History.

In July 1987, Peugeot announced the 405 as four door sedan only body style, and sales began soon after on the left-hand drive continental markets. It succeeded the long-running Peugeot 305.  It went on sale on the right hand drive market in the United Kingdom in January 1988, with right hand drive versions being produced at the former plant of Rootes/Chrysler at Ryton near Coventry, and left hand drive production taking place at Sochaux in France.  Four cylinder petrol engines ranging from were available. In 1988, naturally aspirated and turbocharged diesel engines were added to the range. An estate model was also introduced during 1988. The 500,000th 405 was produced during 1989, followed by the one millionth 405 to leave the Sochaux factory in 1990. This was also when the BE1 transmission was replaced by the BE3.  In 1991, there were updates to the dashboard, steering wheel, and soundproofing, but for 1993, the Phase II model arrived with a new boot with better ingress, new rear lights and boot design and a new dashboard. 405 production had reached over 1,500,000 by this time.  In the autumn of 1995, the 405's replacement, the 406 was introduced and the 405 saloon was discontinued. An airbag had been available on the 405 since 1994, and standard on the left hand drive Mi16 and T16. At the beginning of 1997, the estate version of the 406 was launched, marking the end of European production of the 405 after 10 years.  The 405 was one of Europe's best selling larger family cars, particularly in France and Britain. It was the eighth best selling car in Britain in 1992 and 1993.

Manufacturing.

Designed in France, the Peugeot 405 has been manufactured in:

Versions.

The 405 range included three petrol engines and two diesel engines, all four cylinders, in a variety of states of tune and specification. The range was tailored to suit different export markets. The 1.6 litre saloon featured a low drag co efficient of, with other models varying up to. The 1.4 litre (1,360 cc) engine was fitted with a four speed manual gearbox. It produced at 5,600 rpm.  The 1.6 litre (1,580 cc) engine was fitted with a five speed manual gearbox and produced at 6,000 rpm. The 1.9 litre (1,905 cc) engine was available with a five speed manual gearbox, with an option of an automatic in the lower powered version.  The eight valve version of the engine was available in two levels of tune; or. A 16 valve version was available with the Mi16 model and this produced at 6,500 rpm and could reach a top speed of. In 1992, the range was facelifted.  While the changes were deep, including a modified bottom plate and chassis structure, the design was almost indistinguishable from the pre facelift model.  The windscreens were now bonded; all of these changes increased torsional rigidity considerably while still allowing a deeper opening for the bootlid of the sedan. The taillights were also redesigned and the trim piece between them removed, all in the image of the bigger 605. The interior was also redone, with an all new dashboard and door trim, inheriting lots of detail parts as well as the overall appearance from the 605. In April 1993, the T16 homologation special was introduced, with a 2.0 litre 16 valve turbocharged XU10J4TE engine with water cooled chargecooler, constant four wheel drive with 53/47% power distribution and self regulating hydraulic rear axle. It was never built in a right hand drive model.  The T16 produced at (normal boost) or at (overboost) which lasts for 45 seconds. 1,061 examples were built, 60 of them for the French Police. The diesel engine options included a 1.9 litre (1,905 cc) unit producing at 4,600 rpm or a turbocharged 1.8 litre (1,769 cc) unit producing.

Britain.

At launch in January 1988, the 405 was available with a choice 1.6, and 1.9 carbureted engines, and an injected 1.9. Both diesel and petrol engines were available at launch. Other engines included 1.4, 1.6, and 1.8. Other styles included the GE, GL, GLx4, GLD, GLDT, GR, GTXi, GTXDT, Le Mans, LX, Mi, Style D, Style DT, Quasar, SRi, SRDT, STi, and STDT.

North America.

Three versions of the 405 saloon were sold in North America from the end of 1988; the 1.9 () DL and S, and the Mi16 (). The DL and S were available in estate form called Sportswagon. Peugeot withdrew from the markets in the United States and Canadian after the model year of 1991.

Iran.

Iran Khodro also produces several models derived from the 405. The Peugeot Pars, also known as the Peugeot Persia, is a facelifted 405 with a redesigned front end including clear lamp lenses and a revised rear. The Peugeot RD is a rear wheel drive car which has a 405 body and mechanical parts from the Paykan. Since 2006, it has been sold in certain markets in the Middle East as the Peugeot ROA.  The Samand, which was designed to be a "national car" for Iran, is also based on the 405 platform. It replaced the long running Paykan which was itself based on the Hillman Hunter, an ancestor (in corporate ownership and model positioning terms) of the 405, having been produced by the Rootes Group and Chrysler UK from 1963 until 1979, the year that Peugeot purchased Chrysler's European operations.  Iran Khodro, the leading Iranian car manufacter produces the following models of Peugeot 405:

Motorsport.

The motorsport version of the 405, the rallying 405 Turbo 16 GR, was very different from the road going 405. It was built in a coupé body style in mid-engine configuration, had constant four wheel drive with electronically adjustable center differential like the 205 T16, as it was based on the same technology. At least four were produced, competing in hill climbs and the Paris-Dakar rally.  Today, three are in the official Peugeot museum, and the other is in a private collection.  Racing 405s much closer in specification to the road going models were campaigned for several years in European touring car racing during the early to mid 1990s, most notably in the British Touring Car Championship and the French Supertourisme Championship. In Britain, the 405 did not achieve much success, but the car won the French series in both 1994 and 1995, in the hands of Laurent Aïello.

The Peugeot 405 is a large family car released by the French automaker Peugeot in July 1987, and which continues to be manufactured under licence outside France, having been discontinued in Europe in 1997. It was voted European Car of the Year for 1988 by the largest number of votes in the history of the contest. About 2.5 million vehicles have been sold worldwide, both in LHD and RHD, as a sedan and station wagon.

La Peugeot 405 est une voiture produite par le constructeur automobile français Peugeot à partir de juin 1987 à pratiquement cinq millions d'exemplaires, en berline et break (cinq-places ou commerciale deux-places). Un projet de coupé a aussi été imaginé par Heuliez sans toutefois aboutir à une version de série. La berline a connu plusieurs versions sportives : Mi16, à quatre roues motrices permanentes et l'exclusive. En 1988, la 405 est élue Voiture européenne de l'année, dix-neuf ans après la Peugeot 504.


Formation.

The Club of Rome was founded in April 1968 by Aurelio Peccei, an Italian industrialist, and Alexander King, a Scottish scientist. It was formed when a small international group of people from the fields of academia, civil society, diplomacy, and industry met at Villa Farnesina in Rome, hence the name.

The "problématique".

Central to the formation of the club was Peccei's concept of the "problematic". It was his opinion that viewing the problems of mankind—environmental deterioration, poverty, endemic ill-health, urban blight, criminality—individually, in isolation or as "problems capable of being solved in their own terms", was doomed to failure. All are interrelated. "It is this generalized meta-problem (or meta-system of problems) which we have called and shall continue to call the "problematic" that inheres in our situation."  In 1970, Peccei's vision was laid out in a document written by Hasan Özbekhan, Erich Jantsch, and Alexander Christakis. Entitled, "The Predicament of Mankind; Quest for Structured Responses to Growing Worldwide Complexities and Uncertainties: A PROPOSAL". The document would serve as the roadmap for the "LTG" project.

"The Limits to Growth".

The Club of Rome stimulated considerable public attention with the first report to the club, "The Limits to Growth". Published in 1972, its computer simulations suggested that economic growth could not continue indefinitely because of resource depletion. The 1973 oil crisis increased public concern about this problem. The report went on to sell 30 million copies in more than 30 languages, making it the best-selling environmental book in history.  Even before "The Limits to Growth" was published, Eduard Pestel and Mihajlo Mesarovic of Case Western Reserve University had begun work on a far more elaborate model (it distinguished ten world regions and involved 200,000 equations compared with 1,000 in the Meadows model). The research had the full support of the club and its final publication, "Mankind at the Turning Point" was accepted as the official "second report" to the Club of Rome in 1974. In addition to providing a more refined regional breakdown, Pestel and Mesarovic had succeeded in integrating social as well as technical data. The second report revised the scenarios of the original "Limits to Growth" and gave a more optimistic prognosis for the future of the environment, noting that many of the factors involved were within human control and therefore that environmental and economic catastrophe were preventable or avoidable.  In 1991, the club published "The First Global Revolution". It analyses the problems of humanity, calling these collectively or in essence the "problematique". It notes that, historically, social or political unity has commonly been motivated by enemies in common: "The need for enemies seems to be a common historical factor. Some states have striven to overcome domestic failure and internal contradictions by blaming external enemies. The ploy of finding a scapegoat is as old as mankind itself—when things become too difficult at home, divert attention to adventure abroad. Bring the divided nation together to face an outside enemy, either a real one, or else one invented for the purpose. With the disappearance of the traditional enemy, the temptation is to use religious or ethnic minorities as scapegoats, especially those whose differences from the majority are disturbing." "Every state has been so used to classifying its neighbours as friend or foe, that the sudden absence of traditional adversaries has left governments and public opinion with a great void to fill. New enemies have to be identified, new strategies imagined, and new weapons devised." "In searching for a common enemy against whom we can unite, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like, would fit the bill. In their totality and their interactions these phenomena do constitute a common threat which must be confronted by everyone together. But in designating these dangers as the enemy, we fall into the trap, which we have already warned readers about, namely mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention in natural processes, and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy then is humanity itself."  In 2001 the Club of Rome established a think tank, called "tt30", consisting of about 30 men and women, ages 25–35. It aimed to identify and solve problems in the world, from the perspective of youth.  A study by Graham Turner of the research organisation CSIRO in Australia in 2008 found that "30 years of historical data compare favorably with key features of a business-as-usual scenario called the "standard run" scenario, which results in collapse of the global system midway through the 21st century."

Organization.

According to its website, the Club of Rome is composed of "scientists, economists, businessmen, international high civil servants, heads of state and former heads of state from all five continents who are convinced that the future of humankind is not determined once and for all and that each human being can contribute to the improvement of our societies."  The Club of Rome is a membership organization and has different membership categories. Full members engage in the research activities, projects, and contribute to decision-making processes during the Club's annual general assembly. Of the full members, 12 are elected to form the executive committee, which sets the general direction and the agenda. Of the executive committee, two are elected as co-presidents and two as vice-presidents. The secretary-general is elected from the members of the executive committee. The secretary-general is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the club from its headquarters in Winterthur, Switzerland. Aside from full members there are associate members, who participate in research and projects, but have no vote in the general assembly.  The club also has honorary members. Notable honorary members include Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands, Orio Giarini, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Mikhail Gorbachev, King Juan Carlos I of Spain, Horst Köhler, and Manmohan Singh.  The annual general assembly of 2016 took place in Berlin on 10–11 November. Among the guest speakers were former German President Christian Wulff, German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development Gerd Müller, as well as Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus.

National associations.

The Club has national associations in 35 countries and territories. The mission of the national associations is to spread the ideas and vision in their respective countries, to offer solutions and to lobby for a more sustainable and just economy in their nations, and to support the international secretariat of the Club with the organization of events, such as the annual general assembly.

Current activities.

there have been 43 reports to the club. These are peer-reviewed studies commissioned by the executive committee, or suggested by a member or group of members, or by outside individuals and institutions. The most recent is "Come On! Capitalism, Short-termism, Population and the Destruction of the Planet".  In 2016, the club initiated a new youth project called "Reclaim Economics". With this project they support students, activists, intellectuals, artists, video-makers, teachers, professors and others to "shift the teaching of economics away from the mathematical pseudo-science it has become."  On 14 March 2019, the Club of Rome issued an official statement in support of Greta Thunberg and the school strikes for climate, urging governments across the world to respond to this call for action and cut global carbon emissions.

Critics.

Nobel prize-winning economist Robert Solow criticized "The Limits to Growth" as having "simplistic" scenarios. He has also been a vocal critic of the Club of Rome, ostensibly for amateurism. He has said that "the one thing that really annoys me is amateurs making absurd statements about economics, and I thought that the Club of Rome was nonsense. Not because natural resources or environmental necessities might not at some time pose a limit, not on growth, but on the level of economic activity—I didn't think that was a nonsensical idea—but because the Club of Rome was doing amateur dynamics without a license, without a proper qualification. And they were doing it badly, so I got steamed up about that."  An analysis of the world model used for "The Limits to Growth" by mathematicians Vermeulens and Jongh shown it to be "very sensitive to small parameter variations" and having "dubious assumptions and approximations".  An interdisciplinary team at Sussex University's Science Policy Research Unit reviewed the structure and assumptions of the models used and published its finding in "Models of Doom"; showing that the forecasts of the world's future are very sensitive to a few unduly pessimistic key assumptions. The Sussex scientists also claim that the Meadows et al. methods, data, and predictions are faulty, that their world models (and their Malthusian bias) do not accurately reflect reality.

Founded in 1968 at Accademia dei Lincei in Rome, Italy, the Club of Rome consists of current and former heads of state, UN bureaucrats, high-level politicians and government officials, diplomats, scientists, economists, and business leaders from around the globe. It stimulated considerable public attention in 1972 with the first report to the Club of Rome, "The Limits to Growth". Since 1 July 2008 the organization has been based in Winterthur, Switzerland.

Le Club de Rome est un groupe de réflexion réunissant des scientifiques, des économistes, des fonctionnaires nationaux et internationaux, ainsi que des industriels de 52 pays, préoccupés des problèmes complexes auxquels doivent faire face toutes les sociétés, tant industrialisées qu'en développement.


History.

In 1974, Liskov and Zilles defined a strongly-typed language as one in which "whenever an object is passed from a calling function to a called function, its type must be compatible with the type declared in the called function." In 1977, Jackson wrote, "In a strongly typed language each data area will have a distinct type and each process will state its communication requirements in terms of these types."

Definitions of "strong" or "weak".

A number of different language design decisions have been referred to as evidence of "strong" or "weak" typing. In fact, many of these are more accurately understood as the presence or absence of type safety, memory safety, static type-checking, or dynamic type-checking.  "Strong typing" generally refers to use of programming language types in order to both capture invariants of the code, and ensure its correctness, and definitely exclude certain classes of programming errors. Thus there are many "strong typing" disciplines used to achieve these goals.

Implicit type conversions and "type punning".

Some programming languages make it easy to use a value of one type as if it were a value of another type. This is sometimes described as "weak typing".  For example, Aahz Maruch observes that "Coercion occurs when you have a statically typed language and you use the syntactic features of the language to force the usage of one type as if it were a different type (consider the common use of void* in C). Coercion is usually a symptom of weak typing. Conversion, on the other hand, creates a brand-new object of the appropriate type."  As another example, GCC describes this as type-punning and warns that it will break strict aliasing. Thiago Macieira discusses several problems that can arise when type-punning causes the compiler to make inappropriate optimizations.  There are many examples of languages that allow implicit type conversions, but in a type-safe manner. For example, both C++ and C# allow programs to define operators to convert a value from one type to another in a semantically meaningful way. When a C++ compiler encounters such a conversion, it treats the operation just like a function call. In contrast, converting a value to the C type is an unsafe operation that is invisible to the compiler.

Pointers.

Some programming languages expose pointers as if they were numeric values, and allow users to perform arithmetic on them. These languages are sometimes referred to as "weakly typed", since pointer arithmetic can be used to bypass the language's type system.

Untagged unions.

Some programming languages support untagged unions, which allow a value of one type to be viewed as if it were a value of another type.

Static type-checking.

In Luca Cardelli's article "Typeful Programming", a "strong type system" is described as one in which there is no possibility of an unchecked runtime type error. In other writing, the absence of unchecked run-time errors is referred to as "safety" or "type safety"; Tony Hoare's early papers call this property "security".

Dynamic type-checking.

Some programming languages do not have static type-checking. In many such languages, it is easy to write programs that would be rejected by most static type-checkers. For example, a variable might store either a number or the Boolean value "false".

Variation across programming languages.

Note that some of these definitions are contradictory, others are merely conceptually independent, and still others are special cases (with additional constraints) of other, more "liberal" (less strong) definitions. Because of the wide divergence among these definitions, it is possible to defend claims about most programming languages that they are either strongly or weakly typed. For instance:  For this reason, writers who wish to write unambiguously about type systems often eschew the term "strong typing" in favor of specific expressions such as "type safety".

In computer programming, programming languages are often colloquially classified as to whether the language's type system makes it strongly typed or weakly typed (loosely typed).

En informatique, un langage de programmation est dit fortement typé lorsqu'il garantit que les types de données employés décrivent correctement les données manipulées. Par opposition, un langage sans typage fort peut être faiblement typé, ou pas du tout typé (mais en pratique ce n'est jamais le cas).


Demographics.

As per the 2010 Zambian census, Copperbelt Province had a population of 1,972,317 accounting to 15.21% of the total Zambian population of 13,092,666. There were 981,887 males and 990,430 females, making the sex ratio to 1,009 for every 1,000 males, compared to the national average of 1,028. The literacy rate stood at 83.10% against a national average of 70.2%. The rural population constituted 19.11%, while the urban population was 80.89%. The total area of the province was 31,328 km and the population density was 63.00 per km. The population density during 2000 Zambian census stood at 63.00. The decadal population growth of the province was 2.20%. The median age in the province at the time of marriage was 21.7. The average household size was 5.3, with the families headed by females being 4.8 and 5.5 for families headed by men. The total eligible voters in the province was 66.10%. The unemployment rate of the province was 22.10%. The total fertility rate was 5.0, complete birth rate was 5.8, crude birth rate was 29.0, child women population at birth was 587, general fertility rate was 112, gross reproduction rate was 1.8 and net reproduction rate was 1.7. The total labour force constituted 50.40% of the total population. Out of the labour force,63.2% were men and 37.7% women. The annual growth rate of labour force was 2.7%. Bemba was the most spoken language with 83.90% speaking it. Albinism is a condition where the victims do not have any pigment in their skin, hair or eyes. The total population in the province with the condition stood at 2,912. The life expectancy at birth stood at 54 compared to the national average of 51.

Administration.

Provincial administration is set up purely for administrative purposes. The province is headed by a minister appointed by the President and there are ministries of central government for each province. The administrative head of the province is the Permanent Secretary, appointed by the President. There is a Deputy Permanent Secretary, heads of government departments and civil servants at the provincial level. Copperbelt Province is divided into ten districts, namely, Chililabombwe District, Chingola District, Kalulushi District, Kitwe District, Luanshya District, Lufwanyama District, Masaiti District, Mpongwe District, Mufulira District and Ndola District. All the district headquarters are the same as the district names. There are eleven councils in the province, each of which is headed by an elected representative, called councilor. Each councilor holds office for three years. The administrative staff of the council is selected based on Local Government Service Commission from within or outside the district. The office of the provincial government is located in each of the district headquarters and has provincial local government officers and auditors. Each council is responsible for raising and collecting local taxes and the budgets of the council are audited and submitted every year after the annual budget. The elected members of the council do not draw salaries, but are paid allowances from the council. Copper belt is a predominantly urban district and has three city councils. The government stipulates 63 different functions for the councils with the majority of them being infrastructure management and local administration. Councils are mandated to maintain each of their community centres, zoos, local parks, drainage system, playgrounds, cemeteries, caravan sites, libraries, museums and art galleries. They also work along with specific government departments for helping in agriculture, conservation of natural resources, postal service, establishing and maintaining hospitals, schools and colleges. The councils prepare schemes that encourage community participation.

Wildlife areas.

There are no national parks in this most urban and industrial of Zambia's provinces. Other parks with wildlife aspects:

Geography.

The Copperbelt region of Zambia and Congo D.R. is a 500 million year old mountain chain, the Lufilian Arc, which formed when two large pieces of continental crust, the Kalahari craton and the Congo craton, collided. This collision was one of the many that happened between 700 and 500 million years ago to form the Gondwana supercontinent.  This collision is thought to have remobilised base metals, largely already present in the sediments that had accumulated in the basin between the two cratons. These brines then concentrated the base metals either along stratigraphic boundaries, or along fractures, faults or within structurally controlled 'traps' (such as the nose of a fold). The collision also produced crustal shortening, during which the stratigraphic sequence was tectonically pushed northwards on top of the Congo Craton.  The Lufilian Arc contains two diamictites, megaconglomerates of glacial origin. One of those is correlated with the Sturtian glaciation, while another correlates with the Marinoan Glaciation, both global glaciation events that had profound influence on the history of the planet.  The Lufilian Arc is correlated along trend to the west with the Damara Orogen in Namibia, which also hosts large mineral deposits.  Copperbelt Province is rich with mineral finds and mines. The name of the province is given by the rich finds of copper ore (e.g. Chingola, Konkola, Nchanga Mines), but notable are also emerald mines along Kafubu River, which in the first 6 months of 2011 yielded 3.74 tons of high quality emeralds.

Economy and education.

As 2004, the province had 856 basic schools, 71 high schools and the number of school children out of school in ages between 7 and 15 stood at 856. The unemployment rate was 32 per cent and the general unemployment rate for youth stood at 55 per cent as of 2008. The province had 213 doctors as of 2005. There were 377 Malaria incidence for every 1,000 people in the province as of 2005 and there were 26,799 AIDS death as of 2010.  The total area of crops planted during the year 2014 in the province was 122,525.52 hectares which constituted 6.46% of the total area cultivated in Zambia. The net production stood at 315,153 metric tonnes, which formed 7.74% of the total agricultural production in the country. Maize was the major crop in the province with 37,610 metric tonnes, constituting 17.56% of the national output

Copperbelt Province is a province in Zambia which covers the mineral-rich Copperbelt, and farming and bush areas to the south. It was the backbone of the Northern Rhodesian economy during British colonial rule and fuelled the hopes of the immediate post-independence period, but its economic importance was severely damaged by a crash in global copper prices in 1973. The province adjoins Katanga province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is similarly mineral-rich.

La province du Copperbelt (littéralement la "ceinture de cuivre") est une province de Zambie, particulièrement riche en gisements minéraux. La province était la colonne vertébrale de l'économie de la Rhodésie du Nord au temps de la domination britannique, mais son importance économique s'est considérablement réduite depuis la chute des prix du cuivre en 1973.


Description.

"Arabidopsis thaliana" is an annual (rarely biennial) plant, usually growing to 20–25 cm tall. The leaves form a rosette at the base of the plant, with a few leaves also on the flowering stem. The basal leaves are green to slightly purplish in color, 1.5–5 cm long and 2–10 mm broad, with an entire to coarsely serrated margin; the stem leaves are smaller and unstalked, usually with an entire margin. Leaves are covered with small, unicellular hairs called trichomes. The flowers are 3 mm in diameter, arranged in a corymb; their structure is that of the typical Brassicaceae. The fruit is a siliqua 5–20 mm long, containing 20–30 seeds. Roots are simple in structure, with a single primary root that grows vertically downward, later producing smaller lateral roots. These roots form interactions with rhizosphere bacteria such as "Bacillus megaterium".  "A. thaliana" can complete its entire lifecycle in six weeks. The central stem that produces flowers grows after about three weeks, and the flowers naturally self-pollinate. In the lab, "A. thaliana" may be grown in Petri plates, pots, or hydroponics, under fluorescent lights or in a greenhouse.

Taxonomy.

The plant was first described in 1577 in the Harz Mountains by (1542–1583), a physician from Nordhausen, Thüringen, Germany, who called it "Pilosella siliquosa". In 1753, Carl Linnaeus renamed the plant "Arabis thaliana" in honor of Thal. In 1842, the German botanist Gustav Heynhold erected the new genus "Arabidopsis" and placed the plant in that genus. The genus name, "Arabidopsis", comes from Greek, meaning "resembling "Arabis"" (the genus in which Linnaeus had initially placed it).  Thousands of natural inbred accessions of "A. thaliana" have been collected from throughout its natural and introduced range. These accessions exhibit considerable genetic and phenotypic variation which can be used to study the adaptation of this species to different environments.

Distribution and habitat.

"A. thaliana" is native to Europe, Asia, Africa, and human observations indicate its geographic distribution is rather continuous from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia and Spain to Greece. It also appears to be native in tropical alpine ecosystems in Africa and perhaps South Africa. It has been introduced and naturalized worldwide, including in North America ca. the 17th century.  "A. thaliana" readily grows and often pioneers rocky, sandy and calcareous soils. It is generally considered a weed, due to its widespread distribution in agricultural fields, roadside, railway lines, waste ground and other disturbed habitats, but due to its limited competitive ability and small size it is not categorized as a noxious weed. Like most Brassicaceae species, "A. thaliana" is edible by humans as a salad or cooked, but it does not enjoy widespread use as a spring vegetable.

Use as a model organism.

Botanists and biologists began to research "A. thaliana" in the early 1900s, and the first systematic description of mutants was done around 1945. "A. thaliana" is now widely used for studying plant sciences, including genetics, evolution, population genetics, and plant development. Although "A. thaliana" has little direct significance for agriculture, it has several traits that make it a useful model for understanding the genetic, cellular, and molecular biology of flowering plants.  The first mutant in "A. thaliana" was documented in 1873 by Alexander Braun, describing a double flower phenotype (the mutated gene was likely "Agamous", cloned and characterized in 1990). However, not until 1943 did Friedrich Laibach (who had published the chromosome number in 1907) propose "A. thaliana" as a model organism. His student, Erna Reinholz, published her thesis on "A. thaliana" in 1945, describing the first collection of "A. thaliana" mutants that they generated using X-ray mutagenesis. Laibach continued his important contributions to "A. thaliana" research by collecting a large number of accessions (often questionably referred to as 'ecotypes'). With the help of Albert Kranz, these were organised into a large collection of 750 natural accessions of "A. thaliana" from around the world.  In the 1950s and 1960s, John Langridge and George Rédei played an important role in establishing "A. thaliana" as a useful organism for biological laboratory experiments. Rédei wrote several scholarly reviews instrumental in introducing the model to the scientific community. The start of the "A. thaliana" research community dates to a newsletter called "Arabidopsis" Information Service (AIS), established in 1964. The first International "Arabidopsis" Conference was held in 1965, in Göttingen, Germany.  In the 1980s, "A. thaliana" started to become widely used in plant research laboratories around the world. It was one of several candidates that included maize, petunia, and tobacco. The latter two were attractive, since they were easily transformable with the then-current technologies, while maize was a well-established genetic model for plant biology. 1986 was a breakthrough year for "A. thaliana" as a model plant, in which T-DNA-mediated transformation and the first cloned "A. thaliana" gene were described.

Genomics.

Nuclear genome.

The small size of its genome, and the fact that it is diploid, makes "Arabidopsis thaliana" useful for genetic mapping and sequencing — with about 135 mega base pairs and five chromosomes, "A. thaliana" has one of the smallest genomes among plants. It was long thought to have the smallest genome of all flowering plants, but that title is now considered to belong to plants in the genus "Genlisea", order Lamiales, with "Genlisea tuberosa", a carnivorous plant, showing a genome size of approximately 61 Mbp. It was the first plant genome to be sequenced, completed in 2000 by the Arabidopsis Genome Initiative. The most up-to-date version of the "A. thaliana" genome is maintained by the Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR). Much work has been done to assign functions to its 27,000 genes and the 35,000 proteins they encode. Post-genomic research, such as metabolomics, has also provided useful insights to the metabolism of this species and how environmental perturbations can affect metabolic processes.

Chloroplast genome.

The plastome of "Arabidopsis thaliana" is a 154,478 base pair long DNA molecule, a size typically encountered in most flowering plants (see the list of sequenced plastomes). It comprises 136 genes coding for small subunit ribosomal proteins ("rps", in yellow: see figure), large subunit ribosomal proteins ("rpl", orange), hypothetical chloroplast open reading frame proteins ("ycf", lemon), proteins involved in photosynthetic reactions (green) or in other functions (red), ribosomal RNAs ("rrn", blue), and transfer RNAs ("trn", black).

Mitochondrial genome.

The mitochondrial genome of "Arabidopsis thaliana" is 367,808 base pairs long and contains 57 genes. There are many repeated regions in the "Arabidopsis" mitochondrial genome. The largest repeats recombine regularly and isomerize the genome. Like most plant mitochondrial genomes, the "Arabidopsis" mitochondrial genome exists as a complex arrangement of overlapping branched and linear molecules "in vivo".

Genetics.

Genetic transformation of "A. thaliana" is routine, utilizing "Agrobacterium tumefaciens" to transfer DNA into the plant genome. The current protocol, termed "floral dip", involves simply dipping flowers into a solution containing "Agrobacterium" carrying a plasmid of interest and a detergent. This method avoids the need for tissue culture or plant regeneration.  The "A. thaliana" gene knockout collections are a unique resource for plant biology made possible by the availability of high-throughput transformation and funding for genomics resources. The site of T-DNA insertions has been determined for over 300,000 independent transgenic lines, with the information and seeds accessible through online T-DNA databases. Through these collections, insertional mutants are available for most genes in "A. thaliana".  Characterized accessions and mutant lines of "A. thaliana" serve as experimental material in laboratory studies. The most commonly used background lines are L"er" (Landsberg "erecta"), and Col, or Columbia. Other background lines less-often cited in the scientific literature are Ws, or Wassilewskija, C24, Cvi, or Cape Verde Islands, Nossen, etc. (see for ex.) Sets of closely related accessions named Col-0, Col-1, etc., have been obtained and characterized; in general, mutant lines are available through stock centers, of which best-known are the Nottingham Arabidopsis Stock Center-NASC and the Arabidopsis Biological Resource Center-ABRC in Ohio, USA. The Col-0 accession was selected by Rédei from within a (nonirradiated) population of seeds designated 'Landsberg' which he received from Laibach. Columbia (named for the location of Rédei's former institution, the University of Missouri in Columbia) was the reference accession sequenced in the "Arabidopsis" Genome Initiative. The Later" (Landsberg "erecta") line was selected by Rédei (because of its short stature) from a Landsberg population he had mutagenized with X-rays. As the L"er" collection of mutants is derived from this initial line, L"er"-0 does not correspond to the Landsberg accessions, which designated La-0, La-1, etc.  Trichome formation is initiated by the GLABROUS1 protein. Knockouts of the corresponding gene lead to glabrous plants. This phenotype has already been used in gene editing experiments and might be of interest as visual marker for plant research to improve gene editing methods such as CRISPR/Cas9.

Non-Mendelian inheritance controversy.

In 2005, scientists at Purdue University proposed that "A. thaliana" possessed an alternative to previously known mechanisms of DNA repair, producing an unusual pattern of inheritance. However, the phenomenon observed (reversion of mutant copies of the "HOTHEAD" gene to a wild-type state) was later suggested to be an artifact because the mutants show increased outcrossing due to organ fusion.

Life cycle.

The plant's small size and rapid lifecycle are also advantageous for research. Having specialized as a spring ephemeral, it has been used to found several laboratory strains that take about six weeks from germination to mature seed. The small size of the plant is convenient for cultivation in a small space, and it produces many seeds. Further, the selfing nature of this plant assists genetic experiments. Also, as an individual plant can produce several thousand seeds; each of the above criteria leads to "A. thaliana" being valued as a genetic model organism.

Development.

Flower development.

"A. thaliana "has been extensively studied as a model for flower development. The developing flower has four basic organs: sepals, petals, stamens, and carpels (which go on to form pistils). These organs are arranged in a series of whorls: four sepals on the outer whorl, followed by four petals inside this, six stamens, and a central carpel region. Homeotic mutations in "A. thaliana" result in the change of one organ to another—in the case of the "agamous" mutation, for example, stamens become petals and carpels are replaced with a new flower, resulting in a recursively repeated sepal-petal-petal pattern. Observations of homeotic mutations led to the formulation of the ABC model of flower development by E. Coen and E. Meyerowitz. According to this model, floral organ identity genes are divided into three classes: class A genes (which affect sepals and petals), class B genes (which affect petals and stamens), and class C genes (which affect stamens and carpels). These genes code for transcription factors that combine to cause tissue specification in their respective regions during development. Although developed through study of "A. thaliana" flowers, this model is generally applicable to other flowering plants.

Leaf development.

Studies of "A. thaliana" have provided considerable insights with regards to the genetics of leaf morphogenesis, particularly in dicotyledon-type plants. Much of the understanding has come from analyzing mutants in leaf development, some of which were identified in the 1960s, but were not analysed with genetic and molecular techniques until the mid-1990s. "A. thaliana" leaves are well suited to studies of leaf development because they are relatively simple and stable.  Using "A. thaliana", the genetics behind leaf shape development have become more clear and have been broken down into three stages: The initiation of the leaf primordium, the establishment of dorsiventrality, and the development of a marginal meristem. Leaf primordia are initiated by the suppression of the genes and proteins of class I "KNOX" family (such as "SHOOT APICAL MERISTEMLESS"). These class I KNOX proteins directly suppress gibberellin biosynthesis in the leaf primordium. Many genetic factors were found to be involved in the suppression of these class I "KNOX" genes in leaf primordia (such as "ASYMMETRIC LEAVES1," "BLADE-ON-PETIOLE1", "SAWTOOTH1", etc.). Thus, with this suppression, the levels of gibberellin increase and leaf primordium initiate growth.  The establishment of leaf dorsiventrality is important since the dorsal (adaxial) surface of the leaf is different from the ventral (abaxial) surface.

Microscopy.

"A. thaliana" is well suited for light microscopy analysis. Young seedlings on the whole, and their roots in particular, are relatively translucent. This, together with their small size, facilitates live cell imaging using both fluorescence and confocal laser scanning microscopy. By wet-mounting seedlings in water or in culture media, plants may be imaged uninvasively, obviating the need for fixation and sectioning and allowing time-lapse measurements. Fluorescent protein constructs can be introduced through transformation. The developmental stage of each cell can be inferred from its location in the plant or by using fluorescent protein markers, allowing detailed developmental analysis.

Physiology.

Light sensing, light emission, and circadian biology.

The photoreceptors phytochromes A, B, C, D, and E mediate red light-based phototropic response. Understanding the function of these receptors has helped plant biologists understand the signalling cascades that regulate photoperiodism, germination, de-etiolation, and shade avoidance in plants.  The UVR8 protein detects UV-B light and mediates the response to this DNA damaging wavelength.  "A. thaliana" was used extensively in the study of the genetic basis of phototropism, chloroplast alignment, and stomatal aperture and other blue light-influenced processes. These traits respond to blue light, which is perceived by the phototropin light receptors. Arabidopsis has also been important in understanding the functions of another blue light receptor, cryptochrome, which is especially important for light entrainment to control the plants' circadian rhythms. When the onset of darkness is unusually early, "A. thaliana" reduces its metabolism of starch by an amount that effectively requires division.  Light responses were even found in roots, previously thought to be largely insensitive to light. While the gravitropic response of "A. thaliana" root organs is their predominant tropic response, specimens treated with mutagens and selected for the absence of gravitropic action showed negative phototropic response to blue or white light, and positive response to red light, indicating that the roots also show positive phototropism.  In 2000, Dr. Janet Braam of Rice University genetically engineered "A. thaliana" to glow in the dark when touched. The effect was visible to ultrasensitive cameras.  Multiple efforts, including the Glowing Plant project, have sought to use "A. thaliana" to increase plant luminescence intensity towards commercially viable levels.

On the Moon.

On January 2, 2019, China's Chang'e-4 lander brought "A. thaliana" to the moon. A small microcosm 'tin' in the lander contained "A. thaliana", seeds of potatoes, and silkworm eggs. As plants would support the silkworms with oxygen, and the silkworms would in turn provide the plants with necessary carbon dioxide and nutrients through their waste, researchers will evaluate whether plants successfully perform photosynthesis, and grow and bloom in the lunar environment.

Plant–pathogen interactions.

It is important to understand how plants achieve resistance to protect the world's food production, as well as the agriculture industry. Many model systems have been developed to better understand interactions between plants and bacterial, fungal, oomycete, viral, and nematode pathogens. "Arabidopsis thaliana" has been a powerful tool for the study of the subdiscipline of plant pathology, that is, the interaction between plants and disease-causing pathogens.  The use of "A. thaliana" has led to many breakthroughs in the advancement of knowledge of how plants manifest plant disease resistance. The reason most plants are resistant to most pathogens is through nonhost resistance. This is, not all pathogens will infect all plants. An example where "A. thaliana" was used to determine the genes responsible for nonhost resistance is "Blumeria graminis", the causal agent of powdery mildew of grasses. "A. thaliana" mutants were developed using the mutagen ethyl methanesulfonate and screened to identify mutants with increased infection by "B. graminis". The mutants with higher infection rates are referred to as PEN mutants due to the ability of "B. graminis" to penetrate "A. thaliana" to begin the disease process. The PEN genes were later mapped to identify the genes responsible for nonhost resistance to "B. graminis".  In general, when a plant is exposed to a pathogen, or nonpathogenic microbe, there is an initial response, known as PAMP-triggered immunity (PTI), because the plant detects conserved motifs known as pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs). These PAMPs are detected by specialized receptors in the host known as pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) on the plant cell surface.  The best-characterized PRR in "A. thaliana" is FLS2 (Flagellin-Sensing2), which recognizes bacterial flagellin, a specialized organelle used by microorganisms for the purpose of motility, as well as the ligand flg22, which comprises the 22 amino acids recognized by FLS2. Discovery of FLS2 was facilitated by the identification of an "A. thaliana" ecotype, Ws-0, that was unable to detect flg22, leading to the identification of the gene encoding FLS2.  A second PRR, EF-Tu receptor (EFR), identified in "A. thaliana", recognizes the bacterial EF-Tu protein, the prokaryotic elongation factor used in protein synthesis, as well as the laboratory-used ligand elf18. Using "Agrobacterium"-mediated transformation, a technique that takes advantage of the natural process by which "Agrobacterium" transfers genes into host plants, the EFR gene was transformed into "Nicotiana benthamiana", tobacco plant that does not recognize EF-Tu, thereby permitting recognition of bacterial EF-Tu thereby confirming EFR as the receptor of EF-Tu.  Both FLS2 and EFR use similar signal transduction pathways to initiate PTI. "A. thaliana" has been instrumental in dissecting these pathways to better understand the regulation of immune responses, the most notable one being the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAP kinase) cascade. Downstream responses of PTI include callose deposition, the oxidative burst, and transcription of defense-related genes.  PTI is able to combat pathogens in a nonspecific manner. A stronger and more specific response in plants is that of effector-triggered immunity (ETI). ETI is dependent upon the recognition of pathogen effectors, proteins secreted by the pathogen that alter functions in the host, by plant resistance genes (R-genes), often described as a gene-for-gene relationship. This recognition may occur directly or indirectly via a guardee protein in a hypothesis known as the guard hypothesis. The first R-gene cloned in "A. thaliana" was RPS2 (resistance to "Pseudomonas syringae" 2), which is responsible for recognition of the effector avrRpt2. The bacterial effector avrRpt2 is delivered into "A. thaliana" via the Type III secretion system of "P. syringae pv tomato" strain DC3000. Recognition of avrRpt2 by RPS2 occurs via the guardee protein RIN4, which is cleaved. Recognition of a pathogen effector leads to a dramatic immune response known as the hypersensitive response, in which the infected plant cells undergo cell death to prevent the spread of the pathogen.  Systemic acquired resistance (SAR) is another example of resistance that is better understood in plants because of research done in "A. thaliana". Benzothiadiazol (BTH), a salicylic acid (SA) analog, has been used historically as an antifungal compound in crop plants. BTH, as well as SA, has been shown to induce SAR in plants. The initiation of the SAR pathway was first demonstrated in "A. thaliana" in which increased SA levels are recognized by nonexpresser of PR genes 1 (NPR1) due to redox change in the cytosol, resulting in the reduction of NPR1. NPR1, which usually exists in a multiplex (oligomeric) state, becomes monomeric (a single unit) upon reduction. When NPR1 becomes monomeric, it translocates to the nucleus, where it interacts with many TGA transcription factors, and is able to induce pathogen-related genes such as PR1. Another example of SAR would be the research done with transgenic tobacco plants, which express bacterial salicylate hydroxylase, nahG gene, requires the accumulation of SA for its expression

Evolutionary aspect of plant-pathogen resistance.

Plants are affected by multiple pathogens throughout their lifetime. In response to the presence of pathogens, plants have evolved receptors on the cell surface to detect and respond to pathogens. "Arabidopsis Thaliana" is a model organism used to determine specific defense mechanisms of plant-pathogen resistance. These plants have special receptors on their cell surfaces that allow for detection of pathogens and initiate mechanisms to inhibit pathogen growth. They contain two receptors, FLS2 (bacterial flagellin receptor) and EF-Tu (bacterial EF-Tu protein), which use signal transduction pathways to initiate the disease response pathway. The pathway leads to the recognition of the pathogen causing the infected cells to undergo cell death to stop the spread of the pathogen. Plants with FLS2 and EF-Tu receptors have shown to have increased fitness in the population. This has led to the belief that plant-pathogen resistance is an evolutionary mechanism that has built up over generations to respond to dynamic environments, such as increased predation and extreme temperatures.  "A. thaliana" has also been used to study systemic acquired resistance (SAR). This pathway utilizes Benzothiadiazol, a chemical inducer, to induce transcription factors, mRNA, of SAR genes. This accumulation of transcription factors leads to inhibition of pathogen-related genes.  Plant-pathogen interactions are important for an understanding of how plants have evolved to combat different types of pathogens that may affect them. Variation in resistance of plants across populations is due to variation in environmental factors. Plants that have evolved resistance, whether it be the general variation or the SAR variation, have been able to live longer and hold off necrosis of their tissue (premature death of cells), which leads to better adaptation and fitness for populations that are in rapidly changing environments.

Other research.

Ongoing research on "Arabidopsis thaliana" is being performed on the International Space Station by the European Space Agency. The goals are to study the growth and reproduction of plants from seed to seed in microgravity.  'Plant on a chip' devices in which "A. thaliana" tissues can be cultured in semi in-vitro conditions have been described. Use of these devices may aid our understanding of pollen tube guidance and the mechanism of sexual reproduction in "A. thaliana."

Self-pollination.

"A. thaliana" is a predominantly self-pollinating plant with an outcrossing rate estimated at less than 0.3%. An analysis of the genome-wide pattern of linkage disequilibrium suggested that self-pollination evolved roughly a million years ago or more. Meioses that lead to self-pollination are unlikely to produce significant beneficial genetic variability. However, these meioses can provide the adaptive benefit of recombinational repair of DNA damages during formation of germ cells at each generation. Such a benefit may have been sufficient to allow the long-term persistence of meioses even when followed by self-fertilization. A physical mechanism for self-pollination in "A. thaliana" is through pre-anthesis autogamy, such that fertilisation takes place largely before flower opening.

Arabidopsis thaliana, the thale cress, mouse-ear cress or arabidopsis, is a small flowering plant native to Eurasia and Africa. "A. thaliana" is considered a weed; it is found by roadsides and in disturbed land.

L'Arabette des dames ou Arabette de Thalius ("Arabidopsis thaliana" (L.) Heynh.) est une espèce de plantes appartenant à la famille des Brassicacées. Cette petite plante annuelle, originaire d'Europe, d'Asie et du nord-ouest de l'Afrique, a un cycle de vie rapide (six semaines de graines à graines), elle est résistante et peut s'autoféconder. Ces qualités en ont fait depuis 1998 un organisme modèle de référence, pour la recherche aussi bien biologique que génétique.


Synopsis.

The story focuses on Scottish writer J. M. Barrie, his platonic relationship with Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, and his close friendship with her sons named George, Jack, Peter and Michael, who inspire the classic play "Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Never Grew Up".

Plot.

Following the dismal reception of his latest play, "Little Mary", Barrie meets the widowed Sylvia and her four young sons (George, Jack, Peter and Michael) in Kensington Gardens, and a strong, close friendship develops among them. He proves to be a great playmate and surrogate father figure for the boys, and their imaginative antics give him ideas which he incorporates into a play about boys who do not want to grow up, especially one named after troubled young Peter Llewelyn Davies. Although Barrie sees this family as wonderful and inspirational, people question his relationship with the Llewelyn Davies family. Sylvia was a widow: her husband died from cancer and left her with four boys to bring up on her own. Barrie's wife Mary, who eventually divorces him, and Sylvia's mother Emma du Maurier, object to the amount of time Barrie spends with the Llewelyn Davies family. Emma also seeks to control her daughter and grandsons, especially as Sylvia becomes increasingly weak from an unidentified illness. Along the way, Barrie goes on adventures with Sylvia and her boys. He too is a boy at heart and spending time with the family is special. Barrie takes those adventures he has with the boys and makes them into a play called "Peter Pan".  Producer Charles Frohman skeptically agrees to mount "Peter Pan", despite his belief that it holds no appeal for upper-class theatergoers. Barrie peppers the opening night audience with children from a nearby orphanage, and the adults present react to their infectious delight with an appreciation of their own. The play proves to be a huge success. Barrie is all set for his play, but when Peter arrives alone to the play, Barrie goes to Sylvia's house to check up on her, and misses the show. Peter attends the play and realises the play is about his brothers and Barrie.  Sylvia is too ill to attend the premiere, so Barrie arranges to have an abridged production of it performed in her home. He gets the actors, props and musicians together in the Llewelyn Davies house. At the end of the play, Peter Pan points to the back doors and implies that Sylvia should go off to Neverland. She takes the hands of her boys and slowly walks out into Neverland. The living room and back garden transform into Neverland and Sylvia continues to walk on her own.  In the next scene, everyone is at Sylvia's funeral. Barrie discovers that her will says that he and her mother should look after the boys, an arrangement agreeable to both. The film ends with J. M. Barrie finding Peter on the bench in the park where they first met after Peter ran off from the graveyard. Peter is holding his book where he wrote the plays that he ripped apart and that his mother glued back together for him. Barrie sits down and puts his arm around Peter to comfort him. They both fade, and all that is left is the bench.

Cast.

In addition to Johnny Depp as Barrie and Kate Winslet as Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, the film stars Dustin Hoffman as producer Charles Frohman, Julie Christie as Sylvia's mother Emma du Maurier and Radha Mitchell (who had starred in Forster's "Everything Put Together") as Barrie's wife Mary. Hoffman had appeared a dozen years earlier in title role of the Peter Pan sequel "Hook" (1991). The original screenplay for this film included a scene in which his character – the play's sceptical producer – was to put on the Captain Hook costume and read some of his lines to point out how silly he found it. Hoffman objected to this, so the scene was rewritten for him to simply read aloud and ridicule character names from the play.  The Llewelyn Davies boys are portrayed by Freddie Highmore (Peter), Nick Roud (George), Joe Prospero (Jack) and Luke Spill (Michael). Highmore's performance in this film led Johnny Depp to suggest him to Tim Burton for "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", in which Highmore played Charlie Bucket and Depp played Willy Wonka. Ian Hart appears as Barrie's friend Arthur Conan Doyle. Oliver Fox plays Mary's lover Gilbert Cannan.  Within the film are scenes of a production of the play, featuring Kelly Macdonald as "Peter Pan", Angus Barnett as "Nana", Toby Jones as "Smee", Kate Maberly as "Wendy Darling", Matt Green as "John Darling", Catrin Rhys as "Michael Darling", Tim Potter as "Captain Hook"/"George Darling" and Jane Booker as "Mary Darling". Mackenzie Crook plays Mr. Jaspers, the theatre usher. Paul Whitehouse plays the stage manager. Eileen Essell, 82 years old at the time, makes one of her first feature film appearances, as Mrs. Snow, an elderly friend and fan of Barrie's. Like Highmore, she also followed Depp to a role in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". Jimmy Gardner plays her husband.

Production.

"Finding Neverland" originally was scheduled to be released in the autumn of 2003. Columbia Pictures, which owned the film rights to Barrie's original play and was adapting it for cinema release the same year, refused to allow Miramax to use scenes from the play in "Finding Neverland" if it were released during the same year. Miramax agreed to delay the release in exchange for the rights to reproduce scenes from the stage production within the film. "Finding Neverland" opened in 2004, 100 years after Barrie's play opened.  Richmond Theatre in Richmond upon Thames doubled as the "Duke of York's Theatre" - the venue in which "Peter Pan" was first presented. Exterior scenes were filmed in Hyde Park, Brompton Cemetery and Kensington Gardens. According to commentary on the DVD release, the structure used as Barrie's summer cottage was located near Kent. Interiors were filmed in the Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire and the Shepperton Studios in Surrey.  Filming in various places in the UK. Production shot a short fantasy sequence at the Laredo Wild West Town in Kent. The town features in multiple fantasy playing sessions set in the Wild West, when Barrie (Johnny Depp) plays with the Llewellyn Davies boys.

Release.

The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival. It was shown at the Telluride Film Festival, the Haifa Film Festival, the Athens Panorama European Film Festival, the Mill Valley Film Festival, the Chicago International Film Festival and the Leeds International Film Festival before opening in the UK on 29 October 2004.  It had a limited release in the United States on November 12, 2004, and opened more widely on November 24, 2004.

Reception.

Box office.

The film was budgeted at $25 million. It grossed $51,676,606 in the US and $63 million in foreign markets for a total worldwide box office of $115,036,108.

Critical reception.

On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 83% based on 202 reviews, with an average rating of 7.5/10.  In her review in "The Times", Wendy Ide called the film "charming but rather idiosyncratic" and added, "A mixture of domestic drama, tragedy and exuberant fantasy, the film blends moist-eyed nostalgia with the cruel disappointments of a marriage break-up; a childlike playfulness and unpredictability with a portrait of a treacherously unforgiving and rigid Edwardian society. It could appeal to everyone from preteens to pensioners, or it could appeal to no one at all. Ultimately this unconventionality is probably one of the film’s main strengths. And if the tone veers a little haphazardly between fantasy and cold, hard reality, well, perhaps that is the most effective way of taking us into the mind of the film's mercurial protagonist."  Manohla Dargis of "The New York Times" said it "is the kind of film where even the smallest crack has been sealed. Instead of real quirks, strange habits, moments of everyday gas, gurgle and grunting, movies like this give us sumptuous production design, meticulous costumes and stories meant to leave us dewy-eyed and thoughtful, if never actually disturbed... The problem isn't the liberties the filmmakers take with reality, but that this isn't an engaging bowdlerization... Johnny Depp neither soars nor crashes, but moseys forward with vague purpose and actorly restraint... [he] and Ms. Winslet are pleasant to watch, as are the actors who play the Davies boys, but they haven't been pushed to their limits."  In the "San Francisco Chronicle", Mick LaSalle observed the film "ends so beautifully, so poignantly and so aptly that there's a big temptation to forget that most of what precedes the ending is tiresome drivel, that Johnny Depp's performance... is precious and uninsightful, and that almost all the movie's magic derives directly from scenes lifted from Barrie's play. Winslet's no-nonsense strength is especially appreciated... Another actress would have followed Depp into the quicksand of faux-poetic self-indulgence. But Winslet is direct, grounded and heartfelt in a recognizably human way. Dustin Hoffman, as Barrie's producer, also steers clear of Depp's rhythms, though he has trouble deciding whether the producer is British or American."  Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" rated the film 31⁄2 out of a possible four stars and called it "glorious entertainment... magical, not mush." About Depp he said, "It's too early to speculate on how [he] will grow as an actor. Based on "Finding Neverland", it's not too early to call him a great one."  In the "St. Petersburg Times", Steve Persall graded the film B and commented, "A first viewing of "Finding Neverland" was tear-inducing and completely satisfying. Seeing it again was a mistake, less of my own than Forster's, who didn't make a movie that can sustain its magic beyond first impressions. Problems with David Magee's screenplay that initially could be shrugged off—occasionally slow pacing, melodramatic plot twists—became glaring. With familiarity, the fantasy simply wasn't as fanciful. It felt like growing up, and it was disappointing. On the other hand, many of the film's qualities are too strong to falter, starting with another fascinating man-child performance by Johnny Depp as Barrie."  Carina Chocano of the "Los Angeles Times" described the film as "gently seductive, genuinely tender and often moving without being maudlin" and added, "Depp and Winslet share a rare combination of airiness, earthiness and sharp, wry intelligence."

In other media.

Theatre.

On February 6, 2011, La Jolla Playhouse, California, announced that they would produce a new stage musical based on the film with the book by Allan Knee, score by Scott Frankel and Michael Korie, and directed and choreographed by Rob Ashford. A planned production at La Jolla Playhouse was not held. A developmental reading was held in New York on March 31, 2011, with Julian Ovenden, Kelli O'Hara, Tony Roberts, Mary Beth Peil, Michael Cumpsty, and Meredith Patterson, directed by Ashford. The adaptation had its world premiere on 22 September 2012 at Curve in Leicester. Directed by Rob Ashford, it stars Julian Ovenden as J.M Barrie and West End actress Rosalie Craig as Sylvia Llewelyn Davies.  On August 14, 2014, it was announced that the show would transfer to Broadway in March 2015. The show played at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. On 10 November 2014 it was announced that Tony, Emmy and Golden Globe-nominee Matthew Morrison would take Jordan's place in the portrayal of J. M. Barrie in the production's spring 2015 move to Broadway. Kelsey Grammer starred as Charles Frohman and Laura Michelle Kelly will again play the role of Sylvia Llewelyn Davies.

Finding Neverland is a 2004 historical fantasy drama film directed by Marc Forster and written by David Magee, based on the 1988 play "The Man Who Was Peter Pan" by Allan Knee. The film is about playwright J. M. Barrie and his relationship with a family who inspired him to create "Peter Pan". The film earned seven nominations at the 77th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Actor for Johnny Depp, and won for Best Original Score. The film was the inspiration for the stage musical of the same name in 2012.

Neverland ou Voyage au pays imaginaire au Québec et au Nouveau-Brunswick ("") est un film britannico-américain réalisé par Marc Forster, sorti en salles en 2004.


Etymology.

The rand takes its name from the Witwatersrand ("white waters' ridge" in English), the ridge upon which Johannesburg is built and where most of South Africa's gold deposits were found.

History.

The rand was introduced in the Union of South Africa on 14 February 1961, three months before the country declared itself a republic. A Decimal Coinage Commission had been set up in 1956 to consider a move away from the denominations of pounds, shillings, and pence; it submitted its recommendations on 8 August 1958. It replaced the South African pound as legal tender, at the rate of 2 rand to 1 pound, or 10 shillings to the rand. The government introduced a mascot, Decimal Dan, "the rand-cent man" (known in Afrikaans as Daan Desimaal). This was accompanied by a radio jingle, to inform the public about the new currency.

Brief exchange rate history.

1971–2000.

One rand was worth US$1.40 from the time of its inception in 1961 until late 1971, and the US$ became stronger than South African currency for the first time on Monday, 15 March 1982. Its value thereafter fluctuated as various exchange rate dispensations were implemented by the South African authorities. By the early 1980s, high inflation and mounting political pressure combined with sanctions placed against the country due to international opposition to the apartheid system had started to erode its value. The currency broke above parity with the dollar for the first time in March 1982, and continued to trade between R 1 and R 1.30 to the dollar until June 1984, when depreciation of the currency gained momentum. By February 1985, it was trading at over R 2 per dollar, and in July that year, all foreign exchange trading was suspended for three days to try to stop the depreciation.  By the time that State President P. W. Botha made his Rubicon speech on 15 August 1985, it had weakened to R 2.40 per dollar. The currency recovered somewhat between 1986–88, trading near the R 2 level most of the time and even breaking beneath it sporadically. The recovery was short-lived, however, and by the end of 1989, the rand was trading at more than R 2.50 per dollar.  As it became clear in the early 1990s that the country was destined for Black majority rule and one reform after the other was announced, uncertainty about the future of the country hastened the depreciation until the level of R 3 to the dollar was breached in November 1992. A host of local and international events influenced the currency after that, most notably the 1994 general election, which had it weaken to over R 3.60 to the dollar, the election of Tito Mboweni as the governor of the South African Reserve Bank, and the inauguration of President Thabo Mbeki in 1999, which had it quickly slide to over R 6 to the dollar. The controversial land reform programme that was initiated in Zimbabwe, followed by the September 11, 2001 attacks, propelled it to its weakest historical level of R 13.84 to the dollar in December 2001.

2001–2011.

This sudden depreciation in 2001 led to a formal investigation, which in turn led to a dramatic recovery. By the end of 2002, the currency was trading under R 9 to the dollar again, and by the end of 2004 was trading under R 5.70 to the dollar. The currency softened somewhat in 2005, and was trading around R 6.35 to the dollar at the end of the year. At the start of 2006, however, the currency resumed its rally, and as of 19 January 2006, was trading under R 6 to the dollar again. However, during the second and third quarters of 2006 (i.e. April through September), the rand weakened significantly.  In sterling terms, it fell from around 9.5% to just over 7%, losing some 25% of its international trade-weighted value in just six months. In late 2007, the rand rallied modestly to just over 8%, only to experience a precipitous slide during the first quarter of 2008.  This downward slide could be attributed to a range of factors: South Africa's worsening current account deficit, which widened to a 36‐year high of 7.3% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2007; inflation at a five-year high of just under 9%; escalating global risk aversion as investors' concerns over the spreading impact of the sub-prime crisis grew; and a general flight to "safe havens", away from the perceived risks of emerging markets. The rand depreciation was exacerbated by the Eskom electricity crisis, which arose from the utility being unable to meet the country's rapidly growing energy demands.

2012–present.

A stalled mining industry in late 2012 led to new lows in early 2013. In late January 2014, the rand slid to R11.25 to the dollar, with analysts attributing the shift to "word from the US Federal Reserve that it would trim back stimulus spending, which led to a massive sell-off in emerging economies." In 2014, South Africa experienced its worst year against the US dollar since 2009, and in March 2015, the rand traded at its worst since 2002. At the time, Trading Economics released data that the rand "averaged R4.97 to the dollar between 1972–2015, reaching an all time high of R12.45 in December 2001 and a record low of R0.67 in June of 1973." By the end of 2014, the rand had weakened to R 15.05 per dollar, partly due to South Africa's consistent trade account deficit with the rest of the world. From 9–13 December 2015, over a four-day period, the rand dropped over 10% due to what some suspected was President Zuma's surprise announcement that he would be replacing the Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene with the little-known David van Rooyen. The rapid drop in value was stemmed when Zuma backtracked and announced that the better-known previous Minister of Finance, Pravin Gordhan, would instead be appointed to the post. Zuma's surprise sacking of Nene damaged international confidence in the rand, and the exchange rate was volatile throughout much of January 2016, and reached an all-time low of R 17.9169 to the US dollar on 9 January 2016 before rebounding to R 16.57 later the same day.  The January drop in value was also partly caused by Japanese retail investors cutting their losses in the currency to look for higher-yield investments elsewhere and due to concerns over the impact of the economic slowdown in China, South Africa's largest export market. By mid-January, economists were speculating that the rand could expect to see further volatility for the rest of 2016. By 29 April, it reached its highest performance over the previous five months, exchanging at a rate of 14.16 to the United States dollar.  Following the United Kingdom voting to leave the European Union, the rand dropped in value over 8% against the US$ on 24 June 2016, the currency's largest single-day decline since the 2008 economic crash. This was partly due to a general global financial retreat from currencies seen as risky to the US dollar and partly due to concerns over how British withdrawal from the EU would impact the South African economy and trade relations.  In April 2017, a Reuters poll estimated that the rand would remain relatively stable for the rest of the year, as two polls found that analysts had already factored in a possible downgrade to "junk" status. At the time, Moody's rated South Africa two notches above junk status. When President Jacob Zuma narrowly won a motion of no confidence in South Africa in August 2017, the rand continued to slide, dropping 1.7% that day. In September 2017, Goldman Sachs said that the debt and corruption of Eskom Holdings was the biggest risk to South Africa's economy and the exchange rate of the rand. At the time, it had no permanent CEO, and Colin Coleman of Goldman Sachs in Africa said the company was "having discussions on solutions" on finding credible management. In October 2017, the rand firmed against the US dollar as it recovered from a six-month low. Reuters noted that "South Africa is highly susceptible to global investor sentiment as the country relies on foreign money to cover its large budget and current account deficits." On 13 November 2017, the rand fell by over 1% when the budget chief Michael Sachs stood down from his position in Zuma's administration.

Coins.

Coins were introduced in 1961 in denominations of, 1,, 5, 10, 20, and 50 cents. In 1965, 2-cent coins replaced the -cent coins. The -cent coin was last struck for circulation in 1973. The 1-rand coin for circulation was introduced in 1967, followed by 2-rand coins in 1989 and 5-rand coins in 1994. Production of the 1- and 2-cent coins was discontinued in 2002, followed by 5-cent coins in 2012, primarily due to inflation having devalued them, but they remain legal tender. Shops normally round the total purchase price of goods to the nearest 10 cents (in favour of the consumer).  In an effort to curb counterfeiting, a new 5-rand coin was released in August 2004. Security features introduced on the coin include a bimetal design (similar to the €1 and €2 coins, the Thai 10-baht coin, the Philippine ten peso coin [the coin was changed the composition to nickel-plated steel in 2018], the British £2 coin, and the Canadian $2 coin), a specially serrated security groove along the rim and microlettering.

Banknotes.

The first series of rand banknotes was introduced in 1961 in denominations of 1-, 2-, 10-, and 20-rand, with similar designs and colours to the preceding pound notes to ease the transition. They bore the image of what was believed at the time to be Jan van Riebeeck, the first V.O.C. administrator of Cape Town. It was later discovered that the image was not in fact Van Riebeeck at all, a portrait of Bartholomeus Vermuyden had been mistaken for Van Riebeeck. Like the last pound notes, they were printed in two variants, one with English written first and the other with Afrikaans written first.  In 1966, a second series was released with designs which moved away from the previous pound notes. Notes with denominations of 1-, 5- and 10-rand were produced with predominantly one colour per note. A smaller 1-rand note with the same design was introduced in 1973 and a 2-rand note was introduced in 1974. The 20-rand denomination from the first series was dropped. All notes bore the image of Jan van Riebeeck. The practice of having an English and an Afrikaans version of each note was continued in this series.  The 1978 series began with denominations of 2-, 5-, 10- and 20-rand, with a 50-rand introduced in 1984. This series had only one language variant for each denomination of note. Afrikaans was the first language on the 2-, 10-, and 50-rand, while English was the first language on the 5- and 20-rand. The 1-rand note was replaced by a coin.  In the 1990s, the notes were redesigned with images of the Big Five wildlife species. 10-, 20- and 50-rand notes were introduced in 1992 & 1993, retaining the colour scheme of the previous issue. Coins were introduced for the 2- and 5-rand, replacing the notes of the previous series, mainly because of the severe wear and tear experienced with low-denomination notes in circulation. In 1994, 100- and 200-rand notes were introduced.  The 2005 series has the same principal design, but with additional security features such as colour-shifting ink on the 50-rand and higher and the EURion constellation. The obverses of all denominations were printed in English, while two other official languages were printed on the reverse, thus making use of all 11 official languages of South Africa.  In 2010, the South African Reserve Bank and commercial banks withdrew all 1994 series 200-rand banknotes due to relatively high-quality counterfeit notes in circulation.  In 2011, the South African Reserve Bank issued 100-rand banknotes which were defective because they lacked fluorescent printing visible under UV light. In June, printing of this denomination was moved from the South African Bank Note Company to Crane Currency's Swedish division (Tumba Bruk), which reportedly produced 80 million 100-rand notes. The South African Reserve Bank shredded 3.6 million 100-rand banknotes printed by Crane Currency because they had the same serial numbers as a batch printed by the South African Bank Note Company. In addition, the notes printed in Sweden were not the correct colour, and they were 1 mm short.  On 11 February 2012, President Jacob Zuma announced that the country would be issuing a new set of banknotes bearing Nelson Mandela's image. They were entered into circulation on 6 November 2012. These contained the same denominations of 10-, 20-, 50-, 100- and 200-rand.  In 2013, the 2012 series was updated with the addition of the EURion constellation to all five denominations.  On 18 July 2018, a special commemorative series of banknotes was released in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's birth. This series includes notes of all denominations, 10-, 20-, 50-, 100- and 200-rand. These notes will circulate alongside the existing notes. The notes depict the standard face of Nelson Mandela on the obverse, but instead of the Big Five animals on the reverse, they show a younger Mandela with different iconic scenes relating to his legacy. These scenes comprise: the rolling hills of the Eastern Cape, featuring Mandela's humble birthplace of Mvezo (10-rand); the home of Mandela in Soweto, where he defined his political life alongside other struggle icons (20-rand); the site where Mandela was captured near Howick, following 17 months in hiding, where a monument to him has been erected (50-rand); the place of Mandela's 27-year imprisonment at Robben Island, showing a pile of quarried limestone (100-rand); the statue of Mandela at the Union Buildings in remembrance of when he was inaugurated there in 1994 (200-rand).

Written Number System.

The written number system for the rand follows the continental money system, that is, denominated in multiplication of 10s and division of 10s after the decimal comma. For example, the amount R 125,55 or one hundred twenty-five rand and fifty-five cents would be written in its number system table as:

The rand (sign: R; code: ZAR) is the official currency of South Africa. The rand is subdivided into 100 cents (sign: "c"). The ISO 4217 code is ZAR, from (South African rand); the "ZA" is a historical relic from Dutch and is not used in any current context except the country abbreviation, where it is used because "SA" is allocated to Saudi Arabia (and SAR to the Saudi Arabian Riyal). The only correct Afrikaans spelling is.

Le rand est la monnaie officielle de l’Afrique du Sud (symbole : R, code ISO : ZAR). Elle a été créée le, lors du retrait du Commonwealth et de la fondation de la République d'Afrique du Sud, pour remplacer la livre sud-africaine. Outre l'Afrique du Sud, le rand est également en usage au Lesotho et en Eswatini, dans le cadre de l'Aire monétaire commune. La Namibie utilise, quant à elle, le dollar namibien.