title: Phenylacetic acid

text: Phenylacetic acid has been found to be an active auxin (a type of plant hormone), found predominantly in fruits. However, its effect is much weaker than the effect of the basic auxin molecule indole-3-acetic acid. In addition the molecule is naturally produced by the metapleural gland of most ant species and used as an antimicrobial. It is also the oxidation product of phenethylamine in humans following metabolism by monoamine oxidase and subsequent metabolism of the intermediate product, phenylacetaldehyde, by the aldehyde dehydrogenase enzyme; these enzymes are also found in many other organisms.


title: Phenylacetic acid

text: Phenylacetic acid is used in some perfumes, as it possesses a honey-like odor even in low concentrations. It is also used in penicillin G production and diclofenac production. It is also employed to treat type II hyperammonemia to help reduce the amounts of ammonia in a patient's bloodstream by forming phenylacetyl-CoA, which then reacts with nitrogen-rich glutamine to form phenylacetylglutamine. This compound is then excreted from the patient's body. It's also used in the illicit production of phenylacetone, which is used in the manufacture of methamphetamine.


title: Phenylacetic acid

text: The sodium salt of phenylacetic acid, sodium phenylacetate, is used as a pharmaceutical drug for the treatment of urea cycle disorders, including as the combination drug sodium phenylacetate/sodium benzoate (Ammonul).


title: Phenylacetic acid

text: Phenylacetic acid is used in the preparation of several pharmaceutical drugs, including camylofin, bendazol, triafungin, phenacemide, lorcainide, phenindione, and cyclopentolate.


title: Phenylacetic acid

text: In the crime drama "Breaking Bad", phenylacetic acid is featured twice as a precursor to methamphetamine, first in the episode titled "A No-Rough-Stuff-Type Deal", then in "Salud".


title: Shooter (drink)

text: A shooter, or shot, is a small serving of spirits or a mixed drink (usually about one ounce), typically consumed quickly, often in a single gulp. It is common to serve a shooter as a "side" to a larger drink.


title: Shooter (drink)

text: Shooters can be shaken, stirred, blended, layered, or simply poured. Shot glasses or sherry glasses are the usual drinkware in which shooters are served. They are most commonly served at bars, and some bartenders have their own "signature" shooter.


title: Shooter (drink)

text: The ingredients of shooters vary from bartender to bartender and from region to region. Two shooters can have the same name but different ingredients, resulting in two very different tastes.


title: Tirru

text: S. Thirunavukarasu (born 21 July 1966), better known mononymously as Tirru, is an Indian cinematographer who has worked in multiple languages across India. He won the National Film Award for Best Cinematography for "24" (2016).


title: Tirru

text: He was born in Mullukuruchi village. He became interested in photography while studying science in college. He assisted by his cousin, a dentist by profession, in the latter's passion for nature photography. He is married to an architect in Chennai and they have two children.


title: Tirru

text: He had initially worked as an associate to cinematographer P. C. Sreeram. Tirru's films are predominantly in the Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi languages. He co-wrote the screenplay of the Malayalam film "Mission 90 Days" with director Major Ravi. He is also known for television commercials, having shot more than 1000 commercials in the last 15 years. He has worked with almost all the major advertising production houses in India.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: Yunnan Baiyao (or Yunnan Paiyao; ) is a proprietary traditional Chinese medicine marketed and used as a hemostatic product in both human and veterinary alternative medicine. Although Yunnan Baiyao has long been recognized as a pharmaceutical preparation in China, the safety and efficacy of Yunnan Baiyao has not been assessed or established by the FDA, the European Medicines Agency, or the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration. There is limited evidence regarding its effectiveness in preventing and treating hemorrhagic and pathological conditions in both humans and animals via oral administration. In a limited number of human studies of small sample sizes, administration of Yunnan Baiyao has been shown to correlate with "reduced perioperative bleeding as well as bleeding in various ulcerative–hemorrhagic conditions". It has become popular particularly for animals with hemangiosarcoma. There are multiple routes of drug administration. Yunnan Baiyao is sold in powder, tincture, plaster, paste, aerosol, or tablet form. The medicine, developed by Qu Huangzhang in 1902, is designated as one of two Class-1 protected traditional Chinese medicines, which gives it 20 years of trade protection in China. Yunnan Baiyao products are manufactured and distributed by a state-owned enterprise, Yunnan Baiyao Group () in Yunnan, China.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: Yunnan Baiyao was developed by a Chinese man named Qu Huanzhang from Jiangchuan County in Yunnan Province. He had set out to explore the entire region and taste its hundreds of herbs. In 1902, he formulated "Qu Huanzhang Panacea," which became Yunnan Baiyao ("White medicine from Yunnan") In the Battle of Taierzhuang of 1938 (between Chinese and Japanese forces), Qu Huanzhang donated more than 30,000 bottles of Yunnan Baiyao to the Chinese National Revolutionary Army, supposedly saving the lives of many soldiers. As an indication of its value, it is noted that during the 1940s, army commander Wu Xuexian was seriously injured in his right leg. The French hospital in Kunming (capital of Yunnan) recommended amputation to save Wu's life. Wu turned to Qu for help, and to everyone's surprise, recovered without the need for an amputation. Yunnan Baiyao gained the reputation as a miracle remedy. After the death of Qu, his wife, Liao Lanying, donated the secret prescription to the government.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: In 1935, pharmacist Qu Huanzhang registered a trademark using his own image. This was Yunnan Baiyao's first attempt at intellectual property (IP) protection. Qu's wife Liao Lanying donated the Yunnan Baiyao recipe in 1956 to the Chinese government. Large-scale production of Yunnan Baiyao began.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: The Yunnan Baiyao Factory was established in 1971, but the company did not focus on IP protection until the late-1990s, when counterfeit products began affecting the company's business.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: During this period it registered a series of similar trademarks, including "Yunfeng" and "Yunnan Baiyao."


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: In 2004, the brand was valued at 2.18 billion yuan (US$269 million), ranking 263rd in the World Economic Forum and the World Brand Lab's list of the top 500 Chinese brands.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: In the years prior to 2005, the company spent nearly 1 million yuan (US$123,300) on patent registration, industrialization of patent products, and technological innovation.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: The company website says that the steroid progesterone is in the formula, in addition to several saponins, alkaloids, and calcium phosphate – all components of Chinese yam. Protopanaxadiol and panaxatriol, sapogenins found in ginseng ("Panax ginseng") and notoginseng ("Panax pseudoginseng"), have been detected in Yunnan Baiyao powder formulations through capillary supercritical fluid chromatography. Yunnan Baiyao packaging indicates it should not be used with alcohol or when pregnant.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: Under the "Law on Guarding State Secrets", the formula as well as the production processes regarding Yunnan Baiyao are considered secret and possess the longest period of product proprietary secrecy protection of four levels of secrecy under Chinese trade law.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: As a result, Yunnan Baiyao's exact ingredients are not printed on its packaging in China, and its production process was not disclosed.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: According to FDA regulations, all diet supplements sold in the US market must list their ingredients on the package and report them to relevant authorities.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: Officials from the Yunnan Baiyao Group, the exclusive producer of Yunnan Baiyao, denied to Xinhua News Agency that there is a double standard in Yunnan Baiyao's secret-protection policy, and that ingredients are only reported to drug authorities.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: "Whoever disclosed the ingredients should be held legally liable," Huang Wushuang, an expert on intellectual property rights at East China University of Political Science and Law, said.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: "Paris" is mentioned as a major ingredient of Yunnan Baiyao in a 2002 paper on biodiversity in Yunnan province.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: In 2014, Yunnan Baiyao amended the labeling of its Chinese products to add a warning regarding its use of "Aconitum" plant, which contains the alkaloid toxin aconitine. This substance has analgesic properties, but is mainly known for being a highly potent poison.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: In December 2010, purported lists of ingredients were published on the websites of Amazon.com and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The list containing eight supposedly active ingredients of a liquid form of the drug were found in a 2002 document published on the FDA website that contains correspondence between the FDA and a distributor of the drug. Ingredient lists were also present in the product information sections for the powdered and capsule forms of the drug on Amazon.com. The corporation denies that the list is the secret formula.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: The 2010 FDA document listed notoginseng ("Panax pseudoginseng") root, borneol crystal from "Dryobalanops aromatica", "Boea clarkeana" entire plant, "Inula coppa" root, Complanatum ("Lycopodium complanatum") rhizome, Chinese yam ("Dioscorea opposita") rhizome, galanga ("Alpinia officinarum") rhizome, cranebill ("Erodium stephanianum") aerial parts, camphor crystal from "Cinnamomum camphora", and peppermint ("Menta haplocalyx") leaves as active ingredients in Yunnan Baiyao products.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: A largely matching list of ingredients with proportions, allegedly from a bottle of "Yunnan Baiyao" powder bought in the USA, was published in science writer Fang Zhouzi's blog in 2009.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: In 1966, an ROC army hospital director by the name of Wu Junchang () "happened" on a key ingredient of Yunnan Baiyao when hunting near Kaohsiung. He ended up successfully recreating the medication and selling it. Wu's formula contains 44% "Paris" plant, 21% notoginseng root, 12% Chinese yam rhizome, 10% "Aconitum" root, 6% "Adenophora stricta" root, 1% borneol, plus "a little" musk and dried "Veratrum taliense".


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: In early 2013, officials in Sichuan province banned the sale of Baiyao powders and pills over faulty and defective wrappers that led to water contamination in addition to finding products contaminated with mold.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: In February 2013, the Department of Health of Hong Kong found potentially toxic undeclared aconitum alkaloids in samples of Yunnan Baiyao products, leading to a mandatory recall of products and a temporary ban on the sale of Yunnan Baiyao in the administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau. In 2019, unauthorised Yunnan Baiyao toothpaste was recalled by Health Canada due to the presence of tranexamic acid, a prescription medication.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: In 2001, the company revealed an adhesive band-aid product in a joint venture with German personal care products maker Beiersdorf AG.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: In 2003, 3M initiated contact with Yunnan Baiyao Group Co, Ltd. to discuss potential cooperation opportunities in the area of transdermal pharmaceutical products.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: Yunnan Baiyao products are classed as dietary supplements or new drugs by the FDA, and are not generally recognized as safe and effective for the prevention, mitigation, or treatment of wounds, pain, and hemorrhage among other conditions. The European Medicines Agency has not assessed the safety or efficacy of the product as a hemostatic. It is not listed on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG) for approved sale in Australia, and the quality, safety, or efficacy of Yunnan Baiyao has not been established by the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: Yunnan baiyao demonstrates hemostatic effects, stopping the flow of blood when applied topically on open wounds.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: Oral administration was shown to produce negligible results in laboratory tests. "In vitro" studies have suggested a theoretical benefit in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. Some studies have found heavy metal levels below oral tolerance levels, however the significance of this finding is not known. Multiple routes of drug administration results in varying degrees of efficacy. Topical administration has been shown to have a degree of efficacy possibly through ultrastructural changes in platelets and platelet-constituent release. The effect of Yunnan Baiyao on the coagulation biochemical system has not been fully elucidated, but it has been suggested that the expression of glycoproteins on platlets plays a role.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: One "in vitro" study found that Yunnan Baiyao causes dose- and time- dependent hemangiosarcoma cell death through initiation of caspase-mediated cell apoptosis in a canine cell cancer line which supports future studies involving Yunnan Baiyao. It is reported to be well-tolerated in dogs. Another study found no significant difference from placebo regarding buccal mucosal bleeding time, prothrombin time, activated partial thromboplastin time, and clotting parameters in canines. There was no high-quality evidence supporting the use of Yunnan Baiyao for either rheumatoid arthritis or hemangiosarcoma available in publicly reported scientific literature as of 2019.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: Two randomized double-blind studies showed the administration of yunnan baiyao produced effects on intraoperative blood loss, producing “a reduction in intraoperative blood loss in bimaxillary orthognathic surgery“, and that it “reduced the amount of intraoperative bleeding of cervical open-door laminoplasty”. Another showed that perioperative oral administration “can effectively reduce the magnitude of facial swelling in bimaxillary orthognathic surgery”.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: Yunnan Baiyao is focused primarily on diversification of the higher-end market segment for pharmaceuticals.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: Following the success of its adhesive bandages, the Chinese firm added toothpaste to its product line-up.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: Sales revenue from the Yunnan Baiyao toothpaste grossed 500 million yuan in 2008, making it the fifth most popular toothpaste in China in terms of sales revenue.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: Over the five years prior to 2016, the revenue of the Yunnan Baiyao Group doubled to $3.4 billion in 2016, while net profits increased by 140% to $440 million. Market capitalisation rose by over 250% since the end of 2011, to more than $13 billion.


title: Yunnan Baiyao

text: Starting around 2005, Yunnan Baiyao expanded further into consumer products including patches and shampoos. Adhesive bandages with Yunnan Baiyao powder are marketed under the slogan "It heals faster with Baiyao" ().


title: Tony Conigliaro

text: Anthony Richard Conigliaro (January 7, 1945 – February 24, 1990), nicknamed "Tony C" and "Conig", was a Major League Baseball outfielder and right-handed batter who played for the Boston Red Sox (1964–1967, 1969–1970, 1975) and California Angels (1971). Born in Revere, Massachusetts, he was a 1962 graduate of St. Mary's High School in Lynn, Massachusetts. Conigliaro started his MLB career as a teenager, hitting a home run in his first at-bat during his home field debut in 1964. During the Red Sox "Impossible Dream" season of 1967, he was hit in the face by a pitch that caused a severe eye injury and derailed his career. Though he would make a comeback from the injury, his career was not the same afterwards.


title: Tony Conigliaro

text: Conigliaro was signed by the Red Sox in 1962, at the age of 17. In 1963, he batted .363 with 24 home runs playing for the Wellsville Red Sox in the New York–Penn League, after which he was called up to the majors.


title: Tony Conigliaro

text: During his 1964 rookie season, Conigliaro batted .290 with 24 home runs and 52 RBI in 111 games, but broke his arm and his toes in August. In his first at-bat in Fenway Park, Conigliaro hit a towering home run in the second inning against the White Sox.


title: Tony Conigliaro

text: In his sophomore season in 1965, Conigliaro led the league in home runs (32), becoming the youngest home run champion in American League history. He was selected for the All-Star Game in 1967. In that season, at age 22, he not only reached a career total of 100 home runs, but attained that milestone at the youngest age for an American League player.


title: Tony Conigliaro

text: On August 18, 1967, the Red Sox were playing the California Angels at Fenway Park. Conigliaro, batting against Jack Hamilton, was hit by a pitch on his left cheekbone and was carried off the field on a stretcher. He sustained a linear fracture of the left cheekbone and a dislocated jaw with severe damage to his left retina. The batting helmet he was wearing did not have the protective ear-flap that has since become standard, partly due to this incident.


title: Tony Conigliaro

text: A year and a half later, Conigliaro made a remarkable return, hitting 20 homers with 82 RBI in 141 games, earning Comeback Player of the Year honors. In 1970, he reached career-high numbers in home runs (36) and RBI (116). That season he and his brother Billy formed two-thirds of the Red Sox outfield. After a stint with the Angels in 1971, he returned to the Red Sox briefly in 1975 as a designated hitter, but was forced to retire because his eyesight had been permanently damaged.


title: Tony Conigliaro

text: Conigliaro batted .267, with 162 home runs and 501 RBI during his 802-game Red Sox career. With the Angels, he hit .222 with 4 home runs and 15 RBI in 74 games. He is the second-youngest player to hit his 100th homer (after Mel Ott), and the youngest American League player to do so.


title: Tony Conigliaro

text: After his retirement, in the fall of 1975, Conigliaro opened a restaurant in Providence, Rhode Island, managed by his brother Billy. In September of that same year, he was hired by WJAR TV 10 in Providence as a sports anchor. In August 1976, he moved to a similar position at KGO-TV Channel 7 in San Francisco.


title: Tony Conigliaro

text: On January 9, 1982, then 37-year-old Conigliaro was in Boston to interview for a broadcasting position when he suffered a heart attack while being driven to the airport by his brother Billy. Shortly thereafter, he suffered a stroke and lapsed into a coma. Conigliaro never fully recovered and suffered slight brain damage due to the stroke, until his death more than eight years later, in February 1990, at the age of 45 from pneumonia and kidney failure. In commemoration, the Red Sox wore black armbands that season. He is interred at Holy Cross Cemetery in Malden, Massachusetts.


title: Tony Conigliaro

text: Since 1990, the Tony Conigliaro Award, instituted by the Red Sox after his death, is given annually to the MLB player who best overcomes obstacles and adversities through the attributes of spirit, determination and courage that were considered Tony's trademarks.


title: Tony Conigliaro

text: For the start of the 2007 season, Red Sox ownership added a new 200-seat bleacher section on the right field roof, providing an additional 16,200 available tickets for the season. It was named "Conigliaro's Corner" in honor of Conigliaro. The seats were being marketed specifically towards families. As of May 2007, the section was reserved for Red Sox Nation members on Saturdays and Red Sox Kid Nation members on Sundays. The seats were removed prior to the start of the 2009 season.


title: Tony Conigliaro

text: However, this little section of seats (since removed as mentioned above) high above right field in foul territory was not the original "Conig's Corner". When Conigliaro was first making his comeback, he complained about not being able to see the ball well coming from the pitcher's hand because of all of the light-colored clothing being worn by fans directly behind the pitcher in dead center field. To address his concerns, these seats were first blocked off and covered in black tarp to provide a better hitter's background, known as a batter's eye. This small triangular area of seats (bleacher sections 34 and 35) directly adjacent to the center field TV camera nest was the original Conig's Corner at Fenway Park. These same seats are still blocked off for day games for the same reason.


title: El Loco

text: El Loco is the seventh studio album by the American rock band ZZ Top, released in 1981. The title means "The Madman" in Spanish. The band's guitarist/singer Billy Gibbons has said that the recording of this album was the first time the three members of the band were isolated from one another in the studio, rather than recording simultaneously in the same room. It also foreshadowed ZZ Top's synthesizer-driven direction later in the decade, with early experimentations in synthesizer backing on certain tracks.


title: El Loco

text: "El Loco" was produced by Bill Ham and recorded and originally mixed by Terry Manning. The biographer David Blayney explains in his book "Sharp Dressed Men" that the recording engineer Linden Hudson was involved as a pre-producer on this album. Hudson did not receive credit for engineering the tracks on "Groovy Little Hippie Pad" which were used on the final album mix. In 1987, most of the band's back catalog received a controversial "digitally enhanced" remix treatment for CD release; however, "El Loco" did not receive this remix treatment and the original mix of the album has been available on CD since 1987.


title: El Loco

text: On June 3, 2013, Gibbons told Joe Bosso of MusicRadar.com that the album was "a really interesting turning point", explaining that the band had "befriended somebody who would become an influential associate, a guy named Linden Hudson. He was a gifted songwriter and had production skills that were leading the pack at times. He brought some elements to the forefront that helped reshape what ZZ Top were doing, starting in the studio and eventually to the live stage. [He] had no fear and was eager to experiment in ways that would frighten most bands. But we followed suit, and the synthesizers started to show up on record. Manufacturers were looking for ways to stimulate sales, and these instruments started appearing on the market. One of our favorite tracks was "Groovy Little Hippie Pad". Right at the very opening, there it is – the heavy sound of a synthesizer. For us, there was no turning back." Gibbons would later cite seeing a Devo soundcheck in Houston as inspiring the synthesizer line on "Groovy Little Hippie Pad."


title: A Chinese Ghost Story

text: A Chinese Ghost Story () is a 1987 Hong Kong romantic comedy horror film starring Leslie Cheung, Joey Wong and Wu Ma, directed by Ching Siu-tung and produced by Tsui Hark. The plot is loosely based on a short story about Nie Xiaoqian from Qing dynasty writer Pu Songling's "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" and is also inspired by the 1960 Shaw Brothers Studio film "The Enchanting Shadow". The film was popular in Hong Kong and several Asian countries, including South Korea and Japan. Although the film could not gain access to movie theaters in mainland China when it was first released, it became a cult film among young people in the mainland. At that time the film generated a phenomenal cult following among audiences, especially the generation born in the 1980s. In 2011, the Hong Kong producers screened a restored version officially in mainland China.


title: A Chinese Ghost Story

text: Most notably it boosted the stardom of Joey Wong, won Leslie Cheung popularity in Japan, and sparked a trend of folklore ghost films in the Hong Kong film industry, including two sequels, an animated film, a television series and a 2011 remake. The film was ranked number 50 of the Best 100 Chinese Motion Pictures presented at the 24th Hong Kong Film Awards, the Special Jury Special Award of the 16th French Science Fiction Film Festival and the Best Film Award of the Portuguese Science Fiction Film Festival.


title: A Chinese Ghost Story

text: Ning Choi-san, a timid debt collector, goes to a rural town to collect debts but fails and runs out of money. He has no choice but to take shelter in a deserted temple in the forest on the outskirts of the town. That night, he meets a beautiful and alluring young maiden, Nip Siu-sin, and falls in love with her. In the morning, however, after he recalls that night's events, he becomes increasingly fearful and superstitious because Yin Chik-ha, a Taoist priest, told him that the people he saw in the temple are ghosts. That night, he returns to the temple and confirms his theory that Nip is actually a ghost.


title: A Chinese Ghost Story

text: Nip tells Ning her story of how she became eternally bound to the servitude of a sinister Tree Demoness. She explains that as long as her remains are buried at the foot of the tree, her spirit will be forever enslaved by the Tree Demoness. Ning attempts to free her from her suffering so he seeks help from Yin Chik-ha. Yin fights with the Tree Demoness and attempts to free Nip's soul but fails. As punishment for betraying her master, Nip's soul is banished to the Underworld.


title: A Chinese Ghost Story

text: Ning is unwilling to give up on Nip and he insists that Yin help him. Yin reluctantly opens a temporary portal into the Underworld and brings Ning along to search for Nip. As the Underworld is full of spirits, they have a hard time finding her. Ning and Nip are eventually able to see each other briefly near dawn when they manage to leave the Underworld. When sunlight shines on the urn containing Nip's cremated remains, Ning uses a curtain to shield the urn to prevent Nip's soul from being destroyed by exposure to sunlight. Before leaving for good, she tells him that the only way to save her soul is to rebury her remains at a more auspicious burial site. Ning follows her instructions and, acting on Yin's advice, he buries her remains near the crest of a hill. He burns a joss stick for her and prays for her soul while Yin watches solemnly behind him.


title: A Chinese Ghost Story

text: Ning and Yin are then seen riding off seeking a new adventure, with rainbow visible in the sky above them.


title: A Chinese Ghost Story

text: Producer Tsui Hark was interested in creating "A Chinese Ghost Story" as early as 1978, where he suggested it as a television production at TVB. The producer turned it down, feeling it would not be suitable for television. "A Chinese Ghost Story" uses elements of several stories from Pu Songling's 17th century collection "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio". Tsui Hark stated that they changed a lot of the stories for their adaptation as they found out the stories were against their initial interpretation. On developing the film, Tsui Hark noted that director Ching Siu-tung wanted to work with him. Ching Siu-tung had previously worked as a director and an action choreographer on various Film Workshop productions such as "Peking Opera Blues" and "A Better Tomorrow II". Hark suggested developing "A Chinese Ghost Story", describing it as a love story which Siu-tung was not as interested in developing as either a romance film or a non-horror based ghost story. Hark noted that his higher up approached him to develop the film into being about a female cop, not being aware that it was based on a book or that it was a period film. While working on the film, Hark and Siu-tung did not really know what it would end up being like, as Siu-tung was still apprehensive on creating a romance film and desired to add horror film elements. Rumours persist around the production suggesting that Tsui Hark effectively directed the film. British critic Tony Rayns stated that effectively, most Film Workshop productions were "redirected or hijacked by Tsui Hark" Joey Wong was a professional basketball player and model before starting her film career. Prior to working on the film, she appeared in films such as the Taiwanese production "It'll Be Very Cold at the Lakeside This Year". She would show up in a few Shaw Brothers produced Hong Kong films and Tsui Hark's film "Working Class".


title: A Chinese Ghost Story

text: Actors in the film include Leslie Cheung who was also a cantopop singer. Cheung had previously worked with Tsui Hark productions such as "A Better Tomorrow" and "A Better Tomorrow II". Cheung also sung the films theme song. Wu Ma had previously appeared in several Hong Kong horror film productions such as "Spooky Encounters", "The Dead and the Deadly" and "Mr. Vampire". The film used the services of Cinefex Workshop, Hong Kong's first proper special effects studio who had previously worked on Hark's film "Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain". The film script called for a giant slithering tongue and zombies, which were developed by Cinefex technician Man Xian Liang, who taught himself stop motion animation in order to make the effects happen. James Wong contributed to the score of the film. Wong was primarily known for writing songs for pop stars and television programs and completed his first score for Hark's "Shanghai Blues".


title: A Chinese Ghost Story

text: "A Chinese Ghost Story" opened on July 18, 1987. The film received theatrical release throughout Asia and Europe. The film also received international recognition when it won the special Jury Prize at the Avoriaz festival in France and the Best Film Award at the Opporto Festival in Portugal in 1987.


title: A Chinese Ghost Story

text: "A Chinese Ghost Story" performed well at the Hong Kong box office, earning 18,831,638 () and becoming 1987's fifteenth highest-grossing film in Hong Kong. In Taiwan, it was the 11th highest-grossing film of 1987, selling 187,654 tickets and earning (US$443,515). In South Korea, the film sold 31,639 tickets in Seoul upon release in December 1987, equivalent to an estimated ().


title: A Chinese Ghost Story

text: In the United Kingdom, the film sold 1,045 tickets in 1996, equivalent to an estimated (). In China, the film grossed US$328,204 in 2008 and () in 2011, for a total of grossed in China. This adds up to an estimated total of grossed worldwide (equivalent to an estimated adjusted for inflation).


title: A Chinese Ghost Story

text: In memory of the late Leslie Cheung, director Ching Siu-tung and producer Ng See-yuen re-released the film in cinemas across mainland China on 30 April 2011. China Radio International reported that the film was remastered with color timing that took about half a year. In addition, premieres took place in both Beijing and Shanghai. Ching Siu-tung, Ng See-yuen and Lau Siu-ming were present. However, Wu Ma and Joey Wong, who were invited, did not attend the premiere. Ching Siu-tung had difficulty tracking down Joey Wong and had to contact her through her family in Taiwan. He received a telephone call at the last minute from Wong's father, stating that the actress was in poor health and not in good condition to attend the premiere. Wong's father also quoted her daughter saying that acting in the film were her best memories. That same year, a remake of the film was released. It starred Louis Koo and Crystal Liu and was directed by Wilson Yip.


title: A Chinese Ghost Story

text: From contemporary reviews, Walter Goodman ("The New York Times") noted poor subtitling on the print he viewed, opining that "If there are any Eastern profundities emanating from the temple, this Westerner did not recognize them." and that "The kick you get from all this will depend on how exciting you find explosive exhibitions of extraterrestrial exercises." Kim Newman ("Monthly Film Bulletin") described the film as "an excellent example of the distinctive type of ghost/horror film that has been coming out of Hong Kong for many years" and that the film "affords an insight into a movie mythos at least as highly developed and ritualized as the Universal horror cycle of the 30s or the Hammer films of the 50s and 60s". The film was reviewed by a critic credited as "Mel" in "Variety" who praised the film, stating that "Cinema City is to be congratulated for searching original Chinese material. The art direction, costumes, cinematography and soundtrack music are all exceptional." The review went on to state that the "storyline portray the beauty and grafility of life on earth" which led to "an entertaining love story with a tantalizing horror background, mixed with fantasy escapism that won't insult adult viewers."


title: A Chinese Ghost Story

text: From retrospective reviews, "The Guardian" described the film as "one of the breakthrough films of modern Hong Kong cinema" and that it was "dubious knockabout comedy [...] spiced with frantic set piece stunts (mid-air fights, thousand-foot tongues); not for those who value comprehensibility over panache." "Empire" gave the film four stars out of five, noting "gorgeous imagery" and that it was not "quite as completely demented as "Mr Vampire", but it is truly strange." Donald C Willis wrote in his book "Horror and Science Fiction Film IV" that "A Chinese Ghost Story" was "an entertaining fantasy extravaganza" and that "the movie is very inventive, occasionally even poetic, but not quite moving". John Charles gave the film an eight out of ten rating, noting that some horror elements in the film were in debt to the film "The Evil Dead", but noted that the "cinematography and art direction are superb, the action is invigorating, and the love story surprisingly touching, making this one of the most captivating and enjoyable fantasies of the post-New Wave period."


title: A Chinese Ghost Story

text: In mainland China, before the film was officially released in 2011, it was already widely circulated through unofficial channels- including smuggled videocassettes, pirated VCDs and DVDs, and later, video-sharing websites- and celebrated as a cult classic. The Chinese generation born in the 1980s, aka. the "post-80s" (), are among the most devout fans of this film, which they see as an embodiment of idealism, rebellion, nostalgia, and social criticism. Some scholars consider its comic nature, or "half-seriousness," to be the main reason for this cult following.


title: A Chinese Ghost Story

text: The modern reception of the film in Hong Kong and Taiwan is positive. At the 24th Hong Kong Film Awards various Asian film critics, film makers and actors voted for the top Chinese films from Hong Kong, Taiwan and China. "A Chinese Ghost Story" was listed at 50th place on the list. In 2011, the Tapei Golden Horse Film Festival had 122 industry professionals take part in the survey. The voters included film scholars, festival programmers, film directors, actors and producers to vote for the 100 Greatest Chinese-Language Films. "A Chinese Ghost Story" tied with Jia Zhangke's "Xiao Wu" (1997) and Zhang Yimou's "The Story of Qiu Ju" (1992) for 35th place on the list.


The $5.98 E.P. – Garage Days Re-Revisited (released on CD format as The $9.98 CD – Garage Days Re-Revisited) is the first extended play by American heavy metal band Metallica, released on August 21, 1987, by Elektra Records. It consists entirely of covers of late-'70s and early-'80s new wave of British heavy metal bands and punk rock music rehearsed in Lars Ulrich's soundproofed garage and then recorded in Los Angeles over the course of six days. It is the group's first release following the death of bassist Cliff Burton and the first to feature his successor, Jason Newsted.


title: The $5.98 E.P. – Garage Days Re-Revisited

text: With Metallica scheduled to play the 1987 Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donington, the band's UK label Vertigo Records suggested that they release new material to mark the occasion. Initial songwriting attempts with new bassist Jason Newsted resulted only in a demo for "Blackened", and vocalist/guitarist James Hetfield subsequently broke his arm skateboarding and was unable to play guitar for several weeks. Given these obstacles, the band decided to record covers of some of their favorite songs rather than work on new material. Newsted utilized his earlier experience as a construction worker to soundproof Lars Ulrich's garage in El Cerrito, California, where the band would rehearse the material prior to recording.


text: While rehearsing the song "White Lightning" by new wave of British heavy metal band Paralex, Kirk Hammett started playing "The Wait" by post-punk group Killing Joke, and the band subsequently decided to try recording the song. Other tracks considered but dropped include "Signal Fire" by Japanese band Bow Wow and another NWOBHM song, Gaskin's "I'm No Fool". Though "Last Caress" and "Green Hell" are combined into a single track by Metallica, the original Misfits versions were featured on different albums and were recorded five years apart.


text: The band included "The $5.98 E.P." in the title in an effort to ensure that retailers did not overcharge fans. The original cassette release included a sticker stating "If they try to charge more, STEAL IT!" The title of the official American CD release was amended to "The $9.98 CD", as the retail price of CDs was much higher than cassette; other countries (such as Australia) still displayed "The $5.98 E.P." with a sticker stating that this is the "title" and not the price. "The Wait" was omitted from the UK pressings in order to conform to local music-industry rules regarding the length of EPs.


text: "The $5.98 E.P. – Garage Days Re-Revisited" was out of print from 1989 to 2018, and the original release is considered a collector's item. All five tracks were included on the 1998 double album "Garage Inc." along with other covers and new recordings. The cover of the CD also was used as a basis for the "Garage Inc." back cover, which shows the original "Garage Days" cover with pictures of the band members' faces, circa 1998, taped over the original faces, along with "Garage Inc." covering the original album name.


text: In 2018, "The $5.98 E.P. – Garage Days Re-Revisited" was reissued under Metallica's own Blackened Recordings label and also was made available in vinyl format.


title: Portishead (album)

text: Portishead is the second studio album by English electronic music band Portishead, released on 16 September 1997 by Go! Discs. The album cover is a still image from the music video of the song "All Mine".


title: Portishead (album)

text: With "Portishead", the band chose to eschew sampling other records, which had been a defining feature of their debut album "Dummy". Instead, they created original pieces which they weaved into the songs, resulting in a more textured sound. The only song to employ samples was "Only You", which incorporates elements of Ken Thorne's "Inspector Clouseau" and The Pharcyde's "She Said". "Western Eyes" is listed as sampling "Hookers & Gin" by the Sean Atkins Experience in the album's liner notes. In reality, this song does not exist; like most of the samples on the album, it was created by the band.


title: Portishead (album)

text: Released in September 1997, the album reached 2 on the UK Albums Chart and No. 21 on the "Billboard" 200.


title: Portishead (album)

text: On 3 December 2008, Universal Music Japan re-released "Dummy" and "Portishead" as a limited SHM-CD version.


title: Portishead (album)

text: "Portishead" received critical acclaim upon its release. "Spin" praised the record and noted that the band created a "gothic", "deadly" and "trippy" atmosphere. Commenting on the textures of the music, music journalist Barry Walters observed that the group got "darker, deeper and more disturbing" in comparison to their previous effort "Dummy".


title: Stargazer (aircraft)

text: Stargazer is a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar built in 1974, that was modified in 1994 for use by Orbital Sciences (now part of Northrop Grumman) as a mother ship launch pad for the Pegasus launch vehicle. , 45 rockets (containing nearly 100 satellites) have been launched from it, using the Pegasus-H and Pegasus-XL configurations. As of 2019, "Stargazer" is the only L-1011 airframe still airworthy.


title: Stargazer (aircraft)

text: The first Pegasus launch to use Stargazer was conducted on 27 June 1994 as the maiden flight of the Pegasus-XL. Previous launches used the NASA-operated Boeing NB-52B Balls 8, which was also used for four subsequent launches, as the original Pegasus could not be launched from Stargazer due to clearance issues. A modified version, the Pegasus-H, was introduced to rectify this.


title: Stargazer (aircraft)

text: Stargazer was also used for captive tests and transportation of the X-34 hypersonic research aircraft; however, drop tests used Balls 8. Orbital Sciences also offer the aircraft for research flights. It is capable of carrying a payload to an altitude of .


title: Stargazer (aircraft)

text: Pegasus launches using Stargazer are usually conducted from Vandenberg Air Force Base. Launches have also been conducted from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the NASA Kennedy Space Center, the NASA Wallops Flight Facility and from launch sites outside the US: Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands and Gando Airport in Spain.


title: Stargazer (aircraft)

text: In 2010, Stargazer was reengined with -thrust Rolls-Royce RB211-524B4 turbofans to replace its original -thrust RB211-22Bs.


title: Stargazer (aircraft)

text: On 15 December 2016, Stargazer successfully launched CYGNSS on behalf of NASA on its second attempt. The first attempt on 12 December was scrubbed due to issues with the hydraulic system responsible for separating the Pegasus rocket from the launch aircraft.


title: Stargazer (aircraft)

text: Stargazer appeared in Northrop Grumman livery in 2018 following the acquisition of Orbital ATK. Stargazer launched the Ionospheric Connection Explorer on 11 October 2019. The launch was originally scheduled for June 2017 but was scrubbed when an anomalous piece of vehicle data was observed during a ferry flight. The data was related to the rudder position of the Pegasus XL rocket and was observed during a routine in-flight vehicle health check. The launch was delayed multiple times from 2017 to 2019, finally occurring October 11, 2019.


title: Stargazer (aircraft)

text: The Lockheed L-1011 TriStar carrier aircraft first flew in February 1974, and was delivered to Air Canada as C-FTNJ the following month. In May 1992 Orbital Sciences acquired the plane and had Marshall Aerospace in the UK implement accommodations for the Pegasus system. It was renamed for use as carrier aircraft for the Pegasus launch system. The company also considered other aircraft including the Boeing B-52G Stratofortress, Boeing 747, and DC-10, considering altitude and speed performance, range, modification complexity, as well as acquisition and operational costs.


title: Area codes 847 and 224

text: Area codes 847 and 224 are telephone area codes in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the U.S. state of Illinois. The numbering plan area (NPA) comprises the northeastern part of Illinois and many northern suburbs of Chicago. This includes most of Lake County, the northern part of Cook County, the northern part of Kane County, and a small part of McHenry County.


title: Area codes 847 and 224

text: Area code 847 was created on January 20, 1996, in a three-way split of area code 708. Within only five years, 847 was already close to exhaustion from the rapid growth in telecommunication services in the Chicago suburbs and the proliferation of cell phones and pagers. On January 5, 2002, area code 224 was assigned to overlay area code 847. This required ten-digit dialing in all affected communities.


title: Stamp duty

text: Stamp duty is a tax that is levied on single property purchases or documents (including, historically, the majority of legal documents such as cheques, receipts, military commissions, marriage licences and land transactions). A physical revenue stamp had to be attached to or impressed upon the document to show that stamp duty had been paid before the document was legally effective. More modern versions of the tax no longer require an actual stamp.


title: Stamp duty

text: The duty is thought to have originated in Venice in 1604, being introduced (or re-invented) in Spain in the 1610s, the Spanish Netherlands in the 1620s, France in 1651, Denmark in 1657, Prussia in 1682 and England in 1694.


title: Stamp duty

text: The Australian Federal Government does not levy stamp duty. However, stamp duties are levied by the Australian states on various instruments (written documents) and transactions. Stamp duty laws can differ significantly between all eight jurisdictions. The rates of stamp duty also differ between the jurisdictions (typically up to 5.5%) as do the nature of instruments and transactions subject to duty. Some jurisdictions no longer require a physical document to attract what is now often referred to as "transaction duty".


title: Stamp duty

text: Major forms of duty include transfer duty on the purchase of land (both freehold and leasehold), buildings, fixtures, plant and equipment, intangible business assets (such as goodwill and intellectual property) debts and other types of dutiable property. Another key type of duty is landholder duty, which is imposed on the acquisition of shares in a company or units in a trust that holds land above a certain value threshold.


title: Stamp duty

text: A temporary stamp duty was introduced in 1657 to finance the war with Sweden. It was made permanent in 1660 and remains on the statute book although it has been substantially altered. Most stamp duties were abolished from 1 January 2000 and the present act only provides for stamp duties on insurance policies. Stamp duties on land registration were renamed and transferred to a separate statute but remain essentially the same, i.e. 0.6% on deeds and 1.5% loans secured against real estate.


title: Stamp duty

text: Stamp duty in the EU is limited in scope by the Capital Duties Directive (Council Directive 69/335/EEC of 17 July 1969 concerning indirect taxes on the raising of capital). This states that transactions subject to capital duty shall only be taxable in the Member State in whose territory the effective centre of management of a capital company is situated at the time when such transactions take place. When the effective centre of management of a capital company is situated in a third country and its registered office is situated in a Member State, transactions subject to capital duty shall be taxable in the Member State where the registered office is situated. When the registered office and the effective centre of management of a capital company are situated in a third country, the supplying of fixed or working capital to a branch situated in a Member State may be taxed in the Member State in whose territory the branch is situated.


title: Stamp duty

text: The spirit of the Council Directive 2008/7/EC of 12 February 2008 concerning indirect taxes on the raising of capital is that capital duty interferes with the free movement of capital, and it prohibits capital duties altogether on the issue of securities (as opposed to the transfer). The Directive acknowledges that the best solution would be to abolish the duty, but allows those Member States that charged the duty as at 1 January 2006 may continue to do so under strict conditions. With this stamp duty Directive, Member States may not levy indirect tax on the raising of capital to capital companies in:


title: Stamp duty

text: According to Schedule 1 of Hong Kong Stamp Duty Ordinance Cap.117 (SDO), Stamp duty applies to some legal binding documents as classified into 4 heads:


title: Stamp duty

text: One example is shares of companies which are either incorporated in Hong Kong or listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Other than the said shares, HK Stock is defined as shares and marketable securities, units in unit trusts, and rights to subscribe for or to be allotted stock. Stamp duty on a conveyance on sale of land is charged at progressive rates ranging from 1.5% to 8.5% of the amount of consideration. The maximum rate of 8.5% applies where the consideration exceeds HK$21,739,130.


title: Stamp duty

text: In addition, in response to the overheated property market, the Government has proposed in 2010 and 2012 two further types of stamp duties in respect of conveyances on sale of land:


title: Stamp duty

text: The Special Stamp Duty was enacted by the Legislative Council on 29 June 2011 and would take effect from 20 November 2010. An enhanced rate of the Special Stamp Duty and the Buyer's Stamp Duty was enacted by the Legislative Council on 27 February 2014 but would take effect retrospectively from 27 October 2012.


title: Stamp duty

text: The government regularly updates its Stamp Duty laws and in addition to the above, several other amendments have now been published which are also aimed at cooling the property market. Third party calculators make it easier to understand the complex set of rules, making it easier to under the latest cost of buying or selling.


title: Stamp duty

text: Real Estate Agencies do usually arrange the stamping for Tenancy Agreements for residential apartments.


title: Stamp duty

text: Indian laws require stamp duty payments on a limited category of transaction documents. Broadly, documents affecting rights and titles to property require stamp duties to be paid. The central government requires stamp duty to be paid on several classes of transaction documents, primarily focused on securities, under the Indian Stamp Act, 1899. In addition, stamp duty may be charged by the state government for other transactions depending on state-specific legislation. For example, Maharashtra state's stamp duty law is governed by the Maharashtra Stamp Act, 1958 (Bombay Act LX of 1958 ).


title: Stamp duty

text: Stamp duty (materai) is in use in Indonesia on a variety of legal documents. It continues to be necessary to stamp the document.


title: Stamp duty

text: In the Republic of Ireland stamp duties are levied on various items including (but not limited to) credit cards, debit cards, ATM cards, cheques, property transfers, and certain court documents. Stamp duty was formerly a graduated progressive tax with more expensive the house bought the greater the stamp duty rate. The top rate slowly increased from 0.5% in 1882 to 3% in 1947, 5% in 1973, 6% in 1975, reaching its peak at 9% in 1997. The budget of 2008 inaugurated a series of rate reductions. After 2011 the stamp duty tax is set at 1% for residential properties up to €1 million and 2% on the remaining amount. Non-residential real property, building, insurance policies, the intangible business property goodwill are taxed at 2%. A lease for property of any type is taxed according to the lease duration, 1% of the average annual rent, or the market rate whichever is greater, if 35 years or less, 6% up to 100 years, and 12% for a lease of more than 100 years duration. Counterparts (duplicate copies) of documents are taxed the lesser of €12.50 or the duty on the original document. The value of property for stamp duty excludes VAT. Gifts are taxed at market value. Several exemptions including those for gifts between close relatives and first time home buyers expired in 2010. The transfer of stocks and marketable securities is taxed at 1% if over €1,000 or if a gift. Stock warrants in bearer form are taxed at 3% of the value of the shares, and the issue of (new) bearer warrants was prohibited effective 1 June 2015.


title: Stamp duty

text: From 1998, stamp duty in Singapore only applies to documents relating to immovable property, stocks and shares. Purchases of Singapore property or shares traded on the Singapore Exchange, are subject to stamp duty. The Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) mandates stamp duty payment within 14 days from signing of the document if done in Singapore and 30 days if the document is signed overseas. Failure in payment within the fixed time entails heavy penalty.


title: Stamp duty

text: Applicable rates and more information can be obtained from Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore. Legislation covering Singapore Stamp Duties are found in the Stamp Duties Act.


title: Stamp duty

text: Swedish law applies a stamp duty on property deeds, at 1.5% of the purchase value. In addition, a stamp duty of 2.0% is levied on new mortgage securities ("pantbrev") for properties.


title: Stamp duty

text: "Stamp Duty Reserve Tax" (SDRT) was introduced on agreements to transfer certain shares and other securities in 1986, albeit with a relief for intermediaries such as market makers and large banks that are members of a qualifying exchange. "Stamp Duty Land Tax" (SDLT), a new transfer tax derived from stamp duty, was introduced for land and property transactions from 1 December 2003. SDLT is not a stamp duty, but a form of self-assessed transfer tax charged on "land transactions".


title: Stamp duty

text: On 24 March 2010, Chancellor Alistair Darling introduced two significant changes to UK Stamp Duty Land Tax. For first-time buyers purchasing a property under £250,000, Stamp Duty Land Tax was abolished for the next two years. This measure was offset by a rise from 4% to 5% in Stamp Duty Land Tax on residential properties costing more than £1 million.


title: Stamp duty

text: Further reforms were announced in December 2014, so that rates are now paid only on the part of the property price within each tax band.


title: Stamp duty

text: In the 2015 Autumn Statement the Chancellor announced that buyers of second homes (whether Buy to let or holiday homes) would pay an additional 3% with effect from April 2016.


title: Stamp duty

text: The Budget 2017 abolished Stamp Duty for first-time home buyers in England and Wales purchasing homes up to £300,000, saving first-time buyers up to £5,000. Additionally first-time buyers spending up to £500,000 will only pay Stamp Duty @ 5% on the amount in excess of £300,000. Those spending over £500,000 will pay full Stamp Duty.


title: Stamp duty

text: Government defines first-time buyers as "... an individual or individuals who have never owned an interest in a residential property in the United Kingdom or anywhere else in the world and who intends to occupy the property as their main residence."


title: Stamp duty

text: Stamp Duty Land Tax only applies throughout England and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, SDLT was replaced by Land and Buildings Transaction Tax on April 1, 2015. In Wales, Land Transaction Tax was introduced in May 2018.


title: Stamp duty

text: Although the federal government formerly imposed various documentary stamp taxes on deeds, notes, insurance premiums and other transactional documents, in modern times such taxes are only imposed by states. Typically when real estate is transferred or sold, a real estate transfer tax will be collected at the time of registration of the deed in the public records. In addition, many states impose a tax on mortgages or other instruments securing loans against real property. This tax, known variously as a "mortgage tax", "intangibles tax", or "documentary stamp tax", is also usually collected at the time of registration of the mortgage or deed of trust with the recording authority.


title: Irreversible process

text: In science, a process that is not reversible is called irreversible. This concept arises frequently in thermodynamics. All complex natural processes are irreversible, although a phase transition at the coexistence temperature (e.g. melting of ice cubes in water) is well approximated as reversible.


title: Irreversible process

text: In thermodynamics, a change in the thermodynamic state of a system and all of its surroundings cannot be precisely restored to its initial state by infinitesimal changes in some property of the system without expenditure of energy. A system that undergoes an irreversible process may still be capable of returning to its initial state. Because entropy is a state function, the change in entropy of the system is the same whether the process is reversible or irreversible. However, the impossibility occurs in restoring the environment to its own initial conditions. An irreversible process increases the total entropy of the system and its surroundings. The second law of thermodynamics can be used to determine whether a hypothetical process is reversible or not.


title: Irreversible process

text: Intuitively, a process is reversible if there is no dissipation. For example, Joule expansion is irreversible because initially the system is not uniform. Initially, there is part of the system with gas in it, and part of the system with no gas. For dissipation to occur, there needs to be such a non uniformity. This is just the same as if in a system one section of the gas was hot, and the other cold. Then dissipation would occur; the temperature distribution would become uniform with no work being done, and this would be irreversible because you couldn't add or remove heat or change the volume to return the system to its initial state. Thus, if the system is always uniform, then the process is reversible, meaning that you can return the system to its original state by either adding or removing heat, doing work on the system, or letting the system do work. As another example, to approximate the expansion in an internal combustion engine as reversible, we would be assuming that the temperature and pressure uniformly change throughout the volume after the spark. Obviously, this is not true and there is a flame front and sometimes even engine knocking. One of the reasons that Diesel engines are able to attain higher efficiency is that the combustion is much more uniform, so less energy is lost to dissipation and the process is closer to reversible.


title: Irreversible process

text: The phenomenon of irreversibility results from the fact that if a thermodynamic system, which is any system of sufficient complexity, of interacting molecules is brought from one thermodynamic state to another, the configuration or arrangement of the atoms and molecules in the system will change in a way that is not easily predictable. Some "transformation energy" will be used as the molecules of the "working body" do work on each other when they change from one state to another. During this transformation, there will be some heat energy loss or dissipation due to intermolecular friction and collisions. This energy will not be recoverable if the process is reversed.


title: Irreversible process

text: Many biological processes that were once thought to be reversible have been found to actually be a pairing of two irreversible processes. Whereas a single enzyme was once believed to catalyze both the forward and reverse chemical changes, research has found that two separate enzymes of similar structure are typically needed to perform what results in a pair of thermodynamically irreversible processes.


title: Irreversible process

text: Thermodynamics defines the statistical behaviour of large numbers of entities, whose exact behavior is given by more specific laws. While the fundamental theoretical laws of physics are all time-reversible, experimentally the probability of real reversibility is low and the former state of system and surroundings is recovered only to certain extent (see: uncertainty principle). The reversibility of thermodynamics must be statistical in nature; that is, it must be merely highly unlikely, but not impossible, that a system will lower in entropy. In other words, time reversibility is fulfilled if the process happens the same way if time were to flow in reverse or the order of states in the process is reversed (the last state becomes the first and vice versa).


title: Irreversible process

text: The German physicist Rudolf Clausius, in the 1850s, was the first to mathematically quantify the discovery of irreversibility in nature through his introduction of the concept of entropy. In his 1854 memoir "On a Modified Form of the Second Fundamental Theorem in the Mechanical Theory of Heat," Clausius states:


title: Irreversible process

text: Simply, Clausius states that it is impossible for a system to transfer heat from a cooler body to a hotter body. For example, a cup of hot coffee placed in an area of room temperature will transfer heat to its surroundings and thereby cool down with the temperature of the room slightly increasing (to ). However, that same initial cup of coffee will never absorb heat from its surroundings, causing it to grow even hotter, with the temperature of the room decreasing (to ). Therefore, the process of the coffee cooling down is irreversible unless extra energy is added to the system.


title: Irreversible process

text: However, a paradox arose when attempting to reconcile microanalysis of a system with observations of its macrostate. Many processes are mathematically reversible in their microstate when analyzed using classical Newtonian mechanics. This paradox clearly taints microscopic explanations of macroscopic tendency towards equilibrium, such as James Clerk Maxwell's 1860 argument that molecular collisions entail an equalization of temperatures of mixed gases. From 1872 to 1875, Ludwig Boltzmann reinforced the statistical explanation of this paradox in the form of Boltzmann's entropy formula, stating that an increase of the number of possible microstates a system might be in, will increase the entropy of the system, making it less likely that the system will return to an earlier state. His formulas quantified the analysis done by William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, who had argued that:


title: Irreversible process

text: Another explanation of irreversible systems was presented by French mathematician Henri Poincaré. In 1890, he published his first explanation of nonlinear dynamics, also called chaos theory. Applying chaos theory to the second law of thermodynamics, the paradox of irreversibility can be explained in the errors associated with scaling from microstates to macrostates and the degrees of freedom used when making experimental observations. Sensitivity to initial conditions relating to the system and its environment at the microstate compounds into an exhibition of irreversible characteristics within the observable, physical realm.


title: Irreversible process

text: In the physical realm, many irreversible processes are present to which the inability to achieve 100% efficiency in energy transfer can be attributed. The following is a list of spontaneous events which contribute to the irreversibility of processes.


title: Irreversible process

text: A Joule expansion is an example of classical thermodynamics, as it is easy to work out the resulting increase in entropy. It occurs where a volume of gas is kept in one side of a thermally isolated container (via a small partition), with the other side of the container being evacuated; the partition between the two parts of the container is then opened, and the gas fills the whole container. The internal energy of the gas remains the same, while the volume increases. The original state cannot be recovered by simply compressing the gas to its original volume, since the internal energy will be increased by this compression. The original state can only be recovered by then cooling the re-compressed system, and thereby irreversibly heating the environment. The diagram to the right applies only if the first expansion is "free" (Joule expansion), i.e. there can be no atmospheric pressure outside the cylinder and no weight lifted.


title: Irreversible process

text: The difference between reversible and irreversible events has particular explanatory value in complex systems (such as living organisms, or ecosystems). According to the biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, living organisms are characterized by autopoiesis, which enables their continued existence. More primitive forms of self-organizing systems have been described by the physicist and chemist Ilya Prigogine. In the context of complex systems, events which lead to the end of certain self-organising processes, like death, extinction of a species or the collapse of a meteorological system can be considered as irreversible. Even if a clone with the same organizational principle (e.g. identical DNA-structure) could be developed, this would not mean that the former distinct system comes back into being. Events to which the self-organizing capacities of organisms, species or other complex systems can adapt, like minor injuries or changes in the physical environment are reversible. However, adaptation depends on import of negentropy into the organism, thereby increasing irreversible processes in its environment. Ecological principles, like those of sustainability and the precautionary principle can be defined with reference to the concept of reversibility.


title: Gertrude Ederle

text: Gertrude Caroline Ederle (October 23, 1906 – November 30, 2003) was an American competition swimmer, Olympic champion, and world record-holder in five events. On August 6, 1926, she became the first woman to swim across the English Channel. Among other nicknames, the press sometimes called her "Queen of the Waves".


title: Gertrude Ederle

text: Gertrude Ederle was born on October 23, 1906, in Manhattan, New York City. She was the third of six children and the daughter of German immigrants, Gertrude Anna Haberstroh and Henry Ederle. According to a biography of Ederle, "America's Girl", her father ran a butcher shop on Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan. Her father taught her to swim in Highlands, New Jersey, where the family owned a summer cottage.


title: Gertrude Ederle

text: Ederle trained at the Women's Swimming Association (WSA), which produced such competitors as Ethelda Bleibtrey, Charlotte Boyle, Helen Wainwright, Aileen Riggin, Eleanor Holm and Esther Williams. Her yearly dues of $3 allowed her to swim at the tiny Manhattan indoor pool. But, according to "America's Girl", "the WSA was already the center of competitive swimming, a sport that was becoming increasingly popular with the evolution of a bathing suit that made it easier to get through the water." The director, Charlotte "Eppy" Epstein, had already urged the AAU to endorse women's swimming as a sport in 1917 and in 1919 pressured the AAU to "allow swimmers to remove their stockings for competition as long as they quickly put on a robe once they got out of the water."


title: Gertrude Ederle

text: That wasn't the only advantage of belonging to the WSA. The American crawl, a variation of the Australian crawl, was developed at the WSA by Louis Handley. According to "America's Girl", "Handley thought the Australian crawl, in which swimmers did three kicks and then turned on their side to take a breath and do a scissors kick, could be improved ... The finished product – and its eight-beat variation, which Ederle would use – became the American crawl, and Handley was its proud father." Along with Handley, Epstein made New York female swimmers a force to be reckoned with. Ederle joined the club when she was only twelve. The same year, she set her first world record in the 880-yard freestyle, becoming the youngest world record holder in swimming. She set eight more world records after that, seven of them in 1922 at Brighton Beach. In total, Ederle held 29 US national and world records from 1921 until 1925.


title: Gertrude Ederle

text: At the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, Ederle won a gold medal as a member of the first-place U.S. team in the 4×100 meter freestyle relay. Together with her American relay teammates Euphrasia Donnelly, Ethel Lackie and Mariechen Wehselau, she set a new world record of 4:58.8 in the event final. Individually, she received bronze medals for finishing third in the women's 100-meter freestyle and women's 400-meter freestyle races.


title: Gertrude Ederle

text: Ederle had been favored to win a gold in all three events and "would later say her failure to win three golds in the games was the biggest disappointment of her career." Still, she was proud to have been a part of the American team that brought home 99 medals from the Paris Olympics. It was an illustrious Olympic team – swimmer Johnny Weissmuller, oarsman Benjamin Spock, tennis player Helen Wills, and long-jumper DeHart Hubbard, who, according to "America's Girl", was "the first black man to win an individual gold". The U.S. Olympic team had its own ticker-tape parade in 1924.


title: Gertrude Ederle

text: In 1925, Ederle turned professional. The same year she swam the 22 miles from Battery Park to Sandy Hook in 7 hours and 11 minutes, a record time which stood for 81 years before being broken by Australian swimmer Tammy van Wisse. Ederle's nephew Bob later described his aunt's swim as a "midnight frolic" and a "warm-up" for her later swim across the English Channel.


title: Gertrude Ederle

text: The Women's Swimming Association sponsored Helen Wainwright and Ederle for an attempt at swimming the Channel. Helen Wainwright pulled out at the last minute because of an injury, so Ederle decided to go to France on her own. She trained with Jabez Wolffe, a swimmer who had attempted to swim the Channel 22 times. During the training, Wolffe continually tried to slow her pace, saying that she would never last at that speed. The training with Wolffe did not go well. In her first attempt at the Channel on August 18, 1925, she was disqualified when Wolffe ordered another swimmer (who was keeping her company in the water), Ishak Helmy, to recover her from the water. According to her and other witnesses, she was not "drowning" but resting, floating face-down. She bitterly disagreed with Wolffe's decision. Wolffe had previously commented that women may not be capable of swimming the Channel and it was speculated that he did not want Ederle to succeed.


title: Gertrude Ederle

text: Her successful Channel swim – this time training with coach Bill Burgess who had successfully swum the Channel in 1911 – began approximately one year later at Cape Gris-Nez in France at 07:08 on the morning of August 6, 1926. She came ashore at Kingsdown, Kent, 14 hours and 34 minutes later. Her record stood until Florence Chadwick swam the Channel in 1950 in 13 hours and 23 minutes. Ederle used motorcycle goggles to protect her eyes from salty water, as did Burgess in 1911. However, while Burgess swam breaststroke, she used crawl, and therefore had her goggles sealed with paraffin to render them water tight.


title: Gertrude Ederle

text: Ederle possessed a contract from both the "New York Daily News" and "Chicago Tribune" when she attempted the Channel swim a second time. The money she received paid her expenses and provided her with a modest salary. It also gave her a bonus in exchange for exclusive rights to her personal story. The "Daily News" and the "Chicago Tribune" got the jump on every other newspaper in America.


title: Gertrude Ederle

text: Another American swimmer in France in 1926 to try and swim the Channel was Lillian Cannon from Baltimore. She was also sponsored by a newspaper, the "Baltimore Post", which tried to create a rivalry between her and Ederle in the weeks spent training off the French coast. In addition to Cannon, several other swimmers, including two other American women – Clarabelle Barrett and Amelia Gade Corson – were training in England with the goal of becoming the first woman to swim the Channel. Barrett and Cannon were unsuccessful but three weeks after Ederle's feat, Corson crossed in a time that was an hour slower than Ederle.


title: Gertrude Ederle

text: For her second attempt at the Channel, Ederle had an entourage aboard the tug (the "Alsace") on August 6, 1926, which included her father and one of her sisters, Meg, as well as Julia Harpman, wife of Westbrook Pegler and a writer for the "New York Daily News", the paper that sponsored Ederle's swim. Harpman wouldn't allow reporters from other newspapers on the tug – in order to protect her "scoop" – and as a result a second tug was hired by the disgruntled reporters. On several occasions during the swim this tug (the "Morinie") came in close to Ederle and nearly endangered her chances. The incident caused subsequent bitterness. It also led to accusations in the British press that the two tugs had in fact sheltered Ederle from the bad weather and thus made her swim "easier".


title: Gertrude Ederle

text: During her twelfth hour at sea, Burgess, her trainer, had become so concerned by unfavorable winds that he called to her 'Gertie, you must come out!' The swimmer lifted her head from the choppy waters and replied, 'What for?'


title: Gertrude Ederle

text: Only five men had been able to swim the English Channel before Ederle. The best time had been 16 hours, 33 minutes by Enrique Tiraboschi. Ederle walked up the beach at Kingsdown, England, after 14 hours and 34 minutes. The first person to greet her was a British immigration officer who requested a passport from "the bleary-eyed, waterlogged teenager".


title: Gertrude Ederle

text: When Ederle returned home, she was greeted with a ticker-tape parade in Manhattan. More than two million people lined the streets of the parade route to cheer her. She made an arrangement with Edward L. Hyman to make a personal appearance at the Brooklyn Mark Strand, and she was paid an amount far greater than they had ever paid an individual performer prior. Subsequently, she went on to play herself in a movie ("Swim Girl, Swim" starring Bebe Daniels) and tour the vaudeville circuit, including later Billy Rose's Aquacade. She met President Coolidge and had a song and a dance step named for her. Her manager, Dudley Field Malone, was not able to capitalize on her notoriety, so Ederle's career in vaudeville wasn't a huge financial success. The Great Depression also diminished her financial rewards. A fall down the steps of her apartment building in 1933 twisted her spine and left her bedridden for several years, but she recovered well enough to appear at the 1939 New York World's Fair.


title: Gertrude Ederle

text: Ederle had poor hearing since childhood due to measles, and by the 1940s she was almost completely deaf. Aside from her time in vaudeville, she taught swimming to deaf children. She was never married and she was living in an old peoples home in 2001. She died on November 30, 2003, in Wyckoff, New Jersey, at the age of 97. She was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York City.


title: Gertrude Ederle

text: Ederle was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame as an "Honor Swimmer" in 1965. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2003.


title: Gertrude Ederle

text: An annual swim from New York City's Battery Park to Sandy Hook, New Jersey, is called the Ederle Swim in memory of Gertrude Ederle, and follows the course she swam.


title: Gertrude Ederle

text: A BBC Radio 4 play, "The Great Swim", by Anita Sullivan, based on the 2008 book of the same name by Gavin Mortimer, was first broadcast on September 1, 2010, and repeated on January 23, 2012. It dramatizes Ederle's record-breaking crossing of the English Channel.


title: Gertrude Ederle

text: A biographical film, "Young Woman and the Sea", based on the book of the same name by Glenn Stout, is set to be directed by Joachim Rønning from a screenplay by Jeff Nathanson and is produced by Jerry Bruckheimer initially for Paramount Pictures, but is later acquired by Walt Disney Pictures for Disney+, with Daisy Ridley to play Ederle.


title: The Irrepressibles

text: Formed in 2002, the Irrepressibles have released three full studio albums and six EPs. All songs are written by Jamie Irrepressible. According to the musician, the project's name is "about breaking boundaries in music and being honest about being gay in music". Based in London, England, for many years, Irrepressible currently works from Berlin, Germany. The artist changed his name from "Jamie McDermott" to "Jamie Irrepressible" in 2013, on his collaboration with Norwegian electronic duo Röyksopp.


title: The Irrepressibles

text: The project's first release was the soundtrack to Shelly Love's "The Forgotten Circus", issued in January 2009. "The Independent" described the group as one of Britain's best-kept secrets.


title: The Irrepressibles

text: On 11 January 2010, the Irrepressibles released their debut studio album, "Mirror Mirror", a collection of twelve baroque pop songs produced by Dimitri Tikovoi and William Turner Duffin and written by Jamie McDermott. The album features the single "In This Shirt".


title: The Irrepressibles

text: "Mirror Mirror" received critical acclaim. "The Guardian" called it "theatrical and very different, a ripe, colourful riposte to all that is Cowell", and "The Independent" described it as "a dramatic soundscape dripping with echoes of the Weimar Republic and Belle Époque."


title: The Irrepressibles

text: The track "In This Shirt" garnered critical and public acclaim after it was used as the soundtrack for the short film "The Lady Is Dead", by Israeli production company PAG Films, which Sundance Channel described as "fantastic". It was remixed by various artists, including Röyksopp, Hercules & Love Affair, and Zero 7.


title: The Irrepressibles

text: The song received renewed attention in 2018, when it was used by French figure skater Kévin Aymoz as his free-skating program. It again gained prominence in 2020, through its widespread use in videos on TikTok during the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: The Irrepressibles

text: In November 2012, the Irrepressibles released their second album, "Nude". Self-produced by McDermott, the record received critical acclaim. "The Quietus" described it as a "remarkably varied and unpredictable album", stating that "the results border on the spectacular". "The Independent" gave it 4 out of 5 stars, calling it "an act of bravery in a cowardly world", where McDermott "heralds homosexual love as a heroic, romantic and redemptive force".


title: The Irrepressibles

text: 2013 saw the release of "Nude: Landscapes", the first of three EPs inspired by—and expanding on—the band's second album. This first EP saw the band take a "minimal symphonic" and "acoustic" direction, as described by McDermott in an interview with "QX magazine". The second EP, "Nude: Viscera", released on 14 February 2014, "brings together influences from new wave, grunge, and exotica". The third EP, "Nude: Forbidden", was released on 6 April 2014.


title: The Irrepressibles

text: On 31 May 2018, the Irrepressibles released a new single, "Submission", from their forthcoming third album. The video, directed by Cypriot filmmaker Savvas Stavrou, was featured on Nowness. A second single, "Dominance", was released on 22 November 2018. The visuals, a collaboration between Italian photographer Paride Mirabilio and Turkish director Mertcan Mertbilek, were featured on the website Pornceptual. A third single, "Anxiety", was released on 29 November 2018 and a fourth, "International", on 22 March 2019. The video for the latest track was directed by Jamie Irrepressible, in collaboration with Ukrainian director Alexey Romanowski, and was featured by "New Noise Magazine". A fifth single, "Let Go (Everybody Move Your Body Listen to Your Heart)", was released on 27 March 2020 and described by "Clash" as "an absolute bulldozer - a stunning pop missile that explodes staid sexual norms." A video for it was directed by Savvas Stavrou and featured in "Kaltblut" magazine. A sixth single, "The Most Beautiful Boy (Strong Outside a Man but Inside a Boy)", was published on 23 July 2020, alongside the album. The record was acclaimed by the media, with "Loud and Quiet" describing it as "cleverly inflecting the central romance with incisive commentary on masculinity and mental health." "The Quietus" stated it was "hard not to fall in love with this album" and a "beautiful open book of his journey uniting with his mental health, masculinity and homosexuality".


title: The Irrepressibles

text: In 2012, McDermott collaborated with Hotel Pro Forma and the Latvian Radio Choir on "WAR SUM UP". The project toured extensively worldwide, receiving acclaim from Danish outlet "Gaffa" as well as "The New York Times".


title: The Irrepressibles

text: In 2013, McDermott provided guest vocals on Rex the Dog's single "Do You Feel What I Feel" as well as Röyksopp's singles "Something in My Heart" and "Twenty Thirteen".


title: The Irrepressibles

text: In 2014, he also featured on Röyksopp's album "The Inevitable End", on the tracks "You Know I Have to Go", "I Had This Thing", "Here She Comes Again", and "Compulsion", in addition to the previously released "Something in My Heart", on which he was credited for the first time as Jamie Irrepressible. In 2015, having relocated to Berlin, McDermott began working with American alternative country artist Jon Campbell and produced his debut EP, released in 2016.


title: Allahabad Bank

text: Allahabad Bank was an Indian nationalised bank with its headquarters in Kolkata, India. Founded in Allahabad in 1865 and nationalized by the government of India in 1969, the bank provided banking and financial services for 155 years until it was merged with Indian Bank in 2020.


title: Allahabad Bank

text: , Allahabad Bank had over 3245 branches across India. The bank did a total business of 3.8 trillion during the FY 2017–18. The bank's market capitalisation was US$573 million and ranked #1,882 on the Forbes Global 2000 list.


title: Allahabad Bank

text: On 24 April 1865, founded Allahabad Bank in Allahabad. By the end of the 19th century it had branches at Jhansi, Kanpur, Lucknow, Bareilly, Nainital, Calcutta, and Delhi.


title: Allahabad Bank

text: In the early 20th century, with the start of Swadeshi movement, Allahabad Bank witnessed a spurt in deposits. In 1920, P & O Banking Corporation acquired Allahabad Bank with a bid price of per share. In 1923 the bank moved its head office and the registered office to Calcutta for reasons of both operational convenience and business opportunities. Then in 1927 Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China (Chartered Bank) acquired P&O Bank. However, Chartered Bank continued to operate Allahabad Bank as a separate entity.


title: Allahabad Bank

text: Allahabad Bank opened a branch in Rangoon (Yangon). At some point, Chartered Bank amalgamated Allahabad Bank's branch in Rangoon with its own. In 1963 the revolutionary government in Burma nationalized the Chartered Bank's operations there, which became People's Bank No. 2.


title: Allahabad Bank

text: In October 1989, Allahabad Bank acquired United Industrial Bank, a Calcutta-based bank that had been established in 1940 and that brought with it 145 branches. Two years later, Allahabad Bank established AllBank Finance Ltd, a wholly owned merchant banking subsidiary.


title: Allahabad Bank

text: Its older logo, a monogram consisting of "A" and "B", was replaced by the current 'Triveni Sangam' logo circa 1997.


title: Allahabad Bank

text: The government's ownership of Allahabad Bank shrank in October 2002 after the bank engaged in an initial public offering (IPO) of of shares, each with a face value 10. The IPO reduced the Government's shareholding to 71.16%. Then in April 2005 the bank conducted a second public offering of 100 million of shares, each with a face value 10 and selling at a premium of 72. This offering reduced the Government's ownership to 55.23%.


title: Allahabad Bank

text: In June 2006, the bank opened its first office outside India when it opened a representative office in Shenzhen, Mainland China. In February 2007, Allahabad Bank opened its first overseas branch, in Hong Kong. In March, the bank's business crossed the 10 million mark.


title: Allahabad Bank

text: On 30 August 2019, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that Allahabad Bank would merge with Indian Bank. The merger would create the seventh largest public sector bank in the country with assets of . The Union Cabinet approved the merger on 4 March 2020. Indian Bank assumed control of Allahabad Bank on 1 April 2020.


title: Allahabad Bank

text: Allahabad Bank's equity shares are listed on Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange of India.


title: Allahabad Bank

text: , the bank had 22,557 employees, out of which 3,293 were women (15%). Out of the total employees, 51% were officers, 30% were clerks and remaining 19% were subordinate staff. The bank recruited 1,950 employees (1,421 Officers, 390 Clerks and 139 subordinate staff) during the same financial year. The company incurred 20 billion on employee benefit expenses during the same financial year. During the FY 2013–14, the business per employee was 13.50 million and it earned a net profit of 0.477 million per employee.


title: Allahabad Bank

text: On 13 July 2019, Allahabad Bank disclosed that it detected a fraud, worth by Bhushan Power & Steel (BPSL).


title: Allahabad Bank

text: The bank also detected another fraud of by SEL Manufacturing Ltd., a Ludhiana-based textile company on 17 July 2019.


title: Type 216 submarine

text: The Type 216 is a submarine design concept announced by Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft based on the Type 212/214.


title: Type 216 submarine

text: The design is double hulled with two decks, includes a fuel cell, Permasyn motor, and lithium-ion batteries. It is a larger design targeted to meet the needs of the Australian "Collins"-class submarine replacement project, also known as SEA 1000, and the needs of other countries possibly including India and Canada. The Royal Australian Navy eventually chose the Shortfin Barracuda, a conventional variant of the French Barracuda-class submarine and no Type 216 was put in production, though this deal was later rescinded.


title: Type 216 submarine

text: The Type 218SG is based on the design of Type 216. Four submarines were ordered by the Republic of Singapore Navy and the lead vessel RSS "Invincible" was launched in February 2019.


title: John Legend discography

text: The discography of American singer John Legend consists of eight full-length studio albums, five live albums, two video albums, three extended plays, 39 singles and two promotional singles.


title: John Legend discography

text: Prior to the release of Legend's debut album, his career gained momentum through a series of successful collaborations with multiple established artists. He sang on Magnetic Man's "Getting Nowhere", Kanye West's "All of the Lights", Slum Village's "Selfish", and Dilated Peoples' "This Way". Other artists included Jay-Z's "Encore", and he sang backing vocals on Alicia Keys' 2003 song "You Don't Know My Name", the Kanye West remix of Britney Spears' "Me Against the Music", and Fort Minor's "High Road". Legend played piano on Lauryn Hill's "Everything Is Everything". He earned a "Billboard" Hot 100 number-one single with "All of Me". He has sold over 10 million albums in the United States.


title: Carol McCain

text: Carol Shepp McCain (born 1937 or 1938) is an American former political aide and event planner who served as the director of the White House Visitors Office from 1981 to 1987, during the Reagan administration. She was the first wife of United States Senator John McCain.


title: Carol McCain

text: Carol Shepp was born in Pennsylvania in 1937 to Joseph Shepp (1908-1986), an insurance agent, and Mary Shepp (née Madrazo 1908-2000). She grew up in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia. She graduated from Lansdowne-Aldan High School in 1955, winning a scholarship award.


title: Carol McCain

text: Shepp attended Centenary Junior College for Women in Hackettstown, New Jersey, beginning in 1956. She majored in English.


title: Carol McCain

text: Shepp first met John McCain while he was attending the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis from 1954 to 1958, but in 1958 she married one of his midshipman classmates, Alasdair E. Swanson, who had been a football and basketball star there. She and Swanson, who became a Navy pilot, had two sons, Douglas (born 1959) and Andrew (born 1962), and lived in Pensacola, Florida. The Swansons divorced in June 1964, after she sued him for infidelity.


title: Carol McCain

text: Shepp met John McCain again when he was stationed at the Naval Air Basic Training Command at Pensacola in 1964, and after her divorce from Swanson, the two began dating. McCain frequently took training flights from Florida up to Philadelphia to see her on weekends.


title: Carol McCain

text: On July 3, 1965, Shepp and McCain married in Philadelphia. The ceremony was held at the home of the family that owned the well known Old Original Bookbinder's seafood restaurant in Philadelphia; one of the Bookbinder family members was a close friend of Shepp from college.


title: Carol McCain

text: Following the wedding, McCain adopted his wife's two sons; the couple had daughter Sidney together in September 1966.


title: Carol McCain

text: John McCain was shot down over North Vietnam on October 26, 1967; he was captured and would remain a prisoner of war for five and a half years. During her husband's captivity, McCain raised their children in Orange Park, Florida, with the assistance of friends and neighbors in the Navy-oriented community. She sent frequent letters and packages to him, few of which his captors let through. She became active in the POW/MIA movement, while those around her wore POW bracelets with her husband's name and capture date engraved on them.


title: Carol McCain

text: While visiting family and friends in the Philadelphia area on Christmas Eve 1969, McCain skidded and crashed into a telephone pole as she was navigating an icy, snowy, isolated portion of Pennsylvania Route 320 near Gulph Mills, Pennsylvania, driving alone. She was thrown from her car into the snow, going into shock; she thought she would never be seen and would die there. Hours later she was found and taken to Bryn Mawr Hospital. She suffered two smashed legs, a broken pelvis, broken arm, and a ruptured spleen. She spent six months in the hospital and underwent 23 operations over the following two years in order to rebuild her legs with rods and pins, and had extensive physical therapy. During this time, her daughter stayed with her parents in Landsdowne while her sons stayed with friends in Florida.


title: Carol McCain

text: McCain did not tell her husband about the accident in her letters, believing he already had enough to worry about. The U.S. State Department contacted her surgeon the next day with a warning; as the doctor later said: Businessman and POW advocate Ross Perot paid for McCain's medical care. She remained grateful to Perot, later remarking: "The military families are in Ross's heart and in his soul...There are millions of us who are extremely grateful to Ross Perot". Years after her husband found out about Perot's help, he said "we loved him for it". McCain was interviewed on "CBS Evening News" in 1970 and said Christmas had no meaning for her without her husband but that she carried on with it for their children.


title: Carol McCain

text: McCain and her husband were reunited upon his release from captivity on March 14, 1973. She was now four inches (ten centimeters) shorter, in a wheelchair or on crutches, and substantially heavier than when he had last seen her. He was also visibly hampered by his injuries and the mistreatment he had endured from the North Vietnamese.


title: Carol McCain

text: Following his return, the McCains were introduced to, and then became frequent guests of honor at dinners hosted by, Governor of California Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy Reagan. The two couples became friendly. Carol McCain was the Clay County director for Reagan's 1976 presidential campaign as he sought the Republican Party nomination. Her husband's assignments as executive officer, then commanding officer, of A-7 attack squadron VA-174 at NAS Cecil Field saw the couple leading an active social life. Such engagements included entertaining other naval personnel at their Orange Park home and Ponte Vedra beach house. McCain's marriage, however, began to falter due to her husband's partying away from home and extramarital affairs.


title: Carol McCain

text: Her husband's next assignment was to the Senate Liaison Office within the Navy's Office of Legislative Affairs. The McCains separated briefly, then reunited. His job was aided by the social life the couple conducted, entertaining Navy, government, and other persons three to four nights a week at their Alexandria, Virginia, home. During this time she worked as a staff aide for Congressman John H. Rousselot of California. By 1979, the McCains were still living together.


title: Carol McCain

text: In April 1979, John McCain started an affair with Cindy Lou Hensley, an Arizona special education teacher and Hensley & Co. heiress. He then pushed to end their marriage, and friends described Carol as being in shock. The McCains stopped cohabitating in January 1980; he filed for divorce in February 1980, which she accepted. When asked by a friend what had gone wrong, she said, "It's just one of those things." The uncontested divorce became official in Fort Walton Beach on April 2, 1980.


title: Carol McCain

text: Her ex-husband would later state that he felt the demise of his marriage was due to his "selfishness and immaturity more than it was to Vietnam, and I cannot escape blame by pointing a finger at the war. The blame was entirely mine." Regarding her divorce, McCain said, "The breakup of our marriage was not caused by my accident or Vietnam or any of those things. I don't know that it might not have happened if John had never been gone. I attribute it more to John turning 40 and wanting to be 25 again than I do to anything else." John McCain's biographer Robert Timberg wrote, however, "Vietnam did play a part, perhaps not the major part, but more than a walk-on." Ross Perot gave his own assessment of the McCain divorce: "After he came home, he walked with a limp, she [Carol McCain] walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona [Cindy McCain] and the rest is history." McCain's three children were initially upset with their father about the divorce, but later reconciled with him.


title: Carol McCain

text: The divorce settlement afforded Carol McCain full custody of her three children as well as alimony, child support, college tuition for the children, houses in Virginia and Florida, and lifelong financial support for her continuing medical treatment. She was sued by her former mother-in-law, Roberta McCain, in 1980 for return of personal property, with the suit settled out of court in 1981. In 1981, McCain said that the divorce "was the hardest thing I've ever been through. I lost my husband and my best friend."


title: Carol McCain

text: Despite the breakup, McCain remained on good terms with her ex-husband, supporting him in his subsequent political campaigns. She refused to discuss her marriage with an election opponent of her ex-husband in 1982 who was seeking negative information, telling the opponent that "a gentleman never would have called." During his 2008 presidential campaign, McCain said of her former husband: "He's a good guy. We are still good friends. He is the best man for president."


title: Carol McCain

text: McCain moved to La Mesa, California, where she lived for several months with the family of top Reagan associate Edwin Meese (Meese's wife Ursala had known John S. McCain Sr. as a little girl and the families stayed in touch). Carol became a personal assistant to Nancy Reagan in the fall of 1979, working with her as a press assistant on Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign, and then worked on the 1980 Republican National Convention. Campaign travel was difficult for her due to the effects of her injuries, and her feet often swelled badly, but fellow staffers noted that she always maintained an upbeat disposition.


title: Carol McCain

text: Following Reagan's victory, she served as director of the 1981 Reagan inaugural ball, and as the Reagan administration began, she handled scheduling for the First Lady and the Reagan children.


title: Carol McCain

text: In 1981 she became Director of the White House Visitors Office. There she planned tours and dealt with the pleas of different groups for the limited slots available. She also dealt with demands from Washington officials, including a dispute about tour slots between Nancy Reagan and New York Congressman Thomas Downey. Regarding the pressures of her job, she said cheerfully, "I'm always in tears, but I love the job. I'm really having a ball." During the early 1980s recession, she declared that the White House tours were fully booked even when other Washington attractions saw declining attendance; her office processed well over one million visits a year. She was a well-liked presence on the Washington social scene.


title: Carol McCain

text: Between 1981 and 1986, she greatly expanded the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, adding participatory activities and doubling the size of the crowds attending. She arranged for celebrities attending White House events to sign eggs, as well as National Football League players, with the result that some 10,000 of the eggs discovered by children were signed. The "Washington Post" likened her "extravaganza-loving" event style to that of Cecil B. DeMille.


title: Carol McCain

text: She was involved in planning the president's Fourth of July party for 3,500 staffers and families as well as autumn barbeques for some congressional delegations. She also planned the South Lawn State Arrival Ceremonies, as well as a national Christmas celebration. She credited her ability to handle such events to her background as the wife of an officer: "As a Navy wife you have to learn how to give a party on short notice and entertain for 50 or 100."


title: Carol McCain

text: McCain left the White House Visitors Office position in January 1987 to join Philadelphia-based We the People 200, Inc., which was the organization planning the celebration for the 200th anniversary of the United States Constitution that year. She was named programming director, part of We the People 200's senior management team. The bicentennial project was already troubled by lack of corporate financial sponsorship and persistent internal conflicts; the high salaries of McCain and other senior staff came under some criticism, but were defended by the organization's president as justified based upon age and experience.