title: Time in Portugal

text: From 1966, DST was observed year-round, so that, in practice, Portugal changed its time zone from WET () to CET (). However, due to the later sunrises and sunsets, many complaints accumulated: on winter mornings, people went to work under a completely dark sky, and at 09:00, when school classes started, the sun was still rising, which eventually had repercussions on students' school performance and their safety during morning trips from home to school.<ref name="Decree-Law 309/76"> Decree-Law 309/76, 27 April 1976 (in Portuguese). Retrieved 12 May 2013.</ref> Furthermore, in the 1970s, the idea of reintroducing DST as an energy saving measure gained strength in Europe as well as in Portugal. However, although there were so many complaints in the country with the use of UTC+01:00 year round, it became clear to policymakers that if DST was to be re-introduced, it could never be observed as CEST (), and the only solution was to re-adopt WET as standard time. Therefore, Portugal re-adopted Western European Time () as its standard time in 1976. DST started to be observed every year as WEST (), usually from early April to later September. From 1981 on, DST started to be observed from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in September.


title: Time in Portugal

text: In 1986, time in Portugal began to be calculated in accordance with UTC rather than GMT.<ref name="Decree-Law 44-B/86"> Decree-Law 44-B/86, 7 March 1986 (in Portuguese). Retrieved 19 May 2013.</ref>


title: Time in Portugal

text: In 1992, during the government of Aníbal Cavaco Silva, by Decree-Law 124/92, mainland Portugal officially changed its time zone from Western European Time to Central European Time.<ref name="Decree-Law 124/92"> Decree-Law 124/92, 2 July 1992 (in Portuguese). Retrieved 12 May 2013.</ref> Unlike the 1966 change to CET, DST was observed as Central European Summer Time (), from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in September. The measure, approved without the consultation of Lisbon Observatory, had the intention of promoting energy savings, in order that "Portugal follow, in work schedules, the countries with which it maintains more frequent contacts" (DL 124/92) and so promoting economic growth. However, the measure quickly proved to be a failure in achieving its objectives and became unpopular: on winter mornings, the sun was still rising at 09:00 and people travelled to work in the dark. Children also began the school day in darkness, with repercussions on their standards of learning, school performance and sleeping habits. It was even common that children fell asleep in the early morning classes. On summer evenings, the usage of Central European Summer Time was revealed to have a disturbing effect on peoples', especially children's, sleeping habits, as the sun was still setting as late as 22:30, so the sky was only completely dark towards midnight. A company hired by European Commission conducted a study which concluded that, in fact, there were no energy savings because, due to the dark early mornings, workers turned on lights in their offices and forgot to turn them off, leaving them switched on for the rest of the morning, which increased energy consumption. Concerns also emerged about the effect of the coincidence of rush hours with the hottest hours of the day on air pollution.<ref name="Decree-Law 17/96"> Decree-Law 17/96, 8 March 1996 (in Portuguese). Retrieved 12 May 2013.</ref> Furthermore, an increase in the number of assaults on children in the morning was observed, and insurance companies reported a rise in the number of accidents. Due to all of these concerns and complaints, it became clear that situation could not continue much longer without a new analysis. In December 1995, the government (now led by António Guterres) commissioned a report to Lisbon Observatory on the issue of Portuguese standard time. In February 1996, the Observatory report was released and it concluded that owing to the geographical position of Portugal, the country should re-adopt Western European Time as its standard time zone, a position that the policymakers accepted.


title: Time in Portugal

text: In 1996, new legislation was approved. By Decree-Law 17/96, mainland Portugal returned to the Western European Time time zone. DST would continue to be observed as WEST () from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October, thus also adopting the then recently changed EU rules regarding DST. In the same year, Azores and Madeira regional parliaments also approved regional laws that adapted the new EU rules to their time zones, thus ensuring that DST would be observed from the last Sunday in March to last Sunday in October in the entire Portuguese realm.<ref name="Regional Legislative Decree 6/96/M"> Regional Legislative Decree 6/96/M (Madeira), 25 June 1996 (in Portuguese). Retrieved 26 May 2013.</ref><ref name="Regional Legislative Decree 16/96/A"> Regional Legislative Decree 16/96/A (Azores), 1 August 1996 (in Portuguese). Retrieved 26 May 2013.</ref>


title: Time in Portugal

text: The Astronomical Observatory of Lisbon publishes the official time via the Network Time Protocol (NTP), e.g. via "ntp02.oal.ul.pt" and "ntp04.oal.ul.pt".


title: Time in Portugal

text: The IANA time zone database contains three zones for Portugal. Columns marked with * are from the file zone.tab from the database.


title: Metropol Parasol

text: Setas de Sevilla ("Mushrooms of Seville") or Las Setas ("The Mushrooms"), initially titled Metropol Parasol, is a wooden structure located at La Encarnación square in the old quarter of Seville, Spain. It was designed by the German architect Jürgen Mayer and completed in April 2011. It has dimensions of 150 by 70 metres (490 by 230 ft) and an approximate height of and claims to be the largest wooden structure in the world. Its appearance, location, delays and cost overruns in construction resulted in much public controversy.


title: Metropol Parasol

text: The structure consists of six parasols in the form of giant mushrooms, whose design is inspired by the vaults of the Cathedral of Seville and the ficus trees in the nearby Plaza de Cristo de Burgos. The Setas are organized in four levels. The underground level (Level 0) houses the "Antiquarium", where Roman and Moorish remains discovered on site are displayed in a museum. Level 1 (street level) is the Central Market. The roof of Level 1 is the surface of the open-air public plaza, shaded by the wooden parasols above and designed for public events. Levels 2 and 3 are the two stages of the panoramic terraces (including a restaurant), offering a view of the city centre.


title: Metropol Parasol

text: From the 19th century a market was located in the plaza, housed in a dedicated building. The building was partially demolished in 1948 in accordance with plans for urban renewal. The market itself remained, however, until 1973, when the rest of the dilapidated building was finally demolished. The land remained dormant until 1990, when the city decided to construct underground parking with space for a market on top. However, in the midst of construction, ruins dating to the Roman and Al-Andalus eras were discovered, and construction was frozen after an expenditure of 14 million euros. In 2004, the city decided to attempt to develop the area again, and opened an international competition to solicit bids.


title: Metropol Parasol

text: Construction began on June 26, 2005, with an estimated cost of 50 million euros and a projected completion date in June 2007. However, unknown to the public, the project soon faced difficulties. By May 2007 engineering firm Arup informed the municipal authorities that the structure was technically unfeasible as designed, given that a number of structural assumptions had not been tested and the design appeared to violate the limitations of known materials. The wood used was birch, imported from Finland, because of its straight qualities. Much time was spent developing feasible alternative plans to buttress the structure, which themselves proved impractical because of the added weight. A feasible design using glue as reinforcement was finally settled on only at the beginning of 2009. By some estimates, due to delays, the total cost of the structure approached 100 million euros.


title: Wang Dan (dissident)

text: Wang Dan (born February 26, 1969) is a leader of the Chinese democracy movement and was one of the most visible student leaders in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. He holds a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University, and from August 2009 to February 2010, Wang taught cross-strait history at Taiwan's National Chengchi University, as a visiting scholar. He then taught at National Tsing Hua University until 2015.


title: Wang Dan (dissident)

text: Besides conducting research on related topics, Wang is active in promoting freedom and democracy in China. Based in the United States, he travels the world to garner support from Overseas Chinese communities as well as from the public at large. He is a friend of fellow activists Wang Juntao and Liu Gang.


title: Wang Dan (dissident)

text: Wang Dan was born in 1969. He was a politically active student at the Peking University department of history, organizing "Democracy Salons" at his school. When he participated in the student movement that led to the 1989 peaceful protest, he joined the movement's organizing body as the representative from Peking University. As a result, after the Tiananmen Square protests, he immediately became the "most wanted" on the list of 21 fugitives issued. Wang went into hiding but was arrested on July 2 the same year, and sentenced to four years imprisonment in 1991. After being released on parole in 1993, he continued to write publicly (to publications outside of mainland China) and was re-arrested in 1995 for conspiring to overthrow the Chinese Communist Party and was sentenced in 1996 to 11 years. However he was released early and exiled to the United States of America (see below).


title: Wang Dan (dissident)

text: Wang resumed his university studies, starting school at Harvard University in 1998 and completing his master's in East Asian history in 2001 and a Ph.D. in 2008. He also performed research on the development of democracy in Taiwan at Oxford University in 2009. He is currently the chairman of the Chinese Constitutional Reform Association.


title: Wang Dan (dissident)

text: Wang was interviewed and appeared in the documentary "The Beijing Crackdown" and the movie "Moving the Mountain", about the Tiananmen Square protests. He also featured prominently in Shen Tong's book "Almost a Revolution".


title: Wang Dan (dissident)

text: He was banned from setting foot on mainland China with his passport expiring in 2003. He attempted to visit Hong Kong in 2004, but was rejected. At that time, he was invited by the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China to talk about politics ahead of the 15th anniversary of the June 4 crackdown. Due to a typhoon, Wang finally landed in Hong Kong for the first time, though he was confined to the airport's restricted zone as he had no Hong Kong visa.


title: Wang Dan (dissident)

text: Following the People's Liberation Army's crackdown on the protests, Wang Dan was placed on a list of the 21 most wanted student leaders of the protests. Imprisoned on July 2, 1989, Wang spent nearly two years in custody before his trial in 1991. Wang was charged with spreading counterrevolutionary propaganda and incitement. He was sentenced to 4 years in prison; a relatively mild sentence compared to other political prisoners in China at this time. This short sentence was thought to be caused by two things: the government was unsure of what to do with so many students, and felt pressure due to their high-profile nature. While incarcerated, Wang spent two years at Qincheng Prison, known for its high number of political prisoners. Despite the usual cramped conditions, because of his high-profile case, Wang was given his own cell.


title: Wang Dan (dissident)

text: Wang was released in 1993, just months before the end of his sentence. Wang Dan himself has noted this was most likely related to China’s first bid for the Olympic Games since he and 19 other political prisoners were released only a month before the International Olympic Committee was to visit. Almost immediately after his release in 1993 Wang began to promote democracy in China and contacted exiled political activists in the United States. He was arrested for a second time in May 1995, two months after an interview with the US based anti-communist periodical Beijing Spring. In this interview he states: "We should clear a new path and devote ourselves to building a civil society by focusing our efforts on social movements, not political movements, self-consciously maintaining a distance from political power and political organs." (document 3) Wang was held in custody for 17 months before receiving the charge of "plotting to overthrow the government", and was sentenced to 11 years in prison.


title: Wang Dan (dissident)

text: Instead of serving his entire sentence, he was released in 1998, ostensibly for "medical reasons" and was sent immediately to the US where he was examined in hospital, and quickly released to live in the United States as an exiled political activist. His release and move to the United States followed an agreement between the United States and China whereby the United States removed its support for a resolution criticizing China at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, and in return China released political prisoners such as Wang.


title: Wang Dan (dissident)

text: Not long after Wang arrived in the United States, he began to criticize the Chinese government once again. Wang believes the CCP must change its ways, and in an interview with the US newspaper The Weekly Standard he states: "The key to democracy in China is independence. My country needs independent intellectuals, independent economic actors, independent spirits." Wang received his PhD from Harvard University in 2008, and continues to be actively involved in fighting for change in China. Two of his works include: "20 years after Tiananmen" which takes a look at how economic change has affected the Chinese people, and contains suggestions for social and human rights changes. Wang also wrote "Rebuild China with an Olympic Amnesty" after his arrival in the United States; the document has a more positive outlook, as he felt international events such as the Olympic Games could shed light on human rights issues in China. In 2007 Wang's second sentence expired and he was officially "released" and the certificate was issued to his parents on Oct 2, 2007.


title: Wang Dan (dissident)

text: Wang has been productive in the years after his release from China. Wang has been able to publish articles such as "Rebuild China with an Olympic Amnesty" and "20 years after Tiananmen" as well as give public interviews. His exile in the United States allowed him to attend Harvard University to finish his education, obtaining a history degree. He also became chairman of the Chinese Constitutional Reform Association.


title: Wang Dan (dissident)

text: Wang taught PRC history at National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu, Taiwan from 2010 to 2015. While he was teaching a class in November 2010, a woman carrying a knife entered the room, intending to stab Wang. He was able to remove the knife from the woman before she was able to stab him. He believes that "this was the first time he faced what looked like an attempt on his life". The woman had allegedly been stalking Wang for three years.


title: Wang Dan (dissident)

text: According to a Chinese language article from Radio Free Asia, as of July 2009, Wang has a Facebook page that he hopes to use to communicate with people in mainland China.


title: Wang Dan (dissident)

text: An event hosted by Wang on Zoom in the United States was interrupted on June 3, 2020, with his Zoom account being blocked. This led to US lawmakers asking Zoom Video Communications to clarify their relationship with China regarding freedom of speech. Zoom apologized, explaining that company was puzzled with requests from China regarding blocking, but they would not repeat the practice of blocking outside of China.


title: Wang Dan (dissident)

text: Wang Dan felt there were many things that could have been changed about the movement, and he has raised these issues, both during and after the movement. In an interview with The New York Times published 2 June 1989, Wang states, "I think that the student movements in the future should be firmly based on something solid, such as the democratization of campus life or the realization of civil rights according to the Constitution,… Otherwise, the result is chaos." Another issue Wang raises is the involvement of intellectuals in the movement, expressed in the Times interview as well as a 2008 interview titled "Tiananmen Remembered". In this source he believes that intellectuals were not used early enough in the movement, and their involvement may have changed the course of events. Despite pointing out failures, Wang feels the protests affected the mentality of many Chinese people, arguing the hunger strike was necessary as it allowed greater attention on the movement. In addition to this, Wang feels that the crackdown, and the promotion of democracy garnered the attention of the entire nation and educated people on democracy, which was a new idea for many Chinese people.


title: Wang Dan (dissident)

text: Wang commented at a May 31, 2009, press conference in Toronto on the so-called "Beijing Doctrine": "For the sake of economic improvement, everything can be done, even killing people ... [such a doctrine shows that] the Tiananmen Massacre is still going on, only in different ways: it was the students' lives being taken physically in 1989, but it is the mind of the world being poisoned spiritually today."


title: Lied

text: In Western classical music tradition, (, plural ; , plural , ) is a term for setting poetry to classical music to create a piece of polyphonic music. The term is used for any kind of song in contemporary German, but among English and French speakers, is often used interchangeably with "art song" to encompass works that the tradition has inspired in other languages as well. The poems that have been made into lieder often center on pastoral themes or themes of romantic love.


title: Lied

text: The earliest lied date from the late fourteenth or early fifteenth centuries, and can even refer to from as early as the 12th and 13th centuries. It later came especially to refer to settings of Romantic poetry during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and into the early twentieth century. Examples include settings by Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Hugo Wolf, Gustav Mahler or Richard Strauss.


title: Lied

text: For German speakers, the term "Lied" has a long history ranging from twelfth-century troubadour songs () via folk songs (') and church hymns (') to twentieth-century workers' songs (') or protest songs (').


title: Lied

text: The German word "Lied" for "song" (cognate with the English dialectal leed) first came into general use in German during the early fifteenth century, largely displacing the earlier word "gesang". The poet and composer Oswald von Wolkenstein is sometimes claimed to be the creator of the lied because of his innovations in combining words and music. The late-fourteenth-century composer known as the Monk of Salzburg wrote six two-part lieder which are older still, but Oswald's songs (about half of which actually borrow their music from other composers) far surpass the Monk of Salzburg in both number (about 120 lieder) and quality. From the 15th century come three large song collections compiled in Germany: the "Lochamer Liederbuch", the "Schedelsches Liederbuch", and the "Glogauer Liederbuch".


title: Lied

text: The scholar Konrad Celtis (1459 – 1508), the Arch-Humanist of German Renaissance, taught his students to compose Latin poems using the metric patterns following the model of the Horatian odes. These poems were subsequently "set to simple, four-part music, incorporate the shifting accenmal patterns of the French "vers mesurée"". The composers of this style included Heinrich Finck, Paul Hofhaimer, and Ludwig Senfl. The style also became imbued into the new German humanist dramas, thus contributing to the development of Protestanthymnody. The style is present in the earliest German secular polyphony collections such as Johann Ott'S "Mehrstimmiges Deutsches Liederbuch" (1534) and Georg Forster’s "Frisclw tentsche Lieder" (about 1540 onwards). According to Chester Lee Alwes, Heinrich Isaac's popular song "Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen" "became the gold standard of the Lied genre".


title: Lied

text: In Germany, the great age of song came in the nineteenth century. German and Austrian composers had written music for voice with keyboard before this time, but it was with the flowering of German literature in the Classical and Romantic eras that composers found inspiration in poetry that sparked the genre known as the lied. The beginnings of this tradition are seen in the songs of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, but it was with Schubert that a new balance was found between words and music, a new expression of the sense of the words in and through the music. Schubert wrote over 600 songs, some of them in sequences or song cycles that relate an adventure of the soul rather than the body. The tradition was continued by Schumann, Brahms, and Wolf, and on into the 20th century by Richard Strauss, Mahler, and Pfitzner. Composers of atonal music, such as Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg and Anton Webern, also composed lieder.


title: Lied

text: Typically, "Lieder" are arranged for a single singer and piano, "Lieder" with orchestral accompaniment being a later development. Some of the most famous examples of "Lieder" are Schubert's "Erlkönig", "Der Tod und das Mädchen" ("Death and the Maiden"), "Gretchen am Spinnrade", and "Der Doppelgänger". Sometimes, lieder are composed in a song cycle (German "" or "Liederkreis"), a series of songs (generally three or more) tied by a single narrative or theme, such as Schubert's "Die schöne Müllerin" and "Winterreise", or Robert Schumann's "Frauen-Liebe und Leben" and "Dichterliebe". Schubert and Schumann are most closely associated with this genre, mainly developed in the Romantic era.


title: Lied

text: The Lied tradition is closely linked with the German language, but there are parallels elsewhere, notably in France, with the mélodies of such composers as Berlioz, Fauré, Debussy, and Poulenc, and in Russia, with the songs of Mussorgsky and Rachmaninoff in particular. England too had a flowering of song, more closely associated, however, with folk songs than with art songs, as represented by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Benjamin Britten, Ivor Gurney, and Gerald Finzi.


title: Alpha-synuclein

text: Alpha-synuclein is a protein that, in humans, is encoded by the "SNCA" gene. Alpha-synuclein is a neuronal protein that regulates synaptic vesicle trafficking and subsequent neurotransmitter release.


title: Alpha-synuclein

text: It is abundant in the brain, while smaller amounts are found in the heart, muscle and other tissues. In the brain, alpha-synuclein is found mainly in the axon terminals of presynaptic neurons. Within these terminals, alpha-synuclein interacts with phospholipids and proteins. Presynaptic terminals release chemical messengers, called neurotransmitters, from compartments known as synaptic vesicles. The release of neurotransmitters relays signals between neurons and is critical for normal brain function.


title: Alpha-synuclein

text: The human alpha-synuclein protein is made of 140 amino acids. An alpha-synuclein fragment, known as the non-Abeta component (NAC) of Alzheimer's disease amyloid, originally found in an amyloid-enriched fraction, was shown to be a fragment of its precursor protein, NACP. It was later determined that NACP was the human homologue of "Torpedo" synuclein. Therefore, NACP is now referred to as human alpha-synuclein.


title: Alpha-synuclein

text: Alpha-synuclein is a synuclein protein of unknown function primarily found in neural tissue, making up as much as one percent of all proteins in the cytosol of brain cells. It is expressed highly in neurons within the frontal cortex, hippocampus, striatum, and olfactory bulb, but can also be found in the non-neuronal glial cells. In melanocytes, SNCA protein expression may be regulated by microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF).


title: Alpha-synuclein

text: It has been established that alpha-synuclein is extensively localized in the nucleus of mammalian brain neurons, suggesting a role of alpha-synuclein in the nucleus. Synuclein is however found predominantly in the presynaptic termini, in both free or membrane-bound forms, with roughly 15% of synuclein being membrane-bound at any moment in neurons.


title: Alpha-synuclein

text: It has also been shown that alpha-synuclein is localized in neuronal mitochondria. Alpha-synuclein is highly expressed in the mitochondria in olfactory bulb, hippocampus, striatum and thalamus, where the cytosolic alpha-synuclein is also rich. However, the cerebral cortex and cerebellum are


title: Alpha-synuclein

text: two exceptions, which contain rich cytosolic alpha-synuclein but very low levels of mitochondrial alpha-synuclein. It has been shown that alpha-synuclein is localized in the inner membrane of mitochondria, and that the inhibitory effect of alpha-synuclein on complex I activity of the mitochondrial respiratory chain is dose-dependent. Thus, it is suggested that alpha-synuclein in mitochondria is differentially expressed in different brain regions and the background levels of mitochondrial alpha-synuclein may be a potential factor affecting mitochondrial function and predisposing some neurons to degeneration.


title: Alpha-synuclein

text: At least three isoforms of synuclein are produced through alternative splicing. The majority form of the protein, and the one most investigated, is the full-length protein of 140 amino acids. Other isoforms are alpha-synuclein-126, which lacks residues 41-54 due to loss of exon 3; and alpha-synuclein-112, which lacks residues 103-130 due to loss of exon 5.


title: Alpha-synuclein

text: Alpha-synuclein in solution is considered to be an intrinsically disordered protein, i.e. it lacks a single stable 3D structure. As of 2014, an increasing number of reports suggest, however, the presence of partial structures or mostly structured oligomeric states in the solution structure of alpha-synuclein even in the absence of lipids. This trend is also supported by a large number of single molecule (optical tweezers) measurements on single copies of monomeric alpha-synuclein as well as covalently enforced dimers or tetramers of alpha-synuclein.


title: Alpha-synuclein

text: Alpha-synuclein is specifically upregulated in a discrete population of presynaptic terminals of the brain during a period of acquisition-related synaptic rearrangement. It has been shown that alpha-synuclein significantly interacts with tubulin, and that alpha-synuclein may have activity as a potential microtubule-associated protein, like tau. Evidence suggests that alpha-synuclein functions as a molecular chaperone in the formation of SNARE complexes. In particular, it simultaneously binds to phospholipids of the plasma membrane via its N-terminus domain and to synaptobrevin-2 via its C-terminus domain, with increased importance during synaptic activity. Indeed, there is growing evidence that alpha-synuclein is involved in the functioning of the neuronal Golgi apparatus and vesicle trafficking.


title: Alpha-synuclein

text: Apparently, alpha-synuclein is essential for normal development of the cognitive functions. Knock-out mice with the targeted inactivation of the expression of alpha-synuclein show impaired spatial learning and working memory.


title: Alpha-synuclein

text: Experimental evidence has been collected on the interaction of alpha-synuclein with membrane and its involvement with membrane composition and turnover. Yeast genome screening has found that several genes that deal with lipid metabolism and mitochondrial fusion play a role in alpha-synuclein toxicity. Conversely, alpha-synuclein expression levels can affect the viscosity and the relative amount of fatty acids in the lipid bilayer.


title: Alpha-synuclein

text: Alpha-synuclein is known to directly bind to lipid membranes, associating with the negatively charged surfaces of phospholipids. Alpha-synuclein forms an extended helical structure on small unilamellar vesicles. A preferential binding to small vesicles has been found. The binding of alpha-synuclein to lipid membranes has complex effects on the latter, altering the bilayer structure and leading to the formation of small vesicles. Alpha-synuclein has been shown to bend membranes of negatively charged phospholipid vesicles and form tubules from large lipid vesicles. Using cryo-EM it was shown that these are micellar tubes of ~5-6 nm diameter. Alpha-synuclein has also been shown to form lipid disc-like particles similar to apolipoproteins. EPR studies have shown that the structure of alpha synuclein is dependent on the binding surface. The protein adopts a broken-helical conformation on lipoprotein particles while it forms an extended helical structure on lipid vesicles and membrane tubes. Studies have also suggested a possible antioxidant activity of alpha-synuclein in the membrane.


title: Alpha-synuclein

text: Although the function of alpha-synuclein is not well understood, studies suggest that it plays a role in restricting the mobility of synaptic vesicles, consequently attenuating synaptic vesicle recycling and neurotransmitter release. An alternate view is that alpha-synuclein binds to VAMP2 (a synaptobrevin) and stabilizes SNARE complexes; though recent studies indicate that alpha-synuclein–VAMP2 binding is critical for alpha-synuclein-mediated attenuation of synaptic vesicle recycling, connecting the two seemingly divergent views. It may also help regulate the release of dopamine, a type of neurotransmitter that is critical for controlling the start and stop of voluntary and involuntary movements.


title: Alpha-synuclein

text: Alpha-synuclein modulates DNA repair processes, including repair of double-strand breaks (DSBs). DNA damage response markers co-localize with alpha-synuclein to form discrete foci in human cells and mouse brain. Depletion of alpha-synuclein in human cells causes increased introduction of DNA DSBs after exposure to bleomycin and reduced ability to repair these DSBs. In addition, alpha-synuclein knockout mice display a higher level of DSBs, and this problem can be alleviated by transgenic reintroduction of human alpha-synuclein. Alpha-synuclein promotes the DSB repair pathway referred to as non-homologous end joining. The DNA repair function of alpha-synuclein appears to be compromised in Lewy body inclusion bearing neurons, and this may trigger cell death.


title: Alpha-synuclein

text: In some neurodegenerative diseases, alpha-synuclein produces insoluble inclusion bodies. These diseases, known as synucleinopathies, are connected with either higher levels of normal alpha-synuclein or its mutant variants. The normal physiological role of Snca, however, has not yet been thoroughly explained. In fact, physiological Snca has been demonstrated to have a neuroprotective impact by inhibiting apoptosis induced by several types of apoptotic stimuli, or by regulating the expression of proteins involved in apoptotic pathways.


title: Alpha-synuclein

text: Recently it has been demonstrated that up-regulation of alpha-synuclein in the dentate gyrus (a neurogenic niche where new neurons are generated throughout life) activates stem cells, in a model of premature neural aging. This model shows reduced expression of alpha-synuclein and reduced proliferation of stem cells, as is physiologically observed during aging. Exogenous alpha-synuclein in the dentate gyrus is able to rescue this defect. Moreover, alpha-synuclein also boosts the proliferation of dentate gyrus progenitor neural cells in wild-type young mice. Thus, alpha-synuclein represents an effector for neural stem and progenitor cell activation.


title: Alpha-synuclein

text: Similarly, alpha-synuclein has been found to be required to maintain stem cells of the SVZ (subventricular zone, i.e., another neurogenic niche) in a cycling state.


title: Alpha-synuclein

text: The use of high-resolution ion-mobility mass spectrometry (IMS-MS) on HPLC-purified alpha-synuclein "in vitro" has shown alpha-synuclein to be autoproteolytic (self-proteolytic), generating a variety of small molecular weight fragments upon incubation. The 14.46 kDa protein was found to generate numerous smaller fragments, including 12.16 kDa (amino acids 14–133) and 10.44 kDa (40-140) fragments formed through C- and N-terminal truncation and a 7.27 kDa C-terminal fragment (72-140). The 7.27 kDa fragment, which contains the majority of the NAC region, aggregated considerably faster than full-length alpha-synuclein. It is possible that these autoproteolytic products play a role as intermediates or cofactors in the aggregation of alpha-synuclein "in vivo".


title: Alpha-synuclein

text: Alpha synuclein, having no single, well-defined tertiary structure, is an intrinsically disordered protein, with a pI value of 4.7, which, under certain pathological conditions, can misfold in a way that exposes its core hydrophobic residues to the intracellular milieu, thus providing the opportunity for hydrophobic interactions to occur with a similar, equally exposed protein. This could lead to self assembly and subsequent aggregation into large, insoluble fibrils known as amyloids. The conversion of soluble alpha synuclein into highly ordered, cross-β sheet, fibrillar structures does not, as previously thought, follow a two-step mechanism, rather, occurs through a series of transient, soluble oligomeric intermediates. In 2011, two groups published their findings that unmutated α-synuclein forms a stably folded tetramer that resists aggregation, asserting that this folded tetramer represented the relevant in vivo structure in cells, thereby relieving alpha synuclein of its disordered status. Proponents of the tetramer hypothesis argued that in vivo cross-linking in bacteria, primary neurons and human erythroleukemia cells confirmed the presence of labile, tetrameric species. However, despite numerous in-cell NMR reports demonstrating that alpha synuclein is indeed monomeric and disordered in intact E. coli cells, it is still a matter of debate in the field despite an ever growing mountain of conflicting reports. Nevertheless, alpha-synuclein aggregates to form insoluble fibrils in pathological conditions characterized by Lewy bodies, such as Parkinson's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies and multiple system atrophy. These disorders are known as synucleinopathies. In vitro models of synucleinopathies revealed that aggregation of alpha-synuclein may lead to various cellular disorders including microtubule impairment, synaptic and mitochondrial dysfunctions, oxidative stress as well as dysregulation of Calcium signaling, proteasomal and lysosomal pathway. Alpha-synuclein is the primary structural component of Lewy body fibrils. Occasionally, Lewy bodies contain tau protein; however, alpha-synuclein and tau constitute two distinctive subsets of filaments in the same inclusion bodies. Alpha-synuclein pathology is also found in both sporadic and familial cases with Alzheimer's disease.


title: Alpha-synuclein

text: The aggregation mechanism of alpha-synuclein is uncertain. There is evidence of a structured intermediate rich in beta structure that can be the precursor of aggregation and, ultimately, Lewy bodies. A single molecule study in 2008 suggests alpha-synuclein exists as a mix of unstructured, alpha-helix, and beta-sheet-rich conformers in equilibrium. Mutations or buffer conditions known to improve aggregation strongly increase the population of the beta conformer, thus suggesting this could be a conformation related to pathogenic aggregation. One theory is that the majority of alpha-synuclein aggregates are located in the presynapse as smaller deposits which causes synaptic dysfunction. Among the strategies for treating synucleinopathies are compounds that inhibit aggregation of alpha-synuclein. It has been shown that the small molecule cuminaldehyde inhibits fibrillation of alpha-synuclein.


title: Alpha-synuclein

text: In rare cases of familial forms of Parkinson's disease, there is a mutation in the gene coding for alpha-synuclein. Five point mutations have been identified thus far: A53T, A30P, E46K, H50Q, and G51D; however, in total, nineteen mutations in the SNCA gene have been associated with parkinsonism: A18T, A29S, A53E, A53V, E57A, V15A, T72M, L8I, V15D, M127I, P117S, M5T, G93A, E83Q, and A30G.


title: Alpha-synuclein

text: It has been reported that some mutations influence the initiation and amplification steps of the aggregation process. Genomic duplication and triplication of the gene appear to be a rare cause of Parkinson's disease in other lineages, although more common than point mutations. Hence certain mutations of alpha-synuclein may cause it to form amyloid-like fibrils that contribute to Parkinson's disease. Over-expression of human wild-type or A53T-mutant alpha-synuclein in primates drives deposition of alpha-synuclein in the ventral midbrain, degeneration of the dopaminergic system and impaired motor performance.


title: Alpha-synuclein

text: A prion form of the protein alpha-synuclein may be a causal agent for the disease multiple system atrophy.


title: Alpha-synuclein

text: Self-replicating "prion-like" amyloid assemblies of alpha-synuclein have been described that are invisible to the amyloid dye Thioflavin T and that can acutely spread in neurons in vitro and in vivo.


title: Alpha-synuclein

text: Antibodies against alpha-synuclein have replaced antibodies against ubiquitin as the gold standard for immunostaining of Lewy bodies. The central panel in the figure to the right shows the major pathway for protein aggregation. Monomeric α-synuclein is natively unfolded in solution but can also bind to membranes in an α-helical form. It seems likely that these two species exist in equilibrium within the cell, although this is unproven. From in vitro work, it is clear that unfolded monomer can aggregate first into small oligomeric species that can be stabilized by β-sheet-like interactions and then into higher molecular weight insoluble fibrils. In a cellular context, there is some evidence that the presence of lipids can promote oligomer formation: α-synuclein can also form annular, pore-like structures that interact with membranes. The deposition of α-synuclein into pathological structures such as Lewy bodies is probably a late event that occurs in some neurons. On the left hand side are some of the known modifiers of this process. Electrical activity in neurons changes the association of α-synuclein with vesicles and may also stimulate polo-like kinase 2 (PLK2), which has been shown to phosphorylate α-synuclein at Ser129. Other kinases have also been proposed to be involved. As well as phosphorylation, truncation through proteases such as calpains, and nitration, probably through nitric oxide (NO) or other reactive nitrogen species that are present during inflammation, all modify synuclein such that it has a higher tendency to aggregate. The addition of ubiquitin (shown as a black spot) to Lewy bodies is probably a secondary process to deposition. On the right are some of the proposed cellular targets for α-synuclein mediated toxicity, which include (from top to bottom) ER-golgi transport, synaptic vesicles, mitochondria and lysosomes and other proteolytic machinery. In each of these cases, it is proposed that α-synuclein has detrimental effects, listed below each arrow, although at this time it is not clear if any of these are either necessary or sufficient for toxicity in neurons.


title: Jayda Fransen

text: Jayda Kaleigh Fransen is a British far-right activist and politician who was convicted of religiously aggravated harassment in 2018. Formerly involved with the English Defence League (EDL), she left due to its association with drink-fuelled violence. She then joined the far-right fascist political organisation Britain First. With Paul Golding as leader, Fransen was deputy leader from 2014 to 2019. She became acting leader for six months from December 2016 to June 2017, while Golding was imprisoned in December 2016.


title: Jayda Fransen

text: Fransen was an unsuccessful candidate in the 2014 Rochester and Strood by-election, the 2016 London Assembly election, the 2021 Scottish Parliament election, the 2021 Batley and Spen by-election, the 2022 Southend West by-election, and the 2022 Wakefield by-election. In addition to online anti-Islamic activism, she has marched while holding a white cross, in what she called "Christian patrols", through predominantly Muslim populated areas of Britain. In March 2018, she was sentenced to 36 weeks' imprisonment after being convicted of three counts of religiously aggravated harassment.


title: Jayda Fransen

text: Britain First, formed in 2011, is a British fascist political party founded by Jim Dowson. Paul Golding became the leader following the resignation of Dowson, and during this time Fransen was the deputy leader of the party. Golding handed over the leadership role to Fransen in November 2016 due to his being sentenced to 2 months in prison for breaching a court order, although Fransen stated that his leave was in order "to address some important, personal family issues". Fransen stepped down from her leadership role in January 2019 and left the party. She has been described as part of the counter-jihad movement.


title: Jayda Fransen

text: In a May 2019 BBC Northern Ireland "Spotlight" documentary, Fransen accused Paul Golding of violent abuse.


title: Jayda Fransen

text: Fransen stood as Britain First's first parliamentary candidate for the Rochester and Strood by-election on 20 November 2014, during which she expressed sympathy for the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and its candidate Mark Reckless (a Conservative MP who had switched allegiances to UKIP), who went on to win the seat.


title: Jayda Fransen

text: Britain First's campaign for the by-election drew attention when the party uploaded a photo of Fransen together with local activists from UKIP, who responded by saying that the activists were not aware of the implications of the photograph, while Fransen said that the UKIP activists asked for the photo and that she was under the impression that there were strong similarities between the two parties. The BBC presenter Nick Robinson was also criticised for his selfie with Fransen during the by-election. Robinson said he did not know who Fransen was and denied supporting her policies.


title: Jayda Fransen

text: On 27 September 2015, Paul Golding announced that he would stand as a candidate in the 2016 London mayoral election. In a Facebook post on the decision, Fransen wrote that the party's "pro-EU, Islamist-loving opponents" will "face the wrath of the Britain First movement ... We will not rest until every traitor is punished for their crimes against our country. And by punished, I mean good old fashioned British justice at the end of a rope!" Golding turned his back on the podium when the election of Sadiq Khan as mayor was announced; and neither Golding nor Fransen was successful as a candidate in the London Assembly election, held simultaneously to the mayoral election.


title: Jayda Fransen

text: In January 2021, Fransen said she would stand for the Glasgow Southside seat, held by Nicola Sturgeon, in the 2021 Scottish Parliament election. Fransen and Sturgeon had a tense confrontation outside a polling station on election day. Fransen received 46 votes (0.1%), coming last. She also received the fewest votes among the 357 constituency candidates in the election.


title: Jayda Fransen

text: The 2021 Batley and Spen by-election followed the resignation of Tracy Brabin after she was elected as Mayor of West Yorkshire. Fransen came second to last with 50 votes.


title: Jayda Fransen

text: After the murder of the Conservative MP David Amess in October 2021, Fransen said she would be running for the vacancy in Southend West for the British Freedom Party. All major parties in the UK apart from the Conservatives had already announced that they would refrain from nominating a candidate in order to avoid exploitation of the murder. She received 299 votes, 2% of the total vote. As with her campaign in the 2021 Batley and Spen by-election, she was recorded as an independent candidate and not a representative of the British Freedom Party.


title: Jayda Fransen

text: In June 2022, standing as an independent, she received 23 votes (0.1%) in the Wakefield by-election, the lowest of 15 candidates.


title: Jayda Fransen

text: After one of Britain First's "Christian patrols" in Luton, in November 2016, Fransen was convicted of religiously aggravated harassment and ordered to pay a fine of £1,000 after she harassed a Muslim mother of four who was wearing a hijab. She was also fined £200 for breaching the Public Order Act 1936 by wearing a political uniform and ordered to pay £620 in costs (including a £100 victim surcharge), and issued with a two-year restraining order to prevent her from contacting the victim or engaging in intimidating behaviour towards her. Fransen had denied all charges, accusing the courts of being "absurd", and engaging in "a really clear display of Islamic appeasement".


title: Jayda Fransen

text: In September 2017, Fransen was arrested with Golding and charged with religious harassment. They were bailed and ordered to appear before Medway magistrates on 17 October 2017. Their arrests followed an investigation by Kent Police into the distribution of leaflets in the Thanet and Canterbury areas, and the posting of online videos during a trial at Canterbury Crown Court in May 2017. On 14 October 2017, following a broadcast on Radio Aryan, Fransen was re-arrested and detained overnight at a protest in Sunderland for breaking the terms of her bail. On 17 October 2017, after Fransen and Golding pleaded not guilty before Medway magistrates, their case was adjourned until a hearing at Folkestone Magistrates' Court on 29 January 2018 and they were both ordered to report weekly at Bromley Police Station.


title: Jayda Fransen

text: On 18 November 2017, Fransen was arrested in London by detectives from the Police Service of Northern Ireland in relation to a speech she had made at a rally outside Belfast City Hall on 6 August. She was charged with employing "threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour" under the Public Order (Northern Ireland) Order 1987 and on 14 December appeared at Belfast Magistrates' Court, where she pleaded not guilty. Fransen was immediately re-arrested outside the court and charged the following day over anti-Islamic comments posted online in a video filmed on 13 December at a peace wall separating Catholic and Protestant communities in West Belfast; she was ordered to appear in court on 9 January 2018 and released on bail, subject to an exclusion order from all processions and demonstrations in Northern Ireland.


title: Jayda Fransen

text: On 29 March 2019, Fransen was convicted of stirring up hatred at the Belfast rally and for separate comments at a peace wall. The other defendants


title: Jayda Fransen

text: Paul Golding, John Banks and Paul Rimmer, were acquitted on similar charges. Fransen was sentenced to 180 hours community service.


title: Jayda Fransen

text: On 7 March 2018, Fransen and Golding were found guilty of religiously aggravated harassment at Folkestone magistrates' court, as a result of an investigation concerning the distribution of leaflets in 2017 in the Thanet and Canterbury areas. The pair were convicted over an incident at a takeaway in Ramsgate, Kent, during which Fransen screamed "paedophile" and "foreigner", while Fransen was also convicted for approaching an address she believed to belong to a Muslim defendant on a rape trial. They were both sentenced to prison, with 36 weeks for Fransen and 18 weeks for Golding.


title: Jayda Fransen

text: Kent Police released mugshots of Fransen and Golding, taken when they were originally in custody, because of "the nature of the offences committed and the impact they had on the wider community". The usual procedure is that only offenders sentenced to a year or more in custody have their mugshots released.


title: Jayda Fransen

text: Following her release, Jayda left Britain First and formed the British Freedom Party, following an admission by Paul Golding that he attacked Fransen.


title: Jayda Fransen

text: On 29 November 2017, President of the United States Donald Trump caused controversy when he retweeted three anti-Muslim videos shared by Fransen on her Twitter account. She responded on Twitter in capital letters, "The President of the United States, Donald Trump, has retweeted three of Deputy Leader Jayda Fransen’s Twitter videos! Donald Trump himself has retweeted these videos and has around 44 million followers! God bless you Trump! God bless America!" Fransen later posted a video of herself requesting Trump to assist her in a forthcoming court case in Belfast. She is reported as saying, "The leader of the free world has signified his disgust at an elected leader being arrested and possibly facing two years in prison over an Islamic blasphemy law. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have laws where you can't speak out about Islam. The UK doesn't."


title: Jayda Fransen

text: The three Islamophobic videos tweeted by Fransen were inflammatory and unverified — she has a history of posting misleading videos. Describing herself on her Twitter account as "faithful to God and Britannia", she had made over 15,000 tweets since opening the account in mid-2016. One of the videos (titled "Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!") purported to show an assault by a Muslim immigrant. According to the Dutch embassy in the US, the teenage perpetrator was "born and raised in the Netherlands"; and the embassy later confirmed that he was not Muslim. Another video ("Muslim Destroys a Statue of Virgin Mary!") was filmed during the Syrian Civil War in 2013 and showed a man, who is believed to be an Al-Nusra supporter, destroying a statue of Mary. The third video ("Islamist mob pushes teenage boy off roof and beats him to death!") contained footage in Alexandria, Egypt during a period of violent unrest following the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état: it showed supporters of the deposed President Mohammed Morsi attacking one of his critics.


title: Jayda Fransen

text: Prime Minister Theresa May condemned Trump's retweets of the anti-Muslim videos, stating that "it is wrong for the president to have done this", and, "Britain First seeks to divide communities through their use of hateful narratives which peddle lies and stoke tensions".


title: Jayda Fransen

text: On 18 December 2017, Twitter permanently suspended the accounts of Fransen and Golding, together with the official account of Britain First, as part of its general policy towards any groups which glorify violence or use hate-inciting imagery to fulfill their goals. The company's stated aim in enforcing such bans was to "reduce the amount of abusive behaviour and hateful conduct" on the web. Permanent suspension of an account would result whenever the profile contained "a violent threat or multiple slurs, epithets, racist or sexist tropes, incite[d] fear, or reduce[d] someone to less than human". The three retweets by Trump have been removed as a consequence of Fransen's ban. As a result of the ban, Fransen and Golding joined the Gab social networking service, and urged their followers to do likewise.


title: Skip Homeier

text: George Vincent Homeier (October 5, 1930 – June 25, 2017), known professionally as Skip Homeier, was an American actor who started his career at the age of eleven and became a child star.


title: Skip Homeier

text: Homeier was born in Chicago, Illinois on October 5, 1930. He began to act for radio shows at the age of six as Skippy Homeier. At the age of 11, he worked on the radio show "Portia Faces Life" as well as making "dramatic commercial announcements" on "The O'Neills" and "Against the Storm". In 1942, he joined the casts of "Wheatena Playhouse" and "We, the Abbotts". From 1943 until 1944, he played the role of Emil in the Broadway play and film "Tomorrow, the World!". Cast as a child indoctrinated into Nazism who is brought to the United States from Germany following the death of his parents, Homeier was praised for his performance. He played the troubled youngster in the film adaptation of "Tomorrow, the World!" (1944) and received good reviews playing opposite Fredric March and Betty Field as his American uncle and aunt.


title: Skip Homeier

text: Homeier changed his first name from Skippy to Skip when he turned eighteen. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles.


title: Skip Homeier

text: Although Homeier worked frequently throughout his childhood and adolescence, playing wayward youths with no chance of redemption, he did not become a major star; but he did make a transition from child actor to adult, especially in a range of roles as delinquent youths, common in Hollywood films of the 1950s. Some of these films were Film noir works.


title: Skip Homeier

text: He also developed a talent for playing strong character roles in war films, such as "Halls of Montezuma" (1950), Sam Fuller's "Fixed Bayonets!" (1951) and "Beachhead" (1954).


title: Skip Homeier

text: In 1954, he guest-starred in an episode of the NBC legal drama "Justice", based on cases of the Legal Aid Society of New York. He was cast later in an episode of Steve McQueen's "", a CBS Western series. Homeier played a man sought for a crime of which he is innocent, but who has no faith in the legal system's ability to provide justice. Fleeing from McQueen's bounty hunter character Josh Randall, Homeier's character's foot slips and he accidentally falls to his death from a cliff.


title: Skip Homeier

text: He appeared in a 1955 episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", with co-star Joanne Woodward entitled "Momentum". Homeier appeared as Kading in an episode of the NBC western "Jefferson Drum" ("The Post", 1958), starring Jeff Richards. In 1959, he appeared as a drover named Lucky in Rawhide, "Incident of the Blue Fire." In 1960, Skip appeared on an episode of "The Rifleman": The Spoiler as Brud Evans. Then, from 1960 to 1961, he starred in the title role in "Dan Raven", a short-lived NBC crime drama set on Sunset Strip of West Hollywood, California, with a number of celebrities playing themselves in guest roles. The series only lasted for thirteen episodes. In the summer of 1961, he appeared in an episode of "The Asphalt Jungle", and later that same year, he performed as a replacement drover and temporary "ramrod" in an episode of "Rawhide" ("Incident of the Long Shakedown").


title: Skip Homeier

text: Homeier was also cast as “Wichita Kid “ in a Rawhide episode airing November 23, 1965 entitled Brush War at Buford.


title: Skip Homeier

text: Homeier also made two guest appearances on "Perry Mason", both times as the defendant. In 1961, he played Dr. Edley in "The Case of the Pathetic Patient", and in 1965, he played the police sergeant Dave Wolfe in "The Case of the Silent Six". In 1964, he guest-starred in "The Addams Family" episode "Halloween with the Addams Family" with Don Rickles. Also in 1964, he portrayed Dr. Roy Clinton in "The Outer Limits" episode "Expanding Human" (1963). In a very busy year, he also appeared in the "Combat!" episode "The Impostor" (1964, S3 E10). He also appeared in the "Combat!" episode "Night Patrol" (1963, S1 E22) as Lt. Billy Joe Cranston.


title: Skip Homeier

text: Homeier was cast as Doc Holliday in the 1964 episode, "The Quiet and the Fury" on "Death Valley Days". In a 1965 "Death Valley Days" episode, "Fighting Sky Pilot", hosted by Ronald Reagan, Homeier played a pastor, Ben Darniell, in Carson City, Nevada. In the storyline, the minister Darniell attempts to rescue a saloon girl, Claire Vernon (Carol Brewster), from her oppressive employer.


title: Skip Homeier

text: Homeier was cast in the feature film "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" (1966) with Don Knotts; and he continued to be frequently cast on television as a guest star, often as a villain, including in all four of Irwin Allen's science-fiction series in the mid-to-late 1960s. He guest-starred as well on "" in two episodes: as the Nazi-like character Melakon in "" (1968), as Dr. Rota Sevrin in "The Way to Eden" (1969), and in "Longstreet" (1971). In 1969 he was a guest star on the TV show "Mannix", in the third season episode called "A Sleep in the Deep". One of his last roles was a one-liner in the television film "The Wild Wild West Revisited" (1979) as a senior Secret Service official. He retired from acting aged 50.


title: Skip Homeier

text: Homeier died on June 25, 2017 at the age of 86 from spinal myelopathy at his home in Indian Wells, California. He is survived by his wife, Della, and his sons Peter and Michael from his first marriage (1951–1962) to Nancy Van Noorden Field.


title: Chess clock

text: A chess clock consists of two adjacent clocks with buttons to stop one clock while starting the other, so that the two clocks never run simultaneously. Chess clocks are used in chess and other two-player games where the players move in turn, and in some legal settings where each side is allotted a specific amount of time for arguments. The purpose is to keep track of the total time each player takes for their own moves, and ensure that neither player overly delays the game.


title: Chess clock

text: Chess clocks were first used extensively in tournament chess, and are often called game clocks. The first time that game clocks were used in a chess tournament was in the London 1883 tournament as invention by Thomas Bright Wilson of Manchester Chess Club. Their use has since spread to tournament Scrabble, shogi, go, and nearly every competitive two-player board game, as well as other types of games.


title: Chess clock

text: In a tournament, the arbiter typically places all clocks in the same orientation, so that they can easily assess games that need attention at later stages.


title: Chess clock

text: The simplest time control is "sudden death", in which players must make a predetermined number of moves in a certain amount of time or forfeit the game immediately.


title: Chess clock

text: A particularly popular variant is blitz chess, in which each player is given a short time, such as five minutes, on the clock in which to play the entire game.


title: Chess clock

text: The players may take more or less time over any individual move. The opening moves in chess are often played quickly due to their familiarity, which leaves the players more time to consider more complex and unfamiliar positions later. It is not unusual in slow chess games for a player to leave the table, but the clock of the absent player continues to run if it is their turn, or starts to run if their opponent makes a move.


title: Chess clock

text: Analog clocks are equipped with a "flag" that falls to indicate the exact moment the player's time has expired. Analog clocks use mechanical buttons. Pressing the button on one player's side physically stops the movement of that player's clock and releases the hold on the opponent's.


title: Chess clock

text: The drawbacks of the mechanical clocks include accuracy and matching of the two clocks, and matching of the indicators (flags) of time expiration. Additional time cannot easily be added for more complex time controls, especially those that call for an increment or delay on every move, such as some forms of byoyomi.


title: Chess clock

text: In 1973, to address the issues with analog clocks, Bruce Cheney, a Cornell University Electrical Engineering student and chess player, created the first digital chess clock as a project for an undergraduate EE course. Typical of most inventions, it was crude compared to the products on the market many years later and was limited by the technology that existed at the time. For example, the display was done with red LEDs. LEDs require significant power, and as a result, the clock had to be plugged into a wall outlet. The high cost of LEDs at the time meant that only one set of digits could be displayed, that of the player whose turn it was to move. This meant that each player's time had to be multiplexed to the display when their time was running. In 1973, LSI chips were not readily or cheaply available, so all the multiplexing and logic were done using chips that consisted of four two-input TTL NAND gates, which resulted in excessive power consumption. Being plugged into the wall is obviously a major drawback, but had one advantage: the timebase for the clock was driven off a rectified version of 60 cycle AC current. Each player had a separate counter, and, in a parallel to the original mechanical architecture, one player's counter was disabled while the other's was running. The clock only had one mode: time ran forward. It could be reset, but not set. It did not count the number of moves. But it successfully addressed the original goals of the project (accurate and matched timing).


title: Chess clock

text: The first commercially available digital chess clock was patented in 1975 by Joseph Meshi and Jeffrey R. Ponsor. They named it the Micromate-80. There was only one made and this was tested by chess players in multiple tournaments. Three years later a much-improved Micromate-180 was produced alongside Meshi's MBA Thesis, "Demand Analysis for a New Product (The Digital Chess Clock)", at San Diego State University, while Meshi and Ponsor continued to develop digital gaming.


title: Chess clock

text: Digital clocks and Internet gaming have spurred a wave of experimentation with more varied and complex time controls than the traditional standards. Time control is commonly used in modern chess in many different methodologies. One particularly notable development, which has gained quite wide acceptance in chess, was proposed by former world champion Bobby Fischer, who in 1988 filed for US patent 4,884,255 (awarded in 1989) for a new type of digital chess clock. Fischer's digital clock gave each player a fixed period of time at the start of the game and then added a small amount after each move. Joseph Meshi called this "Accumulation" as it was a main feature of his patented Micromate-180 (US Patent 4,247,925 1978). This became the linchpin of Fischer's clock patented ten years later. In this way, the players would never be desperately short of time. This timing method is occasionally called "accumulation" but it is usually called "increment", "bonus", or "Fischer".


title: Chess clock

text: The increment time control was first used in the privately organised 1992 Fischer–Spassky match, and quickly became popular in the wider chess world, being subsequently used in the FIDE World Chess Championship 1998. Nowadays most top level tournaments and tournaments outside the United States use Fischer's system. An increasing number of lower level tournaments in the US are also starting to use Fischer's system. Other aspects of Fischer's patent, such as a synthesized voice announcing how much time the players have, thus eliminating the need for them to keep looking at the clock, have not been adopted.


title: Chess clock

text: On March 10, 1994, a patent application was filed by inventors Frank A. Camaratta Jr. of Huntsville, Alabama, and William Goichberg of Salisbury Mills, New York, for a game timer especially suitable for playing the game of chess, which employed a (simple) "delay" feature. The game timer provides, among other features, a user-definable delay between the time the activation button is pressed and the time that the activated clock actually begins to count down. United States Patent 5,420,830 was issued on May 10, 1995, and subsequently assigned to the United States Chess Federation by the inventors. As with the Fischer clock, the benefit of the delay clock is to reduce the likelihood that a player with positional or material superiority will lose a match solely because of the expiration of time on that player's time clock. In the United States, delay is still widely used, but increment is becoming more popular.


title: Chess clock

text: Increment (also known as bonus and Fischer since former World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer patented this timing method)—a specified amount of time is added to the players main time each move, unless the player's main time ran out before they completed their move. For example, if the time control is 90+30 (ninety minutes of main time per player with a thirty-second increment each move), each player gets an additional thirty seconds added to their main time for each move, unless the player's main time ran out first. Under FIDE and US Chess rules, the increment is applied to the first move as well. For example, for 3+2 each player starts with three minutes and two seconds on the first move. Not all digital clocks automatically give the increment for move one and thus for those that don't, the increment time has to be added manually to the main time so each player gets the increment for move one. In online chess, players may make multiple premoves (such as moving a knight back and forth) to give them additional time to think and/or avoid running out of time.


title: Chess clock

text: Bronstein delay (named after Grandmaster David Bronstein who invented this timing method)—this timing method adds time but unlike increment not always the maximum amount of time is added. If a player expends more than the specified delay, then the entire delay is added to the player's clock but if a player moves faster than the delay, only the exact amount of time expended by the player is added. For example, if the delay is ten seconds and a player uses ten or more seconds for a move, ten seconds is added after they complete their move. If the player uses five seconds for a move, five seconds is added after they complete their move. This ensures that the main time left on the clock can never increase even if a player makes fast moves. As with increment, the delay time is applied to the first move under FIDE and US Chess rules.


title: Chess clock

text: Simple delay (also known as US delay)—with this timing method, the clock waits for the delay period each move before the player's main time starts countdown down. For example, if the delay is ten seconds, the clock waits for ten seconds each move before the main time starts counting down.


title: Chess clock

text: Bronstein delay and Simple delay are mathematically equivalent. The advantage of Bronstein delay is that a player can always quickly see exactly how much time they have for their next move without having to mentally add the main and delay time. The advantage of Simple delay is that a player can always tell whether the time that is counting down is the delay time or the main time. Simple delay is the form of delay most often used in the US, while Bronstein delay is the form of delay most often used in most other countries.


title: Aquaplaning

text: Aquaplaning or hydroplaning by the tires of a road vehicle, aircraft or other wheeled vehicle occurs when a layer of water builds between the wheels of the vehicle and the road surface, leading to a loss of traction that prevents the vehicle from responding to control inputs. If it occurs to all wheels simultaneously, the vehicle becomes, in effect, an uncontrolled sled. Aquaplaning is a different phenomenon from when water on the surface of the roadway merely acts as a lubricant. Traction is diminished on wet pavement even when aquaplaning is not occurring.


title: Aquaplaning

text: Every vehicle function that changes direction or speed relies on friction between the tires and the road surface. The grooves of a rubber tire are designed to disperse water from beneath the tire, providing high friction even in wet conditions. Aquaplaning occurs when a tire encounters more water than it can dissipate. Water pressure in front of the wheel forces a wedge of water under the leading edge of the tire, causing it to lift from the road. The tire then skates on a sheet of water with little, if any, direct road contact, and loss of control results. If multiple tires aquaplane, the vehicle may lose directional control and slide until it either collides with an obstacle, or slows enough that one or more tires contact the road again and friction is regained.


title: Aquaplaning

text: The risk of aquaplaning increases with the depth of standing water, higher speeds, and the sensitivity of a vehicle to that water depth.


title: Aquaplaning

text: There is no precise equation to determine the speed at which a vehicle will aquaplane. Existing efforts have derived rules of thumb from empirical testing. In general, cars start to aquaplane at speeds above 45-58 mph (72–93 km/h).


title: Aquaplaning

text: Motorcycles benefit from narrow tires with round, canoe-shaped contact patches. Narrow tires are less vulnerable to aquaplaning because vehicle weight is distributed over a smaller area, and rounded tires more easily push water aside. These advantages diminish on lighter motorcycles with naturally wide tires, like those in the supersport class. Further, wet conditions reduce the lateral force that any tire can accommodate before sliding. While a slide in a four-wheeled vehicle may be corrected, the same slide on a motorcycle will generally cause the rider to fall. Thus, despite the relative lack of aquaplaning danger in wet conditions, motorcycle riders must be even more cautious because overall traction is reduced by wet roadways.


title: Aquaplaning

text: It's possible to approximate the speed at which total hydroplaning occurs, with the following equation.


title: Aquaplaning

text: Where formula_2 is the tire pressure in psi and the result formula_3is the speed in mph for when the vehicle will begin to totally hydroplane. Considering an example vehicle with a tire pressure of 35 psi, we can approximate that 61 mph is the speed when the tires would lose contact with the road's surface.


title: Aquaplaning

text: However, the above equation only gives a very rough approximation. Resistance to aquaplaning is governed by several different factors, chiefly vehicle weight, tire width and tread pattern, as all affect the surface pressure exerted on the road by the tire over a given area of the contact patch - a narrow tire with a lot of weight placed upon it and an aggressive tread pattern will resist aquaplaning at far higher speeds than a wide tire on a light vehicle with minimal tread. Furthermore, the likelihood of aquaplaning drastically increases with water depth.


title: Aquaplaning

text: What the driver experiences when a vehicle aquaplanes depends on which wheels have lost traction and the direction of travel.


title: Aquaplaning

text: If the vehicle is traveling straight, it may begin to feel slightly loose. If there was a high level of road feel in normal conditions, it may suddenly diminish. Small correctional control inputs have no effect.


title: Aquaplaning

text: If the drive wheels aquaplane, there may be a sudden audible rise in engine RPM and indicated speed as they begin to spin. In a broad highway turn, if the front wheels lose traction, the car will suddenly drift towards the outside of the bend. If the rear wheels lose traction, the back of the car will slew out sideways into a skid. If all four wheels aquaplane at once, the car will slide in a straight line, again towards the outside of the bend if in a turn. When any or all of the wheels regain traction, there may be a sudden jerk in whatever direction that wheel is pointed.


title: Aquaplaning

text: Control inputs tend to be counterproductive while aquaplaning. If the car is not in a turn, easing off the accelerator may slow it enough to regain traction. Steering inputs may put the car into a skid from which recovery would be difficult or impossible. If braking is unavoidable, the driver should do so smoothly and be prepared for instability.


title: Aquaplaning

text: If the rear wheels aquaplane and cause oversteer, the driver should steer in the direction of the skid until the rear tires regain traction, and then rapidly steer in the other direction to straighten the car.


title: Aquaplaning

text: The best strategy is to avoid contributors to aquaplaning. Proper tire pressure, narrow and unworn tires, and reduced speeds from those judged suitably moderate in the dry will mitigate the risk of aquaplaning, as will avoidance of standing water.


title: Aquaplaning

text: Electronic stability control systems cannot replace defensive driving techniques and proper tire selection. These systems rely on selective wheel braking, which depends in turn on road contact. While stability control may help recovery from a skid when a vehicle slows enough to regain traction, it cannot prevent aquaplaning.


title: Aquaplaning

text: Because pooled water and changes in road conditions can require a smooth and timely reduction in speed, cruise control should not be used on wet or icy roads.


title: Aquaplaning

text: Aquaplaning, also known as hydroplaning, is a condition in which standing water, slush or snow, causes the moving wheel of an aircraft to lose contact with the load bearing surface on which it is rolling with the result that braking action on the wheel is not effective in reducing the ground speed of the aircraft.


title: Aquaplaning

text: Aquaplaning may reduce the effectiveness of wheel braking in aircraft on landing or aborting a takeoff, when it can cause the aircraft to run off the end of the runway. Aquaplaning has been a factor in multiple aircraft accidents, including the destruction of TAM Airlines Flight 3054 which ran off the end of the runway in São Paulo in 2007 during heavy rain. Aircraft which can employ reverse thrust braking have the advantage over road vehicles in such situations, as this type of braking is not affected by aquaplaning, but it requires a considerable distance to operate as it is not as effective as wheel braking on a dry runway.


title: Aquaplaning

text: Aquaplaning is a condition that can exist when an aircraft is landed on a runway surface contaminated with standing water, slush, and/or wet snow. Aquaplaning can have serious adverse effects on ground controllability and braking efficiency. The three basic types of aquaplaning are dynamic aquaplaning, reverted rubber aquaplaning, and viscous aquaplaning. Any one of the three can render an aircraft partially or totally uncontrollable anytime during the landing roll.


title: Aquaplaning

text: However this can be prevented by grooves on runways. In 1965, a US delegation visited the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough to view their grooved runway for reduced aquaplaning and initiated a study by the FAA and NASA. Grooving has since been adopted by most major airports around the world. Thin grooves are cut in the concrete which allows for water to be dissipated and further reduces the potential to aquaplane.


title: Aquaplaning

text: Viscous aquaplaning is due to the viscous properties of water. A thin film of fluid no more than 0.025 mm in depth is all that is needed. The tire cannot penetrate the fluid and the tire rolls on top of the film. This can occur at a much lower speed than dynamic aquaplane, but requires a smooth or smooth-acting surface such as asphalt or a touchdown area coated with the accumulated rubber of past landings. Such a surface can have the same friction coefficient as wet ice.


title: Aquaplaning

text: Dynamic aquaplaning is a relatively high-speed phenomenon that occurs when there is a film of water on the runway that is at least 1/10 inch (2.5 mm) deep. As the speed of the aircraft and the depth of the water increase, the water layer builds up an increasing resistance to displacement, resulting in the formation of a wedge of water beneath the tire. At some speed, termed the aquaplaning speed (V), the upward force generated by water pressure equals the weight of the aircraft and the tire is lifted off the runway surface. In this condition, the tires no longer contribute to directional control, and braking action is nil. Dynamic aquaplaning is generally related to tire inflation pressure. Tests have shown that for tires with significant loads and enough water depth for the amount of tread so that the "dynamic head" pressure from the speed is applied to the whole contact patch, the minimum speed for dynamic aquaplaning (V) in knots is about 9 times the square root of the tire pressure in pounds per square inch (PSI). For an aircraft tire pressure of 64 PSI, the calculated aquaplaning speed would be approximately 72 knots. This speed is for a rolling, non-slipping wheel; a locked wheel reduces the V to 7.7 times the square root of the pressure. Therefore, once a locked tire starts aquaplaning it will continue until the speed reduces by other means (air drag or reverse thrust).


title: Aquaplaning

text: Reverted rubber (steam) aquaplaning occurs during heavy braking that results in a prolonged locked-wheel skid. Only a thin film of water on the runway is required to facilitate this type of aquaplaning. The tire skidding generates enough heat to change the water film into a cushion of steam which keeps the tire off the runway. A side effect of the heat is it causes the rubber in contact with the runway to revert to its original uncured state. Indications of an aircraft having experienced reverted rubber aquaplaning, are distinctive 'steam-cleaned' marks on the runway surface and a patch of reverted rubber on the tire.


title: Aquaplaning

text: Reverted rubber aquaplaning frequently follows an encounter with dynamic aquaplaning, during which time the pilot may have the brakes locked in an attempt to slow the aircraft. Eventually the aircraft slows enough to where the tires make contact with the runway surface and the aircraft begins to skid. The remedy for this type of aquaplane is for the pilot to release the brakes and allow the wheels to spin up and apply moderate braking. Reverted rubber aquaplaning is insidious in that the pilot may not know when it begins, and it can persist to very slow groundspeeds (20 knots or less).


title: Aquaplaning

text: When confronted with the possibility of aquaplaning, pilots are advised to land on a grooved runway (if available). Touchdown speed should be as slow as possible consistent with safety. After the nosewheel is lowered to the runway, moderate braking should be applied. If deceleration is not detected and aquaplaning is suspected, the nose should be raised and aerodynamic drag utilized to decelerate to a point where the brakes do become effective.


title: Aquaplaning

text: Proper braking technique is essential. The brakes should be applied firmly until reaching a point just short of a skid. At the first sign of a skid, the pilot should release brake pressure and allow the wheels to spin up. Directional control should be maintained as far as possible with the rudder. In a crosswind, if aquaplaning should occur, the crosswind will cause the aircraft to simultaneously weathervane into the wind (i.e. the nose will turn toward the wind) as well as slide downwind (the plane will tend to slide in the direction the air is moving). For small aircraft, holding the nose up as if performing a soft field landing and using the rudder to aerodynamically maintain directional control while holding the upwind aileron in the best position to prevent lifting the wing should help. However, avoid landing in heavy rain where the crosswind component of the wind is higher than the maximum demonstrated crosswind listed in the Pilot Operations Handbook.


title: George Layton

text: George Layton (born 2 March 1943) is an English actor, director, screenwriter and author best known for three television roles – junior doctor Paul Collier in the comedy series "Doctor in the House" and its sequels "Doctor at Large", "Doctor in Charge" "and Doctor at the Top", that of Bombardier 'Solly' Solomons in the first two series of "It Ain't Half Hot Mum", and as Des the mechanic in early episodes of "Minder". He also appeared in two episodes of "The Sweeney" and played Norman Simmonds in "EastEnders" as well as a few early appearances as himself on the light entertainment BBC 1 consumer show That's Life.


title: George Layton

text: Layton was born in Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire, England. He was born to a family of Czechoslovak and Jewish ancestry and educated at Belle Vue Boys' Grammar School in Bradford during which time, in an interview for Talking Pictures TV Channel in April 2020, he mentioned his work on BBC Children's Hour at the former BBC Studios at Piccadilly, Manchester, where he came under the influence and guidance of Trevor Hill, Violet Carson and Doris Gamble. He then studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art where he won the Emile Littler award. He went on to leading parts at Coventry and Nottingham and appeared on Broadway in "Chips with Everything" as well taking over the role of Fagin from Roy Hudd in 1979 in the first London revival of Oliver! at the Albery Theatre. He also appeared in an Australian production called "Funny Peculiar".


title: George Layton

text: His early television work includes "Swizzlewick", "Enter Solly Gold", "United!", "Thirty-Minute Theatre", "Detective", Toast, "What's in It For Me?" and "Lay Down Your Arms". He also made guest appearances in many classic British series, including "The Likely Lads", "Z-Cars", "The Liver Birds", two episodes of "The Sweeney", "Minder" and played the lead in "Len and the River Mob". In 1969 he played a small role in the "Doctor Who" story "The Space Pirates".


title: George Layton

text: Later that year he made his debut as medical student Paul Collier in "Doctor in the House". As well as continuing to star in the series and its sequels, in 1971, he began to co-write episodes with former co-star Jonathan Lynn, the first under the pseudonym Oliver Fry to conceal the new writer's identity from his fellow cast members.


title: George Layton

text: At the end of the "Doctor in Charge" series in 1973 he left the show (although he stayed on as a writer), and the following year he appeared in the first two series of "It Ain't Half Hot Mum" as Bombardier 'Solly' Solomons. He then joined forces with Jonathan Lynn once again to co-write and co-star in another sitcom "My Brother's Keeper". He also appeared in "Carry On Behind" in 1975 playing a hospital doctor.


title: George Layton

text: Layton was also one of the main presenters on the original series of "That's Life!", hosted by Esther Rantzen.


title: George Layton

text: His other television writing credits with Jonathan Lynn include episodes of "On the Buses", "Nearest and Dearest", "Romany Jones" and "My Name Is Harry Worth".


title: George Layton

text: In the mid-1970s, he and Lynn began to write separately, and Layton became a regular writer of "Robin's Nest", in which he also played a guest character. Following this, he created and wrote the sitcoms "Don't Wait Up" starring Nigel Havers and Tony Britton and "Executive Stress" with Geoffrey Palmer and Penelope Keith. In 1990, "Don't Wait Up" won the Television and Radio Industries Club's 'Best Comedy Series' award.


title: George Layton

text: In the 1980s,he played the recurring character ‘Des’in the hit comedy-drama "Minder". In a 2021 interview with Paul Stenning, Layton described how he left Minder temporarily as he had committed to a pantomime and now bitterly regrets he lost his role in the show.


title: George Layton

text: Layton provided voices for the children's cartoons "Pigeon Street" and "Joshua Jones", and was the voice behind Sydney, a character in the long-running advertising campaign for Tetley tea.


title: George Layton

text: After a brief return to the role of Paul Collier in 1991's "Doctor at the Top", he starred in the hit comedy-drama series "Sunburn" (1999–2000), playing Alan Brooks, area manager of Janus Holidays in Cyprus. His most recent acting appearances have been in "Doctors", "Holby City" and "Casualty". In 2006, he made five appearances in Dictionary Corner on the game show "Countdown" and made a guest appearance in an episode of "Heartbeat".


title: George Layton

text: On 18 January 1999 Layton was the subject of "This Is Your Life". He has also appeared on Lily Savage's Blankety Blank. Layton's less well-known voiceover work includes TV commercials for various financial products, and narration of promotional videos for property speculators Inside Track.


title: George Layton

text: Layton has written three books of short stories, entitled "The Fib and Other Stories", "The Swap and Other Stories" and "The Trick and Other Stories". The tales describe family life in the North of England in the post-Second World War era. The books have been part of the National Curriculum in British schools, and film versions are being planned. Myles McDowell quotes Layton's "The Balaclava Story" as an example of how adults are often mostly absent from children's fiction.


title: Debbie Turner

text: Debbie Turner (born in Arcadia, CA, USA) is an American actress who played the role of Marta von Trapp in the film "The Sound of Music".


title: Debbie Turner

text: Turner was raised in Arcadia, California. In 1964 she won the role of Marta Von Trapp in "The Sound of Music". Shortly after the film's debut, she left the film industry and returned to school to complete her education.


title: Debbie Turner

text: In 1985, Turner relocated to Chanhassen, Minnesota, where she raised four daughters with her husband Rick. Though not currently active in the film industry, she regularly visits with her The Sound of Music family and has made a number of television appearances, including "The Oprah Winfrey Show" where she discussed the 45th anniversary of "The Sound of Music." In addition, Turner was selected as one of three float judges for the 2011 Tournament of Roses Parade.


title: Driving license in the Philippines

text: Driver's license in the Philippines consists of three types. These are "student permit", "non-professional", and "professional". The minimum age for driving in the Philippines is 16 years old, provided that the driver has applied for a student permit and is accompanied by a duly licensed person, whether professional or non-professional. An applicant can only apply for a non-professional driver's license one month after acquiring a student permit. An applicant needs to have a non-professional driver's license for six months to be eligible for a professional driver's license. An applicant must pass both the Land Transportation Office written exam and a driving exam. If the applicant fails the tests, the applicant must wait for a month before being able to take the tests again.


title: Driving license in the Philippines

text: Drivers are assigned a restriction code that designates which type of vehicle they can operate. Restriction codes are based on the kind of vehicle and their gross vehicle weight. A new restriction code system which is similar to the European and United Kingdom version is now in use since January of 2021. A driver approved of driving a manual transmission(MT) vehicle is allowed to also drive automatic, whereas those approved for automatic transmission (AT) can not drive manual.


title: Driving license in the Philippines

text: Applicants are assessed during application if they have certain impairments that could impede their driving capability. They are then assigned a condition code(s) if they fall within a category.


title: Driving license in the Philippines

text: "*Note: Special driving conditions and special equipment to be used shall be the assessed by a Land Transportation Office driver evaluator."


title: Driving license in the Philippines

text: The Kuala Lumpur Agreement of 1985 authorizes holders of driving licenses issued by the government of an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member state to drive in any ASEAN country without the need for an international driving permit.


title: Driving license in the Philippines

text: Overseas licenses are allowed to be used in Australia for a period of three months, with some allowing six months for visitors with a permanent visa. Permanent Australian residents are obliged to apply for an Australian driver's license, with some states requiring it.


title: Driving license in the Philippines

text: As of April 16, 2010, an agreement was signed between the Filipino and Spanish governments allowing Filipinos to use their Philippine driver's license in Spain.


title: Driving license in the Philippines

text: Foreigners who hold a valid driver's license issued by the road authority of their home country can drive in the Philippines for up to 90 days upon arrival provided that their license is written in English. If the license is not in English, an official English translation from the local embassy of the issuing country is required.


title: Driving license in the Philippines

text: Holders of driving licenses issued by any ASEAN member-state government are allowed to drive in the Philippines.


title: Provoked (film)

text: Provoked is a 2006 British biographical drama film, directed by Jag Mundhra. It stars Aishwarya Rai, Naveen Andrews, Miranda Richardson, Robbie Coltrane, Nandita Das and Steve McFadden. The film is loosely based on the true story of Kiranjit Ahluwalia, who unintentionally killed her abusive husband.


title: Provoked (film)

text: Cinematography for the film was handled by Madhu Ambat. The film's score and soundtrack was composed by A. R. Rahman, and the theme song for the film, "Alive", was composed by Rahman and sung by Karen David, who has a small cameo in the film. Shot in London, the film was released theatrically in April 2007.


title: Provoked (film)

text: Kiranjit Ahluwalia (Aishwarya Rai), a Punjabi woman, marries Deepak Ahluwalia (Naveen Andrews) in an arranged marriage and moves to Southall, UK with him to be closer to his family. Initially he seems caring and affectionate towards her but soon enough the true colors of her husband begin to show as Deepak gradually reveals a darker, threatening, and even sociopathic side of himself. After enduring ten years of abuse and having two children with him, Kiranjit, unable to bear the brutality and repeated rapes at the hands of her husband any longer, sets fire to his feet while he is sleeping, unintentionally killing him. Charged with murder, her case comes to the notice of a group of South Asian social workers running an under funded organization called the Southall Black Sisters.


title: Provoked (film)

text: Kiranjit is sentenced to life imprisonment with possibility of parole in 12 years. She befriends her cellmate, a White woman named Veronica Scott (Miranda Richardson), who teaches her English. Veronica is also friends with several girls in the prison and stands up for Kiranjit against the local prison bully, Doreen (Lorraine Bruce). Veronica enlists her brother, Edward Foster (Robbie Coltrane), a highly respected Queen's Counsel, to aide in Kiranjit's appeal. Edward, in turn, realizes Kiranjit's importance to his sister and the importance of her case. His sister's request has additional meaning given that Veronica would not let him help her with her own appeal due to their on off relationship since childhood.


title: Provoked (film)

text: Before Kiranjit's appeal hearing the Southall Black Sisters bring her plight to the attention of the media by organizing rallies to gather public support for her freedom. She is ultimately freed by the judicial system in a landmark case called "R v Ahluwalia", redefining "provocation" in cases of battered women in the UK.


title: Provoked (film)

text: This film was screened in the Marché du Film Cannes Film Market during the Cannes Film Festival in April 2006. Aishwarya Rai was present with director Jag Mundhra to promote the film through press conferences and parties. In June, the film opened the 2006 International Indian Film Academy Film Festival in Dubai. The screening was attended by Bollywood personalities including Amitabh Bachchan and Shabana Azmi, as well as by international media.


title: Provoked (film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes the film has a rating of 29 percent. View London gave a two stars out of five said "Provoked is just about worth seeing for its important subject matter and for Aishwarya Rai's performance but it's a real struggle at times, due to the astonishingly inept direction." BBC gave three stars said, "Provoked avoids sentimentality and illustrates how one woman's bravery helped fuel a nationwide crusade and irrevocably altered British laws on domestic violence". Derek Elley from "Variety" stated "With Rai dignified in a largely reactive role, it's the playing by thesps like Richardson and Das, both excellent, that broadens the pic's emotional palette. Main weakness is that, in the flashbacks, Deepak's role has little backgrounding, and his violent outbursts are given no psychological underpinnings. Picture is more a quality meller, with clearly defined heroes and villains, than a slice of social realism. But for viewers prepared to go with the flow, it works at a gut, movie-movie level". The Times which gave a three stars describes "The key to the picture is its resonant message: everyone should see it to be reminded that domestic violence will never be acceptable, and that the law will now not tolerate it. Mundra thankfully gets Aishwarya Rai to drop her annoying Bollywood mannerisms and surrounds her with sturdy, mainly British, supporting actors. The result is that the actress finally delivers a performance which is not only moving but worthy of the fiery material". UK Channel Film4 rated four stars gave a verdict "A bold story, told with sensitivity and compassion".


title: Provoked (film)

text: Rediff gave a three stars said "Provoked is an important story which definitely needs to be told. What is disheartening is the way it is. Sure, the treatment is realistic, production values are good, and the acting is mostly commendable -- but the screenplay (Paul Austin, Rahila Gupta) is shockingly superficial. Aishwarya Rai, on her part, is sincerity personified. No make-up, pretty clothes or even a smile adorn her naturally gorgeous disposition. But those eyes play their part. With changing circumstances her big blue-green brimming eyes look shocked, grieved, frightened, confused and relieved. Her effort to speak in fluent Punjabi is truly impressive". CNN-IBN's Rajeev Masand gave a "Good" verdict and stated "In all honesty, "Provoked" wouldn't work if it wasn't for two performances that uplift the film considerably. It's a sensitive film about domestic abuse. The real star of Provoked is Aishwarya Rai who delivers a performance that is appropriately restrained. [...] I'll say here, she surprises you with what she strums up. It's a performance that penetrates into your consciousness because she plays it with a slow-burning passion rather than an all-out flourish. This is easily one of her better acting jobs".


title: Provoked (film)

text: "Daily News and Analysis" which also gave a three star rating said "With a story like this it would have been very easy to go overboard, it is to director Jag Mundhra's credit that he keeps a tight leash on the melodrama aspect of the story. Aishwarya Rai plays the battered wife in what is undoubtedly one of her best performances to date. Starting as the young, coy and simpering wife, Kiranjit, who is abused to such an extent that she sets her husband Deepak, (Naveen Andrews), on fire after a particularly brutal beating one night, Rai convincingly goes through the various stages of shock, bewilderment, remorse and finally vindication." "Times Of India" stated that "It's Aishwarya's film from the word go. The story is powerful, yes, but the passion and the pain finds articulation through Aishwarya's sensitive rendition of the protagonist. From the very first shot, the actor grabs the role by its horns and shakes it around to sculpt a moving portrayal of a battered woman who happens to chance upon a rare source of inner strength to fight against domestic terror and terrifying traditions that demand silence from a wife, come what may". Critic Subhash K Jha wrote "Provoked answers the complicated question of domestic disharmony with a deft and direct approach to the question of a woman's place in the man's scream of things. Full credit to Aishwarya Rai for plunging deep into a part that she plays straight from her heart. There're moments in the narrative where Rai melts your heart like an ice-cream cone left out in the sun for too long".


title: Provoked (film)

text: "The Indian Express" gave four stars stating, "It's a film of substance. A film based on real life. A film that would move many. A film that would make a difference in many a lives. Aishwarya has done a good job. She has definitely brought forth the trauma and torture borne by the character. And the absence of her overdone make-up and glamorous good-looks has made her look more attractive (!) and fit into the role well".


title: Provoked (film)

text: After seeing the film, Patel is said to have told the "Observer" newspaper "I cringe a bit because I was so closely involved. Sometimes I think people should rise to the challenge of reflecting real life better. My view is that the reality is far more interesting."


title: Provoked (film)

text: Rahila Gupta, who co-wrote "Circle of Light" and the script, stated: "It's a shame that film is an artistic form in which you have to make a fair amount of compromises to make it happen." She criticised the film's characterisation as "one dimensional", and the portrayal of Kiranjit Ahluwalia's husband as an alcoholic.


title: Provoked (film)

text: In the film Kiranjit Ahluwalia is portrayed as a middle class homemaker instead of a factory worker as she was in reality, Pragna Patel and Rahila Gupta's characters are merged to create one person, played by the Indian actress Nandita Das, and Americanized legal terminology rather than the actual British. The director Jagmohan "Jag" Mundhra in his defense said "Even if you tell a true story, a true story is never really a true story. How do you define the truth? None of us were really there and obviously the recollections of people who were there have changed now. Ultimately I do have to tell an engaging story. If I can't tell an engaging story no matter what cause is at stake, nobody will see it."