title: Richard Brooks

text: Brooks landed the property of the decade when author Truman Capote selected him to adapt his best-selling book "In Cold Blood". Once again rejecting the methodical pace that had slowed him with other productions, Brooks worked quickly to adapt the "nonfiction novel," as Capote called it. As a reporter, Brooks also conducted his own research into the murders of four members of a Kansas farm family and the lives of the two drifters responsible for the crime. Brooks rejected Columbia's suggestion that he hire stars to play the killers and instead cast two relative unknowns, Scott Wilson and Robert Blake. He resisted the studio on another point, shooting the film in black and white rather than color because he thought it was a more frightening medium. He used locations where the events occurred, including the house where the family had been killed. "In Cold Blood" had a documentary style and was considered among the films of the mid-1960s that ushered in a more mature Hollywood style. Brooks received double Oscar nominations; cinematographer Conrad Hall and composer Quincy Jones also were nominated.


title: Richard Brooks

text: "The Professionals" and "In Cold Blood" marked the apex of Brooks' career. In the two decades that followed, he wrote and directed just six more films. Of note was "The Happy Ending" (1969). From his original screenplay about a woman dealing with disappointments in her marriage and her life, it was the kind of low-key personal film more likely to come from Europe than an American director. The film earned an Oscar nomination for star Jean Simmons. (Her own marriage to Brooks ended in divorce in 1980.)


title: Richard Brooks

text: In 1972 Brooks was hired by Columbia Pictures to direct "First Blood," with Bette Davis to be cast as a psychiatrist and either Lee Marvin or Burt Lancaster to be cast as Sheriff Will Teasle. Brooks intended the film to be a commentary on the perceptions of veterans from both World War II and the Vietnam War. He also intended to make Teasle a more sympathetic character, who at the end of the film would have ordered his men to drop their guns to try to reason with John Rambo before Rambo was shot by unknown gunman. The film was cancelled because the Vietnam War had not ended, and the rights were sold to Warner Bros. Pictures.


title: Richard Brooks

text: "Bite the Bullet" (1975) was Brooks' return to the western. He based his original screenplay on the endurance horse races popular at the turn of the century. In 1977, he released another controversial film, an adaptation of Judith Rossner's 1975 novel "Looking for Mr. Goodbar." 'Goodbar'starred Diane Keaton as a Catholic school teacher who searches for sexual satisfaction in singles bars. Brooks made the film on a tight budget, and its frank treatment of sex and its horrific storyline brought praise and condemnation and sold tickets. He ended his career with "Wrong Is Right" (1982), a satire about the news media and world unrest starring Sean Connery, and a gambling addiction film with Ryan O'Neal and Catherine Hicks in "Fever Pitch" (1985). 'Fever Pitch' featured a story about a renowned Los Angeles sportswriter who becomes a sports gambling addict. Brooks himself had been a sportswriter when a young man. Both movies were critical and commercial failures.


title: Richard Brooks

text: Brooks tried developing other projects in the last years of his life. He suffered from heart ailments and a stroke before dying at his home in 1992 at the age of 79.


title: Richard Brooks

text: In 1960, he married Jean Simmons, after her divorce from Stewart Granger. Brooks helped to raise Tracy, Simmons' daughter by Granger. The couple had another daughter, Kate, together in 1961. They separated in 1977 and were legally divorced in 1980. Previously, Brooks had been married for 11 years to Harriette Levin, a relationship that also ended in divorce.


title: Richard Brooks

text: Brooks hated bigotry, which was a central theme of his novel "The Brick Foxhole", his co-written screenplay for "Storm Warning" (1951), and his first western, "The Last Hunt" (1956). Racial division and reconciliation was also at the heart of "Something of Value" (1957). He saw "Blackboard Jungle" as encouraging teachers to continue striving to help their students and as reassuring them that they can make a difference. Opposed to the death penalty, he used "In Cold Blood" to suggest that executing criminals solves nothing and only creates more violence.


title: Richard Brooks

text: While he worked in the studio system for most of the 1940s and 1950s, Brooks often clashed with studio policies about the look and feel of films and the stories they presented. He also chafed against the Production Code's limitations on subject matter and expression. His goal as a filmmaker was total control of a production, and he achieved that with most films after the success of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof". The failure of "Lord Jim" threatened that independence. Brooks responded by becoming a fast and efficient filmmaker, operating with a tight budget and often forgoing a high up-front salary in exchange for a guarantee of control.


title: Richard Brooks

text: Brooks was developing a reputation as a hard-driving, difficult and perpetually angry man as early as his tenure with radio station WNEW in the late 1930s. He was not averse to quitting a job when in conflict with those in charge—as he did while directing at the Mill Pond Theater in 1940 and writing for Universal in 1943. At MGM he was known for almost daily eruptions of anger, often aimed at his crew and sometimes at his cast. That did not change even after he was the producer of his films, and he was known throughout the industry as a talented filmmaker yet a difficult man to deal with. Debbie Reynolds recounts that, while as a young and relatively inexperienced actress filming "The Catered Affair" (1956), Brooks hit her in the face and had to be pulled away from further assault by the assistant director. Later during filming, a heavy piece of equipment fell on his foot, breaking it, and the crew were noticeably slow in removing it which Reynolds attests to a general dislike of the director.


title: Richard Brooks

text: Brooks was much the same way in his personal life. He readily acknowledged that he was a trying husband and that his work was the most important activity in his life. He was not interested in Hollywood's social scene, preferring to entertain guests at his home with tennis and movies when he wasn't working on screenplays or other projects. Yet his wife Jean Simmons found him to be a humorous, stimulating husband and a loving father to their daughters. But from all accounts, he was a "tough as nails" father as well.


title: Richard Brooks

text: Brooks was one of the relatively few filmmakers whose careers bridged the transition from the classic studio system to the independent productions that marked the 1960s and beyond. He was also among the postwar writer-directors who made some of their best films as they struggled to break free of industry censorship. His legacy is that of a filmmaker who sought independence in a collaborative art and tried to bring his own vision to the screen.


title: Richard Brooks

text: Surrounded by family (Jean Simmons and daughters) and longtime friend actor Gene Kelly, Brooks died from congestive heart failure in 1992 at his house in Coldwater Canyon in Studio City, California. He was interred in the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California, a few steps away from the graves of his parents. On his vault was placed a plaque inscribed, "First comes the word. . .". The quote was chosen by his step-daughter, film editor Tracy Granger, as Brooks always identified most strongly as a writer.


title: Richard Brooks

text: Brooks expressed his concept when he reportedly said to his assembled cast and crew on the first day of shooting "Looking for Mr. Goodbar": "I'm sure that all of you have your own ideas about what kind of contribution you can make to this film, what you can do to improve it or make it better. Keep it to yourself. It's my fucking movie and I'm going to make it my way!"


title: Richard Brooks

text: For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Brooks has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6422 Hollywood Blvd, between N. Cahuenga Boulevard and Wilcox Avenue.


title: Richard Brooks

text: After his death, Brooks' papers were donated to the Margaret Herrick Library and his film collection was donated to the Academy Film Archive. The Academy Film Archive preserved "Lord Jim" in 2000 and various home movies made by Richard Brooks in 2009 and 2016.


title: Chaos A.D.

text: Chaos A.D. is the fifth studio album by Brazilian heavy metal band Sepultura, released in 1993 by Roadrunner Records. The album saw a stylistic departure from the band's earlier thrash metal style, by featuring a new groove metal sound. "Chaos A.D." is also Sepultura's only album on Epic Records, who handled its release for North American distribution, as well as the first album to feature Paulo Jr. on bass after having played with the band in a live capacity since 1984.


title: Chaos A.D.

text: The band considered a number of producers, including avant-garde jazz composer John Zorn and Al Jourgensen of industrial metal pioneers Ministry. They ultimately chose Andy Wallace, who had previously mixed "Arise". Sepultura wanted isolation, and for that Andy Wallace suggested Rockfield Studios, located in South Wales. The recording sessions marked the first time Sepultura had recorded as a quartet as opposed to a trio, which saw Andreas Kisser handling both bass and guitar duties on their previous three albums; as such, "Chaos A.D." was the first album to include Paulo Jr., who had been playing live with the band since joining in 1984.


title: Chaos A.D.

text: "Kaiowas" was recorded live among the ruins of the medieval castle of Chepstow. It was an entirely acoustic track, with Kisser and Max Cavalera on the guitars and drummer Igor Cavalera and Paulo Jr. on percussion. When they recorded "Kaiowas", the quartet never even considered playing the track live, because they thought it would be too difficult to recreate the drumming on stage. They changed their minds after seeing a video of the American band Neurosis: "We saw in that live video that the Neurosis guys put down their guitars and everybody started to play the drums on stage", lead guitarist Andreas remembers. "We decided to try the same thing. We rehearsed it once and it was wonderful. We haven't stopped playing the song live since."


title: Chaos A.D.

text: During recording sessions, Sepultura recorded a number of covers: "The Hunt", from New Model Army, "Polícia", from Titãs, "Inhuman Nature", from the American hardcore punk band Final Conflict, and "Crucificados pelo Sistema", from Brazilian Ratos de Porão. Igor, a New Model Army fan, convinced the other band members to include "The Hunt" on the record. Paulo joked that the money of the LP would go straight to new dentures for Justin Sullivan, the toothless singer of New Model Army. The latter 3 covers would be included as B-sides and also on the compilation "Blood-Rooted". "Polícia" is also included as a bonus track on the Brazilian edition of the album. Up until the time the album was due, the title was originally Propaganda after track 6, but Max Cavalera changed it to "Chaos A.D." after the Misfits' "Earth A.D."


title: Chaos A.D.

text: Out of the boredom of playing the "Arise" songs for two years straight and concerned about the threat of musically stagnating, Sepultura pushed the envelope on "Chaos A.D." The first track, "Refuse/Resist", revealed the band's new musical direction: slower, with more emphasis on groove than speed. The song starts with the heartbeat of Max's then-unborn first son, Zyon, followed by some Afro-Brazilian drumming reminiscent of Salvador, Bahia samba-reggae group Olodum. About the track's introductory guitar riff, Max acknowledged that it "could have been created by a death metal band." "Chaos A.D." was their first record to utilize some lower guitar tunings. Half of the songs in the album are tuned down to D standard, except for "Kaiowas", which is in drop C tuning.


title: Chaos A.D.

text: Diversity was the key to "Chaos A.D.", revealed Max Cavalera. "Biotech Is Godzilla" was "pure hardcore", according to the elder Cavalera. "Nomad", with its characteristically slow riffs, was described by lead guitarist Andreas Kisser as their answer to Metallica's "Sad but True". The album also featured Sepultura's first all-acoustic incursion, "Kaiowas". "It's like a mixture of Led Zeppelin, Sonic Youth and Olodum", said Max of that particular song. "Dazed & Confused" magazine stated the album "signalled a move away from the [Sepultura]'s thrash roots, focusing on slower, industrial grooves." "Decibel" also acknowledged the departure from Sepultura's thrash metal style on "Chaos A.D." In the book "The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists", author Joel McIver stated the album showed a "movement away from extreme metal to a more punk sound" with a stronger focus on "feel and groove". McIver went on to state that the album showed the first signs of the groove metal genre that Sepultura would apply by the mid-1990s. In Ian Christe's book "Sound of the Beast", he credits "Chaos A.D", along with American heavy metal band Pantera, for developing the death metal-influenced music of groove metal that would later influence other artists in the '90s.


title: Chaos A.D.

text: The lyrics of "Refuse/Resist" mention "tanks on the streets, confronting police, bleeding the plebs." Its chorus ("Refuse! Resist!") resembles a protest march slogan, and when released as a single featured a photograph of a South Korean student rushing at Seoul's riot police contingent while holding a Molotov cocktail. The next song, "Territory", dealt with the conflict between the Palestinian and Israeli peoples. "Slave New World" — with its lyrics co-written by Biohazard bassist Evan Seinfeld — was a protest against censorship.


title: Chaos A.D.

text: Massacres were a major part of "Chaos A.D."s overall theme. "Amen" tackled the massacre of David Koresh's followers in Waco, Texas. "Manifest" had a faux-radio report of the Carandiru massacre, and "Kaiowas" was made in honor of a Brazilian Indian tribe that committed collective suicide in protest against the government that wanted to drive them off the land of their ancestors. "Nomad", written by Andreas, talked about people expelled from their homelands.


title: Chaos A.D.

text: In 2008, speaking to "Kerrang!", Max Cavalera remembered: "This certainly got in touch with the dark side of Sepultura. "Refuse/Resist" is an anti-police song – a real piece of anarchy. You could call the album riot music. It was full of heavy shit and some of it was risky, but it was just where we were coming from at the time. "Manifest" is also very close to me. That's about a massacre of prisoners by police at a jail in São Paulo. One hundred and eleven prisoners were killed, and one of my friends was there and took pictures of it all, one of which we used in the artwork."


title: Chaos A.D.

text: On "Chaos A.D.", Sepultura honored one of their biggest idols, Jello Biafra. Max had called Biafra asking him to contribute to the album with a song about the growing neo-Nazi movement. "I asked for something like 'Nazi Punks Fuck Off - Part 2'", remembers Max, referring to the anti-Nazi song "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" by the Dead Kennedys. But Biafra wasn't interested in recycling old ideas and he suggested a song called "Biotech Is Godzilla", that he had written during his visit to Eco '92, a world conference about ecology organized in Rio de Janeiro. "Jello spent ten minutes explaining me his crazy theories", said Max to Anamaria G. of "Bizz" magazine, "he said that George Bush had sent a group of scientists to Brazil to test germs and bacteria on human beings and use them as guinea pigs. The lyrics claim that biotechnology created AIDS. But they don't say that technology is bad, just that it's in the wrong hands."


title: Chaos A.D.

text: By the time "Chaos A.D." arrived, Sepultura were the biggest act of Roadrunner's roster. Aware of the band's increasing popularity, the label spent nearly $1 million on a "marketing blitz" which quickly guaranteed them silver and gold records in Belgium, France and the UK. The group also signed an exclusive distribution deal with a major label, Epic Records, home of Pearl Jam and Rage Against the Machine. This deal eventually went sour: Epic paid little attention to Sepultura, preferring to invest in Fight and Prong, groups that were, in the long run, less successful than the Brazilians.


title: Chaos A.D.

text: The "Chaos A.D." tour kickstarted on October 23, 1993 with British doom metal band Paradise Lost as the opening act. The tour went well, except for an incident where Berlin's police received a false tip claiming that Sepultura's tour bus was loaded with a major cocaine shipment. Enraged by the unjust search and seizure procedure, Max re-wrote "Antichrist", from their 1985 "Bestial Devastation" EP, as "Anti-Cop", and then the band proceeded in playing the song live throughout the tour (a recorded version is available on the combined re-release of "Bestial Devastation"/"Morbid Visions" and "The Roots of Sepultura" albums).


title: Chaos A.D.

text: While touring Europe, rumors floated around that Sepultura would be part of the latest edition of Brazil's "Hollywood Rock" music festival, taking place in January 1994. The event would happen simultaneously on São Paulo and in Rio de Janeiro. "Chaos A.D." has sold more than 1.5 million copies worldwide.


title: Chaos A.D.

text: The North American leg, which was co-headlined by Pantera, coincided with the 1994 FIFA World Cup, with the concert in Irvine, California taking place on July 17, a few hours after the tournament final, in nearby Pasadena. Sepultura, whose members attended the match, took to the stage decorated in the Brazilian colors in celebration of the national team's triumph in the tournament.


title: Chaos A.D.

text: "Chaos A.D." received positive reviews from music critics, with many commending the album's experimentation and sense of the band coming into their own. AllMusic declared it one of the best heavy metal albums of all time, calling it "a remarkable achievement not only in its concentrated power and originality, but also in the degree to which Sepultura eclipsed their idols in offering a vision of heavy metal's future." "Entertainment Weekly" proclaimed that "Sepultura will separate casual headbangers from rabid addicts fast... even nonmetalheads will be impressed by the variety in ["Chaos A.D."]: they're not averse to slowing things down."


title: Chaos A.D.

text: In 2017, it was ranked 29th on "Rolling Stone"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s "100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time".


title: Trump (card games)

text: A trump is a playing card which is elevated above its usual rank in trick-taking games. Typically, an entire suit is nominated as a "trump suit"; these cards then outrank all cards of plain (non-trump) suits. In other contexts, the terms trump card or to trump refers to any sort of action, authority, or policy which automatically prevails over all others.


title: Trump (card games)

text: The English word "trump" derives from "trionfi", a type of 15th-century Italian playing cards, from the Latin "triumphus" "triumph, victory procession", ultimately (via Etruscan) from Greek θρίαμβος, the term for a hymn to Dionysus sung in processions in his honour.


title: Trump (card games)

text: "Trionfi" was the 15th-century card game for which tarot cards were designed. "Trionfi" were a fifth suit in the card game which acted as permanent trumps. Still in the 15th century, the French game "triomphe" (Spanish " triunfo") used four suits, one of which was randomly selected as trumps. It was this game that became extremely popular in Western Europe in the 16th century and is ancestral to many modern card games.


title: Trump (card games)

text: The English word is first documented in 1529 as the name of a card game which would develop into Ruff and Honours and ultimately Whist.


title: Trump (card games)

text: In German, the term is attested as "Triumph" in 1541; the modern German spelling "Trumpf" is recorded from 1590.


title: Trump (card games)

text: In French, "triomphe" remained the name of the game, while the trump suit was called "atout", from "à tout" (as it were "all-in"). Some European languages (Hungarian, Greek) adopted the French term. Russian козырь "kozyr' " is of unknown etymology, possibly a loan from a Turkic source. Polish variously uses "atut", "trumf" and "kozer" adopted from the French, German and Russian respectively.


title: Trump (card games)

text: In most games, the relative rank of cards within a suit is the same in trump and plain suits, but they may sometimes differ, for example in Klabberjass, Euchre, or Eighty Points.


title: Trump (card games)

text: The trump suit may be fixed as in Spades, rotate on a fixed schedule or depend on the outcome of the previous hand as in Ninety-nine, be determined by drawing a card at random as in Bezique, by the last card dealt to a designated player as in Whist, by the first card played as in Nine Card Don, be chosen by a designated player as in Barbu, or players may bid for the right to select the trump suit as in Contract Bridge or Skat.


title: Trump (card games)

text: In most games, trump cards cannot be played if the player has any cards of the suit led to the trick; the requirement to "follow suit" is of higher priority. In a few games, trumps can be played at any time. Playing the first trump to an already-started trick is known as "trumping" or "ruffing"; if another player were to play a higher trump, that would be an "overruff" or "overtrump".


title: Trump (card games)

text: The tarot deck contains a fifth suit, known in gaming as the "atouts" or "honours" and in occult circles as the Major Arcana, which serves as a permanent trump suit in games played with the tarot deck. The suit consists of twenty-two cards, including a Fool which serves as a highest trump (in Central Europe) or excuses the players from following suit elsewhere.


title: Trump (card games)

text: Due primarily to the prevalence of the trump in card games, the term used in Japan for the standard 52-card deck of playing cards is , derived from the English word "trump".


title: Heil dir im Siegerkranz

text: "" (; German for "Hail to Thee in the Victor's Crown", literally: "Hail to Thee in the Victor's Wreath") was the official national anthem of the German Empire from 1871 to 1918 and royal anthem of Prussia from 1795 to 1918.


title: Heil dir im Siegerkranz

text: Before the foundation of the Empire in 1871, it had been the royal anthem of Prussia since 1795 and remained it after 1871. The melody of the hymn derived from the British anthem "God Save the King". For these reasons, the song failed to become popular within all of Germany. Not only did it fail to win the support of most German nationalists, but it also was never recognized by the southern German states, such as Bavaria or Württemberg. At the near end of World War I, the German Empire was overthrown and "Das Lied der Deutschen" was adopted as the national anthem of its successor, the Weimar Republic.


title: Heil dir im Siegerkranz

text: Heinrich Harries wrote the lyrics in 1790 in honour of King Christian VII of Denmark, and the line "Heil, Kaiser, dir" originally read "Heil, Christian, dir". In 1793, Harries' text was adapted by (1755–1805) for use in Prussia. Schumacher shortened Harries' text and replaced the word "Christian" with "König" (king). After the proclamation of the German Empire, the word "König" was replaced by "Kaiser" (emperor).


title: Heil dir im Siegerkranz

text: "Kaiser Wilhelm" in the lyrics originally referred to William I who reigned until 1888. His son, Frederick III, who reigned for only 99 days, was succeeded by Wilhelm II. One of the jokes at the time was that the song's title is changed to "Heil Dir im Sonderzug" ("Hail to Thee in Thy Royal Train"), owing to Wilhelm II's frequent travels.


title: Heil dir im Siegerkranz

text: After the beginning of World War I in 1914, Hugo Kaun set the text of the anthem to new music to remove the similarity to "God Save the King".


title: Heil dir im Siegerkranz

text: "Die Wacht am Rhein" ("The Watch on the Rhine") was also a patriotic hymn so popular that it was often regarded as an unofficial national anthem.


title: Heil dir im Siegerkranz

text: In the Kingdom of Bavaria, the official hymn was "" ("Heil unserm König, Heil!"), also sung to the melody of "God Save the King". Likewise, Liechtenstein has "Oben am jungen Rhein" (1920), sung to the same melody.


title: Heil dir im Siegerkranz

text: The Hawaiian anthem "Hawaiʻi Ponoʻī", composed by the Prussian Kapellmeister Henri Berger, is a variation of the melody.


title: Bytecode

text: Bytecode (also called portable code or p-code) is a form of instruction set designed for efficient execution by a software interpreter. Unlike human-readable source code, bytecodes are compact numeric codes, constants, and references (normally numeric addresses) that encode the result of compiler parsing and performing semantic analysis of things like type, scope, and nesting depths of program objects.


title: Bytecode

text: The name bytecode stems from instruction sets that have one-byte opcodes followed by optional parameters. Intermediate representations such as bytecode may be output by programming language implementations to ease interpretation, or it may be used to reduce hardware and operating system dependence by allowing the same code to run cross-platform, on different devices. Bytecode may often be either directly executed on a virtual machine (a p-code machine, i.e., interpreter), or it may be further compiled into machine code for better performance.


title: Bytecode

text: Since bytecode instructions are processed by software, they may be arbitrarily complex, but are nonetheless often akin to traditional hardware instructions: virtual stack machines are the most common, but virtual register machines have been built also. Different parts may often be stored in separate files, similar to object modules, but dynamically loaded during execution.


title: Bytecode

text: A bytecode program may be executed by parsing and "directly" executing the instructions, one at a time. This kind of "bytecode interpreter" is very portable. Some systems, called dynamic translators, or "just-in-time" (JIT) compilers, translate bytecode into machine code as necessary at runtime. This makes the virtual machine hardware-specific but does not lose the portability of the bytecode. For example, Java and Smalltalk code is typically stored in bytecode format, which is typically then JIT compiled to translate the bytecode to machine code before execution. This introduces a delay before a program is run, when the bytecode is compiled to native machine code, but improves execution speed considerably compared to interpreting source code directly, normally by around an order of magnitude (10x).


title: Bytecode

text: Because of its performance advantage, today many language implementations execute a program in two phases, first compiling the source code into bytecode, and then passing the bytecode to the virtual machine. There are bytecode based virtual machines of this sort for Java, Raku, Python, PHP, Tcl, mawk and Forth (however, Forth is seldom compiled via bytecodes in this way, and its virtual machine is more generic instead). The implementation of Perl and Ruby 1.8 instead work by walking an abstract syntax tree representation derived from the source code.


title: Bytecode

text: More recently, the authors of V8 and Dart have challenged the notion that intermediate bytecode is needed for fast and efficient VM implementation. Both of these language implementations currently do direct JIT compiling from source code to machine code with no bytecode intermediary.


title: Bytecode

text: Compiled code can be analysed and investigated using a built-in tool for debugging the low-level bytecode. The tool can be initialized from the shell, for example:


title: Second messenger system

text: Second messengers are intracellular signaling molecules released by the cell in response to exposure to extracellular signaling molecules—the first messengers. (Intercellular signals, a non-local form or cell signaling, encompassing both first messengers and second messengers, are classified as autocrine, juxtacrine, paracrine, and endocrine depending on the range of the signal.) Second messengers trigger physiological changes at cellular level such as proliferation, differentiation, migration, survival, apoptosis and depolarization.


title: Second messenger system

text: Examples of second messenger molecules include cyclic AMP, cyclic GMP, inositol triphosphate, diacylglycerol, and calcium. First messengers are extracellular factors, often hormones or neurotransmitters, such as epinephrine, growth hormone, and serotonin. Because peptide hormones and neurotransmitters typically are biochemically hydrophilic molecules, these first messengers may not physically cross the phospholipid bilayer to initiate changes within the cell directly—unlike steroid hormones, which usually do. This functional limitation requires the cell to have signal transduction mechanisms to transduce first messenger into second messengers, so that the extracellular signal may be propagated intracellularly. An important feature of the second messenger signaling system is that second messengers may be coupled downstream to multi-cyclic kinase cascades to greatly amplify the strength of the original first messenger signal. For example, RasGTP signals link with the mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascade to amplify the allosteric activation of proliferative transcription factors such as Myc and CREB.


title: Second messenger system

text: Earl Wilbur Sutherland Jr., discovered second messengers, for which he won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Sutherland saw that epinephrine would stimulate the liver to convert glycogen to glucose (sugar) in liver cells, but epinephrine alone would not convert glycogen to glucose. He found that epinephrine had to trigger a second messenger, cyclic AMP, for the liver to convert glycogen to glucose. The mechanisms were worked out in detail by Martin Rodbell and Alfred G. Gilman, who won the 1994 Nobel Prize.


title: Second messenger system

text: Secondary messenger systems can be synthesized and activated by enzymes, for example, the cyclases that synthesize cyclic nucleotides, or by opening of ion channels to allow influx of metal ions, for example Ca signaling. These small molecules bind and activate protein kinases, ion channels, and other proteins, thus continuing the signaling cascade.


title: Second messenger system

text: There are several different secondary messenger systems (cAMP system, phosphoinositol system, and arachidonic acid system), but they all are quite similar in overall mechanism, although the substances involved and overall effects can vary.


title: Second messenger system

text: In most cases, a ligand binds to a membrane-spanning receptor protein molecule. The binding of a ligand to the receptor causes a conformation change in the receptor. This conformation change can affect the activity of the receptor and result in the production of active second messengers.


title: Second messenger system

text: In the case of G protein-coupled receptors, the conformation change exposes a binding site for a "G-protein". The G-protein (named for the GDP and GTP molecules that bind to it) is bound to the inner membrane of the cell and consists of three subunits: alpha, beta and gamma. The G-protein is known as the "transducer."


title: Second messenger system

text: When the G-protein binds with the receptor, it becomes able to exchange a GDP (guanosine diphosphate) molecule on its alpha subunit for a GTP (guanosine triphosphate) molecule. Once this exchange takes place, the alpha subunit of the G-protein transducer breaks free from the beta and gamma subunits, all parts remaining membrane-bound. The alpha subunit, now free to move along the inner membrane, eventually contacts another membrane-bound protein - the "primary effector."


title: Second messenger system

text: The primary effector then has an action, which creates a signal that can diffuse within the cell. This signal is called the "second (or secondary) messenger." The secondary messenger may then activate a "secondary effector" whose effects depend on the particular secondary messenger system.


title: Second messenger system

text: Calcium ions are one type of second messengers and are responsible for many important physiological functions including muscle contraction, fertilization, and neurotransmitter release. The ions are normally bound or stored in intracellular components (such as the endoplasmic reticulum(ER)) and can be released during signal transduction. The enzyme phospholipase C produces diacylglycerol and inositol trisphosphate, which increases calcium ion permeability into the membrane. Active G-protein open up calcium channels to let calcium ions enter the plasma membrane. The other product of phospholipase C, diacylglycerol, activates protein kinase C, which assists in the activation of cAMP (another second messenger).


title: Second messenger system

text: IP, DAG, and Ca are second messengers in the phosphoinositol pathway. The pathway begins with the binding of extracellular primary messengers such as epinephrine, acetylcholine, and hormones AGT, GnRH, GHRH, oxytocin, and TRH, to their respective receptors. Epinephrine binds to the α1 GTPase Protein Coupled Receptor (GPCR) and acetylcholine binds to M1 and M2 GPCR.


title: Second messenger system

text: Binding of a primary messenger to these receptors results in conformational change of the receptor. The α subunit, with the help of guanine nucleotide exchange factors (GEFS), releases GDP, and binds GTP, resulting in the dissociation of the subunit and subsequent activation. The activated α subunit activates phospholipase C, which hydrolyzes membrane bound phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PIP), resulting in the formation of secondary messengers diacylglycerol (DAG) and inositol-1,4,5-triphosphate (IP). IP binds to calcium pumps on ER, transporting Ca, another second messenger, into the cytoplasm. Ca ultimately binds to many proteins, activating a cascade of enzymatic pathways.


title: Khanate of Sibir

text: ) was a Tatar Khanate located in southwestern Siberia with a Turco-Mongol ruling class. Throughout its history, members of the Shaybanid and Taibugid dynasties often contested the rulership over the Khanate between each other; both of these competing tribes were direct patrilineal descendants of Genghis Khan through his eldest son Jochi and Jochi's fifth son Shayban (Shiban) (died 1266). The area of the Khanate had once formed an integral part of the Mongol Empire, and later came under the control of the White Horde and the Golden Horde of 1242–1502.


title: Khanate of Sibir

text: The Khanate of Sibir had an ethnically diverse population of Turkic Siberian Tatars, Bashkirs, and speakers of various Uralic languages – including the Khanty, Mansi, and Selkup. The Sibir Khanate was the northernmost Muslim state in recorded history.


title: Khanate of Sibir

text: The Sibir Khanate was administered by Mirzas (which is a noble title) who originated from various indigenous Siberian tribes. These Mirzas organized loosely knit dominions, which were all under the nominal authority of the "Khan" of Tyumen and Sibir. Mirzas also led the warriors of the Khanate of Sibir into battle and owed nominal allegiance to the "Khan" of Tyumen and Sibir.


title: Khanate of Sibir

text: Islam was the professed religion of the Sibir Khanate; it was the religion of the ruling "Khan" of Tyumen and Sibir. Grand mosques, palaces and fortified walls were constructed by the ruling class in both Tyumen and Sibir.


title: Khanate of Sibir

text: Islam was professed by not only the Khan but also the Mirzas, who were often educated in famous Islamic centers in Central Asia like Bukhara and Samarkand. However, shamanism and other traditional beliefs were practiced by much of the masses. Some groups practiced a form of Islam that incorporated elements of shamanism.


title: Khanate of Sibir

text: The leading Imams and Muftis of the Sibir Khanate are known to have had some influence in Kazan and Samarkand. The Khanate of Sibir was the northernmost Muslim state in recorded history; its territories even included parts of the shore of the Arctic Ocean.


title: Khanate of Sibir

text: The area was originally inhabited by mainly Samoyedic and Ugrian peoples. In the 11th century, Kipchaks began inhabiting the region which led to the Turkification of the population. In the 13th century, the Mongols conquered the region and it was incorporated into the territory of the Golden Horde. Some of the Tatars who arrived with Batu Khan during the conquests settled in the area.


title: Khanate of Sibir

text: The Khanate of Sibir was founded in the fifteenth century, at a time when the Mongols of the house of Jochi were generally in a state of decline. The original capital of the Khans was Chimgi-Tura. The first Khan was Taibuga, who was a member of the Borjigin. He was succeeded by his son Khoja or Hoca, who was in turn succeeded by his son Mar.


title: Khanate of Sibir

text: The Taibugids' control of the region between the Tobol and middle Irtysh was not uncontested. The Shaybanids, descendants of Jochi, frequently claimed the area as their own. Ibak Khan, a member of a junior branch of the Shaybanid house, killed Mar and seized Chimgi-Tura. A Taibugid restoration occurred when Mar's grandson Muhammad fled to the eastern territories around the Irtysh and killed Ibak in battle in c. 1493. Muhammad decided not to remain at Chimgi-Tura, but chose a new capital named Iskar (or Sibir) located on the Irtysh.


title: Khanate of Sibir

text: The Russian conquest of Kazan in 1552 prompted the Taibugid Khan of Sibir, Yadigar, to seek friendly relations with Moscow. Yadigar, however, was challenged by a Shaybanid, Ibak's grandson Kuchum. Several years of fighting (1556–1563) ended with Yadigar's death and Kuchum becoming Khan.


title: Khanate of Sibir

text: Kuchum attempted to convert the Siberian Tatars, who were mostly shamanists, to Islam. His decision to conduct a raid on the Stroganov trading posts resulted in an expedition led by the Cossack Yermak against the Khanate of Sibir. Kuchum's forces were defeated by Yermak at the Battle of Chuvash Cape in 1582 and the Cossacks entered Iskar later that year. Kuchum reorganized his forces, killed Yermak in battle in 1584, and reasserted his authority over Sibir.


title: Khanate of Sibir

text: Over the next fourteen years, however, the Russians slowly conquered the Khanate. In 1598 Kuchum was defeated on the banks of the Ob and was forced to flee to the territories of the Nogai, bringing an end to his rule.


title: Khanate of Sibir

text: The Khanate of Sibir and the town of Tyumen were founded by Taibuga probably some time between 1405 and 1428. The latter was probably of Keraite origin. However, some scholars also attempt to link the Taibugids to the Kipchak elites and others. Control alternated between the descendants of Taibuga and the Shaybanids who had descended from Genghis Khan. There are hints that the Shaybanids were more connected to the steppe nomads and that the Taibugids were more connected with the forest peoples to the north and east.


title: Khanate of Sibir

text: Taibuga's father was called On (On-Son, Onsom and other variants). Grousset says that they were 'the issue of Taibugha-bäki' without explanation ('bäki' (bek) was a princely suffix and Taibuqa was a Naiman chief at the time of Genghis Khan.) A few sources identify him with Bek Ondi Oglan, the great-great-great grandson of Shayban, and thus a Shaybanid. The Stroganov chronicle says that On was killed by a chief called Chingi who spared Taibuga, sent him to fight the Ostyaks and granted him his own principality. Taibuga founded Tyumen and named it Chingi-tura in honor of his benefactor. Another source makes On a Nogai whose 'Hoflager' (German for 'court-camp') was Kasyl-Tura at the mouth of the Ishim River about east of Tobolsk. Another source says that when Tokhtamysh was defeated he fled to the 'land of Sibir' (the first mention of 'Sibir' in Russian chronicles). Here he was protected by On until both were killed by Edigu about 1405.


title: Khanate of Sibir

text: There is no more information about Taibuga except that some say he drove the Novgoroders from his lands.


title: Khanate of Sibir

text: In 1428 a 17-year old Shaybanid called Abu'l-Khayr Khan was chosen Khan on the Tura River (possibly at Tyumen). This implies that the Taibugids had been pushed aside. When he led his followers south for better things the remaining Shaybanids gathered around Ibak Khan, who was from a junior branch of the house. The Taibugids must have been restored because some time between 1464 and 1480 Ibak killed the Taibugid Mar and made himself Khan. In 1483 Fyodor Kurbsky is said to have led an army to the Irtysh River, but this had no lasting effects. Ibak went to the Volga where he killed the last Khan of the Golden Horde. Returning, he was killed by Mar's grandson called Mamuk or Makhmet or Mamet (about 1495). Makhmet moved the capital from Tyumen to Sibir and was briefly Khan of Kazan (1496). In 1552 the Taibugids Yediger and Bekbulat congratulated Ivan the Terrible on his conquest of Kazan. Later they paid limited tribute to Russia. In 1563 Ibak Khan's grandson Kuchum seized the throne from Yediger and Bekbulat. In 1573, following the Russo-Crimean War (1571) he stopped paying tribute and raided the Perm lands. In 1582, he was driven out by Yermak and died some time after 1600.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: Acer pseudoplatanus, known as the sycamore in the British Isles and as the sycamore maple in the United States, is a species of flowering plant in the soapberry and lychee family Sapindaceae. It is a large deciduous, broad-leaved tree, tolerant of wind and coastal exposure. It is native to Central Europe and Western Asia, from France eastward to Ukraine, northern Turkey and the Caucasus and southward in the mountains of Italy and northern Iberia.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: The sycamore establishes itself easily from seed and was introduced to the British Isles by 1500. It is now naturalised there and in other parts of Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand, where it may become an invasive species.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: The sycamore can grow to a height of about and the branches form a broad, rounded crown. The bark is grey, smooth when young and later flaking in irregular patches. The leaves grow on long leafstalks and are large and palmate, with five large radiating lobes. The flowers are greenish-yellow and hang in dangling flowerheads called panicles. They produce copious amounts of pollen and nectar that are attractive to insects. The winged seeds or samaras are borne in pairs and twirl to the ground when ripe. They germinate freely in the following spring.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: In its native range, the sycamore is associated with a biodiverse range of invertebrates and fungi, but these are not always present in areas to which it has been introduced. It is sometimes planted in urban areas for its value as an amenity tree. It produces a hard-wearing, creamy-white close-grained timber that is used for making musical instruments, furniture, joinery, wood flooring and kitchen utensils. It also makes good firewood. The rising sap in spring has been used to extract sugar and make alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. Bees collecting the nectar make honey.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: "Acer pseudoplatanus" was first described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in his "Species Plantarum" in 1753. It is the type species in the maple genus "Acer". Many forms and varieties have been proposed, including natural varieties such as var. "macrocarpum" Spach, var. "microcarpum" Spach, and var. "tomentosum" Tausch, and forms such as f. "erythrocarpum" (Carrière) Pax, f. "purpureum" (Loudon) Rehder, and f. "variegatum" (Weston) Rehder. These are all now considered to be synonyms of "Acer pseudoplatanus" L.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: The specific name "pseudoplatanus" refers to the superficial similarity of the leaves and bark of the sycamore to those of plane trees in the genus "Platanus", the prefix "pseudo-" (from Ancient Greek) meaning "false". However, the two genera are in different families that are only distantly related. "Acer" and "Platanus" differ in the position in which leaves are attached to the stem (alternate in "Platanus", paired or opposite in "Acer") and in their fruit, which are spherical clusters in "Platanus" and paired samaras (winged fruit) in "Acer".


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: The common name "sycamore" was originally applied to the fig species "Ficus sycomorus", the sycamore or sycomore referred to in the Bible, that is native to Africa and Southwest Asia. Other common names for the tree include false plane-tree, great maple, Scottish maple, mount maple, mock-plane, or Celtic maple.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: The sycamore is a large, broad-leaved deciduous tree that reaches tall at maturity, the branches forming a broad, domed crown. The bark of young trees is smooth and grey but becomes rougher with age and breaks up into scales, exposing the pale-brown-to-pinkish inner bark.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: The buds are produced in opposite pairs, ovoid (approximately oval in shape) and pointed, with the bud scales (the modified leaves that enclose and protect the bud) green, edged in dark brown and with dark brown tips, . When the leaves are shed they leave horseshoe-shaped marks called leaf scars on the stem. The leaves are opposite, large, long and broad, palmate with 5 pointed lobes that are coarsely toothed or serrated. They have a leathery texture with thick veins protruding on the underside. They are dark green in colour with a paler underside. Some cultivars have purple-tinged or yellowish leaves. The leaf stalk or petiole is long, is often tinged red with no stipules or leaf-like structures at the base.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: The functionally monoecious (bisexual) or dioecious yellow-green flowers are produced after the leaves in early summer, in May or June in the British Isles, on pendulous panicles long with about 60–100 flowers on each stalk. The fruits are paired winged seeds or samaras, the seeds in diameter, each with a wing long developed as an extension of the ovary wall. The wings are held at about right angles to each other, distinguishing them from those of "A. platanoides" and "A. campestre", in which the wings are almost opposite, and from those of "A. saccharum", in which they are almost parallel. When shed, the wing of the samara catches the wind and rotates the fruit as it falls, slowing its descent and enabling the wind to disperse it further from the parent tree. The seeds are mature in autumn about four months after pollination.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: The sycamore is tetraploid (each cell having four sets of chromosomes, 2n=52), whereas "A. campestre" and "A. platanoides" are diploid (with 2 sets of chromosomes, 2n=26).


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: Sycamore trees produce their flowers in hanging branched clusters known as panicles that contain a variety of different flower types. Most are morphologically bisexual, with both male and female organs, but function as if they were unisexual. Some are both morphologically and functionally male, others morphologically bisexual but function as males, and still others are morphologically bisexual but function as females. All of the flower types can produce pollen, but the pollen from functionally female flowers does not germinate. All flowers produce nectar, the functionally female flowers producing it in greater volume and with a higher sugar content.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: Sycamore trees are very variable across their wide range and have strategies to prevent self-pollination, which is undesirable because it limits the genetic variation of the progeny and may depress their vigour. Most inflorescences are formed of a mixture of functionally male and functionally female flowers. On any one tree, one or other of these flower types opens first and the other type opens later. Some trees may be male-starters in one year and female-starters in another. The change from one sex to the other may take place on different dates in different parts of the crown, and different trees in any one population may come into bloom over the course of several weeks, so that cross-pollination is encouraged, although self-pollination may not be completely prevented.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: The sycamore may hybridise with other species in "Acer" section Acer, including with "A. heldreichii" where their natural ranges overlap and with "A.velutinum". Intersectional hybrids with "A. griseum" ("Acer" section Trifoliata) are also known, in which the basal lobes of the leaf are reduced in size, making the leaves appear almost three-lobed (trifoliate).


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: The sycamore is native to central and eastern Europe and western Asia. Its natural range includes Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania, southern Russia, Spain, Switzerland and the former Yugoslavia. Reports of it occurring in eastern Turkey have been found to refer to "A. heldreichii" subsp. "trautvetteri".


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: It was probably introduced into Britain in the Tudor period by 1500 and was first recorded in the wild in 1632 in Kent. The date of its first introduction into Ireland is unclear, but the oldest specimen in Ireland is in County Cavan and dates from the seventeenth century. It was introduced into Sweden around 1770 with seeds obtained from Holland.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: The lack of old native names for it has been used to demonstrate its absence in Britain before introduction in around 1487, but this is challenged by the presence of an old Scottish Gaelic name for the tree, "fior chrann" which suggests a longer presence in Scotland at least as far back as the Gaelic settlement at Dál Riata in the late 6th and early 7th centuries. This would make it either an archaeophyte (a naturalised tree introduced by humans before 1500) or perhaps native if it can be seen to have reached Scotland without human intervention. At the moment it is usually classified as a neophyte, a plant that is naturalised but arrived with humans on or after the year 1500. Today, the sycamore is present in 3,461 (89.7%) of hectads in Britain, more than any native tree species.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: The sycamore has been introduced to suitable locations outside Europe as an attractive tree for park, street or garden. These include the United States, Canada, Australia (Victoria and Tasmania), Chile and New Zealand, Patagonia and the laurel forests of Madeira and the Azores. At the time of its introduction it was probably not appreciated that its prolific production of seeds might one day cause a problem to the landscape as it spread and out-competed native species. The tree is now considered to be an environmental weed in some parts of Australia (Yarra Ranges, Victoria) and also Mount Macedon, near Daylesford, parts of the Dandenong Ranges, where it is naturalised in the eucalypt forests. The sycamore is also scattered in north-eastern Tasmania and also at Taroona, near the Derwent River, in southern Hobart. It is considered to be an invasive species in New Zealand, Norway, and environmentally sensitive locations in the United Kingdom.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: In about 1870, the sycamore was introduced into the United States, and was planted in New York state and New Jersey. It was later cultivated as a park or street tree in New England and the Mid-Atlantic states. By the early part of the 21st century, it was naturalised in fourteen states (Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Washington, D.C.), and in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Ontario. The United States Department of Agriculture considers it an invasive species.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: In its native range, the sycamore is a natural component of birch ("Betula" sp.), beech ("Fagus" sp.) and fir ("Abies" sp.) forests. It readily invades disturbed habitats such as forest plantations, abandoned farmland and brownfield land, railway lines and roadsides verges, hedgerows, native and semi-natural woodland. In New Zealand, it invades the high country tussock grassland. As an introduced, invasive species, it may degrade the laurel forest in Madeira and Portugal and is a potential threat to the rare endemic Madeiran orchid, "Dactylorhiza foliosa".


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: It is tolerant of a wide range of soil types and pH, except heavy clay, and is at its best on nutrient-rich, slightly calcareous soils. The roots of the sycamore form highly specific beneficial mycorrhizal associations with the fungus "Glomus hoi", which promotes phosphorus uptake from the soil. Sycamore mycorrhizas are of the internal arbuscular mycorrhizal type, in which the fungus grows within the tissues of the root and forms branched, tree-like structures within the cells of the root cortex.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: The larvae of a number of species of moth use the leaves as a food source. These include the sycamore moth ("Acronicta aceris"), the maple prominent ("Ptilodon cucullina") and the plumed prominent ("Ptilophora plumigera"). The horse-chestnut leaf miner ("Cameraria ohridella") occasionally lays its eggs on the sycamore, although 70% of the larvae do not survive beyond the second instar. The leaves attract aphids, and also the ladybirds and hoverflies that feed on them. The flowers produce copious amounts of nectar and pollen and are attractive to bees and other insects, and the seeds are eaten by small mammals such as voles and birds. As an introduced plant, in Britain the sycamore has a relatively small associated insect fauna of about 15 species, but it does have a larger range of leafhoppers than does the native field maple.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: The tree may also be attacked by the horse chestnut scale insect ("Pulvinaria regalis"), which sucks sap from the trunk and branches, but does not cause serious damage to the tree. Sometimes squirrels will strip the bark off branches, girdling the stem; as a result whole branches may die, leaving brown, wilted leaves.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: The sycamore gall mite "Eriophyes macrorhynchus" produces small red galls, similar to those of the nail gall mite "Eriophyes tiliae", on leaves of sycamore and field maple, "Acer campestris" from April onwards. Another mite, "Aceria pseudoplatani" causes a 'sycamore felt gall' on the underside of leaves of both sycamore and Norway maple ("Acer platanoides"). The sycamore aphid "Drepanosiphum platanoidis" sucks sap from buds and foliage, producing large quantities of sticky honeydew that contaminate foliage, cars and garden furniture beneath.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: The sycamore is susceptible to sooty bark disease, caused by the fungus "Cryptostroma corticale". This causes wilting of the crown and the death of branches. Rectangular patches of bark become detached exposing thick layers of black fungal spores. The fungus may be present in the heartwood without symptoms for many years, working its way towards the bark following long, hot summers. The spores are hyper-allergenic and cause a condition called maple bark stripper’s disease, a hypersensitivity pneumonitis. Less serious is the fungus "Rhytisma acerinum" which often forms the disease known as tar spot, in which black spots with yellow margins form on the foliage. The leaves may fall prematurely but the vigour of the tree is little affected. Sycamore leaf spot, caused by the fungus "Cristulariella depraedans", results in pale blotches on leaves which later dry up and fall. This disease can cause moderate leaf loss but trees are little affected in the long run.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: Horses eating seeds or emergent seedlings of "A. pseudoplatanus" can suffer from an often fatal condition of atypical myopathy.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: Sycamore self-seeds very vigorously, the seeds germinating en masse in the spring so that there is little, or no, seed bank in the soil. It is readily propagated from seed in cultivation, but varieties cannot be relied on to breed true. Special cultivars such as "A. pseudoplatanus" 'Brilliantissimum' may be propagated by grafting. This variety is notable for the bright salmon-pink colour of the young foliage and is the only sycamore cultivar to have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. A rare weeping form with dangling branches, "A. pseudoplatanus" var. "pendulum", was first sold by Knight & Perry's exotic nursery in Chelsea, England, before 1850 when the name was published by W.H. Baxter in the Supplement to Loudon's "Hortus Brittanicus", but no specimens of this cultivar are known to survive.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: The sycamore is noted for its tolerance of wind, urban pollution, salt spray, and low summer temperatures, which makes it a popular tree for planting in cities, along roads treated with salt in winter, and in coastal localities. It is cultivated and widely naturalised north of its native range in Northern Europe, notably in the British Isles and Scandinavia north to Tromsø, Norway (seeds can ripen as far north as Vesterålen); Reykjavík, Iceland; and Tórshavn on the Faroe Islands. It now occurs throughout the British Isles, having been introduced in the 16th century.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: Sycamores make new growth from the stump or roots if cut down and can therefore be coppiced to produce poles and other types of small timber. Its coppice stools grow comparatively rapidly, reaching as much as in length in the first year after initial harvesting.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: It is grown as a species for medium-to-large bonsai in many areas of Europe, where some fine specimens can be found.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: Sycamore is planted in parks for ornamental purposes, and sometimes as a street tree, for its tolerance of air pollution makes it suitable for use in urban plantings. Owing to its tolerance to wind, it has often been planted in coastal and exposed areas as a windbreak.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: It produces a hard-wearing, white or cream close-grained timber that turns golden with age. The wood can be worked and sawn in any direction and is used for making musical instruments, furniture, joinery, wood flooring and parquetry. Because it is non-staining, is used for kitchen utensils, wooden spoons, bowls, rolling pins and chopping boards. In Scotland it has traditionally been used for making fine boxes, sometimes in association with contrasting, dark-coloured laburnum wood.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: Occasionally, trees produce wood with a wavy grain, greatly increasing the value for decorative veneers. The wood is a medium weight for a hardwood, weighing 630 kg per cubic metre. It is a traditional wood for use in making the backs, necks and scrolls of violins. The wood is often marketed as rippled sycamore. Whistles can be made from straight twigs when the rising sap allows the bark to be separated, and these, and sycamore branches, are used in customs associated with early May in Cornwall. The wood is used for fuel, being easy to saw and to split with an axe, producing a hot flame and good embers when burnt.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: In Scotland, sycamores were once a favoured tree for hangings, because their lower branches rarely broke under the strain. Both male and female flowers produce abundant nectar, which makes a fragrant, delicately flavoured and pale-coloured honey. The nectar and copious dull yellow ochre pollen are collected by honeybees as food sources. The sap rises vigorously in the spring and like that of sugar maple can be tapped to provide a refreshing drink, as a source of sugar and to make syrup or beer.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: Under this sycamore tree at Tolpuddle in Dorset, England, six agricultural labourers, known as the Tolpuddle Martyrs, formed an early trades union in 1834. They were found to have breached the Unlawful Oaths Act 1797 and were transported to Australia. The subsequent public outcry led to their release and return. The tree now has a girth of 5.9 metres (19 feet, 4 inches) and a 2005 study dated the tree to 1680. The tree is cared for by the National Trust, which has pollarded the tree in 2002 and 2014.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: An ancient sycamore (sometimes described as a "plane") with distinctive yellow foliage formerly stood in the village of Corstorphine, now a suburb of Edinburgh, Scotland. The tree was reputedly planted in the 15th century and is named as the form "Acer pseudoplatanus" f. "corstorphinense" Schwer. Not only was it claimed to be the "largest sycamore in Scotland" but also the scene of James Lord Forrester's murder in 1679. The tree was blown down in a storm on Boxing Day 1998, but a replacement, grown from a cutting, now stands in the churchyard of Corstorphine Kirk. The tree is commemorated in the badge of the Corstorphine Bowling Club of Edinburgh, designed in 1950 to feature the Corstorphine sycamore tree and a single horn, and redesigned in 1991 for the club’s centenary.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: The Newbattle Abbey sycamore near Dalkeith, planted in 1550, was the specimen with the earliest known planting date in Scotland. It had achieved a girth of and a height of by the time it was toppled by a gale in May 2006 at the age of 456 years.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: Saint Fintan founded a monastery at Clonenagh in County Laois, Ireland, in the sixth century and it had a spring beside it. This was considered holy and was visited by pilgrims. In the nineteenth century, a Protestant land owner, annoyed at people visiting the site, filled the well in, whereupon the water started to flow into the hollow interior of a sycamore tree on the other side of the road. Filled with amazement, people hung rags on the tree and pressed coins into its trunk as votive offerings and it became known as the "Money Tree". Some years later, it fell down, but new shoots appeared from its base, and the water still welled up. It remains a place of veneration on St Fintan's day, February 17.


title: Acer pseudoplatanus

text: The Sycamore Gap Tree or Robin Hood Tree is a sycamore tree standing next to Hadrian's Wall near Crag Lough in Northumberland, England. It is located in a dramatic dip in the landscape and is a popular photographic subject, described as one of the most photographed trees in the country. It derives its alternative name from featuring in a prominent scene in the 1991 film "". The tree is a few hundred years old and once stood with others, but they have been removed over time, possibly to improve sightlines or for gamekeeping purposes.


title: Changing Lanes

text: Changing Lanes is a 2002 American drama thriller film directed by Roger Michell and starring Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson. The film follows a successful, young Wall Street lawyer (Affleck) who accidentally crashes his car into a vehicle driven by a middle-aged, recovering alcoholic insurance salesman (Jackson). After the lawyer leaves the scene of the accident, the two men try to get back at each other, engaging in a variety of immoral and illegal actions that end up having a major impact on each man's life.


title: Changing Lanes

text: The film was released on April 12, 2002 in North America by Paramount Pictures. The film was favorably reviewed by critics and it was a box office success, earning almost $95 million against a $45 million budget. Writers Chap Taylor and Michael Tolkin were nominated for the WAFCA Award for Best Original Screenplay for their work.


title: Changing Lanes

text: In New York City, two men are rushing to court. One, a middle-aged, black insurance salesman named Doyle Gipson, a recovering alcoholic attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings to stay sober, is en route to a hearing to argue for joint custody of his sons with his estranged wife. The other, a successful, young, white Wall Street attorney named Gavin Banek, is rushing to file a power of appointment document to prove a dead man signed his foundation over to Banek's law firm. Banek is distracted while driving on the FDR Drive and his 2000 Mercedes-Benz CLK 430 collides with Gipson's 1988 Toyota Corolla. Banek tries to brush Gipson off with a blank check, rather than exchanging insurance information, thereby disobeying the law. Gipson refuses to accept the check and voices his desire to "do this right", but Banek, whose car is still drivable, insists upon leaving immediately. He leaves Gipson stranded, telling him, "better luck next time". After arriving to the court late, Gipson learns that the judge ruled against him in his absence, giving sole custody of the boys to Gipson's wife and allowing her to proceed with a plan to move to Oregon, never knowing that Gipson was about to buy a house locally and give it to his wife and children as part of his effort to make joint custody workable for everyone.


title: Changing Lanes

text: When Banek gets to court, he realizes that he dropped the crucial power of appointment file at the scene of the accident, and the judge gives him until the end of the day to retrieve it. Gipson, who scooped up the file, is torn, and initially refuses to return the file. Banek, who is desperate to get his papers back, goes to a "fixer", a shady computer hacker, and gets him to switch off Gipson's credit, destroying Gipson's chance for a home loan to keep his family together. Gipson is distraught when he finds out his credit has been ruined and he comes close to drinking again. Determined to get back at Banek, Gipson removes several lug nuts from one of Banek's wheels, and Banek suffers some minor injuries after his car crashes on the highway. An infuriated Banek goes to the elementary school of Gipson's children and tells school officials that Gipson plans to kidnap the boys, so Gipson is arrested and jailed. His enraged wife declares her intention to move forward with taking their sons to Oregon and says that Gipson will never see them again.


title: Changing Lanes

text: Both men, shaken by the consequences of their actions, start to reconsider their desire for vengeance and try to find a way out. Although it appears unlikely that either man will achieve what he had hoped, both resolve to let go and do what is right, and the two men apologize to each other. Gipson returns the file containing the power of appointment, which Banek has since learned was obtained illegally, and he uses it to blackmail his boss to conduct business honestly and get approval to represent Gipson pro bono to resolve his legal troubles. Banek also visits Gipson's wife, asking her to "give me five minutes." The next day, Gipson is walking and notices his wife and sons standing across the street, smiling at him.


title: Changing Lanes

text: The film was a box office success, with a budget of $45,000,000, it grossed $66,818,548 in the United States and $28,117,216 internationally, for a total gross of $94,935,764.


title: Changing Lanes

text: Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 77% based on 151 reviews, with an average rating of 7/10. The site's critics consensus states: "Though some may find its conclusion unsatisfying, "Changing Lanes" is a tense, well-crafted exploration of meaty ethical dilemmas." Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 69 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Club Necaxa

text: Impulsora del Deportivo Necaxa S.A. de C.V. (); often simply known as Necaxa, is a Mexican professional football club in Liga MX based in the city of Aguascalientes. It plays in the Estadio Victoria.


title: Club Necaxa

text: Necaxa was founded on 21 August 1923 by Scotsman William H. Fraser, an engineer and owner of the Light and Power Company ("Compañía de Luz y Fuerza") in the state of Puebla. As a student in the United Kingdom Fraser played football and was a strong advocate for the sport. Fraser consolidated the teams of the Light and Power Company and the Street Car operators "Compañia de Luz y Fuerza and Tranvías" into one.


title: Club Necaxa

text: Fraser supported the newly merged team with company revenue and funds. In addition, the Light and Power Company offered steady employment to players in an era where half of the players were playing at an amateur level. However, the Mexican football federation did not allow teams to be named after private companies, so the team changed its name to Necaxa, after the Necaxa River that was close to the electrical plant.


title: Club Necaxa

text: Historians assert that the colors and Necaxa's crest came from following the arrival of the Cornish community in Mexico, the Cornish community flourished and stayed in Central Mexico until the Mexican Revolution in 1910. Although the Cornish community in Mexico broadly returned to Cornwall, they left a cultural legacy; Cornish pasties, Cornish mining museums, a Cornish Mexican Cultural Society and football, are part of the local heritage and tradition in and around Mineral del Monte.


title: Club Necaxa

text: In that era, the team was called "Los Electricistas" ("The Electricians"). The team adopted the colors red and white as their team colors, earning them the nickname "Los roji-blancos". During this period, the oldest rivalry in Mexican football began to form, between Necaxa and Atlante F.C.


title: Club Necaxa

text: On 14 September 1930, having already been a 2-time champion of the amateur Copa Eliminatoria, Necaxa inaugurated its stadium named Parque Necaxa, located on the banks of La Piedad River on land donated by the Fraser Family. The stadium had a maximum capacity for 15,000 fans, and was known for its clock tower displaying the team's emblem.


title: Club Necaxa

text: Necaxa, in the early days of Mexican Football were members of the Mexican Amateur Association Football League Liga Mexicana de Fútbol Amateur Association, composed of Atlante F.C., Club España, Germania FV, and seasoned and disciplined team Asturias. Necaxa won championships during the 1932–33, 1934–35, 1936–37, 1937–38. seasons.


title: Club Necaxa

text: The following season after the stadium's opening, players such as Hilario López and Luis Pérez contributed to the team's success, leading Necaxa to the League final against Atlante, losing 3–2.


title: Club Necaxa

text: But Necaxa would rebound the next season, smashing Atlante by a 9–0 score. The line-up Necaxa used on that day was the following:


title: Club Necaxa

text: During this decade, Necaxa became one of the most popular teams in Mexico. Under the direction of the Ernst Pauler, Necaxa, in one season of play (1935–36), the team dominated and won titles ranging from Champion of Champions, Champion of the Liga Mayor De La Ciudad, National Champion of League, National Champion and Central American Champions. Their last title was the Central American Championship in El Salvador.


title: Club Necaxa

text: "Paco" Martinez de la Vega, an aficionado, would coin the surname for the very first time "Campeonismo" or "Championshipism", which Necaxa would later use to justify their achievements and titles.


title: Club Necaxa

text: Following the Mexican Revolution, the late 1930s represented Necaxa's most successful all-Mexican team. The Once Hermanos or "Eleven Brothers" period was coined in that era due to that team's ability to work as a team. The Necaxa team, in 1936, won the Copa México.


title: Club Necaxa

text: In that same year, a talented striker gained popularity within Necaxa's benches. Even though he was not one of the original "once hermano" or "eleventh brother" Horacio Casarìn, was a great player in the Mexican league national ranks. His success took him to the big screen in Mexican Cinema.


title: Club Necaxa

text: Necaxa disappears from competitive play within the Mexican League in 1943 altogether due to the professionalization of Mexican Football. It would be half a decade before the Necaxa emblem and uniform would be represented on the field again.


title: Club Necaxa

text: Seven years later, Club Necaxa returned to play under the conditions of the commercialization of the Mexican league. Under the new ownership of the Union of Electricians and Juan Jose Rivas Rojas, Club Necaxa played their first game on 25 September 1950 in the old district of Oblatos, in a stadium called Parque Oblatos or "Oblatos Stadium" otherwise called the Municipal Stadium of Felipe Martinez Sandoval in Guadalajara, Mexico. This park inaugurated Necaxa's comeback to football. In the fifties, Necaxa were tenants and played in the Federal District of Mexico City in present-day Estadio Azul (1950–55).


title: Club Necaxa

text: In the late sixties, Necaxa played football in Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. A modern lighting system in Estadio Azetca was inaugurated on 5 June 1966 with the first night game between Valencia CF and Necaxa. The first goal of the game was scored by Honduran José Cardona. In this game Roberto Martínez o Caña Brava scored the first goal made by a Mexican. Estadio Azteca was the largest stadium in Latin America, and the fifth largest stadium in the world. It is known throughout North America and South America as the home stadium for the Mexico national football team.


title: Club Necaxa

text: Throughout the 1950s Necaxa struggled financially to keep afloat. In 1955, large debts obliged Necaxa to sell the majority of its star players. Miguel Ramierz Vazquez a new owner, contracted the services of the Uruguayan coach Donald Ross, who eventually took Guadalajara to a championship 1957, beginning a road to stability, yet not winning championships.


title: Club Necaxa

text: The electricians won the Title cup in 1960 and the following year, in the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico Olympic stadium, "the electricians" defeated Rey Pele and the club and team of the Santos of Brazil 4–3 in an official match of that year's "Exagonal" tournament. "Morocho" Dante Juarez assisted in two victorious goals in Necaxa's win over the Santos de Brazil.


title: Club Necaxa

text: Through the early 1960s, Necaxa struggled financially until it was sold. New owners,Julio Orvañanos brought a championship in 1965–66.


title: Club Necaxa

text: In this decade, the organization was in financial trouble. The team had poor attendance in Mexico City due to the population unrest.


title: Club Necaxa

text: The case of Carlos Albert begins with a small group of veteran footballers in the spring of 1969. Club Necaxa Veteran players petitioned the organization for better wages and argued that as a team and group, they have always responded to the team's performance. Carlos Albert was the face of the disagreement between the players and management.


title: Club Necaxa

text: Albert was listed by Necaxa Management as transferable and was retained on half his salary. He asked management to void his contract in order, to avoid loss of income and to be able to continue playing in the League with another team. Necaxa Management did not accept his request.


title: Club Necaxa

text: The courts ruled in favour of Albert on Thursday 8 October 1971, and Necaxa was forced to pay MX$77,000 to Carlos Albert. Due to the will of managements unfair psychological abuse and labour malpractice, This case forced a cause to action from several players to request better treatment and more rights for Necaxa football players.


title: Club Necaxa

text: On 19 September 1971, Club Necaxa experienced financial trouble and became in debt with players and management. The owners sold the club to a group of businessmen from Spain. The ownership handled the player contracts, disputes and the franchises debt. The new Spanish ownership restructured contracts and made Club Necaxa solvent. The club plays under the name of the Spanish Athletic Bulls or "Toros del Atlético Español".


title: Club Necaxa

text: In 1975, the organization won their only international title in the CONCACAF Champions' Cup, playing the final against Transvaal of Suriname and defeating them 5–1 on aggregate. In 1973–74, they reached the final against Cruz Azul. They played a two-legged tie in which the Atlético Español won the first leg 2–1 but lost the second 3–0, becoming sub champion of the league.


title: Club Necaxa

text: Players who distinguished themselves in Atlético Español were the Brazilian striker Carlos Eloir Perucci, Ricardo Brandón, Salvador Plascencia,'Sabanita' Rivera, Juan Santillán, and Tomás Boy, under the direction of Miguel Marín, 'the Witch' Gutiérrez,


title: Club Necaxa

text: In 1982, the Spanish ownership within the Federal District of Mexico city sold the franchise. A new group of Mexican businessmen purchased Necaxa in 1982, then telecommunications Giant Grupo Televisa returned the organization's original name from 1971 and opened its training facilities in Cuautitlán Izcalli in the state of Mexico. The ownership renamed the franchise Necaxa by 1982 after the cultural and historical importance of the franchise in Mexican football. While Mexico experienced a crisis called "the Lost Decade" or "La Decada Perdida" in the 1980s and early 1970s, Necaxa in the 1980s struggled against two relegation matches. One at the end of the 1982–83 season against Zacatepec and another by the end of the 1984–85 season against Leones Universidad de Guadalajara.


title: Club Necaxa

text: Goalkeepers: Julito Aguilar, Jan Gomola, Goyo Cortez, Enrique Vazquez del Mercado, Defense: El Pimienta Rico, Juan Manuel Alvarez, Mario Trejo, Midfielder: Juan Carlos Rodriguez Vega, Manuel Manzo, Benito Buen Hombre Pardo, Tomas Boy. Forwards: Juan Manuel Borbolla, J.J. Muñante, Romano, Carlos Eloir Perucci, El Cachito Ramirez, Ricardo Brandon, Pio Tabaré Gonzalez, Juan Carlos Rossete. Raúl 'El Cora Isiordia", y Alejandro Romanh.


title: Club Necaxa

text: In 1988, Futbol Club Necaxa was purchased by Mexican telecommunications giant Grupo Televisa S.A C.V. The now late owner, Emilio Azcárraga Milmo (father of Emilio Azcárraga Jean), and several associates took a new direction with the team.


title: Club Necaxa

text: In the 1989 and 1990 season, director of football operations Anibal Ruiz acquired the services of the Ecuadorian midfielder, Álex Aguinaga, one of the iconic figures of the Necaxa in the 1990s and one of the most talented foreign players who has ever set foot on Mexican soil.


title: Club Necaxa

text: Necaxa has a great season, previously in the 1980s they battled twice against México Primera División's regulations of the Mexican League. In that year Necaxa reached the finals losing to Pumas of the University of Mexico. The following season Aníbal Ruiz was replaced with new coach, the Argentine ex-defender, Eduardo Luján Manera who contracted the services of the Chilean Ivo Basay. Under Manera, Necaxa didn't qualify for the finals of the championship. The acquisition of new coach Roberto Saporiti, marked the beginning of a commitment to competition excellence in a period known to Necaxa fans as "La Epoca Necaxista bajo el Capitalismo" or "the new era of Necaxa under Capitalism".


title: Club Necaxa

text: In 1992, the talented footballer of UNAM, ex-Puma player Enrique Borja was put under contract and headed the club's football operations, leaving Saporiti as head coach of Necaxa. Eventually Saporitti was replaced. The team Saporitti, Manera, Ruiz leave was an offensive minded team, that was disciplined, yet lacked great defensive talent. The following season management engaged the services of Manuel Lapuente. Sergio "El Ratón" Zarate, Octavio "Picas" Becerril, the Chilean Eduardo "Lalo" Vilches, José María "El Chema" Higareda were key figures in the defense and offense of the club. Manuel Lapuente managed Club Necaxa to three Championship titles in Mexico's National Football League.


title: Club Necaxa

text: After 56 years, once again Necaxa found itself with the title of "Campeonísimo", contributing talent in the 1990s and late in the millennium, within the Primera División of the Mexican League and in the Mexico national team.


title: Club Necaxa

text: They won the Mexican League Championship in 1994 (beating Cruz Azul), in 1995 (beating Celaya) and 1998 (beating Guadalajara), becoming Champion of CONCACAF and champion of champions the legacy of the "Once Hermanos" attempted to be reestablished within the franchise's values and mind set. The Necaxa team of the 1990s and represented the cohesion and ability of working and playing as a team under lucrative financial incentives, forced great communication on the field and execution on the field during advanced Capitalism competition play. Necaxa's Championships were similar, yet different reminder of the spirit of "Los Once Hermanos" or "the Eleven Brothers" in the late 1930s.


title: Club Necaxa

text: After poor attendance numbers during the early 2000s, Necaxa needed to refresh their home and relocate to improve on this issue. Many considered Estadio Victoria in Aguascalientes to be the first modern stadium built in Mexico.


title: Club Necaxa

text: Attendance continued to decline steadily despite the change of city and stadium for Necaxa. This consistent decline would lead to a relegation for Necaxa during the Spring 2009 campaign.


title: Club Necaxa

text: The Hidrorayos would bounce back winning the fall 2009 and Spring 2010 (undefeated) Ascenso MX titles thus earning an automatic promotion back up to the Liga MX.


title: Club Necaxa

text: After winning the 2009–10 promotion, Necaxa returned to the FMF Primera División for the 2010–11 campaign. Omar Arellano began the season with Daniel Brailovsky taking over for the remainder of the tenure. Ultimately the club faced immediate relegation after only one year.


title: Club Necaxa

text: Despite having a good performance in the 2nd division, Necaxa was initially unable to return to the top flight, losing two finals in 2013 against Neza FC and Universidad de Guadalajara.


title: Club Necaxa

text: On 6 December 2014, Necaxa won the Apertura 2014 championship in the final game against Coras de Tepic ultimately losing the promotion play-off against Dorados de Sinaloa.


title: Club Necaxa

text: The Apertura 2015 tournament was not good for Necaxa, finishing in 10th place. However, in Clausura 2016, Necaxa finished the regular season as runner-up, one point behind U. de G. In the playoffs, Necaxa beat Correcaminos 2–1 in the Quarterfinals, Atlante 5–3 in the Semifinals, and Zacatecas 2–0 in the Finals to become champion. Next was a two-legged playoff series against Cd. Juarez, the Apertura 2015 champion. Necaxa won the first leg in Aguascalientes 1–0, and one week later in Cd. Juarez 2–0, thus clinching its return to Primera Division Liga MX for the first time in five years.


title: Club Necaxa

text: Necaxa took in a 50% ownership partner named NX Football USA, LLC in 2021. The ownership group included former owners from Major League Soccer club D.C. United, former managers from English Football club Swansea City, and celebrities: Mexican-American actress Eva Longoria, international football player Mesut Özil, former NBA basketball player Shawn Marion, MLB baseball player Justin Verlander, and American model Kate Upton.


title: Un Certain Regard

text: The section presents 20 films with unusual styles and non-traditional stories seeking international recognition.


title: Un Certain Regard

text: In 1998, the was introduced to the section to recognize young talent and to encourage innovative and daring works by presenting one of the films with a grant to aid its distribution in France.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: The MG F and MG TF are mid-engined, rear wheel drive roadster cars that were sold under the MG marque by three manufacturers between 1995 and 2011.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: The MG F was the first new model designed as an MG since the MGB that was produced from 1962 to 1980, the marque spent the 1980s being used to denote performance models from then parent Austin Rover Group, and was briefly seen on the MG RV8, a limited edition relaunch of the MG MGB which was sold between 1993 and 1995.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: The MG F was initially designed by Rover Group during the period it was owned by British Aerospace and was brought to market after the business had been sold to the German car manufacturer BMW. The BMW owned Rover Group manufactured the model from 1995 to 2000. BMW broke up Rover Group in 2000, divesting the Rover and MG passenger car businesses to a management buy-out who formed the independent MG Rover business. MG Rover manufactured the MG F from 2000 onwards, heavily updating it to become the MG TF in 2002.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: MG Rover entered administration in 2005, resulting in the production of the MG TF model ceasing. The remains of the MG Rover business were sold to Nanjing Automobile and the MG TF resumed production under the Nanjing owned MG Motor in 2007. The model, by then heavily outdated, was not a sales success and production ceased for a second and final time in 2011.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: MG had stopped producing sports cars in 1980 when British Leyland closed their Abingdon, Oxfordshire plant, although the badge of MG was used on badge-engineered hatchbacks and saloons between 1982 and 1991.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: In 1992, the company (by this time Rover Group) restarted production of the classic MGB as the limited edition RV8, and positive reaction led the company to continue to develop the MG F. During the 1980s, a number of new MG sports cars had been hinted at with the appearance of concept cars at motor shows, but none of these cars ever went into production.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: By 1991, Rover was working on a new mid-engined sports car similar in size (and expected to be similar in price) to the recently launched Mazda MX5 and Lotus Elan. The final product, the MG F, was finally unveiled on 8 March 1995, and went on sale in September that year with a 1.8 litre 120 bhp engine, and was joined several months later by a 145 bhp VVC (variable valve control) version. It was hugely popular and received plaudits for its excellent ride and handling. The MG F received a mild facelift in August 1999, by which time a high performance Supersport version was reportedly in the pipeline, but this version was never launched; the highest performance MG F model was the 160 bhp Trophy model which joined the range a year after the facelift.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: It was revised and renamed using the historic "TF" name in January 2002, but production was halted, following the collapse of the MG Rover Group in April 2005. However, after Nanjing Automobile Group acquired the rights to the MG TF, the completion of the new factory for MG in Nanjing saw production being restarted in March 2007 before finally being stopped in 2011 without an immediate successor.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: The MG "F" was launched in the autumn of 1995 by the Rover Group, making it the third car to be launched after the takeover by BMW. It was powered by a 1.8 L "K-Series" 16-valve engine, the basic having 118 hp (87 kW) while the more powerful VVC (variable valve control) had 143 hp (107 kW). Rover Special Projects oversaw the development of the F's design and before finalising the styling bought-in outside contractors to determine the most appropriate mechanical configuration for the new car.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: Steve Harper of MGA Developments produced the initial design concept in January 1991 (inspired by the Jaguar XJR-15 and the Ferrari 250LM), before Rover's in-house design team refined the concept under the leadership of Gerry McGovern. An interesting feature of the "F" was its Hydragas suspension, a system employing interconnected fluid and gas displacers which provided a surprisingly compliant ride but which could be tuned to provide excellent handling characteristics.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: The MG "F" quickly shot to the top of the affordable sports car charts in Britain and remained there until the introduction of the MG TF in 2002.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: The MG "F" underwent a facelift in autumn of 1999, and gave the car a revised interior as well as styling tweaks and fresh alloy wheels designs. There was also the introduction of a base 1.6 version and a more powerful 1.8L 160 hp (119 kW) variant called the "Trophy 160" in 2001, which had a 0-60 mph time of 6.9 seconds. The Trophy was only produced for a limited time.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: An automatic version with a CVT called the "Steptronic" was introduced in 2001. The MG "F" continued to sell well in spite of the sale of the Rover Group, which was announced in March 2000. Land Rover was sold to Ford, while the MG and Rover marques were sold to the Phoenix consortium for £10. In spite of competition from the likes of Mazda MX-5, BMW Z3 and Audi TT, the MG "F" still proved popular, remaining Britain's best selling convertible car. A total of 77,269 MG F's were built. And 799 Limited versions.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: Project EXF represents a limited production of five single-seat MG "F" sports cars that allude to historic land-speed records set by MG between 1930 and 1959. Known simply as the "F", the MG car features largely standard MG "F" components, a turbocharged 1.4L (329 bhp) Rover K-Series engine, and a drag coefficient of less than 0.25. On 20 August 1997, the "F" achieved a top speed of at the SpeedWeek festivities in Bonneville, Utah, United States.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: In 2002, the MG TF was released, named after the MG TF Midget of the 1950s. Based upon the MG F platform, but heavily redesigned and reengineered, the most significant mechanical changes were the abandonment of Hydragas suspension in favour of conventional coil springs, the new design of the air induction system that along with new camshafts produces more power than in MG F engines, and the torsional stiffness of the body increased by 20%.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: Various cosmetic changes include a revised grille, redesigned front headlights, bumpers, side air-intake grills, rear boot, etc. It held a decent amount of sales despite problems including uneven shut lines on the drivers door on models for the United Kingdom. Production was suspended in April 2005, when MG Rover collapsed. 39,249 MG TFs were built from 2002 until 2005.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: In March 2007, Nanjing Automobile Group, which bought MG Rover's remaining assets during bankruptcy proceedings, restarted production of the MG TF at its Nanjing factory, with a capacity of 200,000 cars a year. Experts from the Longbridge factory were involved in building the new TFs in Nanjing.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: In August 2008, more than three years after the facility had closed due to the bankruptcy of MG Rover, assembly of a lightly revised MG TF model for the European market, from Chinese built complete knock down (CKD) kits, was started by NAC MG UK at Longbridge.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: The first TF model to be produced by NAC MG UK was the TF LE500. As the name suggests, this was a limited edition of five hundred cars each individually numbered. The better suspension set-up and the heated rear window from the 2005 model TF were carried over to the LE500. Styling was reminiscent of the original MGF, with an intake on either side of the MG badge, and a large single intake below the number plate.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: The LE500 specification includes leather seats, hard top and soft top, wind stop, CD tuner with MP3 compatibility, rear parking sensors, sixteen inch eleven spoke alloy wheels, and front fog lights. It was priced higher than a modern Mazda MX5 despite its few changes from 2002, which had a large negative effect on sales.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: The LE500 was followed by the model "TF 135" and a further limited edition "TF 85th Anniversary", of which only fifty were ever produced.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: Production of the TF at Longbridge was suspended again in October 2009, due to low demand in face of the recession. Production resumed in the new year, but the end of production was finally announced in March 2011, due to lack of demand and component supply problems. A total of 906 TFs were produced at Longbridge under Chinese ownership.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: Created by the XPower division of the MG Rover Group in 2001 as a one off to show the brand new XPower division and also to show what the engineers could do. The car was designed to accommodate the brand new XP-20 engine used in the MG-Lola EX257 race car with a Garrett turbocharger with an anti-lag system which achieves 500PS. The Power then goes through a 6 Speed sequential gearbox manufactured by X-Trac.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: When built in 2001, the car was equipped with several upgrades over the standard car. It featured a seam welded bodyshell with a fully integrated T45 roll cage with strengthened subframes. The chassis comes complete with a Limited-slip differential, independent racing suspension and upgraded 4-Pot AP Racing Brakes. The car has 17" multi-spoke alloy racing wheels with 225/13 R17 tyres on the front, 265/13 R17 tyres on the rear and a bespoke rear wing.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: Initially the XPower concept was designed for a brand new wild version of the MG TF, this never came around however and no concept car for a production XPower TF was created. Reportedly the car was set to feature a de-tuned XP-20 engine used in the XPower 500 concept and the MG-Lola race cars with around 300PS but the idea wasn't developed beyond the planning stage.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: Designed in 2005, at "Dove in Norfolk" by Peter Stevens and his team, at the same time as the Rover 75 "Coupé", is the coupe MG TF, called the GT, similar to the Pininfarina designed MGB GT. It was unveiled before MG Rover Group collapsed in April 2005, and was shown at several events such as the AutoRAI in Amsterdam, alongside other cars such as the MG XPower SV.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: The concept car was developed from a top of the range TF 160, and came with a grenadine interior (a rare option typically in the top of range TF's), brand new lowered bucket seats, 17" OZ five spoke wheels, a front splitter to improve aerodynamics and for the first time in a production/factory TF a 2.5L Rover KV6 engine. It was reported on forums for MG that the engine was changed to a standard 160 VVC 1.8L K Series sometime in 2005, although this is disputed and is also disputed as to whether the car received a KV6 in the first place.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: When launched the car posed several problems. The first of the problems with the coupe is engine access which because the car is a mid rear arrangement posed several problems and made the car hard to work on, it is reported that the subframe had to be removed in order to work on the engine. The second problem is the KV6 powerplant which had to have a bespoke smaller fuel tank to fit in the engine bay as the standard fuel tank wouldn't fit. Although disputed as to whether the car received the KV6 powerplant in the first place it now seems likely however, as ex-MG engineer Chris Flanagan produced his own 2.5 KV6 MGF in 2004 and has subsequently produced further KV6 engined TFs at Retro Sports Cars Ltd in Yorkshire.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: Former engineers at MG Rover reported that the car was close to entering production, and as soon as the end of 2005, the car could have been sold. However MG Rover went into receivership, and progress was halted. Nanjing were set to revive the idea and manufacture in the US in a brand new factory in Oklahoma employing 500 people. This idea also never came about with the LE500 and TF135 being the only TF produced by Nanjing at Longbridge, rather than a new purpose built facility in Oklahoma.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: Throughout its production, the MG sold successfully. In a number of road tests, the MG "F" impressed, and was a match for its main rivals the Mazda MX-5 and BMW Z3 in terms of handling, performance and practicality, but build quality, reliability and dealer support within the United Kingdom were poor in comparison to its Japanese and German rivals.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: However, after Nanjiing took over and restarted production, the car's sales plummeted, until production was eventually ceased in March 2011.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: "Parker's" gave the car 2.5/5 and said its pros were "Styling, handling and brand heritage" and cons were "Dated interior, patchy build quality and poor reliability."


title: MG F / MG TF

text: "What Car?" gave it 2/5 saying its pros were that it is "pretty and affordable" but its cons were "The driving position and steering are not what you'd expect in such a sporty car."


title: MG F / MG TF

text: "Auto Express" reviewed it after Nanjiing took over, and also had a verdict of 2/5, liking how it was "well equipped and compact" but disliking how it was priced more expensive than a basic Mazda MX-5, stating it has "barely changed since 1995, and can be mistaken for a much older vehicle" and also commenting on its cramped interior.


title: MG F / MG TF

text: The engine of "K Series" used in the MG F has gained a reputation for head gasket failure. This is mainly due to the design and placement of the thermostat, however the installation of the headgasket was also a major factor. Other factors include insufficient width between the cylinders, build tolerances, block face stiffness, casting quality, gasket material, and cooling system layout (the engine is at the back and the radiator is at the front).