title: Alternative splicing

text: In fact, there is actually a reduction of alternative splicing in cancerous cells compared to normal ones, and the types of splicing differ; for instance, cancerous cells show higher levels of intron retention than normal cells, but lower levels of exon skipping. Some of the differences in splicing in cancerous cells may be due to the high frequency of somatic mutations in splicing factor genes, and some may result from changes in phosphorylation of trans-acting splicing factors. Others may be produced by changes in the relative amounts of splicing factors produced; for instance, breast cancer cells have been shown to have increased levels of the splicing factor SF2/ASF. One study found that a relatively small percentage (383 out of over 26000) of alternative splicing variants were significantly higher in frequency in tumor cells than normal cells, suggesting that there is a limited set of genes which, when mis-spliced, contribute to tumor development. It is believed however that the deleterious effects of mis-spliced transcripts are usually safeguarded and eliminated by a cellular posttranscriptional quality control mechanism termed Nonsense-mediated mRNA decay [NMD].


title: Alternative splicing

text: One example of a specific splicing variant associated with cancers is in one of the human DNMT genes. Three DNMT genes encode enzymes that add methyl groups to DNA, a modification that often has regulatory effects. Several abnormally spliced DNMT3B mRNAs are found in tumors and cancer cell lines. In two separate studies, expression of two of these abnormally spliced mRNAs in mammalian cells caused changes in the DNA methylation patterns in those cells. Cells with one of the abnormal mRNAs also grew twice as fast as control cells, indicating a direct contribution to tumor development by this product.


title: Alternative splicing

text: Another example is the "Ron" ("MST1R") proto-oncogene. An important property of cancerous cells is their ability to move and invade normal tissue. Production of an abnormally spliced transcript of "Ron" has been found to be associated with increased levels of the SF2/ASF in breast cancer cells. The abnormal isoform of the Ron protein encoded by this mRNA leads to cell motility.


title: Alternative splicing

text: Overexpression of a truncated splice variant of the FOSB gene – ΔFosB – in a specific population of neurons in the nucleus accumbens has been identified as the causal mechanism involved in the induction and maintenance of an addiction to drugs and natural rewards.


title: Alternative splicing

text: Recent provocative studies point to a key function of chromatin structure and histone modifications in alternative splicing regulation. These insights suggest that epigenetic regulation determines not only what parts of the genome are expressed but also how they are spliced.


title: Alternative splicing

text: Genome-wide analysis of alternative splicing is a challenging task. Typically, alternatively spliced transcripts have been found by comparing EST sequences, but this requires sequencing of very large numbers of ESTs. Most EST libraries come from a very limited number of tissues, so tissue-specific splice variants are likely to be missed in any case. High-throughput approaches to investigate splicing have, however, been developed, such as: DNA microarray-based analyses, RNA-binding assays, and deep sequencing. These methods can be used to screen for polymorphisms or mutations in or around splicing elements that affect protein binding. When combined with splicing assays, including "in vivo" reporter gene assays, the functional effects of polymorphisms or mutations on the splicing of pre-mRNA transcripts can then be analyzed.


title: Alternative splicing

text: In microarray analysis, arrays of DNA fragments representing individual exons ("e.g." Affymetrix exon microarray) or exon/exon boundaries ("e.g." arrays from ExonHit or Jivan) have been used. The array is then probed with labeled cDNA from tissues of interest. The probe cDNAs bind to DNA from the exons that are included in mRNAs in their tissue of origin, or to DNA from the boundary where two exons have been joined. This can reveal the presence of particular alternatively spliced mRNAs.


title: Alternative splicing

text: CLIP (Cross-linking and immunoprecipitation) uses UV radiation to link proteins to RNA molecules in a tissue during splicing. A trans-acting splicing regulatory protein of interest is then precipitated using specific antibodies. When the RNA attached to that protein is isolated and cloned, it reveals the target sequences for that protein. Another method for identifying RNA-binding proteins and mapping their binding to pre-mRNA transcripts is "Microarray Evaluation of Genomic Aptamers by shift (MEGAshift)".net This method involves an adaptation of the "Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment (SELEX)" method together with a microarray-based readout. Use of the MEGAshift method has provided insights into the regulation of alternative splicing by allowing for the identification of sequences in pre-mRNA transcripts surrounding alternatively spliced exons that mediate binding to different splicing factors, such as ASF/SF2 and PTB. This approach has also been used to aid in determining the relationship between RNA secondary structure and the binding of splicing factors.


title: Alternative splicing

text: Deep sequencing technologies have been used to conduct genome-wide analyses of mRNAs – unprocessed and processed – thus providing insights into alternative splicing. For example, results from use of deep sequencing indicate that, in humans, an estimated 95% of transcripts from multiexon genes undergo alternative splicing, with a number of pre-mRNA transcripts spliced in a tissue-specific manner. Functional genomics and computational approaches based on multiple instance learning have also been developed to integrate RNA-seq data to predict functions for alternatively spliced isoforms. Deep sequencing has also aided in the "in vivo" detection of the transient lariats that are released during splicing, the determination of branch site sequences, and the large-scale mapping of branchpoints in human pre-mRNA transcripts.


title: Alternative splicing

text: Use of reporter assays makes it possible to find the splicing proteins involved in a specific alternative splicing event by constructing reporter genes that will express one of two different fluorescent proteins depending on the splicing reaction that occurs. This method has been used to isolate mutants affecting splicing and thus to identify novel splicing regulatory proteins inactivated in those mutants.


title: Alternative splicing

text: There is a collection of alternative splicing databases. These databases are useful for finding genes having pre-mRNAs undergoing alternative splicing and alternative splicing events or to study the functional impact of alternative splicing.


title: Anthony Ruivivar

text: Anthony Michael Ruivivar (born ) is an American actor. He is known for playing Carlos Nieto on "Third Watch" and Alex Longshadow on "Banshee". He also voiced Batman on "Beware the Batman".


title: Anthony Ruivivar

text: Ruivivar was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to a musician father of Filipino, Chinese and Spanish descent, while his mother is of German and Scottish descent.


title: Anthony Ruivivar

text: Ruivivar's early appearances include the films "Race the Sun" (1996) and a minor character in "Starship Troopers" (1997). Ruivivar's breakthrough role came in 1999 as Carlos Nieto, a paramedic in the action/drama series "Third Watch" (1999–2005), which centers around the life of police officers, paramedics, and firemen of a fictional precinct and fire station in New York City. In the show, Carlos was a Hawaiian-born Filipino-American who was abandoned by his family and spent his youth in various foster homes.


title: Anthony Ruivivar

text: After "Third Watch", Ruivivar remained in the drama genre, usually playing a police officer, detective or FBI agent in shows such as "Traveler", "Quantico", "Numb3rs", "Criminal Minds", "" (all 2007) and "Lie to Me" (2009).


title: Anthony Ruivivar

text: In 2010, he had a main role in ABC's "The Whole Truth" as Alejo Salazar. He also had recurring roles as Alex Longshadow in "Banshee" and Bruce Wayne / Batman in "Beware the Batman".


title: Anthony Ruivivar

text: In January 1998, he married actress Yvonne Jung, who would later appear in seasons 5 and 6 (2003–05) of "Third Watch" as FDNY EMS Paramedic Holly Levine. In the show, Ruivivar and Jung's characters became a couple and got married in the series finale. They have 3 children; two sons, Kainoa and Kale, and a daughter, Levi, who is a member of the US Junior Women's Gymnastics national team.


title: Anthony Ruivivar

text: He is fluent in Spanish and has incorporated this in "Third Watch". He has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Boston University.


title: Joan Greenwood

text: Joan Mary Waller Greenwood (4 March 1921 – 28 February 1987) was an English actress. Her husky voice, coupled with her slow, precise elocution, was her trademark. She played Sibella in the 1949 film "Kind Hearts and Coronets", and also appeared in "The Man in the White Suit" (1951), "Young Wives' Tale" (1951), "The Importance of Being Earnest" (1952), "Stage Struck" (1958), "Tom Jones" (1963) and "Little Dorrit" (1987).


title: Joan Greenwood

text: Greenwood worked mainly on the stage, where she had a long career, appearing with Donald Wolfit's theatre company in the years following World War II. Later, after the war, her appearances in Ealing comedies are among her memorable screen appearances: "Whisky Galore!"; as the seductive Sibella in the black comedy "Kind Hearts and Coronets" (1949); and in "The Man in the White Suit" (1951). She opened "The Grass Is Greener" in the West End in 1952 and played Gwendolen in a film version of "The Importance of Being Earnest" released in the same year.


title: Joan Greenwood

text: She had leading roles in "Stage Struck" (1958) and then in "Mysterious Island", an adaptation of a Jules Verne novel; and was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for "Tom Jones" (1963).


title: Joan Greenwood

text: In 1960, Greenwood appeared as the title character in a production of "Hedda Gabler" at the Oxford Playhouse. Starring opposite her as Judge Brack was the actor André Morell. They fell in love and flew in secret to Jamaica, where they were married, remaining together until his death in 1978.


title: Joan Greenwood

text: Greenwood was born in 1921 in Chelsea, London. Her parents were Ida (née Waller) and Sydney Earnshaw Greenwood (1887–1949), a portrait artist. She went to school at St Catherine's School, Bramley, leaving when fifteen. She originally wanted to be a ballet dancer but then decided to act and studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.


title: Joan Greenwood

text: Greenwood worked for two years in repertory. Her fluency in French saw her cast in London in a production of "The Imaginary Invalid" when she was 18. Greenwood appeared in "Little Ladyship" (1939) on TV and in the short "John Smith Wakes Up" (1941). Her first feature was "My Wife's Family" (1941) followed by "He Found a Star" (1941).


title: Joan Greenwood

text: She joined the Oxford Playhouse Repertory Company, and while there played leading- parts in a number of well known plays, such as "School for Scandal", "Caesar and Cleopatra", "Hamlet" and "A Doll's House". She went back to the London stage and appeared in productions of "Little Ladyship", "Peter Pan", "Heartbreak House", and "The Women". While appearing in the latter she was seen by Leslie Howard who cast her in a notable role in "The Gentle Sex" (1943), which was a hit.


title: Joan Greenwood

text: She appeared in the role of Wendy in "Peter Pan" and as Elie Dunn in "Heartbreak House," She played Ophelia in "Hamlet" with the Donald Wolfit company, Nora in "Doll House," Celia in "Volpone" and Sabina in "The Young Wives' Tale".


title: Joan Greenwood

text: Sydney Box offered her a seven year contract with the Rank Organisation, starting with the female lead in "A Girl in a Million" (1946). Box was so taken with her performance he changed the title to refer to her.


title: Joan Greenwood

text: She had a good role in "The Man Within" (1947), billed after Michael Redgrave and Jean Kent, then co starred alongside John Mills in "The October Man" (1947) and Margaret Lockwood in "The White Unicorn" (1947).


title: Joan Greenwood

text: Greenwood was cast in the lead role of "Saraband for Dead Lovers" (1948), as Sophia Dorothea of Celle, alongside Stewart Granger. It was an expensive box-office failure. She did "The Importance of Being Earnest" (1949) for TV; then played Lady Caroline Lamb in "The Bad Lord Byron" (1949), a notorious flop.


title: Joan Greenwood

text: More successful was "Whisky Galore!" (1949), which kicked off the Ealing comedy cycle. It was directed by Alexander Mackendrick and Greenwood was top billed along with Basil Radford. She did another for Ealing, "Kind Hearts and Coronets" (1949), with Alec Guinness directed by Robert Hamer. Both films became regarded as comedy classics.


title: Joan Greenwood

text: Greenwood was Richard Todd's leading lady in "Flesh and Blood" (1951), at British Lion. She went to France to co-star with Bourvil in "Mr. Peek-a-Boo" (1951). She did another for Ealing, Mackendrick and Guinness, "The Man in the White Suit" (1951), then "Young Wives' Tale" (1951) and did "The Importance of Being Earnest" (1952) again, this time as a feature film. She appeared on TV shows like "BBC Sunday-Night Theatre".


title: Joan Greenwood

text: Greenwood returned to France to appear in "Lovers, Happy Lovers!" (1954) with Gérard Philipe. She did "The King and Mrs. Candle" (1954) for American TV and made a third film with Guinness and a second with Hamer, "Father Brown" (1954). She did "A Dolls House" in Copenhagen then was in "The Confidential Clerk" by T.S. Eliot which had a short run on Broadway in 1954.


title: Joan Greenwood

text: In Hollywood she was the female lead in "Moonfleet" (1955) at MGM, replacing original choice Merle Oberon.


title: Joan Greenwood

text: In 1956, Greenwood starred in "The Grass is Greener" on the West End. In the late 1950s, she worked increasingly on TV in versions of "Man and Superman", "Ann Veronica", "Hedda Gabbler" and "The Grass is Greener". She had a support role in "Stage Struck" (1958), "Mysterious Island" (1961) and the female lead in "The Amorous Mr. Prawn" (1962). She married Andre Morell in 1960.


title: Joan Greenwood

text: Greenwood had a flashy support role in "Tom Jones" (1963), and "The Moon-Spinners" (1964). She appeared as Olga, alongside Spike Milligan in Frank Dunlop's production of the play "Oblomov", based on the novel by Russian writer Ivan Goncharov. The play opened at London's Lyric Theatre on 6 October 1964. Greenwood was described as "a model of generosity and tolerance...the only person in the cast who could not be 'corpsed' by Milligan; although he tried very hard. She looked beautiful, and played the part of Oblomov's unfortunate lady with total integrity. 'She never left the script', says Milligan with a guilty smile of something between irritation and admiration. 'I just couldn't make her crack up. All the rest of us did. She never lost her dignity for a moment.'"


title: Joan Greenwood

text: She was in the play "Those That Play the Clowns" (1966) which had a short run on Broadway. Greenwood dubbed the voice of The Black Queen in "Barbarella" (1968) when the voice of actress Anita Pallenberg was judged unsuitable for the role. She was in "The Great Inimitable Mr. Dickens" (1970) and "Girl Stroke Boy" (1971).


title: Joan Greenwood

text: Later roles included "The Uncanny" (1977), "The Water Babies" (1978), "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1978), "Bognor" (1981), "Triangle" (1982), and "Ellis Island" (1985).


title: Joan Greenwood

text: She played Lady Carlton, a quirky romance novelist and the landlady to the main characters, in the British sitcom "Girls on Top" (1985–86). She was in "Miss Marple: At Bertram's Hotel" (1987). Her last film was "Little Dorrit" (1988), released posthumously. Her last TV series was "Melba" (1988).


title: Joan Greenwood

text: Greenwood married André Morell in 1960. Their son, Jason Morell, is an actor, writer and film/theatre director. In 1987, nine years after her husband's death, Greenwood died from acute bronchitis and asthma at her home in London, less than a week before her 66th birthday.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: The Berlin S-Bahn () is a rapid transit railway system in and around Berlin, the capital city of Germany. It has been in operation under this name since December 1930, having been previously called the special tariff area "Berliner Stadt-, Ring- und Vorortbahnen" (Berlin city, orbital, and suburban railways). It complements the Berlin U-Bahn and is the link to many outer-Berlin areas, such as Berlin Brandenburg Airport. As such, the Berlin S-Bahn blends elements of a commuter rail service and a rapid transit system.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: In its first decades of operation, the trains were steam-drawn; even after the electrification of large parts of the network, a number of lines remained under steam. Today, the term "S-Bahn" is used in Berlin only for those lines and trains with third-rail electrical power transmission and the special Berlin S-Bahn loading gauge. The third unique technical feature of the Berlin S-Bahn, the , is being phased out and replaced by a communications-based train control system specific to the Berlin S-Bahn.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: In other parts of Germany and other German-speaking countries, other trains are designated "S-Bahn" without those Berlin-specific features. The Hamburg S-Bahn is the only other system using third-rail electrification.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: Today, the "Berlin S-Bahn" is no longer defined as this special tariff area of the national railway company, but is instead just one specific means of transportation, defined by its special technical characteristics, in an area-wide tariff administered by a public transport authority. The Berlin S-Bahn is now an integral part of the Verkehrsverbund Berlin-Brandenburg, the regional tariff zone for all kinds of public transit in and around Berlin and the federal state ("Bundesland") of Brandenburg.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: The brand name "S-Bahn" chosen in 1930 mirrored "U-Bahn", which had become the official brand name for the Berlin city-owned rapid transit lines begun under the name of "Berliner Hoch- und Untergrundbahnen" (Berlin elevated and underground lines), where the word of mouth had abbreviated "Untergrundbahn" to "U-Bahn", in parallel to "U-Boot" formed from "Unterseeboot" ("undersea boat" – submarine). Ironically, S-Bahn's S is not easy to name, it may stand for Schnell-Bahn (rapid rail) or Stadt-Bahn (urban rail; no mismatch to classic company Stadtbahn).


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: Services on the Berlin S-Bahn have been provided by the Prussian or German national railway company of the respective time, which means the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft after the First World War, the Deutsche Reichsbahn of the GDR (in both East and West Berlin) until 1993 (except West Berlin from 1984 to 1994, the BVG period) and Deutsche Bahn after its incorporation in 1994.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: The Berlin S-Bahn consists today of 16 lines serving 166 stations, and runs over a total route length of . The S-Bahn carried 478.1 million passengers in 2018. It is integrated with the mostly underground U-Bahn to form the backbone of Berlin's rapid transport system. Unlike the U-Bahn, the S-Bahn crosses Berlin city limits into the surrounding state of Brandenburg, e.g. to Potsdam.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: Although the S- and U-Bahn are part of a unified fare system, they have different operators. The S-Bahn is operated by "S-Bahn Berlin GmbH", a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn, whereas the U-Bahn is run by Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG), the main public transit company for the city of Berlin.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: The S-Bahn routes all feed into one of three core lines: a central, elevated east–west line ("the Stadtbahn"), a central, mostly underground north–south line ("the Nord-Süd Tunnel"), and a circular line ("the Ringbahn"). Outside the Ringbahn, suburban routes radiate in all directions.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: Lines S1, S2, S25, and S26 are north–south lines that use the north–south tunnel as their midsection. They were equally distributed into Oranienburg, Bernau, and Hennigsdorf in the north, and Teltow Stadt, Lichtenrade, and Wannsee.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: Lines S3, S5, S7, S9, and S75 are east–west lines using the "Stadtbahn" cross-city railway. The western termini are located at Potsdam and Spandau, although the S5 only runs as far as Westkreuz and the S75 to Warschauer Straße. The eastern termini are Erkner, Strausberg Nord, Ahrensfelde, and Wartenberg. The S9 uses a connector curve ("Südkurve") at Ostkreuz to switch from the "Stadtbahn" to the south-eastern leg of the "Ringbahn". Another curve, the "Nordkurve" to the North-eastern "Ringbahn", was originally served by the S86 line, but it was demolished in preparation of the rebuilding of "Ostkreuz" station and was not rebuilt afterwards. Both connector curves were heavily used in the time of the Berlin Wall, as trains coming from the North-Eastern routes couldn't use the West Berlin North–south route and the Southern leg of the pre- and post-Wall "Ringbahn" was in West Berlin.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: Lines S41 and S42 continuously circle around the "Ringbahn", the former clockwise, the latter anti-clockwise. Lines S45, S46, and S47 link destinations in the southeast with the southern section of the "Ringbahn" via the tangential link from the "Görlitzer Bahn" to the "Ring" via Köllnische Heide.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: Lines S8 and S85 are north–south lines using the eastern section of the "Ringbahn" between Bornholmer Straße and Treptower Park via Ostkreuz, using the Görlitzer Bahn in the South.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: Former, there exist four curves at Westkreuz and Ostkreuz indeed allow to go a northern ring (Nordring) and a southern ring (Südring) using central tracks of Stadbahn. Nordring and Südring are common terms, but never scheduled routes as separate rings. One curve of Südring at Westkreuz left over for internal use, the other one is mentioned connector at Ostkreuz.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: Generally speaking, the first digit of a route number denotes the main route or a group of routes. Thus, S25 is a branch of S2, while S41, S42, S45, S46, and S47 are all Ringbahn routes that share some of the same route. So S41, S42, S45, S46, and S47 are together S4. However, the S4 does not exist as an independent entity.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: Since 9 January 1984, all the West Berlin S-Bahn routes are labelled with an "S" followed by a number. This system had been in use with other West German S-Bahn systems (such as Hamburg) for years. On 2 June 1991 this was extended to the East Berlin lines as well. Internally, the Berlin S-Bahn uses "Zuggruppen" (literally groups of trains) which normally run every twenty minutes (S41/S42 are an exception to this as their Zuggruppen run every 10 minutes). Some lines, e.g. the S85, are made up of only one Zuggruppe, while others, like S5, are actually multiple Zuggruppen combined. Some Zuggruppen do not run the entire line and terminate at intermediate stops. Zuggruppen are called by a "Funkname" (radio designator), which is derived from the German spelling alphabet. Some Funknamen are not used in regular service, such as Heinrich, Baikal, Jaguar, Gustav, or Saale (being used for special soccer service trains, usually running for fans under the line S3 between Charlottenburg and Olympiastadion.).


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: Stations in brackets are serviced at certain times only (Monday through Friday during offpeak in the case of and during peak in the case of and ). only runs Monday through Friday.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: Also, not every train reaches the nominal terminus of a line. For example, every other train on runs only to Frohnau, five stops before Oranienburg, and the last stop on towards Erkner which is reached by every train is Friedrichshagen. Similarly, some northbound trains terminate at Gesundbrunnen, and most trains run only to Strausberg or even Mahlsdorf, rendering Strausberg Nord the least served stop on the whole network.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: On 31 August 2009 a few semi-permanent changes to the line routes were applied. Because of renovations to Ostkreuz station, including dismantling the tracks connecting the Stadtbahn and the Ringbahn –


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: On 21 August 2017, with the completion of the Ostkreuz renovation, and on 10 December 2017, with the completion of the connection between the Stadtbahn and Ringbahn at Ostkreuz, the following changes were made:


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: The S-Bahn generally operates between 4am and 1am Monday to Friday, between 5am and 1am on Saturdays and between 6:30am and 1am on Sundays during normal daytime service. However, there is a comprehensive night-time service on most lines between 1am and 5am on Saturdays and 01:00 and 06:30 on Sundays, which means that most stations enjoy a continuous service between Friday morning and Sunday evening. One exception to this is the section of the between and which sees no service in these hours. Most other lines operate without route changes, but some are curtailed or extended during nighttime. Particularly, the , , , , , , , are unchanged, and the and have no nighttime service. Westbound lines , , , and northbound terminate at stations Südkreuz, Schöneweide, Lichtenberg, and Treptower Park, respectively.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: With individual sections dating from the 1870s, the S-Bahn was formed in time as the network of suburban commuter railways running into Berlin, then interconnected by the circular railway connecting the various terminal railway stations, and in 1882 enhanced by the east–west cross-city line (called the "Stadtbahn", "city railway"). The forming of a distinct identity for this network began with the establishment of a special tariff for the area which was then called the "Berliner Stadt-, Ring- und Vorortbahnen", and which differed from the normal railway tariff. While the regular railway tariff was based on multiplying the distance covered with a fixed price per kilometer, the special tariff for this Berlin tariff zone was based on a graduated tariff based on the number of stations touched during the travel.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: The core of this network, that is the cross-city ("Stadtbahn") East–west line and the circular "Ringbahn", and several suburban branches were converted from steam operation to a third-rail electric railway in the latter half of the 1920s. The Wannsee railway, the suburban line with the highest number of passengers, was electrified in 1932–33. A number of suburban trains remained steam-hauled, even after the Second World War.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: After building the east–west cross-city line connecting western suburban lines, which until then terminated at "Charlottenburg" station with eastern suburban lines which had terminated at "Frankfurter Bahnhof" (later "Schlesischer Bahnhof"), the logical next step was a north–south cross-city line connecting the northern suburban lines terminating at "Stettiner Bahnhof" with the southern suburban lines terminating at the subsidiary stations of the Berlin Potsdamer Bahnhof. The first ideas for this project emerged only 10 years after the completion of the east–west cross-city line, with several concrete proposals resulting from a 1909 competition held by the Berlin city administration. Another concrete proposal, already very close to the final realisation, was put forward in 1926 by Professor Jenicke of Breslau university.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: Many sections of the S-Bahn were closed during the war, both through enemy action and flooding of the Nord-Süd-Bahn tunnel on 2 May 1945 during the final Battle of Berlin. The exact number of casualties is not known, but up to 200 people are presumed to have perished, since the tunnel was used as a public shelter and also served to house military wounded in trains on underground sidings. Service through the tunnel commenced again in 1947.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: After hostilities ceased in 1945, Berlin was given special status as a "Four-Sector City," surrounded by the Soviet Occupation Zone, which later became the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The Allies had decided that S-Bahn service in the western sectors of Berlin should continue to be provided by the Reichsbahn (DR), which was by now the provider of railway services in East Germany. (Rail services in West Germany proper were provided by the new Deutsche Bundesbahn.)


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: Before the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the Berlin S-Bahn had grown to about 335 kilometres. On the 13 August 1961, it was the biggest turning point in the operation and network for the S-Bahn.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: As relations between East and West began to sour with the coming of the Cold War, it had become the victim of the hostilities. Although services continued operating through all occupation sectors, checkpoints were constructed on the borders with East Berlin and on-board "customs checks" were carried out on trains. From 1958 onward, some S-Bahn trains ran non-stop through the western sectors from stations in East Berlin to stations on outlying sections in East Germany so as to avoid the need for such controls. East German government employees were then forbidden to use the S-Bahn since it travelled through West Berlin.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: The S-Bahn has also been operated in two separate subnets of the Deutsche Reichsbahn. In East Berlin, the S-Bahn retained a transport share of approximately 35 percent, the mode of transport with the highest passenger share. In the 1970s and 1980s the route network continued to grow. In particular, the new housing estates were connected to the grid in the northeast of the city (Marzahn and Hohenschönhausen).


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: The construction of the Berlin Wall led to West Berlin calling for the unions and politicians to boycott the S-Bahn. Subsequently, passenger numbers fell.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: However, the Berlin S-Bahn strike brought the S-Bahn to the attention of the public, and aroused the desire for West Berlin to manage its section of the S-Bahn itself. In 1983 negotiations of representatives of the Senate, the SNB and the Deutsche Reichsbahn took place. In December 1983, these were concluded with Allied consent to the agreement between the Deutsche Reichsbahn and the Berlin Senate for the transfer of operating rights of the S-Bahn in the area of West Berlin. The BVG received the oldest carriages from the DR; but the BVG was eager to quickly get to modern standards for a subway. Therefore, soon new S-Bahn trains were purchased on their behalf, which are still in use on the Berlin S-Bahn network as the 480 series.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: Even before the Wall fell, there were efforts to substantial re-commissioning of the S-Bahn network in West Berlin.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: After the Berlin Wall came down in November 1989, the first broken links were re-established, with Friedrichstraße on 1 July 1990, as the first. The BVG and DR jointly marketed the services soon after the reunification. Administratively, the divided S-Bahn networks remained separate in this time of momentous changes, encompassing German reunification and reunification of Berlin into a single city, although the dividing line was no longer the former Berlin Wall. DR and BVG (of the whole of reunified Berlin from 1 January 1992, after absorbing BVB of East Berlin) operated individual lines end to end, both into the other party's territories. For example, S2 was all BVG even after it was extended northward and southward into Brandenburg/former East German territory. The main east–west route (Stadtbahn) was a joint operation. Individual trains were operated by either BVG or DR end-to-end on the same tracks. This arrangement ended on 1 January 1994, with the creation of Deutsche Bahn due to the merger between DR and the former West Germany's Deutsche Bundesbahn. All S-Bahn operations in Berlin were transferred to the newly formed S-Bahn Berlin GmbH as a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn, and the BVG withdrew from running S-Bahn services.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: Technically, a number of projects followed in the steps of re-establishing broken links in order to restore the former S-Bahn network to its 1961 status after 1990, especially the Ringbahn. In December 1997 the connection between Neukölln and Treptower Park via Sonnenallee was reopened, enabling S4 trains to run 75% of the whole ring between Schönhauser Allee and Jungfernheide. On 16 June 2002, the section Gesundbrunnen – Westhafen also reopened, re-establishing the Ringbahn operations.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: MTR Corporation, National Express Group, Berlin S-Bahn GmbH and RATP Development had tendered for their procurement process, and were soon followed by train manufacturer Stadler Rail for their operations from 2018 to 2033. The specific contracts are:


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: There were several depots for Berlin S-Bahn. They are Schöneweide (opened in December 1927), Friedrichsfelde (opened on 1 March 1903), Grünau (opened on 1 April 1910), Wannsee (opened on 15 May 1933), Erkner (opened in 1928) and Oranienburg (opened in 1925).


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: The connection to Spandau West became in the following years the traditional train course, which was maintained after 1945 until the building of the wall. In the 1980s, this depot made 51 daily trains for the connections using Class 485 trains.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: This vehicle, DB Class 488.0 ("Panorama train") is a unique piece. The train consists of two railcars and a sidecar in between. It was created by conversion from old cars of the ET / EB 167, the later series 477/877. While the car body is largely a new build, many technical components of end-of-life vehicles were taken over in 1997–99. This train is not used in normal regular service. The S-Bahn offered city tours with it until 2009, and it could be rented privately. The train is equipped with a modern multimedia system so that the announcements via headphones can be followed in multiple languages. As with this car the windows extend into the roof for a better field of vision, it is called a panorama train (previously known as a panoramic suburban train).


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: Otherwise museum and tradition trains were primarily used – Class 165. The Viertel train Class ET/EB 167s were being built in 1938 and was converted in 1991.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: In 1988, Deutsche Reichsbahn presented plans for the transformation of Ostkreuz station. The long postponed renovation of the station began in 2007.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: With nine lines (four on the Stadtbahn and five on the Ringbahn), Ostkreuz is one of the busiest stations on the network.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: With the progress of construction work on 31 August 2009, the southern connection and platform A were decommissioned. This route had to be realigned as a result. The construction plans envisaged that the connection would be restored by 2014. After its completion, traffic will again be able to be run from the southern Ringbahn onto the Stadtbahn.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: In October 2009, the new Regionalbahn station on the Ringbahn was sufficiently complete for S-Bahn trains on the Ringbahn to use it temporarily. Demolition of the Ringbahn platform could then start and the new platform, including a concourse, could be built. This was put into operation on 16 April 2012, after a 16-day possession.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: Rehabilitation work at Grünauer Kreuz on the Berlin–Görlitz railway began on 12 July 2006. In 2010 and 2011, rebuilt stations were put into operation in several stages at Baumschulenweg and Adlershof and the bridges over the Britz Canal and the Teltow Canal were replaced. During the reconstruction, the platform at Adlershof was relocated directly above Rudower Chaussee (street).


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: In preparation for the opening of Berlin-Brandenburg Airport in Schönefeld in the south of Berlin, the S-Bahn line will be extended from the current terminus at Berlin-Schoenefeld Airport in a long curve to the new terminal. Directly below the not yet opened terminal, Berlin Brandenburg, a station has been built with six platform tracks. Four through platform tracks are provided for long-distance services. Two tracks are being built for the S-Bahn on the approach from the west. In early July 2008, the first 185-metre-long section of the station was completed so that the terminal could be built. On 24 July 2009, the airport company transferred the completed shell of the airport railway station and the first part of the tunnel to DB. The new line includes the stations of "Waßmannsdorf" and "Berlin Brandenburg Airport" and has a length of approximately 7.8 kilometres. The construction cost was specified as €636 million. This amount also included the cost of construction of long-distance tracks.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: The second "Nord-Süd Bahn" will link the northern ring to the Hauptbahnhof, Potsdamer Platz station and the Wannsee Railway to the southern ring. Today's plans are almost identical to plans submitted to the 1907–1910 "Greater Berlin" competition by Albert Sprickerhof. Since then, there have been a number of alternatives proposals for such a route. A similar line was included in the plans for Welthauptstadt Germania ("World Capital Germania") in the 1930s.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: The line will be built in sections. In 2005, the zoning approval for the northern part of the route from the Ringbahn to Hauptbahnhof was adopted. In October 2009 a loan agreement was entered into between the Senate and Deutsche Bahn for the first section. This provided for total costs of €226.5 million. On 27 November 2009, the preparatory work for this phase of construction started at the Hauptbahnhof. For the underground excavation in Invalidenstrasse, diaphragm walls were built into the ground and the trench in between was covered with a reinforced concrete lid.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: This stage involves the construction of a curve to the Westhafen and an eastern connection to Wedding inside the northern Ringbahn. Structural preparation for these junctions to these lines had already been made during the construction of the North–South mainline in 2006. From there, the existing line will run in a southerly direction (in the tunnel layer) to the Berlin Hauptbahnhof east of the North–South mainline. The realization of an intermediate station under the working name of "Perleberger Brücke" (as a two-level station in a V-shape) is provided as an option. It was proposed to complete this 1,600-meter-long section by 2016. After construction delays caused by the inflow of groundwater, an opening in summer 2021 has been expected since 2017.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: The construction of the second section of the S21 is to begin no earlier than 2018 and is expected to be completed in 2023. The new S-Bahn line will run in a tunnel from near the Hauptbahnhof past the Reichstag to Potsdamer Platz. It will run next to the existing Nord-Süd Tunnel to Brandenburg Gate and separate from it to run to Potsdamer Platz. The first north-south S-Bahn tunnel was designed in 1939 with room for an additional two tracks at Potsdamer Platz and to its south for the new line. The cost of the S-Bahn line (phases 1 and 2) has been estimated at €317 million (2009 prices). The benefits of additional expenditure to the east of the Reichstag are still under investigation. This would increase the cost to about €330 million.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: There are currently no dates set for the other phases of construction to the southern Ringbahn. It has so far only been defined in the Berlin land use plan.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: Since reunification, there have been suggestions that lines that have not been used since 1961 or 1980 should be rebuilt and connected to the network by some new lines. Many of these plans have changed several times since then or have been abandoned.


title: Berlin S-Bahn

text: Following a decision of the Berlin House of Representatives, the goal is essentially to restore the S-Bahn network to its extent in 1961. This was stated in an agreement between Deutsche Bahn, the Federal Ministry of Transport and the Senate on 4 November 1993. The network was to be restored by 2002. On this basis, the plans were included in the land use plan of 1995. In a study of the transport development by the then Department for Transport and Commerce in 1995, a plan was published for a network. Only the Jungfernheide–Stresow, Spandau–Staaken and Zehlendorf–Düppel sections, which had existed until 1980, were not incorporated in these plans. This political commitment is now only symbolic as some projects are now aimed at points beyond the original destinations or to miss them entirely. Budgetary difficulties, changing traffic flows and alternative development projects using Regionalbahn trains have led to the cancellation or postponement of projects that had already been developed.


title: Chinaman (term)

text: Chinaman () is a term referring to a Chinese man or person, a Mainland Chinese national or, in some cases, a person native to geographical East Asia or of perceived East Asian race. While the term has no negative connotations in older dictionaries and the usage of such compound terms as Englishman, Frenchman, Dutchman, Irishman, and Welshman are sometimes cited as unobjectionable parallels, the term is noted as having pejorative overtones by modern dictionaries. Its derogatory connotations evolved from its use in pejorative contexts regarding Chinese people and other Asians as well as its grammatical incorrectness which resembles stereotypical characterizations of Chinese accents in English-speaking associated with discrimination. While usage of the term "Chinaman" is nowadays strongly discouraged by Asian American organizations, it has also been used as a self-referential archetype by authors and artists of Asian descent. It may have come from literal translation into English of the Chinese term for "Chinese man/person", 中國人 ("Zhōngguó rén") = "China man/person".


title: Chinaman (term)

text: Historically, words such as "Chinaman", "Chink" and "yellow" have been used in Australia to refer to Chinese Australians during the Australian gold rushes and when the White Australia Policy was in force.


title: Chinaman (term)

text: The term "Chinaman" has been historically used in a variety of ways, including legal documents, literary works, geographic names, and in speech. Census records in 19th-century North America recorded Chinese men by names such as "John Chinaman", "Jake Chinaman" or simply as "Chinaman". Chinese American historian Emma Woo Louie commented that such names in census schedules were used when census takers could not obtain any information and that they "should not be considered to be racist in intent". One census taker in El Dorado County wrote, "I found about 80 Chinese men in Spanish Canion who refused to give me their names or other information." Louie equated "John Chinaman" to "John Doe" in its usage to refer to a person whose name is not known, and added that other ethnic groups were also identified by generic terms as well, such as "Spaniard" and "Kanaka", which refers to a Hawaiian.


title: Chinaman (term)

text: In a notable 1853 letter to Governor of California John Bigler which challenges his proposed immigration policy toward the Chinese, restaurant owner Norman Asing, at the time a leader in San Francisco's Chinese community, refers to himself as a "Chinaman". Addressing the governor, he writes, "Sir: I am a Chinaman, a republican, and a lover of free institutions." "Chinaman" was also often used in complimentary contexts, such as "after a very famous Chinaman in old Cassiar Rush days, (who was) known & loved by whites and natives".


title: Chinaman (term)

text: As the Chinese in the American West began to encounter discrimination and hostile criticism of their culture and mannerisms, the term would begin to take on negative connotations. The slogan of the Workingman's Party was "The Chinese Must Go!", coined in the 1870s before "Chinaman" acquired a derogatory association. The term "Chinaman's chance" evolved as the Chinese began to take on dangerous jobs building the railroads or ventured to exploit mine claims abandoned by others, and later found themselves victims of injustice as accused murderers (of Chinese) would be acquitted if the only testimony against them was from other Chinese. Legal documents such as the Geary Act of 1892, which barred the entry of Chinese people to the United States, referred to Chinese people both as "Chinese persons" or "Chinamen".


title: Chinaman (term)

text: The term has also been used to refer to Japanese men, despite the fact that they are not Chinese. The Japanese admiral Tōgō Heihachirō, during his training in England in the 1870s, was called "Johnny Chinaman" by his British comrades. Civil rights pioneer Takuji Yamashita took a case to the United States Supreme Court in 1922 on the issue of the possibility of allowing Japanese immigrants to own land in the state of Washington. Washington's attorney general, in his argument, stated that Japanese people could not fit into American society because assimilation was not possible for "the Negro, the Indian and the Chinaman".


title: Chinaman (term)

text: Mary Paik Lee, a Korean immigrant who arrived with her family in San Francisco in 1906, writes in her 1990 autobiography "Quiet Odyssey" that on her first day of school, girls circled and hit her, chanting:


title: Chinaman (term)

text: A variation of this rhyme is repeated by a young boy in John Steinbeck's 1945 novel "Cannery Row" in mockery of a Chinese man. In this version, "wall" is replaced with "rail", and the phrase "chopped his tail off" is changed to "chopped off his tail":


title: Chinaman (term)

text: Literary and musical works have used the term as well. In "Disgraceful Persecution of a Boy", an 1870 essay written by Mark Twain, a sympathetic and often flattering account about the circumstances of Chinese people in 19th-century United States society, the term is used throughout the body of the essay to refer to Chinese people. Over a hundred years later, the term would again be used during the Civil Rights era in the context of racial injustice in literary works. The term was used in the title of Chinese American writer Frank Chin's first play, "The Chickencoop Chinaman", written in 1972, and also in the translated English title of Bo Yang's work of political and cultural criticism "The Ugly Chinaman and the Crisis of Chinese Culture".


title: Chinaman (term)

text: During the 1890s detective fiction often portrayed Chinese characters as stereotypically conniving, tending to use the term "Chinaman" to refer to them. This occurred to such a great extent that it prompted writers of the 1920s and 1930s (during Britain's Golden Age of Detective Fiction) to eschew stereotypical characterizations, either by removing them from their stories entirely (as suggested by Ronald Knox in his "Ten Commandments" of Detective Fiction) or by recasting them in non-stereotypical roles. This "Rule of Rule Subversion" became an important part of Golden Age detective fiction, challenging readers to think more critically about characters using only information given in the story.


title: Chinaman (term)

text: In musical works, the term appears in Mort Shuman's 1967 translation of the Jacques Brel song "Jacky": "Locked up inside my opium den / Surrounded by some Chinamen." (The phrase used in Brel's original French lyric was "vieux Chinois", meaning "old Chinese".) The term was also used in the hit 1974 song "Kung Fu Fighting", by Carl Douglas; the song's first verse begins "They were funky Chinamen from funky Chinatown."


title: Chinaman (term)

text: The term "Chinaman" is described as being offensive in most modern dictionaries and studies of usage. "The New Fowler's Modern English Usage" considers "Chinaman" to have a "derogatory edge", "The Cambridge Guide to English Usage" describes it as having "derogatory overtones", and Philip Herbst's reference work "The Color of Words" notes that it may be "taken as patronizing". This distinguishes it from similar ethnic names such as "Englishman" and "Irishman", which are not used pejoratively.


title: Chinaman (term)

text: In its original sense, "Chinaman" has been almost entirely absent from British English, particularly before 1965. However, "chinaman" (not capitalized) remained in use in an alternative sense to describe a left-arm unorthodox spin bowler in cricket, although the use of the term is declining due to the racial overtones associated with it. Most British dictionaries see the term "Chinaman" as old-fashioned, and this view is backed up by data from the British National Corpus. According to "Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage", in American English "Chinaman" is most often used in a "knowing" way, either satirically or to evoke the word's historical connotations. It acknowledges, however, that there is still some usage that is completely innocent. In addition, Herbst notes in "The Color of Words" that despite "Chinaman" negative connotations, its use is not usually intended as malicious.


title: Chinaman (term)

text: The use of the term "Chinaman" in public platforms and as names of geographical locations has been the occasion of several public controversies in recent times.


title: Chinaman (term)

text: On April 9, 1998, television sitcom show "Seinfeld" aired an episode in which a character referred to opium as "the Chinaman's nightcap". The episode prompted many Asian American viewers, including author Maxine Hong Kingston, to send letters of protest. In her letter, Kingston wrote that the term is "equivalent to niggers for blacks and kikes for Jews". Media watchdog Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA) called on NBC, broadcasting network for the show, to issue a public apology. NBC did not issue an apology, but it removed the offending term from the episode in the episode's rerun in May 1998. NBC's executive vice president for broadcast standards and content policy sent MANAA a letter stating that the network never intended to offend. MANAA was pleased with the studio's response despite the lack of an apology, and Kingston, while disappointed there was no apology, was pleased that the term was removed from the episode.


title: Chinaman (term)

text: On July 7, 1998, Canada's province of Alberta changed the name of a peak in the Rocky Mountains from "Chinaman's Peak" to "Ha Ling Peak" due to pressure from the province's large Chinese community. The new name was chosen in honour of the railway labourer who scaled the peak's -high summit in 1896 to win a $50 bet to commemorate all his fellow Chinese railway labourers. Ha Ling himself had named it "Chinaman's Peak" on behalf of all his fellow Chinese railway workers.


title: Chinaman (term)

text: In 2001, the "Chicago Sun-Times" was chastised by William Yashino, Midwest director of the Japanese American Citizens League, for using the term "Chinaman" in two of its columns. Yashino wrote, in a letter to the editor on May 16, 2001, that the term is derogatory and demeaning to Chinese Americans and Asian Americans, and that it marginalizes these communities and inflames public sentiment.


title: Chinaman (term)

text: In March 2007, media mogul Ted Turner used the term in a public speech before the Bay Area Council of San Francisco, California. Community leaders and officials objected to his use of the term, and immediately called for an apology. In a statement released by his spokesman on March 13, 2007, Turner apologized for having used the term, stating that he was unaware that the term was derogatory. Vincent Pan, director of the organization Chinese for Affirmative Action, said it was "a bit suspect" for someone involved in domestic and world politics like Turner to be unaware that the term is derogatory. Yvonne Lee, a former commissioner of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, said the apology was the first step, but wanted Turner to agree to further "dialogue between different communities".


title: Chinaman (term)

text: On April 11, 2008, golf announcer Bobby Clampett apologized for referring to golfer Liang Wen-Chong as "the Chinaman" during the Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club. Clampett, working the Internet broadcast of Amen Corner, made the comment after Liang missed the cut. According to the "St. Louis Post-Dispatch", Clampett was taken off the broadcast after the comment.


title: Chinaman (term)

text: In 2010, the Pan Asian Repertory Theatre released a statement explaining their decision to produce a play by Lauren Yee titled "Ching Chong Chinaman", a term which has at times been used in doggerel verse with racist overtones. Artistic Producing Director Tisa Chang explained that ""Ching Chong Chinaman" takes its controversial title from the late 19th century pejorative jingle and uses irony and satire to reverse prejudicial attitudes towards Asians and other outsiders."


title: Chinaman (term)

text: Children's book author and illustrator Dr. Seuss used the word "Chinaman" along with a racial caricature of a bright-yellow man with a queue and chopsticks in his 1937 book "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street". The rest of the characters in the book have white skin and apparent eyes. It was initially changed to "Chinese man" and his queue and bright skin color was removed, but the controversy ensued. In March 2021, Dr. Seuss's estate announced that "Mulberry Street" was one of six Dr. Seuss books that would no longer be published due insensitive portrayals. Multiple examples of other cartoons widely considered to contain anti-Asian racism by Dr. Seuss can be found in his banned books and political cartoons.


title: Mandopop

text: Mandopop or Mandapop refers to Mandarin popular music. The genre has its origin in the jazz-influenced popular music of 1930s Shanghai known as Shidaiqu; with later influences coming from Japanese enka, Hong Kong's Cantopop, Taiwan's Hokkien pop, and in particular the Campus Song folk movement of the 1970s. 'Mandopop' may be used as a general term to describe popular songs performed in Mandarin. Though Mandopop predates Cantopop, the English term was coined around 1980 after "Cantopop" became a popular term for describing popular songs in Cantonese. "Mandopop" was used to describe Mandarin-language popular songs of that time, some of which were versions of Cantopop songs sung by the same singers with different lyrics to suit the different rhyme and tonal patterns of Mandarin.


title: Mandopop

text: Mandopop is categorized as a subgenre of commercial Chinese-language music within C-pop. Popular music sung in Mandarin was the first variety of popular music in Chinese to establish itself as a viable industry. It originated in Shanghai, and later Hong Kong, Taipei and Beijing also emerged as important centers of the Mandopop music industry. Among the regions and countries where Mandopop is most popular are mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam.


title: Mandopop

text: The Chinese-language music industry began with the arrival of gramophone, and the earliest gramophone recording in China was made in Shanghai in March 1903 by Fred Gaisberg who was sent by the Victor Talking Machine Company (VTMC) in the U.S. to record local music in Asia. The recordings were then manufactured outside China and re-imported by the Gramophone Company's sales agent in China, the Moutrie (Moudeli) Foreign Firm. The Moudeli Company dominated the market before the 1910s until the Pathé Records () took over the leading role. Pathé was founded in 1908 by a Frenchman named Labansat who had previously started a novelty entertainment business using phonograph in Shanghai around the beginning of the 20th century. The company established a recording studio, and the first record-pressing plant in the Shanghai French Concession in 1914, and became the principal record company to serve as the backbone for the young industry in China. It originally recorded mainly Peking opera, but later expanded to Mandarin popular music. Later other foreign as well as Chinese-own recording companies were also established in China.


title: Mandopop

text: Early in the 20th century, people in China generally spoke in their own regional dialect. Although most people in Shanghai then spoke Shanghainese, the recordings of the pop music from Shanghai from the 1920s onwards were done in Standard Mandarin, which is based on the Beijing dialect. Mandarin was then considered as the language of the modern, educated class in China, and there was a movement to popularize the use of Mandarin as a national language in the pursuit of national unity. Those involved in this movement included songwriters such as Li Jinhui working in Shanghai. The drive to impose linguistic uniformity in China started in the early 20th century when the Qing Ministry of Education proclaimed Mandarin as the official speech to be taught in modern schools, a policy the new leaders of the Chinese Republic formed in 1912 were also committed to. Sound films in Shanghai which started in the early 1930s were made in Mandarin because of a ban on the use of dialects in films by the then Nanjing government, consequently popular songs from films were also performed in Mandarin.


title: Mandopop

text: Mandarin popular songs that started in the 1920s were called "shidaiqu" (時代曲 – meaning music of the time, thus popular music), and Shanghai was the center of its production. The Mandarin popular songs of the Shanghai era are considered by scholars to be the first kind of modern popular music developed in China, and the prototype of later Chinese pop song. Li Jinhui is generally regarded as the "Father of Chinese Popular Music" who established the genre in the 1920s. Buck Clayton, the American jazz musician, also worked alongside Li. Li established the Bright Moon Song and Dance Troupe, and amongst their singing stars were Wang Renmei and Li Lili. There was a close relationship between music and film industries and many of its singers also became actresses.


title: Mandopop

text: Around 1927, Li composed the hit song "The Drizzle" ("毛毛雨") recorded by his daughter Li Minghui (黎明暉), and this song is often regarded as the first Chinese pop song. The song, with its fusion of jazz and Chinese folk music, exemplifies the early "shidaiqu" – the tune is in the style of a traditional pentatonic folk melody, but the instrumentation is similar to that of an American jazz orchestra. The song however was sung in a high-pitched childlike style, a style described uncharitably as sounding like "strangling cat" by the writer Lu Xun. This early style would soon be replaced by more sophisticated performances from better-trained singers. In the following decades, various popular Western music genres such as Latin dance music also become incorporated into Chinese popular music, producing a type of music containing both Chinese and Western elements that characterized "shidaiqu". Popular songs of the time may range from those that were composed in the traditional Chinese idiom but followed a Western principle of composition to those that were done largely in a Western style, and they may be accompanied by traditional Chinese or Western instrumentation. An example is "The Evening Primrose" by Li Xianglan, a Chinese composition set to a Latin dance beat.


title: Mandopop

text: In 1931, the first sound film was made in China in a cooperation between the Mingxing Film Company and Pathé. The film industry took advantage of the sound era and engaged singers for acting and soundtrack roles, and Li Jinhui's Bright Moonlight Song and Dance Troup became the first modern musical division to be integrated into the Chinese film industry when it joined Lianhua Film Company in 1931. Amongst the best-known of the singer-actress to emerge in the 1930s were Zhou Xuan, Gong Qiuxia, and Bai Hong. Although later singing stars need not also have an acting career, the close relationship between the recording and film industries continued for many decades. Later Yao Lee, Bai Guang, Li Xianglan, Wu Yingyin also became popular, and collectively these seven stars became known as the "Seven Great Singing Stars" of the period. Other notable singers of this period include Li Lihua and Chang Loo (張露). In 1940 Yao Lee recorded "Rose, Rose, I Love You" which later became the first Chinese pop song to be covered by Western singers that was a hit.


title: Mandopop

text: The "Seven Great Singing Stars" in the Republic of China period secured the place of the "shidaiqu" genre in East Asian society. Zhou Xuan is generally considered the most notable Chinese pop star of the era for her highly successful singing and film career. This generation saw the rise in popularity of female singers from mere "song girls" to "stars", and for the next few decades, female singers would dominate the Mandarin popular music industry.


title: Mandopop

text: In this period, Pathé Records dominated the recording industry. In the late 1930s to early 1940s, it held about 90% market share of the Mandarin pop songs.


title: Mandopop

text: The era was a tumultuous period, with the occupation of Shanghai by the Japanese armies during the Second Sino-Japanese War from 1937 and to 1945, followed by continuation of the civil war between the Nationalists and Communists. In response to the turmoil, productions began to shift to Hong Kong, and after the Communist takeover in 1949, many stars moved to Hong Kong which then replaced Shanghai as the center of the entertainment industry in the 1950s.


title: Mandopop

text: In 1949, the People's Republic of China was established by the Communist party, and in 1952 popular music was denounced by the PRC government as Yellow Music, a form of pornography. In the mainland, the communist regime began to suppress popular music and promote revolutionary marches. China Record Corporation became the only music recording industry body in China, and for many years Minyue (National Music) and revolutionary music were about the only kinds of music to be recorded there.


title: Mandopop

text: In 1952, Pathé Records moved its operation from Shanghai to Hong Kong. Stars from Shanghai continued to record songs in Hong Kong, and Shanghai-style music remained popular in Hong Kong until the mid-1960s. Although the music is a continuation of the shidaiqu style of Shanghai, many of its songwriters did not move to Hong Kong, and many of the musicians employed in the Hong Kong music industry were Filipinos, Mandarin pop music in Hong Kong began to move away from its Shanghai roots. Also partly as a consequence of having fewer good songwriters, some songs of this period were adaptation of English-language songs, as well as songs from other regions such as the Indonesian song "Bengawan Solo" (as "梭羅河之戀") and the Latin-American song "Historia de un Amor" (as "He is not in my heart", "我的心裡沒有他"). As the style evolved, the sound of popular songs from the Hong Kong era therefore became distinct from Shanghai's. Among the recording artists of note to emerge in this period were Tsui Ping, Tsin Ting, Grace Chang (葛蘭), Fong Tsin Ying (方靜音) and Liu Yun (劉韻), some of whom were also actresses. While some actresses continued to sing in their films, some of the best known songs were dubbed by other singers, for example "Unforgettable Love" ("不了情") in the film of the same name starring Lin Dai was sung by Koo Mei (顧媚). The song was also recorded with piano and strings orchestration popular at that time.


title: Mandopop

text: Shanghai-style Mandarin pop songs however began to decline in popularity around the mid-1960s as Western pop music became popular among the young, and many Hong Kong performers copied Western songs and sang Hong Kong English pop songs. This in turn gave way to pop songs recorded in Cantonese as Cantopop became the dominant genre of music from Hong Kong in the 1970s.


title: Mandopop

text: After the Communist victory in China, the Kuomintang retreated to Taiwan. There were local stars in Taiwan and Pathé Records did business there as well, but the island's recording industry was not initially strong. Taiwanese youth were drawn to popular styles from abroad; as Taiwan was ruled by Japan from 1895 to 1945, Taiwanese pop songs in the Hokkien dialect, the actual mother tongue of most of the island's residents, were particularly strongly influenced by the Japanese Enka music. Popular Mandarin songs from Taiwan were similarly influenced, and many popular Mandarin songs of the 1960s were adaptations of Japanese songs, for example "Hard to Forget the Thought" ("意難忘", originally ) and "Hate you to the Bone" ("恨你入骨", from ). Popular songs were necessarily sung in Mandarin as Taiwan's new rulers, which imposed martial law in Taiwan in 1949, mandated its use as well as restricting the use of Taiwanese Hokkien and forbidding the use of Japanese. The Mandarin pop music developed in Taiwan that would become modern Mandopop is a blend of traditional Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese, as well as Western musical styles. Zi Wei (紫薇) was the earliest of the Taiwan-based stars who achieved success outside of Taiwan in the late 1950s with the song "Green Island Serenade", followed by other singers such as Mei Dai (美黛) and Yao Surong (姚蘇蓉) in the 1960s. The 1960s however was a highly politically tense era, many songs such as "Not Going Home Today" ("今天不回家") by Yao Surong were banned in Taiwan.


title: Mandopop

text: In the 1960s, regional centres of Chinese pop music also started to emerge in overseas Chinese communities in Malaysia and Singapore, and singers from the region such as Poon Sow Keng (潘秀瓊) also achieved wider success.


title: Mandopop

text: In the 1970s, Taipei began to take center stage as Cantopop took hold in Hong Kong. In 1966, the Taiwan music industry was generating US$4.7 million annually, and this had grown exponentially through the 1970s and 1980s, and by 1996, it peaked at just under US$500 million before declining. The success of the Taiwanese film industry also helped with the popularity of its singers. Taiwanese stars such as Tsai Chin, Fei Yu-ching, and Fong Fei Fei became increasingly popular, with Teresa Teng the best known. However, the importance of Hong Kong as a center meant that some of these Taiwanese stars such as Teresa Teng were still Hong Kong-based.


title: Mandopop

text: Teresa Teng made Mandopop a true mainstay by crossing over to mainland China after Deng Xiaoping came to power and instituted the open door policy in 1978 that allowed cultural products from Hong Kong and Taiwan to enter China. Teng's song became popular there despite an early ban on her songs by the PRC government for being "Bourgeois Music". Her "soft, sweet, often whispery and restrained" singing style in romantic songs such as "The Moon Represents My Heart" (月亮代表我的心) made a strong impact in mainland China where revolutionary songs were previously prevalent. A common expression then was "By day, Deng Xiaoping rules China. But by night, Deng Lijun (Teresa Teng) rules". The ban on Teng was lifted in 1986 and songs from Hong Kong and Taiwan, called "gangtai" music, became more popular within mainland China.


title: Mandopop

text: During the 1970s and early 1980s, a different generation of Taiwanese singers and/or songwriters such as Chyi Yu, Hou Dejian, and Lo Ta-yu emerged, some of whom were influenced by folk rock and whose music may be termed "campus folk music". One of the most successful songs of the era was Lo Ta-yu's 1985 song "Tomorrow Will Be Better", which was inspired by the American song "We Are the World" and originally performed by 60 singers. It quickly became a hit throughout Asia and established itself as a standard. Another song soon followed in 1986 in mainland China called "Let the World be filled with Love" (讓世界充滿愛). Hou Dejian's song "Descendants of the Dragon" (龍的傳人) also became an anthem for the period. Unlike previous eras dominated by female singers, male singers are now popular, and other popular male singers included Liu Wen-cheng and Dave Wong. Wong released his Chinese debut album A Game A Dream (一場遊戲一場夢), which sold over 500,000-copies in December 1987. By around 1980, the term Mandopop began to be used for the Chinese popular music that had emerged in this period. Many Cantopop songs of the period were also sung in Mandarin by the same singers.


title: Mandopop

text: In South East Asia, popular local stars from the late 60s to the 80s included Sakura Teng (樱花), Zhang Xiaoying (張小英) and Lena Lim (林竹君) from Singapore, and Wong Shiau Chuen (黃曉君) and Lee Yee (李逸) from Malaysia. Some such as Lena Lim achieved some success outside the region, and the local labels also signed singers from outside the region such as Long Piao-Piao (龍飄飄) from Taiwan. The recording industry in Singapore in particular thrived. In 1979, Singapore launched the Speak Mandarin Campaign to promote the use of Mandarin over the range of Chinese dialects spoken by various segments of the ethnic-Chinese population. Mandarin songs, already a strong presence on radio stations and on television, further eroded the popularity of Hokkien and Cantonese songs in the media. In the 1980s, a genre of Mandarin ballads called "xinyao" developed in Singapore by singers/songwriters such as Liang Wern Fook.


title: Mandopop

text: In mainland China, the music industry was freed from state restriction in 1978, and regional recording companies were established in Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing in the 1980s with local singers. Pop music in China in this period was dominated by Mandopop songs from Taiwan and Cantopop from Hong Kong, however the 1980s saw the beginning of rock music in China, with the emergence of singer-songwriters such as Cui Jian, followed by others such as He Yong and bands such as Tang Dynasty which became popular in the 1990s.


title: Mandopop

text: A number of singers originally from mainland China such as Faye Wong and Na Ying began to record in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Faye Wong, referred to in the media as the Diva, first recorded in Cantonese in Hong Kong, later recorded in Mandarin. She became the first Chinese singer to perform in Budokan, Japan.


title: Mandopop

text: During this period, many Cantopop singers from Hong Kong such as the "Four Heavenly Kings" - Aaron Kwok, Leon Lai, Andy Lau and Jacky Cheung - also began to dominate Mandopop. One of the best-selling Mandarin albums was the 1993 album "The Goodbye Kiss" by Jacky Cheung which sold over 1 million in Taiwan and 4 million in total Asia-wide. Nonetheless, Taiwan has their own popular singers such as Stella Chang, Sky Wu, Wakin Chau (formerly Emil Chau) and Jeff Chang. Independent labels such as Rock Records began to establish themselves in this period as some of the most influential labels. Towards the end of the 90s, other singers such as Leehom Wang and David Tao became popular, and some also began to perform in the R&B and/or hip-hop genres.


title: Mandopop

text: In the period from the mid-1990s to early 2000s, Shanghai and Beijing became centers of the music industry in mainland China, with Shanghai focusing on music record publishing and distribution, while Beijing focused on music recording.


title: Mandopop

text: In Hong Kong, the Four Heavenly Kings faded in the 2000s, but many other new artists such as Nicholas Tse and Eason Chan came to the fore.


title: Mandopop

text: The 2000s also began with an explosion of pop idols, many of whom are from Taiwan. Mainland China also saw a rapid increase in the number of Mandopop singers, bands, and idol groups as pop music becomes increasingly mainstream by mid-2000s. The growing Mainland film industry and Chinese television drama also increased demand for Mandopop. Since the 2000s, the emergence of indie rock in mainland China and Taiwan had exploded into a flourishing indie music scene in mainland China and Taiwan, adding various new diversities into Mandopop. Entry of popular Taiwan-based bands such as Mayday and Sodagreen while in mainland Chinese-based bands such as SuperVC and Milk Coffee had brought a new phase of rock fusion into Mandopop.


title: Mandopop

text: The music industry in Taiwan, however, began to suffer from music piracy in the digital age, and its revenue plummeted to $US95 million in 2005. The primary revenue sources in Taiwan music industry shifted to advertising, concerts, KTV (karaoke) and movie. The dramatic decline of CD sales shifted the market in favour of mainland China. While piracy was also severe in mainland China, the percentage of its digital sales is higher compared to most countries. 2005 was known as 'The First Year of Digital Music' in China as its digital music sales of $US57 million overtook CDs in 2005, and it also overtook Taiwan in term of the retail value of its music sales.


title: Mandopop

text: However, while mainland China became increasingly important in generating revenue, the pop music industry itself in mainland China was still relatively small in the decade of 2000s compared to Taiwan and Hong Kong as popstars from Taiwan and other overseas Chinese communities were still popular in mainland China. Mandopop singers such as Jay Chou were popular performing in the rhythm and blues and rap music genre, popularising a new fusion style of music known as zhongguofeng. Other successful singers include Stefanie Sun and Jolin Tsai. Many Cantopop singers also turned towards the Mandopop industry due to disputes among entertainment and record companies in Hong Kong and to increase their fan base.


title: Mandopop

text: In recent years, the burgeoning number of contests have brought an idol concept (偶像, "ǒuxiàng") to the Mandopop industry. Nationwide singing competitions in mainland China, such as the Super Girl, Super Boy, The Voice of China, Chinese Idol, and , have greatly boosted Mandopop's influence many contestants emerge as successful singers such as Joker Xue, Jane Zhang, Bella Yao, Chris Lee (Li Yuchun), Jason Zhang, Chen Chusheng, Momo Wu Mochou, Laure Shang Wenjie, etc. The same phenomenon also occurred in Taiwan, from the show One Million Star and Super Idol, new talented singers have entered the Mandopop market, including Aska Yang, Yoga Lin, Lala Hsu and so on. In Taiwan, the term "quality idol" (優質偶像, "yōuzhì ǒuxiàng") has entered the popular lexicon, referring to Mandopop singers who are good-looking, talented and highly educated, among them Wang Leehom and William Wei.


title: Mandopop

text: Recent years also saw the rise in crossover appeal of Taiwanese bubblegum pop boybands and girl bands to the mainland Chinese scene, such as the very commercially successful acts like S.H.E and Fahrenheit. Several new boybands and girl bands also have emerged in mainland China such as Top Combine, TFBOYS and "Idol Producer" and "Produce Camp" boy groups including Nine Percent, NEX7, UNINE, R1SE, INTO1, THE9, Rocket Girls and Oner.


title: Mandopop

text: Shidaiqu originated as a fusion of Chinese traditional music and European popular music, and therefore instruments from both genres were used from the very beginning of Mandopop. Songs performed in the traditional style employed traditional Chinese instruments like the erhu, pipa, and sanxian, such as in the recording of "The Wandering Songstress" (天涯歌女) by Zhou Xuan, whereas more Western orchestral instruments such as trumpets, violins, and piano were used in songs like "Shanghai Nights" (夜上海), also by Zhou Xuan. Big band and jazz instruments and orchestrations from the swing era were common in the early years. Chinese and Western instruments were also combined in some recordings.


title: Mandopop

text: In the 1960s, the electric guitar began to be used. Starting around the 1970s, electronic organs/synthesizers began to be heavily featured, which characterized the Mandopop music of the era. Today's Mandopop arrangements are generally westernized, covering many musical styles, including R&B, hip hop, ballads, and Pop. Mandopop switched from simple imitation to adjusting the melodies and lyrics creatively in short time. Some pop stars became famous because they were presented to meet the Chinese aesthetics standard and culture features. A few Chinese pop musicians—most notably Jay Chou, Lin Jun Jie, David Tao, Leehom Wang —have experimented with fusing traditional Chinese instruments with Western styles (such as hip hop beats and progressive rock) all over again in a new style known as China Wind music ("zhongguofeng"), influencing many Asian singers worldwide.


title: Mandopop

text: Popular music record labels includes independent labels such as JVR Music, Linfair Records, B'In Music and subsidiaries of major labels such as Sony Music Taiwan, Universal Music Taiwan, Warner Music Taiwan. In the past few years, mainland labels such as EE-Media, Huayi Brothers, Taihe Rye Music, Show City Times, Idol Entertainment, and Tian Hao Entertainment have also emerged.


title: Mandopop

text: Mandopop titles are also available outside of Asia. Chinese communities established in North America have made Mandopop music accessible through local businesses. In the United States, Canada and Australia they are easily found in many major urban areas, such as San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, New York City, Vancouver, Toronto, Sydney, and Melbourne .


title: Mandopop

text: The Global Chinese Pop Chart is a record chart organised since 2001 by 7 radio stations from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taipei and Kuala Lumpur.


title: Mandopop

text: In Taiwan, G-Music Chart (Chinese: 風雲榜 fēngyúnbǎng) is the most popular music ranking. It was first officially published on 7 July 2005, and compiled the top physically sold CD releases in Taiwan (including both albums and physically released singles). Only the top 20 positions are published, and instead of sales, a percentage ranking is listed next to each release.


title: Website wireframe

text: A website wireframe, also known as a page schematic or screen blueprint, is a visual guide that represents the skeletal framework of a website.


title: Website wireframe

text: The term wireframe is taken from other fields that use a skeletal framework to represent 3 dimensional shape and volume.


title: Website wireframe

text: Wireframes are created for the purpose of arranging elements to best accomplish a particular purpose.


title: Website wireframe

text: The purpose is usually driven by a business objective and a creative idea. The wireframe depicts the page layout or arrangement of the website's content, including interface elements and navigational systems, and how they work together. The wireframe usually lacks typographic style, color, or graphics, since the main focus lies in functionality, behavior, and priority of content. In other words, it focuses on what a screen does, not what it looks like. Wireframes can be pencil drawings or sketches on a whiteboard, or they can be produced by means of a broad array of free or commercial software applications. Wireframes are generally created by business analysts, user experience designers, developers, visual designers, and by those with expertise in interaction design, information architecture and user research.


title: Website wireframe

text: The website wireframe connects the underlying conceptual structure, or information architecture, to the surface, or visual design of the website. Wireframes help establish functionality and the relationships between different screen templates of a website. An iterative process, creating wireframes is an effective way to make rapid prototypes of pages, while measuring the practicality of a design concept. Wireframing typically begins between “high-level structural work—like flowcharts or site maps—and screen designs.” Within the process of building a website, wireframing is where thinking becomes tangible.


title: Website wireframe

text: Wireframes are also utilized for the prototyping of mobile sites, computer applications, or other screen-based products that involve human-computer interaction.


title: Website wireframe

text: Wireframes may be utilized by different disciplines. Developers use wireframes to get a more tangible grasp of the site's functionality, while designers use them to push the user interface (UI) process. User experience designers and information architects use wireframes to show navigation paths between pages. Business Analysts use wireframes to visually support the business rules and interaction requirements for a screen. Business stakeholders review wireframes to ensure that requirements and objectives are met through the design. Professionals who create wireframes include business analysts, information architects, interaction designers, user experience designers, graphic designers, programmers, and product managers.


title: Website wireframe

text: Working with wireframes may be a collaborative effort since it bridges the information architecture to the visual design. Due to overlaps in these professional roles, conflicts may occur, making wireframing a controversial part of the design process. Since wireframes signify a “bare bones” aesthetic, it is difficult for designers to assess how closely the wireframe needs to depict actual screen layouts. To avoid conflicts it is recommended that business analysts who understand the user requirements, create a basic wire frame and then work with designers to further improve the wireframes. Another difficulty with wireframes is that they don't effectively display interactive details because they are static representations. Modern UI design incorporates various devices such as expanding panels, hover effects, and carousels that pose a challenge for 2-D diagrams.


title: Website wireframe

text: The main benefit of wireframes is that they can be used to iterate on any interface in an agile manner. This happens through a process oftentimes referred to as usability tests, where users are provided with an opportunity to interact with the interface and either think aloud about their thought process or answer more structured questions throughout. After each trial with a user, a user experience researcher can identify common interactions with the interface, synthesize the data, and redesign accordingly.


title: Website wireframe

text: Due to the generally lower-fidelity nature of wireframe, it is very easy and cost-efficient to make changes. The point of a wireframe is to capture the design of the fundamental structure, high-level interaction pattern within an interface, otherwise known as the critical points, so it really allows a designer to work quickly, perfect for an agile environment where group members work collaboratively to "sprint" to the next iteration.


title: Website wireframe

text: Wireframes may have different levels of detail and can be broken up into two categories in terms of fidelity, or how closely they resemble the end product.


title: Website wireframe

text: Resembling a rough sketch or a quick mock-up, low-fidelity wireframes can be quickly produced. These wireframes help a project team communicate ideas and collaborate more effectively since they are more abstract, using rectangles and labeling to represent content. Dummy content, Latin filler text (lorem ipsum), sample or symbolic content are used to represent data when real content is not available. For example, instead of using actual images, a placeholder rectangle can be used.


title: Website wireframe

text: Low-fidelity wireframes can be used to facilitate team communication on a project and is used in the early stages of a project.


title: Website wireframe

text: High-fidelity wireframes are often used for documenting because they incorporate a level of detail that more closely matches the design of the actual webpage, thus taking longer to create.


title: Website wireframe

text: For simple or low-fidelity drawings, paper prototyping is a common technique. Since these sketches are just representations, annotations—adjacent notes to explain behavior—are useful. For more complex projects, rendering wireframes using computer software is popular. Some tools allow the incorporation of interactivity including Flash animation, and front-end web technologies such as, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.


title: Website wireframe

text: High fidelity wireframes include more real content, specific typography choices, and information on image dimensions. Unlike low fidelity wireframes, high fidelity wireframes can include actual images. Color choices are not included, but different values in color can be represented in grayscale.


title: Website wireframe

text: The skeleton plan of a website can be broken down into three components: information design, navigation design, and interface design. Page layout is where these components come together, while wireframing is what depicts the relationship between these components.


title: Website wireframe

text: Information design is the presentation—placement and prioritization of information in a way that facilitates understanding. Information design is an area of user experience design, meant to display information effectively for clear communication. For websites, information elements should be arranged in a way that reflects the goals and tasks of the user.


title: Website wireframe

text: The navigation system provides a set of screen elements that allow the user to move page to page through the website. The navigation design should communicate the relationship between the links it contains so that users understand the options they have for navigating the site. Often, websites contain multiple navigation systems, such as a global navigation, local navigation, supplementary navigation, contextual navigation, and courtesy navigation.


title: Website wireframe

text: User interface design includes selecting and arranging interface elements to enable users to interact with the functionality of the system. The goal is to facilitate usability and efficiency as much as possible. Common elements found in interface design are action buttons, text fields, check boxes, radio buttons and drop-down menus.


title: Website wireframe

text: 8. high-fidelity frameworks include necessary design & branding elements such as images, fonts, and colors.


title: World Vision International

text: World Vision International is an evangelical Christian humanitarian aid, development, and advocacy organization. It prefers to present itself as interdenominational and also employs staff from non-evangelical Christian denominations. It was founded in 1950 by Robert Pierce as a service organization, with the intent to meet the emergency needs of missionaries. In 1975, development work was added to World Vision's objectives. It is active in more than 90 countries with a total revenue including grants, product and foreign donations of USD 2.90 billion (2019).


title: World Vision International

text: The charity was founded in 1950 as World Vision Inc. by Robert Pierce and co-founder Frank Phillips with their first office in Portland, Oregon. Initially, the charity operated as a missionary service organization meeting emergency needs in crisis areas in East Asia, opening an office in South Korea in 1954.


title: World Vision International

text: In 1967, the Mission Advanced Research and Communication Center (MARC) was founded by Ed Dayton as a division of World Vision International. It became the organizational backbone of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, collected and published data about "unreached people" and also published the "Mission Handbook: North American Protestant Ministries Overseas".


title: World Vision International

text: During the 1970s, World Vision began training families in the agricultural skills necessary to build small farms, with the aim of promoting long term improvement and self-reliance in the communities.


title: World Vision International

text: The organization also began installing water pumps for clean water, which caused infant mortality rates to drop. Volunteers now use the fresh water to teach gardening and irrigation and promote good health.


title: World Vision International

text: Joining with 12 other "likeminded organizations" in Wheaton, Illinois in 1977, the organization founded the "Association of Evangelical Relief and Development Organizations" (AERDO), now known as the Accord Network.


title: World Vision International

text: In order to restructure, the organization World Vision International was founded in 1977 by Walter Stanley Mooneyham the then president of World Vision.


title: World Vision International

text: In 1979, it co-founded with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.


title: World Vision International

text: During the 1990s, World Vision International began focusing on the needs of children who had been orphaned in Uganda, Romania, and Somalia in response to AIDS, neglect, and civil war, respectively. World Vision began working with communities, health providers, faith-based organisations and people living with HIV and AIDS to encourage an end to stigmatisation, better understanding of HIV prevention and community care for those living with AIDS, and orphans left behind by the pandemic. They also joined the United Nations peacekeeping efforts to help those affected by civil war. World Vision also started to openly promote the international ban on land mines. In 1994 World Vision US moved to Washington State.


title: World Vision International

text: According to "Forbes" magazine, as of December 2014, World Vision is the 11th largest charity in the United States with total revenue of over 981 million dollars.


title: World Vision International

text: World Vision Partnership now operates as a federation of interdependent national offices governed by the same agreement but with three different levels of central control.


title: World Vision International

text: The "Covenant of Partnership" is a document that all national members of the World Vision Partnership have to sign. According to this document all national offices have to accept policies and decisions established by the International Board and must not establish an office or program outside their own national borders without the consent of World Vision International and the host country. Except for direct project founding, all funds intended for outside their national borders have to be remitted through World Vision International. The financial planning and budget principles adopted by the International Board have to be accepted as well as an examination of the financial affairs of the national offices by Partnership representatives.


title: World Vision International

text: The president of World Vision International has a seat on all national offices with their own national board.


title: World Vision International

text: The partnership offices – located in Geneva, Bangkok, Nairobi, Cyprus, Los Angeles, West Africa, South Africa, London, and San José, Costa Rica – coordinate operations of the organization and represent World Vision in the international arena. For making large scale decisions, the international organization considers opinions from each national office, whether in the developed or developing world.


title: World Vision International

text: An international board of directors oversees the World Vision partnership. The full board meets twice a year to appoint senior officers, approve strategic plans and budgets, and determine international policy. The current chairperson of the international board is Donna Shepherd. The international president is Andrew Morley.


title: World Vision International

text: World Vision's staff comes from a range of Christian denominations. Its staff includes followers of Protestantism, Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Around the world its staff includes followers of different religions or none. Its staff participates in daily and weekly services. They stress that one can be a Christian in any culture. However, World Vision also respects other religions that it encounters, stating that "to promote a secular approach to life would be an insult to them". Richard Stearns, president of World Vision US, stated that World Vision has a strict policy against proselytizing, which he describes as "using any kind of coercion or inducement to listen to a religious message before helping someone".


title: World Vision International

text: The World Vision Partnership and all of its national members are committed to the concept of transformational development, which is cast in a biblical framework and in which evangelization is an integral part of development work.


title: World Vision International

text: Activities include: emergency relief, education, health care, economic development, and promotion of justice. The organization has consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council and partnerships with UN agencies like UNICEF, WHO, UNHCR and ILO, and financial records reveal that it has funded evangelical activities all over the world.


title: World Vision International

text: Its approach to aid is to first help people and their communities recognize the resources that lie within them. With support from World Vision, it claims communities transform themselves by carrying out their own development projects in health care, agriculture production, water projects, education, micro-enterprise development, advocacy and other community programs.


title: World Vision International

text: It also addresses factors that perpetuate poverty by what it describes as promoting justice. It supports community awareness of the collective ability to address unjust practices and begin working for change. It claims to speak out on issues such as child labor, debt relief for poor nations, and the use of children as combatants in armed conflict. World Vision International has endorsed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. It claims to foster opportunities to help reduce conflict levels and to contribute to the peaceful resolution of hostilities and reconciliation of disputes.


title: World Vision International

text: World Vision encourages public awareness about the needs of others, the causes of poverty, and the nature of compassionate response. These efforts include collaboration with media and community participation in fundraising. In areas of the world that are considered too dangerous for news organizations to send their crews, World Vision's own videographers supply newscasters with footage of events from these areas. In its communications, the organization claims to uphold the dignity of children and families in presenting explanations of the causes and consequences of poverty, neglect, abuse and war.


title: World Vision International

text: With more than 50 years of experience in India, World Vision India works in 24 states across the country through development that is community based, sustainable and transformational emergency response and disaster mitigation, advocacy initiatives that are grassroots based.


title: World Vision International

text: World Vision India is a national NGO in partnership with a network of over 100 other entities within World Vision International. World Vision India is registered as a society under the Tamil Nadu Societies Act with its National Office based in Chennai. Governed by an autonomous Board of Directors, World Vision's programmes are facilitated by close to 1700 staff.


title: World Vision International

text: World Vision runs a child sponsorship program which aims to help needy children, families and communities access clean drinking water, sanitation, education, skills for future livelihood, nutrition, health care and participate in an age-appropriate in development processes. World Vision operates on the theory that by changing the lives of children, the child sponsorship program facilitates overall growth and development in the community, as it helps communities to build a better future through empowerment, education, income generation, and self-sufficiency.


title: World Vision International

text: After his resignation from the post of president, its founder Robert Pierce criticized the organization for its professionalization at the expense of its evangelical faith and founded Samaritan's Purse in 1970.


title: World Vision International

text: In a 2008 report on famine in Ethiopia, reporter Andrew Geoghegan, from Australian TV programme "Foreign Correspondent", visited his 14-year-old sponsor child. The girl has "been part of a World Vision program all her life" yet says (in translated subtitle) "Until recently, I didn't know I had a sponsor." And when asked about her knowledge of World Vision sponsorship says, "Last time they gave me this jacket and a pen." Geoghegan was disconcerted to find that despite being "told by World Vision that [the girl] was learning English at school, and was improving ... she speaks no English at all".


title: World Vision International

text: In response, World Vision stated that "it unapologetically takes a community-based approach to development", in which the money is not directly provided to the family of the sponsored child. The organization argued that the "direct benefit" approach would result in jealousy among other community members without children and would not work.


title: World Vision International

text: "Foreign Correspondent" replied to World Vision concerning child sponsorship, showing contradictions between the organization's literature that creates the impression that donated money goes directly to the sponsor child and evidence of cases where supposedly sponsored children received little if any benefit.


title: World Vision International

text: "In February 2007 ... World Vision received an anonymous tip that lower level World Vision Liberia employees in key positions ... were diverting food deliveries and building supplies for personal gain. World Vision immediately launched an investigation into the allegations, sending auditors to [their] field sites. Through this extensive internal audit, World Vision uncovered the nature and extent of the alleged violations and furnished detailed documentation that assisted the U.S. Government's subsequent investigation."