: 2004 was another successful year as Els won 6 times on both tours, including big wins at Memorial, WGC-American Express Championship and his sixth World Match Play Championship, a new record. His success did not stop there. Els showed remarkable consistency in the Majors but lost to Phil Mickelson in the Masters when Mickelson birdied the 18th for the title, finished ninth in the U.S. Open after playing in the final group with friend and fellow countryman Retief Goosen and surprisingly lost in a playoff in the Open to the then-unknown Todd Hamilton. Els had a putt for birdie on the final hole of regulation for the Open at Royal Troon, but he missed the putt and lost in the playoff. Els ended the major season with a fourth-place finish in the PGA Championship, where a three-putt on the 72nd hole would cost him a place in the playoff. In total, Els had 16 top-10 finishes, a second European Order of Merit title in succession and a second-place finish on the United States money list.


title: Ernie Els

text: 2004 was the start of the "Big Five Era", which is used in describing the era in golf where Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen and Phil Mickelson dominated the game of golf. The five switched up and down the top five positions in the World Golf Ranking; most notably Vijay Singh's derailment of Tiger Woods as the best golfer in the world. The five stayed, for the most part, in the top five spots from 2004 until the start of 2007. Nine majors were won between them, many fighting against each other head to head.


title: Ernie Els

text: In July 2005, Els injured his left knee while sailing with his family in the Mediterranean. Despite missing several months of the 2005 season due to the injury, Els won the second event on his return, the Dunhill Championship.


title: Ernie Els

text: With his victory at the 2005 Qatar Masters, an event co-sanctioned by the Asian Tour, Els became the second golfer after Lee Westwood to win on all six of the big tours on the International Federation of PGA Tours.


title: Ernie Els

text: At the start of the 2007 season, Ernie Els laid out a three-year battle plan to challenge Tiger Woods as world number one. "I see 2007 as the start of a three-year plan where I totally re-dedicate myself to the game," Els told his official website.


title: Ernie Els

text: When he missed the cut by two strokes at the 2007 Masters Tournament, Els ended tour-leading consecutive cut streaks on both the PGA Tour and the European Tour. On the PGA Tour, his streak began at the 2004 The Players Championship (46 events) and on the European Tour it began at the 2000 Johnnie Walker Classic (82 events)


title: Ernie Els

text: Els has often been compared to Greg Norman in the sense that both men's careers could be looked back on and think what could have been. Although the two of them are multiple major championship winners, both share disappointment in majors. Their disappointments have ranged from nerves, bad luck, and being outplayed. 1996 was the year where Norman collapsed in the Masters, whereas the year before Els did in the PGA Championship. Nearly four years later, Els finished runner-up in the 2000 Masters Tournament, and again in 2004, losing to Phil Mickelson. Els has finished runner-up in six majors, finishing runner-up to Tiger Woods more than any other golfer, and has often been described as having the right game to finally be the golfer to beat Woods in a major.


title: Ernie Els

text: On 2 March 2008, Els won the Honda Classic contested at PGA National's Championship Course in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Els shot a final round 67 in tough windy conditions, which was enough to give him the win by one stroke over Luke Donald. The win marked the end of a three and a half-year-long stretch without a win on the PGA Tour for Els. The win was also his 16th victory on the PGA Tour.


title: Ernie Els

text: On 8 April 2008, Els officially announced that he was switching swing coaches from David Leadbetter (whom Els had worked with since 1990) to noted swing coach Butch Harmon. During Els's 2008 Masters press conference Els, said the change is in an effort to tighten his swing, shorten his swing, and get a fresh perspective.


title: Ernie Els

text: Els finally did break his winless streak by capturing the WGC-CA Championship at Doral in 2010, winning by four strokes over fellow countryman Charl Schwartzel. It was Els's second WGC tournament title. The victory also saw Els overtake Colin Montgomerie to become the career money leader on the European Tour. Els then won the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill two weeks later. It was his 18th PGA Tour victory, and his second in as many starts. The win at Bay Hill also vaulted Els to the top of the FedEx Cup standings. He held the top spot for 22 consecutive weeks.


title: Ernie Els

text: In June, Els almost captured his third U.S. Open title at Pebble Beach. Els briefly held a share of the lead after birding the sixth hole, but was derailed by a stretch of bogey, double bogey, bogey on 9,10, and 11. Els finished the tournament in solo 3rd.


title: Ernie Els

text: Els capped his year by winning the PGA Grand Slam of Golf in October, with a one stroke victory over David Toms, and also capturing the South African Open title by beating Retief Goosen by one shot.


title: Ernie Els

text: After his successful 2010 season, Els struggled to find his form in 2011. He ultimately dropped out of the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time since 1993.


title: Ernie Els

text: Els started the 2012 season in his home country at the Volvo Golf Champions where he finished in a tie for second place after he and Retief Goosen lost out in a playoff to Branden Grace. Els was next in contention at the Transitions Championship, where he needed a win to qualify for the 2012 Masters. Els led the tournament for most of the final round and had the lead outright until the 16th hole. However, he finished the tournament bogey-bogey missing a short three-footer on the last hole to make a playoff. The tournament was eventually won by Luke Donald. In April, Els failed to qualify for the Masters for the first time since 1993. He was ranked 58th in the world prior to the tournament (the top 50 are given automatic invitations). Ultimately, Els's unsuccessful bids to qualify for the Masters was viewed as the likely end of his competitiveness on the PGA Tour.


title: Ernie Els

text: Els surprised the golfing world by winning the 2012 Open Championship in July by birding the 72nd hole. Adam Scott led by four shots after a birdie at the 14th hole, but bogeyed the final four holes to miss a playoff with Els by one stroke. Els's win rejuvenated his career and earned him 5-year exemptions to the other 3 majors. Els became the eighth player to win major tournaments in three different decades, joining his countryman Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Billy Casper, Raymond Floyd, John Henry Taylor, and Harry Vardon (Tiger Woods has since become the ninth). Els's win also marked the third major champion out of the previous four major championships to be won with a type of long putter. His win reignited the controversy over the legality of long or anchored putters in golf.


title: Ernie Els

text: In June 2013, Els won for the first time since the 2012 Open Championship at the BMW International Open in Munich, Germany. He claimed a wire-to-wire victory with a one-stroke win over Thomas Bjørn for his 28th European Tour title. Els moved up to 14th from 20th in the world rankings after the win.


title: Ernie Els

text: Els struggled to find his form throughout the 2014 season. He finished 4th at the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship in February, 5th at The Barclays and 7th at the PGA Championship, but struggled with missed cuts, including a missed cut at the Masters in April. Els's struggles continued into 2015 when he made only 10 cuts on the PGA Tour. He finished a 173rd in the FedEx Cup and failed to qualify for the playoffs. In preparation for the anchored putter ban in 2016, Els switched back to the short putter in late 2015. Els's struggles with short putts, or the "yips," became the draw of much media attention in early 2016. At the 2016 Masters Tournament, Els's putting was again the source of negative publicity when he six-putted from 3 feet on his opening hole. Els recorded a 9 on the hole and ended up shooting 80–73 and missing the cut. After the Masters, Els thanked his fans on his website for their support and was admittedly embarrassed by his putting performance.


title: Ernie Els

text: In January 2020, Els joined the PGA Tour Champions shortly after his 50th birthday. In January 2020, Els shot 72-65-65 to tie for the lead of his first PGA Tour Champions event, the Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai. Miguel Ángel Jiménez and Fred Couples also qualified for the playoff. Jiménez won the event with a birdie on the second playoff hole.