title: Gilead (novel)

text: The abstract and theological content of the book is seen through the eyes of Ames, who is presented in a deeply sympathetic manner and who writes his memoir from a position of serenity, despite his suffering and a knowledge of his own limitations and failings. Throughout the novel, Ames details a reverential awe for the transcendental pathos in the small personal moments of happiness and peace with his wife and son and the town of Gilead, despite the loneliness and sorrow he feels for leaving the world with things undone and unsolved. He is able to revel in the beauty of the world around him and takes the time to appreciate and engage with these small wonders at the end of his life. In this way the novel teaches the importance of stepping back and enjoying present realities. Ames marvels in the everyday and commonplace and wishes this attitude for his son, also. He proclaims his desire for his son "to live long and… love this poor perishable world". Ames takes the time to be fully present and intentional in everything that he does, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem. An example of this from the novel is towards the beginning on page 5 when he passes two young men joking around and laughing with one another on the street and Ames is filled with a sense of awe at the beauty of such a simple expression of friendship and joy. In this way Ames sees the allure in both the ordinary and mundane as well as the tragic. He begins to express a viewpoint that the purpose of life is to look for things to appreciate and be thankful for. In the closing pages of the book, Ames learns of Jack Boughton's true situation and is able to offer him the genuine affection and forgiveness he has never before been able to feel for him.


title: Gilead (novel)

text: According to Robinson, the fictional town of Gilead ("Gilead" means 'hill of testimony' in the Bible – Genesis 31:21) is based on the real town of Tabor, Iowa, located in the southwest corner of the state and well known for its importance in the abolition movement. Likewise, the character of the narrator's grandfather is loosely based on the real-life story of John Todd, a congregationalist minister from Tabor who was a conductor on the Underground Railroad, and who stored weapons, supplies and ammunition used by abolitionist John Brown in his "invasion" of Missouri in 1857 to free a group of slaves, and later—without Todd's knowledge or involvement—in his 1859 raid on the U.S. military arsenal at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. Robinson talks about Ames's grandfather's involvement in the civil war. She mentions an illness known as 'camp fever'. The term was generally used to describe Typho-malarial fever. Symptoms included: pronounced chills followed by fever, abdominal tenderness, nausea, general debility, diarrhea, retention of urine, and furring of the tongue. Also, as John Ames was describing his sermons in his letter, he tells his son that there was one he had burned before he was supposed to preach it. This sermon was written around the time of the Spanish Influenza.


title: Gilead (novel)

text: Regarding Robinson's theological influences in "Gilead", she herself has explained the importance of primary Calvinist texts, particularly Calvin's "Institutes of the Christian Religion". In regard to Calvin's Institutes, Robinson states in her Yves Simone lecture entitled "The Freedom of a Christian," that "one of the reasons these texts are important to me is because they have everything to do with my own theology certainly, with my aesthetic perhaps, and in so far as I can say I have an intention in writing, they have everything to do with my intention".


title: Gilead (novel)

text: "Gilead" has been recognized as a text that works to correct modern misconceptions regarding John Calvin, Calvinism, and the Puritans. Robinson said in a lecture entitled "The Freedom of a Christian," that she thinks "that one of the things that has happened in American Cultural History is that John Calvin has been very much misrepresented. As a consequence of that, the parts of American Culture that he influenced are very much misrepresented". She expounds upon this idea in her book of essays, "The Death of Adam". She writes that the Puritans should "by no means be characterized by fear or hatred of the body, anxiety about sex or denigration of women, yet for some reason, Puritanism is uniquely regarded as synonymous with the preoccupations." Roger Kimball, in his review of "The Death of Adam" in "The New York Times" wrote, "We all know that the Puritans were dour, sex-hating, joy-abominating folk – except that, as Robinson shows, this widely embraced caricature is a calumny". The common modern characterization of the Calvinists as haters of the physical world and joyless exclusivists is the stereotype that Robinson works to deconstruct in "Gilead" through a representation of what she considers to be a more accurate understanding of Calvinist doctrine that she derives mainly from the original texts, specifically Calvin's "Institutes of the Christian Religion".


title: Gilead (novel)

text: The novel has also been the focus of debates on Christian multiculturalism in literature. University of Victoria professor of American Literature Christopher Douglas claims that "Gilead" builds a "contemporary Christian multicultural identity suitably cleansed of the complexity of [...] 'Christian slavery'." He contextualizes the work within the political resurgence of fundamentalist and evangelical Christianity in the last four decades.


title: Gilead (novel)

text: In a poll of US literary critics that was conducted by BBC Culture and had its results shared in January 2015, "Gilead" was voted the fourth greatest novel written since 2000. In 2019, the novel was ranked 2nd on "The Guardian" list of the 100 best books of the 21st century. On November 5, 2019, the "BBC News" listed "Gilead" on its list of the 100 most influential novels.


title: Gilead (novel)

text: Former President of the United States Barack Obama lists the novel as one of his favorites. On September 14, 2015, in Des Moines, Iowa, in a reversal of the usual journalistic convention, President Obama interviewed Marilynne Robinson for "The New York Review of Books", and told her,


title: Gilead (novel)

text: Robinson has used characters and events from "Gilead" in three subsequent novels to date. "Home" (2008) retells events of the story from the perspective of their friends and neighbors the Boughtons. "Lila" (2014) retells the Ames's courtship and marriage from her perspective. "Jack" (2020) tells the story of the Boughtons' black sheep, further detailing his relationship with a woman of color, a union unknown to his family.


title: Great Bear Lake

text: Great Bear Lake (; ) is a lake in the boreal forest of Canada. It is the largest lake entirely in Canada (Lake Superior and Lake Huron are larger but straddle the Canada–US border), the fourth-largest in North America, and the eighth-largest in the world. The lake is in the Northwest Territories, on the Arctic Circle between 65 and 67 degrees of northern latitude and between 118 and 123 degrees western longitude, above sea level.


title: Great Bear Lake

text: The name originated from the Chipewyan language word , meaning "grizzly bear water people". The Sahtu, a Dene people, are named after the lake. Grizzly Bear Mountain on the shore of the lake also comes from Chipewyan, meaning, "bear large hill".


title: Great Bear Lake

text: The Sahoyue (Grizzly Bear Mountain) peninsula on the south side of the lake and the Edacho (Scented Grass Hills) peninsula on the west side form the Saoyú-ʔehdacho National Historic Site of Canada.


title: Great Bear Lake

text: The lake has a surface area of and a volume of . Its maximum depth is and average depth . The shoreline is and the catchment area of the lake is . Great Bear Lake is covered with ice from late November to July.


title: Great Bear Lake

text: The lake is known for its considerable clarity. Explorer John Franklin wrote in 1828 that a white rag placed in the water did not disappear until it exceeded a depth of .


title: Great Bear Lake

text: Arms of Great Bear Lake include the Smith Arm (northwest), the Dease Arm (northeast), the McTavish Arm (southeast), the McVicar Arm (south) and the Keith Arm (southwest). The community of Délı̨nę is located on the Keith Arm near the outflow of the Great Bear River that flows west into the Mackenzie River at Tulita.


title: Great Bear Lake

text: Rivers flowing into Great Bear Lake include the Whitefish River, Big Spruce River, Haldane River, Bloody River, Sloan River, Dease River and the Johnny Hoe River.


title: Great Bear Lake

text: Great Bear Lake lies between two major physiographic regions: the Kazan Uplands portion of the Canadian Shield and the Interior Plains. It was part of glacial Lake McConnell in the pre-glacial valleys reshaped by erosional ice during the Pleistocene. Since, the lake has changed from post-glacial rebound following the ice melting. Precambrian rocks of the Canadian Shield form the eastern margin of the McTavish Arm. These rocks of the Precambrian are sedimentary and metamorphic deposits supplemented by igneous intrusions forming dikes and sills.


title: Great Bear Lake

text: The community of Délı̨nę is on the lake, near the headwaters of the Bear River. There is an ice crossing from Délı̨nę to the winter road on the far side of the Great Bear River.


title: Great Bear Lake

text: On 5 March 2016, a tank truck fell partway through the ice road just a few days after the government had increased the allowed maximum weight limit to on the road. The truck, which was outside of Délı̨nę and close to the community's fresh water intake, as well as a major fishing area, contained approximately of heating fuel and was one of 70 truck loads intended to resupply the community. The fuel was removed from the truck by 2 am, 8 March.


title: Great Bear Lake

text: Three lodges around the lake are destinations for fishing and hunting. In 1995, a lake trout was caught, the largest ever caught anywhere by angling.


title: Great Bear Lake

text: In 1930, Gilbert LaBine discovered uranium deposits in the Great Bear Lake region. The former mining area Port Radium, site of the Eldorado Mine, where pitchblende was discovered, was located on the eastern shore. Echo Bay Mines Limited leased the old camp and mill at Port Radium to recover silver and copper values from 1965 to 1981.


title: Great Bear Lake

text: Great Bear Lake is paramount in the Délı̨nę peoples' identity, laws and culture. Hence, conserving it is critical for the Délı̨nę people. ɂehtsǝ́o Erǝ́ya, a Dene Elder, is widely regarded as a prophet, making over 30 prophecies which have been interpreted as having come true. His prediction for the end of times claims that, as the world dries up, the little remaining life will flock to, and end on the banks of the Great Bear Lake, a lake seen as a physical beating heart to humanity. The Délı̨nę people have followed these prophecies closely, the cultural considerations being a driving force for self-governance and environmental sustainability.


title: Mel and Kim

text: Mel and Kim (stylized as MӗL & KIM) were a British pop duo, consisting of sisters Melanie and Kim Appleby. Originally managed by Alan Whitehead, they achieved success between 1986 and 1988, before Melanie died of cancer in January 1990 at the age of 23.


title: Mel and Kim

text: The duo reached number one in the UK Singles Chart with their 1987 single "Respectable", which also topped the US dance chart. They had three other UK Top 10 hits with "Showing Out (Get Fresh at the Weekend)" (1986), "F.L.M." (1987) and "That's the Way It Is" (1988). In 1988, they were nominated for a Brit Award for Best British Breakthrough Act. After Mel's death, Kim embarked on a solo career and had two UK Top 10 hits with "Don't Worry" (1990) and "G.L.A.D." (1991).


title: Mel and Kim

text: Mel & Kim were born to British and Jamaican parents. In 1985, Mel recorded two demos solo, under Alan Whitehead's management. Soon after, her sister Kim joined her and they performed as a duo, recording some demos. The demos got them signed with Supreme Records, and Nick East - president of Supreme - put them in touch with producers Stock Aitken Waterman.


title: Mel and Kim

text: "I remember we were shocked that these were the guys who produced the Princess track [<nowiki>'Say I'm Your Number One']</nowiki> because we were expecting someone like Quincy Jones," Kim said of her first meeting with the production team. "We were convinced that they had some young groovy guy who was doing all the work, and they were just fronting it."


title: Mel and Kim

text: A sedate soul-pop track "System" was intended as their first single, but their producers were unhappy with it, and it became the "B-side" of their first release "Showing Out (Get Fresh at the Weekend)". After getting to know the girls, producer Pete Waterman became convinced the act's music should reflect their feisty and streetwise personalities, with the then-emerging Chicago House sound chosen as a perfect vehicle.


title: Mel and Kim

text: "We got a call from Nick East, saying they had decided to scrap 'System' and we were devastated," Kim said. "We thought we had done something wrong, but he explained that after hanging with us in the pub, Pete went back to the studio the next day and said, we need something completely tough; we need something with an attitude."


title: Mel and Kim

text: The reorientation worked; "Showing out" reached number three on the British charts in 1986. It was a minor hit in America peaking at #78, but did peak at #1 on the Dance Chart there. Their next single "Respectable" reached number one in Britain, and sold in excess of 800,000 copies there. "The follow up was genius," recalled Kim "It started to go global; 'Respectable' just took it to another level." The sisters became well-known celebrities in Europe, particularly in Britain, and were known for their visual style which combined urban street wear with high fashion (prior to their music career Mel had worked as a glamour model). Their third single "F.L.M." reached number seven in the UK, while their final single "That's the Way It Is" reached number ten, giving them an unbroken run of top ten hits in the UK. In February 1988, they were nominated for Best British Breakthrough Act at the Brit Awards, losing out to Wet Wet Wet.


title: Mel and Kim

text: In 1985, prior to the duo's recording career, Mel was treated for malignant paraganglioma, a form of cancer, on her liver. By January 1987, Mel was experiencing back problems, delaying the filming of the "Respectable" music video. During a promotional visit to Japan in June 1987, Mel's back pain worsened, rendering her unable to perform, and she returned to the UK in a wheelchair. A recurrence of the cancer was detected in Mel's spine after undergoing tests at Barts. The sisters withdrew from publicity while Mel underwent treatment. Footage from their Montreux Festival performance was used to compile the "F.L.M." music video, with the sisters mainly represented by a pair of lookalike marionettes. While the media speculated that Mel was being treated for cancer, both sisters categorically denied this, stating that Mel had suffered a debilitating back injury.


title: Mel and Kim

text: Kim later confessed she was "devastated" by the widely-panned "F.L.M." video, having not been consulted on its contents, and only seeing it for the first time when it was aired on TV. The singer, who said that her sister Mel was equally dissatisfied with the clip, added that she would have preferred that no video was released at all. Nick East retrospectively described the video as a "mistake."


title: Mel and Kim

text: Mel and Kim released a new single in February 1988, "That's the Way It Is", becoming their fourth consecutive UK top 10 hit. Mel discharged herself from hospital to record the vocals for the track. The B-side, "You Changed My Life", was composed by the sisters during Mel's treatment and was submitted to the producers as a potential single. Work on a second album produced by Stock Aitken Waterman was not continued, due to Mel's illness. Both sisters appeared on the "Wogan" show in April 1988 while Mel was still undergoing treatment, as part of European Cancer Week. Later in late summer 1988, after Mel had finished chemotherapy, the duo appeared on "Good Morning Britain" to promote the need for teenage cancer wards in British hospitals.


title: Mel and Kim

text: The sisters then again withdrew from publicity while writing songs for a second album; several of these songs later appeared on Kim's debut solo album. In a TV interview with Trisha Goddard in 2005, Kim revealed that she knew Mel's illness was terminal in mid-1989. On 18 January 1990, Mel died suddenly of pneumonia after contracting a cold; her immune system weakened by chemotherapy.


title: Mel and Kim

text: In January 2018, the release of a previously unreleased unfinished demo track, "Where Is Love", was announced on the official Mel & Kim website. It was released in February 2018.


title: Mel and Kim

text: With the aid of her then boyfriend, ex-Bros bassist Craig Logan, Kim launched a solo career with much of her debut solo album composed of songs co-written with Mel, for what was intended to be the next "Mel and Kim" album. The album, "Kim Appleby", contained her debut solo single "Don't Worry", which reached number two on the British charts in November 1990. A follow-up single "G.L.A.D" was also a UK Top 10 hit. Subsequent singles from her debut album were "Mama" [#19] and "If You Cared" [#44]. Kim's second album "Breakaway" was not a commercial success and had a limited release. She released three further singles, "Light of the World" [#41, 1993], "Breakaway" [#56, 1993], and "Free Spirit" [#51, 1994]. A download-only single called "High" was released in 2007.


title: Mel and Kim

text: In 2010, a deluxe double-disc edition of "F.L.M." was released, which included extended bonus tracks as well as the single "That's The Way It Is" and various remixes of the original hits.


title: McLaren 570S

text: The McLaren 570S is a sports car designed and manufactured by British car manufacturer McLaren Automotive. It was unveiled at the 2015 New York International Auto Show.


title: McLaren 570S

text: The car is powered by a new iteration of the 3.8-litre twin-turbocharged V8 engine already used in the 650S and P1, designated "M838T E" with thirty percent of the parts redesigned. It delivers and of torque through a 7-speed dual-clutch transmission developed by Graziano Trasmissioni, as it is arranged in the car as a rear-mid engine configuration, The car can accelerate from in 3.2 seconds and can achieve a top speed of . A total dry weight of and maximum weight of gives the 570S a power to weight ratio of 428 PS per tonne delivering a fuel economy of and emissions of 249 g/km.


title: McLaren 570S

text: McLaren focused on delivering "day-to-day usability and driveability" against the most sporting model options in its range with increased luggage space, greater interior storage and leather upholstery options. The car is designed with aerodynamics in mind and the teardrop shaped cockpit helps achieve that objective. The rear of the car is inspired by the P1 and borrows the slim LED tail lights and diffuser styling from the flagship sports car. The car features dihedral doors, a trademark of McLaren as featured on its ultimate and super series cars.


title: McLaren 570S

text: At the 2015 Shanghai Motor Show, the entry level McLaren Sports Series car named 540C was unveiled with and of torque. This new entry level model focuses on "day-to-day usability and driveability" even more than that of the 570S with improved city driving and ride quality. The car can accelerate from in 3.4 seconds and has a top speed of . The 540C is cheaper than the 570S and went on sale shortly after its Shanghai debut. The 540C is not available in the US due to McLaren wanting to focus on the more powerful 570S model for the US market.


title: McLaren 570S

text: At the 2016 Geneva Motor Show, McLaren presented another addition to the Sport Series and 570 line up, dubbed the 570GT. The 570GT is the less track focused, and more road trip worthy version of the 570S. The 570GT sports a side opening cargo hatch above the mid-mounted engine for additional cargo space in place of the engine cover of the 570S, slightly softer suspension settings and improved sound insulation. The 570GT went through a facelift at the start of 2018 which added ceramic brakes as standard and steel as a free option.


title: McLaren 570S

text: Announced online in early 2016, and making their public debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, the 570S GT4 and 570S Sprint are the track oriented iterations of the 570S. McLaren disclosed shortly after the announcement, that the track cars were built alongside their base model. Changes include a new air jack suspension system, racing style aero package, and center-lock magnesium alloys wrapped in Pirelli racing slicks. McLaren also added a new race style cooling system and radiator, but the powertrain remained unchanged. The GT4 made its racing debut at the British GT Championship in April 2016. The 570S Sprint has been made commercially available for customers. The Sprint was built alongside the GT4 counterpart, but without the FIA restrictions required on the GT4. The car can be updated to the GT4 specifications at the owner's request.


title: McLaren 570S

text: The convertible version of the 570S was unveiled at the 2017 Goodwood Festival of Speed event. It borrows the roof folding mechanism from the Super Series line-up. The two-piece aluminium roof folds into a compartment located behind the seats of the car leaving the rear buttress in place. The roof folding mechanism takes 30 seconds to fold and unfold and is operable at speeds up to . Unlike the 12C Spider and the 650S Spider, the 570S spider required no significant reengineering for the folding roof mechanism because of the carbon monocell used in the 570S. As a result, the 570S Spider is only heavier than the coupe. The drivetrain of the Spider remains identical to that of the coupe which results in similar performance to the coupé counterpart with the roof up. The Spider has new forged aluminium wheels and three special launch colours namely Vega Blue, Sicilian Yellow and Ventura Orange. Deliveries of the Spider began in late 2017.


title: McLaren 570S

text: To celebrate the Daytona 24 event, McLaren Newport Beach, the US dealer of McLaren commissioned ten bespoke cars from McLaren Special Operations based on the 570S GT4 race car, called the McLaren MSO X, created to create the feel of the GT4 race car without taking away everyday road usability, created from the standard McLaren 570S. The exterior of the car takes heavy influence from the GT4 race car and includes a carbon fibre roof with a functional 'goose neck' air intake mounted on the top which exits from a modified rear fascia, GT4 style rear wing which creates of additional downforce, functional air intakes on the bonnet, tow hooks on the front and rear and a titanium exhaust system. The interior of the car is also designed to simulate the GT4 racer without taking away the creature comforts and includes exposed carbon fibre monocell throughout, carbon fibre racing bucket seats with customizable six point racing harness, Alcantara interior trim and a carbon fibre bulkhead located at the rear to store the helmets of the occupants while keeping the air conditioning system, parking assist, front lift system and GPS navigation system as standard equipment. The storage locker in the dashboard and the storage compartments at the front and rear have been removed in order to accommodate the air intakes and to keep the car feel as close to the race car as possible. All the ten cars feature distinctive liveries inspired by the iconic liveries featuring on the McLaren F1 GTR which competed in LeMans during the 1990s. The ten cars were delivered to their owners at an event organized at McLaren Newport Beach in January 2018. Like the 570S which it is based from, it shares the same performance figures.


title: McLaren 570S

text: In June 2018, McLaren unveiled the top-of-the-line sports series variant online. The car, called the 600LT is based on the 570S and is the third McLaren production car to receive the longtail treatment. Inspired by the 675LT and the F1 GTR Longtail, the body of the car has been extended by . The car also features enhanced aerodynamic elements such as an extended front splitter and rear diffuser, new side sills, and an aero-enhancing fixed rear wing for increased downforce. McLaren claims that 23% parts on the 600LT are new as compared to the 570S. The carbon fibre monocoque utilised in the 600LT is modified and this combined with the extensive use of carbon fibre in the roof along with the cantrails and front fenders, results in a weight saving of over the 570S, with the total weight amounting to . Another distinguishing feature of the 600LT is the lightweight titanium exhaust system which is mounted on top of the rear of the car which harks back to its original application in the Senna. The interior features sports bucket seats from the P1 and Alcantara trim but can be optioned with the much lighter bucket seats found in the Senna. The 3.8-litre twin-turbocharged V8 engine utilised in the 600LT is tuned to produce a maximum power output of (hence the 600 in the name) and of torque, achieving a power-to-weight ratio of 479 PS per tonne. Performance figures and production numbers of the car remain unknown. Production of the 600LT started in October 2018.


title: McLaren 570S

text: In January 2019, McLaren unveiled the convertible variant of the 600LT at the Detroit Auto Show. Due to the use of the same carbon monocoque as the other models in the 570S lineage the 600LT Spider required did not need any extra modifications to incorporate a folding hardtop roof. As a result, the Spider weighs more than the coupé while maintaining the same performance statistics. The Spider has the same engine and aerodynamic components as the coupé and share the roof folding mechanism with the standard 570S Spider which can be operated at speeds up to .


title: McLaren 570S

text: The car can accelerate to in 2.9 seconds, to in 8.4 seconds (0.2 seconds more than the coupé) and can attain a top speed of with the roof retracted and with the roof closed.


title: McLaren 570S

text: The car can achieve a dry weight of when equipped with the MSO ClubSport package which includes the removal of air-conditioning and radio, titanium wheel nuts and the replacement of the standard seats with the carbon fibre seats from the Senna. The car is the fifth McLaren model to have the Long Tail name.


title: McLaren 570S

text: Unveiled online in December 2019, the 620R is a road legal iteration of the 570S GT4 race car. The car shares its Monocell II carbon fibre monocoque chassis with the 570S GT4 race car as well as the engine which, not subject to racing restrictions and ECU changes is now rated at and making it McLaren's most powerful sports series model. Other changes include semi-slick Pirelli P zero Trofeo R tyres with track only Pirelli racing slicks being optional, a bare minimum racing interior with the carpeting removed, carbon fibre racing seats with six-point harness, door pull straps, carbon fibre shift paddles, 12 o'clock mark on the steering wheel, McLaren Track Telemetry system (MTT) and deletion of air-conditioning and infotainment system; although they are available as no cost options, adjustable coilover motorsport dampers; which feature 32 individual settings per corner to allow the driver to tailor rebound and compression rates to their preferred settings, stiffer anti-roll bars have and track-focused carbon-ceramic brakes with 390 mm brake discs Arther front and 380 mm brake discs at the rear with forged aluminum calipers. The adjustable rear wing made from carbon fibre is shared with the 570S GT4 and allows the 620R to generate of downforce at a speed of . The large wheel sizes of the car (19 inch at the front, 20 inch at the rear) allow for no mechanical adjustment when the standard tires are switched for racing slicks. The rear wing has an integrated third brake light to make the car road legal.


title: McLaren 570S

text: Performance figures include 0- acceleration time of 2.9 seconds, 0- acceleration time of 8.1 seconds and a top speed of which is less than the 600LT due to the car's focus on aerodynamic enhancements. The production of the 620R was limited to 350 units, but due to Covid-19 complications, and a very poor marketing campaign on behalf of Mclaren, only 225 units were produced. Each car will come with a numbered plaque on the interior. Three basic interior colours will be offered namely Onyx Black with orange racing stripes, Silica White with orange racing stripes, and McLaren Orange with white racing stripes. A special colour palette will be offered by MSO along with a livery inspired by the Senna GTR.


The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC ) is an international federation of National Adhering Organizations working for the advancement of the chemical sciences, especially by developing nomenclature and terminology. It is a member of the International Science Council (ISC). IUPAC is registered in Zürich, Switzerland, and the administrative office, known as the "IUPAC Secretariat", is in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, United States. This administrative office is headed by IUPAC's executive director, currently Lynn Soby.


title: International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry

text: IUPAC was established in 1919 as the successor of the International Congress of Applied Chemistry for the advancement of chemistry. Its members, the National Adhering Organizations, can be national chemistry societies, national academies of sciences, or other bodies representing chemists. There are fifty-four National Adhering Organizations and three Associate National Adhering Organizations. IUPAC's Inter-divisional Committee on Nomenclature and Symbols (IUPAC nomenclature) is the recognized world authority in developing standards for the naming of the chemical elements and compounds. Since its creation, IUPAC has been run by many different committees with different responsibilities. These committees run different projects which include standardizing nomenclature, finding ways to bring chemistry to the world, and publishing works.


text: IUPAC is best known for its works standardizing nomenclature in chemistry, but IUPAC has publications in many science fields including chemistry, biology and physics. Some important work IUPAC has done in these fields includes standardizing nucleotide base sequence code names; publishing books for environmental scientists, chemists, and physicists; and improving education in science. IUPAC is also known for standardizing the atomic weights of the elements through one of its oldest standing committees, the Commission on Isotopic Abundances and Atomic Weights (CIAAW).


text: The need for an international standard for chemistry was first addressed in 1860 by a committee headed by German scientist Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz. This committee was the first international conference to create an international naming system for organic compounds. The ideas that were formulated in that conference evolved into the official IUPAC nomenclature of organic chemistry. IUPAC stands as a legacy of this meeting, making it one of the most important historical international collaborations of chemistry societies. Since this time, IUPAC has been the official organization held with the responsibility of updating and maintaining official organic nomenclature. IUPAC as such was established in 1919. One notable country excluded from this early IUPAC is Germany. Germany's exclusion was a result of prejudice towards Germans by the Allied powers after World War I. Germany was finally admitted into IUPAC during 1929. However, Nazi Germany was removed from IUPAC during World War II.


text: During World War II, IUPAC was affiliated with the Allied powers, but had little involvement during the war effort itself. After the war, East and West Germany were readmitted to IUPAC in 1973. Since World War II, IUPAC has been focused on standardizing nomenclature and methods in science without interruption.


text: In 2016, IUPAC denounced the use of chlorine as a chemical weapon. The organization pointed out their concerns in a letter to Ahmet Üzümcü, the director of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), in regards to the practice of utilizing chlorine for weapon usage in Syria among other locations. The letter stated, "Our organizations deplore the use of chlorine in this manner. The indiscriminate attacks, possibly carried out by a member state of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), is of concern to chemical scientists and engineers around the globe and we stand ready to support your mission of implementing the CWC." According to the CWC, "the use, stockpiling, distribution, development or storage of any chemical weapons is forbidden by any of the 192 state party signatories."


text: IUPAC is governed by several committees that all have different responsibilities. The committees are as follows: Bureau, CHEMRAWN (Chem Research Applied to World Needs) Committee, Committee on Chemistry Education, Committee on Chemistry and Industry, Committee on Printed and Electronic Publications, Evaluation Committee, Executive Committee, Finance Committee, Interdivisional Committee on Terminology, Nomenclature and Symbols, Project Committee, and Pure and Applied Chemistry Editorial Advisory Board. Each committee is made up of members of different National Adhering Organizations from different countries.


text: IUPAC committee has a long history of officially naming organic and inorganic compounds. IUPAC nomenclature is developed so that any compound can be named under one set of standardized rules to avoid duplicate names. The first publication on IUPAC nomenclature of organic compounds was "A Guide to IUPAC Nomenclature of Organic Compounds" in 1900, which contained information from the International Congress of Applied Chemistry.


text: IUPAC establishes rules for harmonized spelling of some chemicals to reduce variation among different local English-language variants. For example, they recommend "aluminium" rather than "aluminum", "sulfur" rather than "sulphur", and "caesium" rather than "cesium".


text: IUPAC organic nomenclature has three basic parts: the substituents, carbon chain length, and chemical affix. The substituents are any functional groups attached to the main carbon chain. The main carbon chain is the longest possible continuous chain. The chemical affix denotes what type of molecule it is. For example, the ending "ane" denotes a single bonded carbon chain, as in "hexane" ().


text: Basic IUPAC inorganic nomenclature has two main parts: the cation and the anion. The cation is the name for the positively charged ion and the anion is the name for the negatively charged ion.


text: IUPAC also has a system for giving codes to identify amino acids and nucleotide bases. IUPAC needed a coding system that represented long sequences of amino acids. This would allow for these sequences to be compared to try to find homologies. These codes can consist of either a one-letter code or a three-letter code.


text: These codes make it easier and shorter to write down the amino acid sequences that make up proteins. The nucleotide bases are made up of purines (adenine and guanine) and pyrimidines (cytosine and thymine or uracil). These nucleotide bases make up DNA and RNA. These nucleotide base codes make the genome of an organism much smaller and easier to read.


text: IUPAC and UNESCO were the lead organizations coordinating events for the International Year of Chemistry, which took place in 2011. The International Year of Chemistry was originally proposed by IUPAC at the general assembly in Turin, Italy. This motion was adopted by UNESCO at a meeting in 2008. The main objectives of the International Year of Chemistry were to increase public appreciation of chemistry and gain more interest in the world of chemistry. This event is also being held to encourage young people to get involved and contribute to chemistry. A further reason for this event being held is to honour how chemistry has made improvements to everyone's way of life.


text: IUPAC Presidents are elected by the IUPAC Council during the General Assembly. Below is the list of IUPAC Presidents since its inception in 1919.


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: In computer science and operations research, the ant colony optimization algorithm (ACO) is a probabilistic technique for solving computational problems which can be reduced to finding good paths through graphs. Artificial ants stand for multi-agent methods inspired by the behavior of real ants.


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: The pheromone-based communication of biological ants is often the predominant paradigm used. Combinations of artificial ants and local search algorithms have become a method of choice for numerous optimization tasks involving some sort of graph, e.g., vehicle routing and internet routing.


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: As an example, ant colony optimization is a class of optimization algorithms modeled on the actions of an ant colony. Artificial 'ants' (e.g. simulation agents) locate optimal solutions by moving through a parameter space representing all possible solutions. Real ants lay down pheromones directing each other to resources while exploring their environment. The simulated 'ants' similarly record their positions and the quality of their solutions, so that in later simulation iterations more ants locate better solutions. One variation on this approach is the bees algorithm, which is more analogous to the foraging patterns of the honey bee, another social insect.


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: This algorithm is a member of the ant colony algorithms family, in swarm intelligence methods, and it constitutes some metaheuristic optimizations. Initially proposed by Marco Dorigo in 1992 in his PhD thesis, the first algorithm was aiming to search for an optimal path in a graph, based on the behavior of ants seeking a path between their colony and a source of food. The original idea has since diversified to solve a wider class of numerical problems, and as a result, several problems have emerged, drawing on various aspects of the behavior of ants. From a broader perspective, ACO performs a model-based search and shares some similarities with estimation of distribution algorithms.


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: In the natural world, ants of some species (initially) wander randomly, and upon finding food return to their colony while laying down pheromone trails. If other ants find such a path, they are likely not to keep travelling at random, but instead to follow the trail, returning and reinforcing it if they eventually find food (see Ant communication).


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: Over time, however, the pheromone trail starts to evaporate, thus reducing its attractive strength. The more time it takes for an ant to travel down the path and back again, the more time the pheromones have to evaporate. A short path, by comparison, gets marched over more frequently, and thus the pheromone density becomes higher on shorter paths than longer ones. Pheromone evaporation also has the advantage of avoiding the convergence to a locally optimal solution. If there were no evaporation at all, the paths chosen by the first ants would tend to be excessively attractive to the following ones. In that case, the exploration of the solution space would be constrained. The influence of pheromone evaporation in real ant systems is unclear, but it is very important in artificial systems.


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: The overall result is that when one ant finds a good (i.e., short) path from the colony to a food source, other ants are more likely to follow that path, and positive feedback eventually leads to many ants following a single path. The idea of the ant colony algorithm is to mimic this behavior with "simulated ants" walking around the graph representing the problem to solve.


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: New concepts are required since “intelligence” is no longer centralized but can be found throughout all minuscule objects. Anthropocentric concepts have been known to lead to the production of IT systems in which data processing, control units and calculating forces are centralized. These centralized units have continually increased their performance and can be compared to the human brain. The model of the brain has become the ultimate vision of computers. Ambient networks of intelligent objects and, sooner or later, a new generation of information systems that are even more diffused and based on nanotechnology, will profoundly change this concept. Small devices that can be compared to insects do not dispose of a high intelligence on their own. Indeed, their intelligence can be classed as fairly limited. It is, for example, impossible to integrate a high performance calculator with the power to solve any kind of mathematical problem into a biochip that is implanted into the human body or integrated in an intelligent tag which is designed to trace commercial articles. However, once those objects are interconnected they dispose of a form of intelligence that can be compared to a colony of ants or bees. In the case of certain problems, this type of intelligence can be superior to the reasoning of a centralized system similar to the brain.


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: Nature offers several examples of how minuscule organisms, if they all follow the same basic rule, can create a form of collective intelligence on the macroscopic level. Colonies of social insects perfectly illustrate this model which greatly differs from human societies. This model is based on the co-operation of independent units with simple and unpredictable behavior. They move through their surrounding area to carry out certain tasks and only possess a very limited amount of information to do so. A colony of ants, for example, represents numerous qualities that can also be applied to a network of ambient objects. Colonies of ants have a very high capacity to adapt themselves to changes in the environment as well as an enormous strength in dealing with situations where one individual fails to carry out a given task. This kind of flexibility would also be very useful for mobile networks of objects which are perpetually developing. Parcels of information that move from a computer to a digital object behave in the same way as ants would do. They move through the network and pass from one knot to the next with the objective of arriving at their final destination as quickly as possible.


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: Pheromone-based communication is one of the most effective ways of communication which is widely observed in nature. Pheromone is used by social insects such as


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: bees, ants and termites; both for inter-agent and agent-swarm communications. Due to its feasibility, artificial pheromones have been adopted in multi-robot and swarm robotic systems. Pheromone-based communication was implemented by different means such as chemical or physical (RFID tags, light, sound) ways. However, those implementations were not able to replicate all the aspects of pheromones as seen in nature.


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: Using projected light was presented in an 2007 IEEE paper by Garnier, Simon, et al. as an experimental setup to study pheromone-based communication with micro autonomous robots. Another study presented a system in which pheromones were implemented via a horizontal LCD screen on which the robots moved, with the robots having downward facing light sensors to register the patterns beneath them.


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: In the ant colony optimization algorithms, an artificial ant is a simple computational agent that searches for good solutions to a given optimization problem. To apply an ant colony algorithm, the optimization problem needs to be converted into the problem of finding the shortest path on a weighted graph. In the first step of each iteration, each ant stochastically constructs a solution, i.e. the order in which the edges in the graph should be followed. In the second step, the paths found by the different ants are compared. The last step consists of updating the pheromone levels on each edge.


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: Each ant needs to construct a solution to move through the graph. To select the next edge in its tour, an ant will consider the length of each edge available from its current position, as well as the corresponding pheromone level. At each step of the algorithm, each ant moves from a state formula_1 to state formula_2, corresponding to a more complete intermediate solution. Thus, each ant formula_3 computes a set formula_4 of feasible expansions to its current state in each iteration, and moves to one of these in probability. For ant formula_3, the probability formula_6 of moving from state formula_1 to state formula_2 depends on the combination of two values, the "attractiveness" formula_9 of the move, as computed by some heuristic indicating the "a priori" desirability of that move and the "trail level" formula_10 of the move, indicating how proficient it has been in the past to make that particular move. The "trail level" represents a posteriori indication of the desirability of that move.


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: where formula_10 is the amount of pheromone deposited for transition from state formula_1 to formula_2, 0 ≤ formula_18 is a parameter to control the influence of formula_10, formula_9 is the desirability of state transition formula_21 ("a priori" knowledge, typically formula_22, where formula_23 is the distance) and formula_24 ≥ 1 is a parameter to control the influence of formula_9. formula_26 and formula_27 represent the trail level and attractiveness for the other possible state transitions.


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: Trails are usually updated when all ants have completed their solution, increasing or decreasing the level of trails corresponding to moves that were part of "good" or "bad" solutions, respectively. An example of a global pheromone updating rule is


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: where formula_10 is the amount of pheromone deposited for a state transition formula_21, formula_31 is the "pheromone evaporation coefficient", formula_32 is the number of ants and formula_33 is the amount of pheromone deposited by formula_3th ant, typically given for a TSP problem (with moves corresponding to arcs of the graph) by


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: where formula_36 is the cost of the formula_3th ant's tour (typically length) and formula_38 is a constant.


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: The ant system is the first ACO algorithm. This algorithm corresponds to the one presented above. It was developed by Dorigo.


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: In this algorithm, the global best solution deposits pheromone on its trail after every iteration (even if this trail has not been revisited), along with all the other ants. The elitist strategy has as its objective directing the search of all ants to construct a solution to contain links of the current best route.


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: This algorithm controls the maximum and minimum pheromone amounts on each trail. Only the global best tour or the iteration best tour are allowed to add pheromone to its trail. To avoid stagnation of the search algorithm, the range of possible pheromone amounts on each trail is limited to an interval [τ,τ]. All edges are initialized to τ to force a higher exploration of solutions. The trails are reinitialized to τ when nearing stagnation.


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: All solutions are ranked according to their length. Only a fixed number of the best ants in this iteration are allowed to update their trials. The amount of pheromone deposited is weighted for each solution, such that solutions with shorter paths deposit more pheromone than the solutions with longer paths.


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: An ant colony system (ACS) with communication strategies is developed. The artificial ants are partitioned into several groups. Seven communication


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: methods for updating the pheromone level between groups in ACS are proposed and work on the traveling salesman problem.


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: The pheromone deposit mechanism of COAC is to enable ants to search for solutions collaboratively and effectively. By using an orthogonal design method, ants in the feasible domain can explore their chosen regions rapidly and efficiently, with enhanced global search capability and accuracy. The orthogonal design method and the adaptive radius adjustment method can also be extended to other optimization algorithms for delivering wider advantages in solving practical problems.


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: It is a recursive form of ant system which divides the whole search domain into several sub-domains and solves the objective on these subdomains. The results from all the subdomains are compared and the best few of them are promoted for the next level. The subdomains corresponding to the selected results are further subdivided and the process is repeated until an output of desired precision is obtained. This method has been tested on ill-posed geophysical inversion problems and works well.


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: For some versions of the algorithm, it is possible to prove that it is convergent (i.e., it is able to find the global optimum in finite time). The first evidence of convergence for an ant colony algorithm was made in 2000, the graph-based ant system algorithm, and later on for the ACS and MMAS algorithms. Like most metaheuristics, it is very difficult to estimate the theoretical speed of convergence. A performance analysis of a continuous ant colony algorithm with respect to its various parameters (edge selection strategy, distance measure metric, and pheromone evaporation rate) showed that its performance and rate of convergence are sensitive to the chosen parameter values, and especially to the value of the pheromone evaporation rate. In 2004, Zlochin and his colleagues showed that COAC-type algorithms could be assimilated methods of stochastic gradient descent, on the cross-entropy and estimation of distribution algorithm. They proposed these metaheuristics as a "research-based model".


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: Ant colony optimization algorithms have been applied to many combinatorial optimization problems, ranging from quadratic assignment to protein folding or routing vehicles and a lot of derived methods have been adapted to dynamic problems in real variables, stochastic problems, multi-targets and parallel implementations.


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: It has also been used to produce near-optimal solutions to the travelling salesman problem. They have an advantage over simulated annealing and genetic algorithm approaches of similar problems when the graph may change dynamically; the ant colony algorithm can be run continuously and adapt to changes in real time. This is of interest in network routing and urban transportation systems.


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: The first ACO algorithm was called the ant system and it was aimed to solve the travelling salesman problem, in which the goal is to find the shortest round-trip to link a series of cities. The general algorithm is relatively simple and based on a set of ants, each making one of the possible round-trips along the cities. At each stage, the ant chooses to move from one city to another according to some rules:


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: To optimize the form of antennas, ant colony algorithms can be used. As example can be considered antennas RFID-tags based on ant colony algorithms (ACO), loopback and unloopback vibrators 10×10


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: The graph here is the 2-D image and the ants traverse from one pixel depositing pheromone. The movement of ants from one pixel to another is directed by the local variation of the image's intensity values. This movement causes the highest density of the pheromone to be deposited at the edges.


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: "Step 1: Initialization." Randomly place formula_39 ants on the image formula_40 where formula_41 . Pheromone matrix formula_42 are initialized with a random value. The major challenge in the initialization process is determining the heuristic matrix.


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: There are various methods to determine the heuristic matrix. For the below example the heuristic matrix was calculated based on the local statistics:


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: "Step 2: Construction process." The ant's movement is based on 4-connected pixels or 8-connected pixels. The probability with which the ant moves is given by the probability equation formula_55


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: "Step 3 and Step 5: Update process." The pheromone matrix is updated twice. in step 3 the trail of the ant (given by formula_56 ) is updated where as in step 5 the evaporation rate of the trail is updated which is given by:


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: "Step 7: Decision process." Once the K ants have moved a fixed distance L for N iteration, the decision whether it is an edge or not is based on the threshold T on the pheromone matrixτ. Threshold for the below example is calculated based on Otsu's method.


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: Image edge detected using ACO: The images below are generated using different functions given by the equation (1) to (4).


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: With an ACO algorithm, the shortest path in a graph, between two points A and B, is built from a combination of several paths. It is not easy to give a precise definition of what algorithm is or is not an ant colony, because the definition may vary according to the authors and uses. Broadly speaking, ant colony algorithms are regarded as populated metaheuristics with each solution represented by an ant moving in the search space. Ants mark the best solutions and take account of previous markings to optimize their search. They can be seen as probabilistic multi-agent algorithms using a probability distribution to make the transition between each iteration. In their versions for combinatorial problems, they use an iterative construction of solutions. According to some authors, the thing which distinguishes ACO algorithms from other relatives (such as algorithms to estimate the distribution or particle swarm optimization) is precisely their constructive aspect. In combinatorial problems, it is possible that the best solution eventually be found, even though no ant would prove effective. Thus, in the example of the Travelling salesman problem, it is not necessary that an ant actually travels the shortest route: the shortest route can be built from the strongest segments of the best solutions. However, this definition can be problematic in the case of problems in real variables, where no structure of 'neighbours' exists. The collective behaviour of social insects remains a source of inspiration for researchers. The wide variety of algorithms (for optimization or not) seeking self-organization in biological systems has led to the concept of "swarm intelligence", which is a very general framework in which ant colony algorithms fit.


title: Ant colony optimization algorithms

text: There is in practice a large number of algorithms claiming to be "ant colonies", without always sharing the general framework of optimization by canonical ant colonies. In practice, the use of an exchange of information between ants via the environment (a principle called "stigmergy") is deemed enough for an algorithm to belong to the class of ant colony algorithms. This principle has led some authors to create the term "value" to organize methods and behavior based on search of food, sorting larvae, division of labour and cooperative transportation.


title: Stacey Castor

text: Stacey Ruth Castor (née Daniels, formerly Wallace; July 24, 1967 – June 11, 2016) was an American convicted murderer from Weedsport, New York. In 2009, she was found guilty of intentionally poisoning her then-husband David Castor with antifreeze in 2005 and attempting to murder her daughter, Ashley Wallace, with crushed pills mixed in with vodka, orange juice, and Sprite in 2007. In addition, she is suspected of having murdered her first husband, Michael Wallace, in 2000; his grave lay next to David Castor's until David's remains were disinterred in 2016 and buried elsewhere by his son. The story made national news, and Castor was subsequently named "The Black Widow" by media outlets. A special two-hour edition of ABC's "20/20" aired on April 24, 2009, and again on February 8, 2019, to provide the full story of the Castor case.


title: Stacey Castor

text: Stacey, the daughter of Jerry Daniels and Judie Eaton, met Michael Wallace when she was 17, in 1985, and they bonded immediately. The couple married and had their first daughter, Ashley, in 1988. In 1991, they had a second daughter, Bree.


title: Stacey Castor

text: Castor was employed by an ambulance dispatch company, while Wallace worked nights as a mechanic, but the family had little money. According to Castor, Wallace was very close to Bree, showing a favoritism that Castor made up for by becoming "best friends" with elder daughter Ashley. Despite their closeness with their children, the couple grew apart, and it was rumored that each was having affairs.


title: Stacey Castor

text: In late 1999, Wallace began feeling intermittently ill. Family members variously remember him as acting unsteady, coughing and seeming swollen. As his inexplicable sickness persisted over the holiday season, his family encouraged him to seek medical care, but he died in early 2000 before he could do so. Their daughter Ashley was 12 at the time and had been alone with him. She blamed herself for his death. She had noticed his ill appearance that day, but thought nothing of it. Physicians told Castor that her husband had died of a heart attack. Although Wallace's sister was skeptical and requested an autopsy for Wallace, Castor refused, saying she believed the doctors were correct.


title: Stacey Castor

text: In 2003, Stacey married David Castor, whose surname she used from that point forward. Castor was the owner of an air conditioning installation and repair company, and Stacey served as his office manager. In August 2005, at 2:00 one afternoon, Castor called her local sheriff's office to tell them that her husband had locked himself in their bedroom for a day following an argument and was not responding to his cell phone. When he did not appear at their shared workplace, she had become worried. She claimed he was depressed. Unable to get a response, Sergeant Robert Willoughby of the Onondaga County Sheriff's Department kicked in the door of the bedroom and found David Castor lying dead. Among the items near his body were a container of antifreeze and a half-full glass of bright green liquid. Willoughby says he remembers that Castor screamed, "He's not dead, he's not dead."


title: Stacey Castor

text: The coroner reported that David Castor had committed suicide through a self-administered lethal dose of antifreeze, but when police found Stacey Castor's fingerprints on the antifreeze glass and located a turkey baster that had David Castor's DNA on the tip, they began to suspect Stacey Castor had engineered her husband's death. They believed Castor had used the turkey baster to force-feed him once he became too physically weak.


title: Stacey Castor

text: The detectives on the case ordered wiretappings on Castor's house. They listened in on phone calls for any unusual conversations. In addition, they set up cameras overlooking Castor's house and the gravesites of her husbands, who had been buried side by side at Castor's request. Detectives reasoned that if Castor were truly genuine about her love for her late husbands, then she would eventually visit their graves. They wanted to observe her behavior while there. Castor, however, never visited. The investigators soon felt the only way to prove Castor responsible for both homicides was to have Wallace's body exhumed. A toxicology screening ruled that Wallace had also been killed through antifreeze poisoning.


title: Stacey Castor

text: In September 2007, amid mounting evidence that Castor had murdered both of her husbands, she began to panic. After she learned police had exhumed Wallace's body and found traces of antifreeze in his system, she was believed to have devised a plan to set up her daughter Ashley for the murders.


title: Stacey Castor

text: On Ashley's first day of college, investigators came to her school to question her about her father's death and to inform her that he had been poisoned instead of having died of a heart attack. An upset Ashley called Castor. Soon after, Ashley said, Castor invited her to come to the family home in Liverpool and drink together. Castor said that they had been through enough emotional stress and needed to relax. Ashley agreed because Castor was not only her mother but her "best friend".


title: Stacey Castor

text: The following day, Castor invited Ashley to drink together at home again. She says that her mother offered her a "nasty-tasting" drink that she at first refused but eventually drank because she trusted Castor. Seventeen hours later, Ashley was found comatose on her bed by her younger sister Bree Wallace. Bree demanded that help be sought, and Castor made the 911 call. Ashley's sister left her side for a moment and when she returned, she found a suicide note beside Ashley. The note appeared to be Ashley's "murder confession", in which she "admits" to having killed her father and stepfather. Castor quickly took the note from the sister and later gave it to the paramedics. Tests revealed that potentially fatal painkillers had been found in Ashley's system, and that she most likely would have died if taking her to the hospital had been just a few minutes later. When Ashley woke up, with police questioning her about the murders and the suicide note found beside her, she said that the last thing she remembered was her mother making her an alcoholic drink, something she had never done before. She told the officers that she did not write the note and was confused about their questions and accusations.


title: Stacey Castor

text: For two years, investigators had collected evidence against Castor for the deaths of her husbands. In 2007, she was arrested for second degree murder in David's death and for attempting to murder Ashley and frame her for the murders of David and Wallace.


title: Stacey Castor

text: Prosecutors argued that the computer-generated note where Ashley "confesses" to killing Wallace and David had actually been written by Castor. Ashley was 12 at the time of her father Wallace's death. When brought on the stand, she testified that she did not murder either her father or her stepfather nor did she write the suicide note.


title: Stacey Castor

text: Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick and Chief Assistant District Attorney Christine Garvey argued that David Castor's "suicide" had never made sense given the lack of his fingerprints on the glass or container tainted with ethylene glycol, a toxic substance found in antifreeze, and the turkey baster found in the kitchen garbage bearing both ethylene glycol and his DNA. They felt that this suggested he was force-fed antifreeze. Given evidence of the evolution of David Castor's illness, they concluded that Castor had for four days fed her husband antifreeze through the baster before trying to make it look like a suicide. She had said that her husband got the idea to kill himself with antifreeze while both were watching a news report about Lynn Turner, who murdered two past lovers by using the poison.


title: Stacey Castor

text: The prosecutors presented evidence showing how antifreeze poisoning can be identified from the growth of calcium oxalate crystals in the kidneys, and that this was seen with examination of Wallace and David's bodies as well. In addition, they noted money as one of the main reasons Castor murdered her husbands. She had murdered her husbands partly to collect on their life insurance and estates, and had changed David's will to exclude his son by a previous marriage from the money left to him by David.


title: Stacey Castor

text: "In 2005, people started to put it together," Cayuga County Sheriff Dave Gould said. "If Mr. Wallace had been cremated, or if Mr. Castor had not died, we would never have known we had a homicide."


title: Stacey Castor

text: Having searched Castor's computer, prosecutors had found several drafts of the suicide note Ashley was accused of writing. Forensic investigators found that based on the timestamps, it had been written while Ashley was in school, proving she couldn't have been its author. They argued that the "suicide attempt" had actually been a planned-out murder attempt by Castor against Ashley. On the stand, Ashley retold how her mother had convinced her to drink the two nights before she almost died. She repeated that she only drank the "nasty-tasting" beverage because she trusted Castor. She maintained her innocence of the two murders and the writing of the note.


title: Stacey Castor

text: Castor's defense team—attorneys Charles Keller and Todd Smith—was set on creating reasonable doubt in the jury's minds about Castor having committed the murders. They wanted to "poke holes" in Ashley's version of what happened and prove that she could have been capable of murder at age 11. They noted Ashley's father, Wallace, showing favoritism toward his younger daughter rather than Ashley and cited jealousy as a possible motive for Ashley having murdered at such a young age. For her stepfather, they noted his and Ashley's tumultuous relationship and how they did not get along with each other. Castor's mother believed her granddaughter Ashley to be guilty. In a final attempt to convince the jury that she was not guilty, Castor took the stand.


title: Stacey Castor

text: On cross examination, Fitzpatrick pointed out what he felt were flaws in Castor's version of that night. She maintained that it was Ashley who murdered Wallace and David, though she would not speculate about motives beyond implying that her daughter might be mentally ill. Fitzpatrick pointed out that Ashley's mother had never sought therapy for her and that at 21 Ashley exhibited no sign of mental illness.


title: Stacey Castor

text: Fitzpatrick asserted that Castor's behavior during David Castor's and Ashley's illnesses made no sense, given the years she had worked for a paramedics company. She did not seek care for Ashley for 17 hours and indicated that David Castor, who was staggering and vomiting and unable to stand, "looked OK". Likewise, he questioned how a woman who had lost two husbands to poisoning would not seek help for a daughter in Ashley's state. Fitzpatrick frequently shouted at Castor, inspiring Castor's defense attorney Charles Keller to frequently object and even to request a mistrial.


title: Stacey Castor

text: Prosecutors brought up another piece of "damaging evidence" against Castor when they cited having heard "typing sounds" while Castor was on the phone. During one of the wiretapped recordings presented, "typing sounds" can be heard while Castor talks to a friend, though Castor denied memory of using the computer that day. Prosecutors argued the "typing sounds" were those of one of the several drafts Castor had written of the suicide note. Ashley had already testified to having witnessed her mother working on the computer on something she had hidden to prevent Ashley's seeing it. Fitzpatrick claimed this was the day Castor wrote the note, which had Castor's fingerprints but not Ashley's, to frame her daughter. He told the jury about the word antifreeze being written as "anti-free" in four places within the note and noted that Castor had also said "anti-free" during an interview. Castor said she had cut herself off while saying "antifreeze" because she had intended to say something else.


title: Stacey Castor

text: Castor's defense team presented a pharmaceutical expert in an attempt to cast doubt on the prosecution's claim that Castor had drugged Ashley 17 hours prior to being taken to the hospital. "Professor Francis Gengo testified that after analyzing the traces of drugs and alcohol found in blood drawn from Ashley at the hospital, Ashley would have had to ingest the alcohol, Ritalin, and several other drugs just several hours before she was hospitalized."


title: Stacey Castor

text: On February 5, 2009, Castor was found guilty of second degree murder in the poisoning death of David and of attempted second degree murder for overdosing her daughter Ashley with drugs and vodka. With a "jam-packed" courtroom, most were focused on Castor. She, however, had her eyes closed as the verdicts were read. Her lead defense counsel, Keller, announced that Castor would appeal the verdict, including challenging the inclusion of evidence regarding the death of her first husband, for which Castor had not been charged.


title: Stacey Castor

text: On March 5, 2009, at Castor's sentencing, Chief Assistant District Attorney Christine Garvey asked Fahey to impose the maximum consecutive sentences because of the brutality of David's death. Further, she criticized how Castor had "partied in her backyard with friends like nothing was happening" as Ashley was comatose in her room. "She is cold, calculating and without any emotion for what she has done," she stated. "Human life is sacred. Stacey Castor places no value on human life, not even her own flesh and blood. To Stacey Castor, human beings are disposable."


title: Stacey Castor

text: David's son, whom Castor had cheated out of his inheritance, pleaded with Judge Fahey for Castor to be severely punished. "Your honor, [Castor] is a monster and a threat to society," he said. "She has created so much pain and death with this, creating multiples of pain and death, in the families of those she has hurt."


title: Stacey Castor

text: Judge Fahey told Castor that he had never seen a parent attempt to murder their child in order to set their child up for a crime they themselves committed and declared Castor "in a class all by [her]self". He sentenced her to the maximum of 25 years to life for the murder of David Castor, and to another 25 years for the attempt to kill Ashley. For forging David's will, he ordered Castor to serve an additional 1 to four years in prison.


title: Stacey Castor

text: The trial had lasted for four weeks. An emotional Ashley told the judge she hated her mother "for ruining so many people's lives" but still loved her for the bond she originally had with her.


title: Stacey Castor

text: Fitzpatrick said that under New York sentencing guidelines, Castor would have to serve just over 51 years before she became eligible for parole—at her age, effectively a life sentence.


title: Stacey Castor

text: Castor, New York Department of Corrections inmate number 09G0209, was placed in Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women in Bedford Hills, New York. Even with credit for time served, her earliest possible release date was June 15, 2055—slightly over a month shy of her 88th birthday.


title: Stacey Castor

text: On April 24, 2009, ABC aired a two-hour "20/20" special about Castor and the trial, which included interviews. During the trial, Castor had been dubbed "The Black Widow" by media outlets, a title previously given to Lynn Turner. Ashley said that she does not know how her mother, any mother, could try to kill her own child, a question that the public has also pondered. Castor, who professed to being shocked at the guilty verdict, maintained her innocence during the on-air "20/20" special, as well as in unaired parts of the program. She said that "Ashley brought this on" and insists that she and Ashley know what really happened. She did express sympathy for her daughter Bree. She called Bree an innocent victim, whom she lost along with her freedom and her husbands. She indicated that her mother, stepfather and some other relatives still support her.


title: Stacey Castor

text: Bree, like Ashley, never spoke to Castor after the trial. Bree said that though losing her mother was hard, "I was happy that they said she was guilty, because we all know that she's guilty." Ashley said, "I would have done anything for her. But she tried to kill me instead." Both of Castor's daughters expressed concern that their mother had not yet apologized to them. Castor maintains she is innocent of the deaths of her husbands and the attempted murder of Ashley.


title: Stacey Castor

text: ABC interviewed forensic psychiatrist Dr. James Knoll for psychological perspective on the case and he answered viewers' questions via video on April 23, 2009, and via site comments on April 27, 2009. He stated that while most suicide notes focus on themes of remorse and the person not being able to go on with life, the note supposedly written by Ashley was focused on taking the blame off of Castor. He said that this theme was repeated fourteen times within the note and that he believes Castor will never admit to guilt of the murders. The code of murderers such as these, he said, is "deny, deny, deny" until the bitter end. When asked if Castor's behavior and body language on the stand shows any sort of clue about her mental state and guilt, Knoll reminded that body language and behavior can be affected by events during a trial (such as "side effects of medications, anxiety, fatigue and attorney instructions to the defendant on how to behave") and that their interpretation is not always reliable.


title: Stacey Castor

text: Though Castor was not officially defined as a serial killer, it is likely that she would have killed again. Knoll said that killers may have many different motivations. He described Castor as a "black widow" type rather than a typical serial killer. He described a "black widow" type as a woman who kills husbands or lovers for material gain, as opposed to the typical serial killer (men who kill consecutively for sexual or sadistic motives). He relayed that "psychopathic traits and histories of childhood abuse have been consistently reported in these women" and suggested that if Castor were guilty of the crimes of which she had been convicted and accused, then she would be demonstrating psychopathic traits, including regarding even her own child as an object to be used for her convenience.


title: Stacey Castor

text: "Forensic Files" had an episode titled "Freeze Framed" regarding Castor. In addition to the Turner and Castor antifreeze murder cases, similar cases were reported in 2008. In 2002, a man had been convicted of murdering his wife by antifreeze in 1998. A letter she had written before her death incriminated him as the murderer if she were to die eventually; the letter led to his prosecution. Series Sex Lies and Murder, series 2 episode 3 as well as describing the events leading to the trial included an interview with the district attorney in the case. The DA pointed out Castor may have murdered her own father, Jerry Daniels, who died February 22, 2002, shortly after his daughter visited him in the hospital where he had a minor lung complaint. Castor's first husband's family believes Castor may have killed her father having brought an open can of soda in for her father to drink in the hospital. She was the executor of his estate.


title: Stacey Castor

text: Castor was found dead in her cell on the morning of June 11, 2016. It was not immediately apparent how she died and the manner of her death was listed as undetermined. It was later determined by the D.A.'s office that Castor died of a heart attack, with no evidence of suicide or foul play.


title: Stacey Castor

text: Stacey Castor's story was adapted into the Lifetime film, "Poisoned Love: The Stacey Castor Story," as part of its "Ripped from the Headlines" feature-film series; this made-for-television film was first transmitted on February 1, 2020. The film starred Nia Vardalos, who played Castor herself.


title: Armour of God (film)

text: Armour of God (; also known as Operation Condor 2: The Armour of the Gods in the United States) is a 1986 Hong Kong action-adventure film written and directed by Jackie Chan, who also starred in the film in the lead role. The film co-stars Alan Tam, Lola Forner and Rosamund Kwan.


title: Armour of God (film)

text: The film combines Chan's martial arts, comedy and stunts with an "Indiana Jones" style adventure film theme, and is deemed a cult classic. Chan came the closest he had ever been to death in this film during a relatively routine stunt; he leaped onto a tree from a ledge, but the branch he grabbed snapped, sending Chan plummeting and cracking his skull.


title: Armour of God (film)

text: The film was the highest-grossing film in Hong Kong at the time, grossing an estimated at the box office in Asia and Europe. It was followed by the sequel "" in 1991. It also inspired several other action-adventure films starring Jackie Chan, including "The Medallion" (2003), "The Myth" (2005), "CZ12" (2012) and "Kung Fu Yoga" (2017) as well as the cartoon series "Jackie Chan Adventures".


title: Armour of God (film)

text: Jackie, a.k.a. "Asian Hawk", is a former musician who becomes an adventurer and treasure hunter. After successfully stealing a sword from an African tribe, he has the weapon auctioned before it is won by May Bannon, the beautiful daughter of Count Bannon. He is reunited with his former bandmate Alan, who seeks his help as his girlfriend Lorelei has been kidnapped by an evil religious cult as a means of acquiring Jackie's services. The cult possesses two pieces of a legendary armour called the "Armour of God", and they intend to have Jackie bring them the three remaining armour pieces, including the sword. Jackie and Alan strike a deal with Count Bannon, who is in possession of the three armour pieces: they will borrow the armour pieces for their quest to rescue Lorelei with a promise to complete the armour for the Count, on the condition that May accompanies them.


title: Armour of God (film)

text: Jackie, Alan and May travel into Yugoslavia to find the cult's monastery. They infiltrate the hideout and secretly rescue Lorelei, unaware that the cult leaders have anticipated their arrival and brainwashed her to do their bidding. At May's rest home, Lorelei drugs Alan and has him steal the three armour pieces. Jackie sneaks back to the monastery and rescues his friends. As Alan and Lorelei make their escape, Jackie fends off against the cult members before discovering the Armour of God in a cave. Before he gets a chance to take the armour, he encounters the Grand Wizard, who unleashes his four female assassins on the adventurer. Exploiting their high-heeled shoes as their weakness, Jackie defeats the assassins in a gruelling fight. Jackie is then surrounded by the rest of the Grand Wizard's men, but he reveals a vest filled with sticks of dynamite under his jacket, threatening to blow himself up with the monastery. After a couple of bluffs, he carelessly lights up the fuse and throws away the sticks of dynamite, running for his life as the monastery quickly begins to cave in, burying the entire cult and the Armour of God. He runs out of a cave and spots a hot-air balloon with Alan, Lorelei, and May aboard. In a daring move, Jackie does a base jump off the cave and lands on top of the balloon, ending the movie.


title: Armour of God (film)

text: "Armour of God" was filmed on location in parts of what was then Yugoslavia: Zagreb (Dolac Central Market), Upper town, Trnje (near the then-unfinished building of Croatian Radio Television), Croatia, and Predjama Castle near Postojna, Slovenia. Filming was also undertaken in Graz, Austria, France, Spain and Morocco. During filming of the opening sequence, one scene called for Jackie Chan to jump from a wall to a tree branch. The first take went as planned, but Chan insisted on re-shooting the scene. On his second attempt, the branch broke and he fell 5 metres to the ground below. His head hit a rock, cracking his skull and forcing a piece of bone up into his brain. Chan was flown to the hospital and was in surgery eight hours later. As a result, he now has a permanent hole in his head filled with a plastic plug and slight hearing loss in his right ear. Chan replaced Eric Tsang as director following the accident. Footage of the accident is shown during the film's ending credits.


title: Armour of God (film)

text: While shooting the hot-air balloon jump, Chan skydived out of a plane and landed on top of the balloon instead of jumping off a cliff as is seen in the film. For the shot of him jumping off the cliff, the crew rigged him up to a wire as he had no experience of BASE jumping.


title: Armour of God (film)

text: "Armour of God" was released in Japan in mid-1986, specifically on 16 August 1986. The film was released in Hong Kong on 21 January 1987.


title: Armour of God (film)

text: In Hong Kong, the film grossed 35,469,408 (). It was the highest-grossing film in Hong Kong at the time. In Japan, the film grossed (). In Taiwan, it grossed (US$472,188). In South Korea, it was the top-grossing foreign film of 1987, with 208,462 ticket sales, equivalent to an estimated ().


title: Armour of God (film)

text: In Hungary, the film sold 464,200 tickets at the box office in 1988, equivalent to an estimated () in gross revenue. In France, it sold 88,231 tickets in 1988, equivalent to an estimated (). Combined, the film grossed an estimated in Asia and Europe.


title: Armour of God (film)

text: The film received positive reviews, with an approval rating of 70% on Rotten Tomatoes based on ten reviews.


title: Armour of God (film)

text: In 2014, "Time Out" polled several film critics, directors, actors and stunt actors to list their top action films. "Armour of God" was listed at 81st place on this list.


title: Armour of God (film)

text: In Asia, some versions of the film had Alan Tam's song "Lorelei" playing during the end credits whereas others had Jackie Chan singing "Flight of the Dragon (aka High upon High)". Tam and Chan recorded both songs in Cantonese and English and their English versions were featured in the export English dubs.


title: Armour of God (film)

text: In the United States, "Armour of God" did not receive a theatrical release. The film's sequel, "" (1991), was released under the simplified title "Operation Condor". "Armour of God" was subsequently released direct-to-video by Miramax Films, but the title was changed to "Operation Condor 2: The Armor of the Gods"; at the time of its release it served as a prequel, despite being the first film. A new musical score was created for this release, and a new English dub (with the participation of Chan).


title: Armour of God (film)

text: These same cuts were evident in the Spanish Region 2 release, but DVD releases in Hong Kong, Australia and the rest of Europe are uncut.


title: Darkwood

text: Darkwood is a survival horror video game developed and published by Acid Wizard Studio. The game was first released through Steam Early Access on July 24, 2014, eventually becoming a full game release on August 17, 2017 for Microsoft Windows, macOS and Linux. The game takes place in a mysterious dark forest somewhere in the Polish People's Republic or according to the developers, another region of the Soviet Bloc wherein the main characters have been trapped. On March 20, 2019, a Nintendo Switch version was announced during the Nindies Nintendo Direct and was released on May 16, 2019. The game was also ported and released for the PlayStation 4 on May 14, 2019, for Xbox One on May 16, under the publisher Crunching Koalas, and for Google Stadia on September 17, 2021.


title: Darkwood

text: The game features a semi-open world, with the player unlocking new areas as the storyline progresses. It also features a crafting system, a day/night cycle, trading and non-player character (NPC) interaction, a skill system, stealth and combat, as well as multiple storyline branches which alter several aspects of the world.


title: Darkwood

text: During daytime, the player can explore the world and scavenge for supplies at several locations scattered around each biome as well as spend this time repairing doors or barricades around the hideout and crafting new items and upgrades at the workbench. During the day, the player can also "cook" Hallucinogens at his stove in order to gain access to various skills, any beneficial skill that the player chooses requires a detrimental skill to also be chosen. During the night, the player cannot leave the hideout and must defend against possible intruders until morning. Planning a defensive strategy is key and players have the opportunity to lay traps and barricade doors or windows to slow down any intruders.


title: Darkwood

text: Should the player survive the night, they will gain reputation with the trader which can be used to trade for more expensive items. If the player dies during the night, they will wake up in the next morning without receiving any reputation. Should the player die while out scavenging, they will suffer a loss of half their inventory which is then marked on the map for later collection. Higher difficulties have higher penalties for death such as the loss of lives or permanent death.


title: Darkwood

text: The storyline is shaped based on how the player reacts to the requests and actions of NPCs. Aiding different ones will lead to different endings, and sometimes influences sub-plots relating to several other NPCs. The game switches to a different map in its second chapter, with the previous regions becoming locked and several new gameplay elements and NPCs being introduced. Different characters from the first chapter may appear too, depending on the player's actions. The game features two different main endings, with each character's subplot being defined by other, smaller actions as well as which of these endings the player has achieved.


title: Darkwood

text: Darkwood is set somewhere in the Polish People's Republic or according to the developers, somewhere else in the Soviet Bloc in the late 1980s where a mysterious forest has engulfed a large amount of land and is continuing to expand. Many people have been left trapped by the forest and a strange plague is ravaging the survivors, killing and causing victims to transform into monsters and abominations. A group named "The Outsiders" consisting mostly of government officials and soldiers were sent to investigate the woods, setting up hideouts and a tunnel system to get in and out of the forest. By the time the game takes place most of the Outsiders are dead or evacuated from the zone.


title: Darkwood

text: In the prologue, the player takes control of an apparent doctor as he searches for supplies. The Doctor seems to be disillusioned with his job of helping locals and is hellbent on escaping the forest. After the prologue, the player takes control of "The Stranger", a man who is searching for the stolen key that will lead him through an underground passageway out of the forest. Other characters include a trader who helps the protagonist in the prologue, a half-man half-wolf hybrid known only as "The Wolfman", a cyclist drunk known as the "Bike Man" and Piotrek, who is mesmerised by space travel and Yuri Gagarin, and wishes to build a rocket.


title: Darkwood

text: The game begins with The Doctor rambling about the forest and how it has consumed all exits and trapped its inhabitants, his inability to treat the plague and his devotion to escaping the woods before he perishes. While scavenging for gasoline, The Doctor comes across the Stranger, injured and unconscious after an unknown accident. After looting a large key from his body, the Doctor theorizes that the Stranger possesses knowledge on how to escape the forest. The Stranger is then captured, sedated and eventually beaten as the Doctor interrogates him regarding an escape route. The story focus and controls switch to the Stranger as he engineers an escape from the Doctor's house. After some exploration, the cottage is broken into by several monsters and the Stranger blacks out.


title: Darkwood

text: It is implied in a cutscene that the Trader stumbled across the Doctor's cottage and rescued the Stranger, bringing him back to a hideout in the Dry Meadow. The Stranger first explores the underground entrance to make sure the Doctor has not gone through with the key, but finds that the door has not been opened in a while. The player may then side with the Wolfman or the Musician in order to find the Doctor, or accomplish this by his own devices.


title: Darkwood

text: Once finding the Doctor in the train wreck (either by exploring his house from the prologue, or getting an appointment from the Musician), he will attempt to resist the Stranger. Several outcomes are available, including killing the Doctor for his key or allowing him to accompany the player through the underground passage. One way or another, progressing through the armoured door leads to the end of Chapter 1.


title: Darkwood

text: As the Stranger leaves the tunnel he finds that it no longer leads out of the forest and instead leads to a swamp. The Stranger will also find the beheaded corpse of the Trader, and will instead be visited by three masked figures in the mornings. Chapter 2 is where many choices in Chapter 1 affect the outcomes of certain characters, for example, if players did not aid the Wolfman then he will steal items from the player and lure them into a trap, and if players followed the Wolfman's path, the Musician will appear in the Stranger's hideout.


title: Darkwood

text: The Stranger finds a large talking tree blocking the exit of the forest in a flooded village, which indirectly asks the Stranger to explore a radio tower. A cripple residing in this village requests that the Stranger burns this tree. Both pathways offer ways of leaving the forest and of reaching the Epilogue.


title: Darkwood

text: The Stranger pushes through the forest until reaching a town and their old apartment, where he settles in for a long sleep. However, careful exploration reveals this ending to be an illusion which the player can uncover, if they spot the odd things in the apartment block. The Stranger eventually finds roots growing under the floorboards and a hole under his bed. Crawling through will have the Stranger wake up naked, with his clothes discarded nearby, in a passage overgrown with roots.


title: Darkwood

text: The "Road Home" did not lead home, as the player awakens in a chamber filled with thousands of people curled up around a strange being, dead or sleeping and muttering in bliss. If the Stranger aided Doctor, he will find him resting next to the being. The being attempts to entice the Stranger by making him feel warm and tired, if the player does not resist then they will fall unconscious and be back in the apartment with only one course of action available: bliss and ignorance. If the Player resists, then the Stranger will find a flamethrower among the sleepers and burn the being and all those around it to death. The fire spreads so rapidly that the Stranger is unable to escape; and the flames quickly consume most of the forest and its inhabitants. The death of the strange being and the Stranger's sacrifice allow the military to deploy to the forest safely to save the remaining inhabitants and restore order. In both endings, text blocks detailing each character's fate appear, which can be influenced by the player's actions during the game.


title: Darkwood

text: The game was revealed with the release of a pre-alpha gameplay trailer on YouTube, on March 5, 2013. A page for the game was created on Steam Greenlight on March 11, 2013, with the following months seeing the release of a campaign on the popular crowdfunding website Indiegogo which funded the game's initial developing. The campaign collected over US$57,000, totalizing 143% of the established goal (US$40,000). On July 24, 2014, the game was released to the public in an alpha stage, with updates being released ever since. Support for 32-bit Linux systems, although present at first, was dropped mid-development, as a survey done by the developers showed no players currently using such a system. On June 6, 2017, the game was pushed out of alpha, and into version beta 1.


title: Darkwood

text: A live action trailer produced by the Polish studio Film Fiction was released on July 19, and the full game was released on August 18, 2017.


title: Darkwood

text: On August 25, the developers released a blog post on image hosting website Imgur, telling the story of the game's development process and releasing a free torrent of it, asking the players to buy it if they enjoy it. This move was motivated by two reasons, they wanted some players who couldn't afford the game to be able to play it, and also received several e-mails related to theft of game keys. They stated that they preferred to give the game for free to some people than feed the leeching key-reselling websites.


title: Darkwood

text: On January 22, 2018, the developers released the 1.2 update, bringing Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese and German translations to the game. The translations were worked on with the help of the community. They also stated that more language localizations were in development. In May 2019, the official Nintendo Switch version was released. On August 7, 2019, the 1.3 version was released, containing a number of bugfixes, optimizations and localizations for Simplified Chinese, Italian, Turkish and Hungarian. A French localization was also confirmed to be in development.


title: Darkwood

text: According to the developers, Darkwood was inspired by:"The works of David Lynch, Strugacki brothers, Stanisław Lem. Games like "Fallout", "Dark Souls", "Project Zomboid", "Teleglitch". Slavic folklore. And, well, life."


title: Darkwood

text: They also said:"A lot people said there are similarities between Lovecraft and Darkwood, and turned out that none of us read any Lovecraft before making Darkwood."


title: Darkwood

text: Critics wrote positive pieces regarding the game prior to and after its public release. It has a score of 80/100 on Metacritic based on 16 reviews. Metacritic also included it in their "top 100 best videogames of 2017" list.


title: Darkwood

text: Amy Josuweit, writing for The Mary Sue, praised the game for not relying on jumpscares, creating what she calls a "PTSD-inclusive horror experience".


title: Darkwood

text: The announcement of the Nintendo Switch version was followed by articles by "Variety" and "IGN". In the second one, Tom Marks (writing for "IGN") praised the game for "not taking cheap shots" and "playing surprisingly well with a Switch Pro Controller".


title: Lord Peter Wimsey

text: Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey (later 17th Duke of Denver) is the fictional protagonist in a series of detective novels and short stories by Dorothy L. Sayers (and their continuation by Jill Paton Walsh). A dilettante who solves mysteries for his own amusement, Wimsey is an archetype for the British gentleman detective. He is often assisted by his valet and former batman, Mervyn Bunter; by his good friend and later brother-in-law, police detective Charles Parker; and, in a few books, by Harriet Vane, who becomes his wife.


title: Lord Peter Wimsey

text: Born in 1890 and ageing in real time, Wimsey is described as being of average height, with straw-coloured hair, a beaked nose, and a vaguely foolish face. Reputedly his looks are patterned after those of academic and poet Roy Ridley, whom Sayers briefly met after witnessing him read his Newdigate Prize-winning poem "Oxford" at the Encaenia ceremony in July 1913. Wimsey also possesses considerable intelligence and athletic ability, evidenced by his playing cricket for Oxford University while earning a First. He creates a spectacularly successful publicity campaign for Whifflet cigarettes while working for Pym's Publicity Ltd, and at age 40 is able to turn three cartwheels in the office corridor, stopping just short of the boss's open office door ("Murder Must Advertise").


title: Lord Peter Wimsey

text: Among Lord Peter's hobbies, in addition to criminology, is collecting incunabula, books from the earliest days of printing. He is an expert on matters of food (and especially wine), male fashion, and classical music. He excels at the piano, including Bach's works for keyboard instruments. One of Lord Peter's cars is a 12-cylinder ("double-six") 1927 Daimler four-seater, which (like all his cars) he calls "Mrs Merdle" after a character in Charles Dickens's "Little Dorrit" who "hated fuss".


title: Lord Peter Wimsey

text: Lord Peter Wimsey's ancestry begins with the 12th-century knight Gerald de Wimsey, who went with King Richard the Lionheart on the Third Crusade and took part in the Siege of Acre. This makes the Wimseys an unusually ancient family, since "Very few English noble families go that far in the first creation; rebellions and monarchic head choppings had seen to that", as reviewer Janet Hitchman noted in the introduction to "Striding Folly". The family coat of arms is blazoned as "Sable, 3 mice courant, argent; crest, a domestic cat couched as to spring, proper". The family motto, displayed under its coat of arms, is "As my Whimsy takes me."