title: 2015 MotoGP World Championship

text: Valentino Rossi led the championship for almost the entire season as he chased a tenth world title, but ultimately, the honours went to his Yamaha Motor Racing teammate Jorge Lorenzo, who took his third MotoGP title and a fifth world title overall. Lorenzo started the season quietly with three finishes off the podium, Rossi took wins in Qatar and an eventful win in Argentina, with Rossi chasing Márquez down for the lead before the two riders collided on the penultimate lap. Rossi stayed upright but Márquez was unable to rejoin the race, with Rossi calling Márquez voicing his displeasure in the press conference after the race, beginning an estrangement between the two riders that would impact the season and Lorenzo's eventual championship.


title: 2015 MotoGP World Championship

text: Thereafter, Lorenzo took four successive wins for the first time in his career to bring himself back into the championship race, before Rossi won at Assen. Lorenzo did not win again until Brno, taking the championship lead on countback, but ceded it back to Rossi, when he won at Silverstone. Lorenzo crashed out at Misano, while Rossi finished fifth ending a 16-race streak of podium finishes after both Yamaha riders were caught out by wet weather.


title: 2015 MotoGP World Championship

text: Rossi and Márquez again collided at Assen on the final lap; Rossi rejoined the circuit through the gravel and went on to win the race, while race direction deemed the incident as a racing incident.


title: 2015 MotoGP World Championship

text: At San Marino, Rossi was given a penalty point on his licence, for impeding Lorenzo in qualifying, an incident that would cause implications later on in the season.


title: 2015 MotoGP World Championship

text: The Australian Grand Prix was won by Márquez, with Lorenzo in second and Rossi finishing fourth, in a race that is considered to be one of the greatest in MotoGP's history. With the top three in the championship, along with Andrea Iannone's Ducati going head to head, with over 50 overtakes between the top four throughout the race, 13 lead changes and Márquez setting the fastest lap on the final lap to ensure victory. Despite the incredible response from fans about the race, Rossi was not happy with how the race unfolded and made comments about Márquez, making accusing Márquez of helping Lorenzo in his title aspirations at Phillip Island in the pre-event press conference at Malaysia, a claim that Márquez refuted, leading up to one of the most infamous races in the sports history one week later.


title: 2015 MotoGP World Championship

text: The Malaysian race, was originally at risk of being cancelled due to smoke from fires in Indonesia impacting the track, however the race would go ahead with Rossi and Márquez colliding for a third time during the season. After a series of 18 overtakes and exchanges of positions between the two, during the seventh lap of the race, Rossi made a move on Márquez at Turn 14, pushing Márquez to the outside of the circuit. The two riders made contact and Márquez fell from his bike. He remounted and returned to the pits but had to retire from the race. Rossi maintained the third place that the pair had been battling over until the end of the race. The incident divided fans, pundits and the riders on the grid, with Lorenzo made a gesture showing his disapproval at the move and deemed the penalty as "inadequate" and was booed off the podium, with race winner Pedrosa criticising Rossi's reaction to the incident by calling it a contradiction based on his previous comments on racing incidents. Race Direction reviewed the incident and deemed Rossi at fault for the collision, and three penalty points were added to his licence. With this, it meant that Rossi was forced to start the final race in Valencia from the back of the grid, despite appealing the penalty to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the penalty was ultimately upheld; with Lorenzo submitting a statement towards the appeal and later apologised for his actions on the podium. Rossi voiced his regret at his move on Márquez, but did not apologise for the incident occurring while Márquez stood his ground on his riding style in Malaysia.


title: 2015 MotoGP World Championship

text: Following the fallout from Malaysia, which included a clash between the Márquez family and Italian television reporters who invaded the family property in Barcelona, Lorenzo being wrongfully accused of storming race direction demanding a penalty for Rossi, which the members of the media would later retract the story and Rossi's protest being overturned being met with hostile reactions from some fans; FIM president Vito Ippolito deemed the events as a "damaging effect on the staging of our competitions and poisoned the atmosphere around the sport", with Ippolito and Dorna Sports boss Carmelo Ezpeleta calling a private meeting for all riders and crew chiefs in Valencia, cancelling the pre-event press conference, also meeting with Lorenzo, Márquez and Rossi privately before the race weekend began.


title: 2015 MotoGP World Championship

text: In the final five races, Rossi finished ahead of Lorenzo once, as Lorenzo continued to close the points gap; at a maximum of 23 after San Marino, Lorenzo pulled it back to 7 going into Valencia with the champion to be determined at the final race of the season for the first time in nine years when Nicky Hayden defeated Rossi for the title at Valencia.


title: 2015 MotoGP World Championship

text: At the final race, Lorenzo took his seventh win of the season and won the world title by five points, leading the world championship for the first time all season while Rossi could only finish fourth gaining over 10 positions throughout the race.


title: 2015 MotoGP World Championship

text: Third place in the final riders' championship standings went to Márquez, who won five races during the season, but six retirements during the campaign stopped him from challenging the Yamaha pair in the championship run-in. The only other rider to win a race during the season was Márquez's Repsol Honda teammate, Dani Pedrosa. Pedrosa missed three races at the start of the season, after electing to undergo surgery to alleviate issues with arm-pump. Upon his return, he did not podium until Catalunya, and ultimately, took two wins in the closing four races at Motegi, and Sepang.


title: 2015 MotoGP World Championship

text: In the other championships, the eleven wins for Rossi and Lorenzo were enough for Yamaha to take the teams' title by over 200 points ahead of Repsol Honda, and the manufacturers' title by 52 points ahead of Honda. Amongst the class of rookies, Suzuki rider Maverick Viñales took the IRTA Cup, finishing in twelfth place overall, while Héctor Barberá of Avintia Racing was the best-placed Open class rider, in fifteenth.


title: 2015 MotoGP World Championship

text: As in , the MotoGP class was divided into two categories: Factory and Open. Manufacturers who had not won a dry race since the start of the 2013 season or were new to the class could enter the Factory category with all the Open concessions.


title: 2015 MotoGP World Championship

text: A provisional entry list was released by the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme on 23 October 2014. An updated entry list was released on 2 February 2015.


title: 2015 MotoGP World Championship

text: The teams' standings were based on results obtained by regular and substitute riders; wild-card entries were ineligible.


title: Some Nights (song)

text: "Some Nights" is a song by American indie pop band Fun. It was released on June 4, 2012, as the second single from their second studio album of the same name. The song was written by Jeff Bhasker, Nate Ruess, Andrew Dost, and Jack Antonoff. Musically "Some Nights" is an alternative rock song with elements of power pop and progressive pop while the lyrics depict the protagonist having an existential crisis.


title: Some Nights (song)

text: In the United States, "Some Nights" was a sleeper hit, spending approximately seven months on the "Billboard" Hot 100 before reaching a peak of number three for six non-consecutive weeks beginning the week of September 29, 2012. The song became Fun's second single to enter the chart's top ten, as well as their second song to be certified platinum in the U.S., after their previous single, "We Are Young". "Some Nights" was successful around the world, topping the singles charts of Australia, Israel and New Zealand, and it reached the top 10 in an additional nine countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.


title: Some Nights (song)

text: "Some Nights" is written in the key of C major at a tempo of 108 beats per minute. A line in their lyrics, "this is it boys, this is war", recalls "99 Red Balloons", the English version of Nena's 1983 hit "99 Luftballons". Lyrically, the song expresses the existential angst of a young protagonist who is a long way from home. Lead singer Nate Ruess explained to Mesfin Fekadu of the "Associated Press": "I'm always thinking about, 'Who am I and why did I do something like that?' And I think then it harkens back to my family, and I have such a strong tie to them and it's always therapeutic to sing about them." Ruess came up with the song and album title while on tour in Scotland; he wrote the song based on the title. Lyrically, the song is about "just being someone different on any given night."


title: Some Nights (song)

text: There has been some confusion with the fans as the lyric "Some terrible nights" was mistaken for "...lies". Members of Fun. confirmed on November 18, 2012 on their Twitter and Facebook accounts that "it's NIGHTS not LIES." Jeff Giles, writing for Diffuser, compared the song to Simon and Garfunkel's "Cecilia." Ruess commented that Simon's "Graceland" (1986) was an influence on the song in an interview with "Billboard".


title: Some Nights (song)

text: The Re-View calls "Some Nights" a "bolder, catchier and more striking track than its predecessor "We Are Young", upping the stakes when it comes to both style and substance." In closing, he cited the track as one that would "cement [Fun] as one of the most intriguing and exciting new bands to emerge from the States in recent years." "The Guardian" writer Dave Simpson compared Ruess's vocals in the song to those of Freddie Mercury and called the lyrics "sincere and oddly moving".


title: Some Nights (song)

text: Ray Rahman of "Entertainment Weekly", while reviewing the whole album, criticized its second half as inferior to the first and also called "Some Nights" the best track on the album, alongside "We Are Young".


title: Some Nights (song)

text: "Some Nights" has reached number one in Australia, New Zealand, and Israel. The song has also reached the top ten in the United States, Canada, Ireland, Austria, Italy, Belgium, and the United Kingdom, and has so far made the top 30 in the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland; it has also charted in Japan.


title: Some Nights (song)

text: In the United States, "Some Nights" debuted on the "Billboard" Hot 100 the same week their album "Some Nights" debuted at number 3 on the "Billboard" 200. The song remained in the lower region of the chart for approximately four months due to low-level sales and consistent high-level streaming, before finally entering the top 40 in its 18th week. In its 23rd week, it switched places with "We Are Young" at number 11 on the chart, where it stayed the week after. In the song's 25th week on the chart, it entered the top ten by jumping to number 8. In its sixth week in the top ten, it reached number 3, which has been its peak position. As of March 2014, the song has sold over 5 million copies in the United States. It also reached number 2 on the Mainstream Top 40 chart, coincidentally behind Maroon 5's "One More Night".


title: Some Nights (song)

text: The music video for "Some Nights" was produced by Poonam Sehrawat and directed by Anthony Mandler, and released on MTV.com on June 4, 2012. The video is of a fictional American Civil War night battle where the band performs on the battlefield. The lead singer, Nate Ruess, also sings as he rallies a Union regiment in preparation for battle. The flag of the Union troops is that of the 20th Maine Infantry Regiment, volunteer soldiers that were commanded by Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain starting in 1863. The video features two soldiers, one from each side of the conflict. The Confederate soldier is a middle-aged farmer clearly in love with his life, land and animals. The Union soldier is a young man, presumably from Maine, who has left his love to fight as a volunteer. In battle, the two sides first form lines and engage in a shooting battle. The Confederates charge the Union line (though they do so without appearing to mount bayonets). The Union troops engage in hand-to-hand combat in which the young Union soldier grits his teeth with determination and bayonets the Confederate soldier-farmer, brutally killing him. The Union regiment is victorious and the band follows the Union troops as it marches confidently and with apparent conviction towards its next battle, the young soldier exemplifying fulfilment in answering the song's central question, "What do I stand for?". He writes his love a letter which she cherishes.


title: Some Nights (song)

text: The music video on YouTube has achieved significant popularity, as it has been viewed over 235 million times.


title: Some Nights (song)

text: "Some Nights" appeared in the series finale of "Harry's Law", and has been used in television spots for the ABC program "Secret Millionaire". The song was also used in promos for the 2012 MTV Movie Awards and the 2013 BCS National Championship Game. Fun performed the song on "The Colbert Report", "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon", "Sunrise", "The Jonathan Ross Show", and "Saturday Night Live". It also was used in trailers and advertisements promoting the Disney animated film "Wreck-It Ralph".


title: Some Nights (song)

text: Southwest Airlines used the song in the first TV spot for their "Welcome Aboard" ad campaign, which was also their first campaign by TBWA/Chiat/Day.


title: Some Nights (song)

text: "On Air With Ryan Seacrest" reviews a collaborative video version of "Some Nights" performed by nine "YouTube stars". Produced by Jake Coco and W. G. Snuffy Walden, vocalists include Jake Coco, Corey Gray, Caitlin Hart, Madilyn Bailey, Savannah Outen, Jess Moskaluke, Sara Niemietz, Eppic, and Black Prez. Released on Jake Coco's YouTube channel on August 11, 2012, by October 13, 2012 this cover version received 4,532,233 views in 63 days. In August 2012 Some Nights was covered by Canadian band Walk Off The Earth for their YouTube channel. Ohio based metalcore band Like Moths To Flames covered the song on the compilation album "Punk Goes Pop 5".


title: Some Nights (song)

text: On April 25, 2013, teen actress and musician Victoria Justice (of Nickelodeon's "Victorious") posted a softer acoustic rendition of "Some Nights".


title: Some Nights (song)

text: A cappella group Straight No Chaser released a mashup of this song and "We Are Young" for their 2013 album "Under the Influence".


title: Some Nights (song)

text: The song was covered The Band Perry in concert from Jackson, MI "We Are Pioneers World Tour" 2013 with mashup "Night Gone Wasted"


title: Quincunx

text: A quincunx () is a geometric pattern consisting of five points arranged in a cross, with four of them forming a square or rectangle and a fifth at its center. The same pattern has other names, including "in saltire" or "in cross" in heraldry (depending on the orientation of the outer square), the five-point stencil in numerical analysis, and the five dots tattoo. It forms the arrangement of five units in the pattern corresponding to the five-spot on six-sided dice, playing cards, and dominoes. It is represented in Unicode as or (for the die pattern) .


title: Quincunx

text: The quincunx was originally a coin issued by the Roman Republic c. 211–200 BC, whose value was five twelfths ("quinque" and "uncia") of an as, the Roman standard bronze coin. On the Roman quincunx coins, the value was sometimes indicated by a pattern of five dots or pellets. However, these dots were not always arranged in a quincunx pattern.


title: Quincunx

text: The "Oxford English Dictionary" (OED) dates the first appearances of the Latin word in English as 1545 and 1574 ("in the sense 'five-twelfths of a pound or as; i.e. 100 old pence). The first citation for a geometric meaning, as "a pattern used for planting trees", dates from 1606. The OED also cites a 1647 reference to the German astronomer Kepler for an astronomical/astrological meaning, an angle of 5/12 of a whole circle. When used to describe a tree-planting pattern, the same word can also refer to groups of more than five trees, arranged in a square grid but aligned diagonally to the dimensions of the surrounding plot of land; however, this article considers only five-point patterns and not their extension to larger square grids.


title: Manila Film Center

text: The Manila Film Center is a national building located at the southwest end of the Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex in Pasay, Philippines. The structure was designed by architect Froilan Hong where its edifice is supported on more than nine hundred piles which reaches to the bed-rock about 120 feet below.


title: Manila Film Center

text: The Manila Film Center served as the main theater for the First Manila International Film Festival (MIFF) January 18–29, 1982. The building has also been the subject of controversies due to a fatal accident that happened on November 17, 1981. At least 169 workers fell and were buried under quick-drying cement.


title: Manila Film Center

text: Prior to the Manila Film Center, the Philippines did not have an official national film archive which is why in January 1981, then first lady Imelda Marcos spearheaded the building of the first Manila Center. Under the supervision of Betty Benitez, the spouse of then Deputy MHS Minister Jose Conrado Benitez, they organized a group to pursue the project. Ramon M. Ignacio, Senior Technology Officer at the Technology Resource Center, conceptualized the project and its various components. He likewise prepared the feasibility study.


title: Manila Film Center

text: Among the Film Center's project components were: the 360-degree theater to show past and present historical and tourism scenes for future generations, the Film Financing/Loan Program to address funding of meritable films, the Filipino Film Archiving using Digital Storage (though was little known during those times), Film Database/Information system, Film Making and Blow Up Laboratory, Viewing rooms for the Board of Censors and other minor sub-components. Despite the futuristic and concept creativity of Ignacio, only two of the project components were actually done. UNESCO's assistance was invaluable in the design of the archives, so they were asked to be consultants of the project.


title: Manila Film Center

text: Several ocular visits were done by Unesco in 1981 where they were responsible for major consultations needed in the structure's erection. The building was then designed to have two components which were the auditoria and archives. According to Hong, the foundation was set on reclaimed land near Manila Bay. Since the deadline of the structure was tight, it required 4,000 workers, working in 3 shifts across 24 hours. One thousand workers constructed the lobby in 72 hours, a job which would normally entail six weeks of labor. The Film Center opened in 1982 costing an estimate of $25 million.


title: Manila Film Center

text: The building is identified with the Marcoses' "edifice complex," a term defined by architect Gerard Lico as "an obsession and compulsion to build edifices as a hallmark of greatness."


title: Manila Film Center

text: An accident occurred around 3:00 a.m. on November 17, 1981, during the construction of the Manila Film Center. The scaffolding collapsed, and at least 169 workers fell and were buried under quick-drying wet cement. A blanket of security was immediately imposed by the Marcos dictatorship. Neither rescuers nor ambulances were permitted on the site until an official statement had been prepared. The rescuers were eventually permitted to go inside the accident site nine hours after the collapse.


title: Manila Film Center

text: According to former CCP president Baltazar N. Endriga, architect Froilan Hong said that only seven died in the accident and that all of them "were retrieved and given the proper rites befitting the dead."


title: Manila Film Center

text: After the tragedy Prime Minister Cesar Virata disapproved a $5 million subsidy which was originally intended for the film festival. Lacking in funding, Imelda Marcos created a contingency plan that would generate enough funds to cover the festival.


title: Manila Film Center

text: Design and architecture writer Deyan Sudjic credits the Manila Film Center accident as one of the events which heralded the downfall of the Marcos dictatorship half a decade later, saying:


title: Manila Film Center

text: The beginning of the end of the Marcos period was marked by the collapse of the scaffolding on the Manila Film Center, one of Imelda Marcos’s pet projects, as it was being rushed for completion. Several construction workers were killed, crushed by falling steel. The very buildings being presented as the icons of a bold new republic seemed to embody the corruption and incompetence of the regime.


title: Manila Film Center

text: Amidst everything, the first Manila International film festival pushed through from the 18th to the 29th of January 1982. A total of 17 movies competed in the festival namely "36 Chowringhee Lane" (India), "Body Heat" (USA), "Gallipoli" (Australia), "Growing up" (Line Iida) (Norway), "Harry Tracy-Desperado" (Canada), "La Femme d'à côté" (France), "Lola" (Germany), "Los Viernes de la Eternidad" (Argentina), "Majstori, Majstori!" (Yugoslavia), "No Charges Filed" (Egypt), "Smash Palace" (New Zealand), "Take It All" ("Jetz Und Alles") (West Germany), "The Beloved Woman of Mechanic Gavrilov" (USSR), "The French Lieutenant's Woman" (Great Britain), "There Was A War When I Was A Child" (Japan), "Vabank" (Poland) and "Wasted Lives" (Hungary).


title: Manila Film Center

text: India's entry, "36 Chowringhee Lane" claimed best picture. Best actress and best actor were brought home by Lyudmila Gurchenko and Bruno Lawrence respectively. Yugoslav film director Goran Marković won best director.


title: Manila Film Center

text: After the 1990 earthquake that hit Manila and the rest of Luzon, the center was abandoned, following reports of structural damage to load-bearing beams on the west side of the building. In 2001, then CCP President Armita Rufino announced a full rehabilitation program for the deteriorating Film Center. The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and the film center's architect, Hong, were part of the strategic planning session on structure's renovation. The rehabilitation cost estimate in 2001 was approximately 300 million pesos, while the cost of erecting a brand new building was estimated at 1.8 billion pesos.


title: Manila Film Center

text: After its renovation was completed, CPACEAI leased the theater from the Philippine government in October 2001. On December 10, 2001, the "Amazing Show", produced by Amazing Philippines Theatre, opened to the public. All of the performers in the show were transgender. Their lease expired in 2009, which forced the show to move to another facility.


title: Manila Film Center

text: In 2009, the Philippine Senate considered moving from the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) building to the Film Center located only a few meters away. The proposed tenancy would cost significantly less than the current lease at the GSIS compound, which the senate had been renting from the Philippine Government at an annual cost of 100 million pesos since 1997. On February 19, 2013, a three-hour fire damaged the film center. No casualties were reported, but structural damage was estimated at 1.2 million pesos. A year later, in February 2014, the decision of the Senate to transfer to the Film Center was put on hold by then Senate President Franklin Drilon.


title: Manila Film Center

text: The Manila Film Center is said by believers to be haunted due to the accident that took place during the construction of the structure. The hauntings in relation to the tragedy were discussed in a 2006 episode of GMA Network's "i-Witness" and a 1991 Halloween Special of ABS-CBN's "Magandang Gabi... Bayan".


title: Manila Film Center

text: In the 2010 Filipino film "The Red Shoes", part of the plot hinges on the supposed death of the father of the main character, Lucas, played by Marvin Agustin, who was supposed to have been among the 169 workers buried alive in the accident at the construction of the Manila Film Center. The film also featured a spiritualist, Madame Vange, played by Tessie Tomas who performs in the Manila Film Center as an impersonator of First Lady Imelda Marcos.


title: Manila Film Center

text: In the graphic novel, "The Filipino Heroes League", the building was transformed from the Film Center to the FHL's headquarters. The building was once respectable and housed the old members of the League. After a while, their leader, Supremo, went into a coma and soon after, most of the superheroes who were once part of the League went abroad. Less than a handful of superheroes remain and continue to conduct their superhero work in a shack in front of the now run down Film Center.


title: Manila Film Center

text: Filipino author Gilbert M. Coronel released a novel entitled "Tragic Theater" in 2009. The book first tells of the 1981 incident. It heads to 1999 when the government's plan to build an IMAX theater in the structure is handed to Department of Tourism coordinator named Anne Marie "Annie" Francisco. The first priority is to rid the place of the trapped souls so she seeks the help of a priest Fr. Marcelo, known for his radical cleansing methods and a group of spirit communicators. Anne and Fr. Marcelo lead the group in their mission only to discover too late that an evil presence took sanctuary inside the building long ago and fed on the anger and misery of the victims' souls. A bishop later helps with the task when Anne is possessed by the evil entity.


title: Manila Film Center

text: A film adaption of Coronel's novel premiered on January 8, 2015. It stars Andi Eigenmann as DOT coordinator Anne, John Estrada as priest Fr. Marcelo, and Christopher de Leon as the bishop. The film however changes a few names; like the exorcism priest Fr. Marcelo is renamed Fr. Nilo. It is noted, however, that the actual Manila Film Center was not used for filming. The AFP Museum and Multi-Purpose Theater in Camp Aguinaldo doubled or filled in for the Manila Film Center's main theater and interiors.


title: Manila Film Center

text: Both the novel and movie are loosely based on and inspired by the 1981 incident and the late 1990s Spirit Questors' visit to the place.


title: Manila Film Center

text: In October 1985, a law was passed in the form of presidential decree 1986 (P.D. 1986) which created a board of review for motion pictures and television. This entity was later known as the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB).


title: Manila Film Center

text: The law also allowed an exclusive exemption of films shown at the Manila Film Center from censorship. The building was finished in 1982.


title: Lustre (mineralogy)

text: Lustre (British English) or luster (American English; see spelling differences) is the way light interacts with the surface of a crystal, rock, or mineral. The word traces its origins back to the Latin "lux", meaning "light", and generally implies radiance, gloss, or brilliance.


title: Lustre (mineralogy)

text: A range of terms are used to describe lustre, such as "earthy", "metallic", "greasy", and "silky". Similarly, the term "vitreous" (derived from the Latin for glass, "vitrum") refers to a glassy lustre. A list of these terms is given below.


title: Lustre (mineralogy)

text: Lustre varies over a wide continuum, and so there are no rigid boundaries between the different types of lustre. (For this reason, different sources can often describe the same mineral differently. This ambiguity is further complicated by lustre's ability to vary widely within a particular mineral species). The terms are frequently combined to describe intermediate types of lustre (for example, a "vitreous greasy" lustre).


title: Lustre (mineralogy)

text: Some minerals exhibit unusual optical phenomena, such as asterism (the display of a star-shaped luminous area) or chatoyancy (the display of luminous bands, which appear to move as the specimen is rotated). A list of such phenomena is given below.


title: Lustre (mineralogy)

text: Adamantine minerals possess a superlative lustre, which is most notably seen in diamond. Such minerals are transparent or translucent, and have a high refractive index (of 1.9 or more). Minerals with a true adamantine lustre are uncommon, with examples including cerussite, zircon, and cubic zirconia.


title: Lustre (mineralogy)

text: Minerals with a lesser (but still relatively high) degree of lustre are referred to as subadamantine, with some examples being garnet and corundum.


title: Lustre (mineralogy)

text: Dull (or earthy) minerals exhibit little to no lustre, due to coarse granulations which scatter light in all directions, approximating a Lambertian reflector. An example is kaolinite. A distinction is sometimes drawn between dull minerals and earthy minerals, with the latter being coarser, and having even less lustre.


title: Lustre (mineralogy)

text: Greasy minerals resemble fat or grease. A greasy lustre often occurs in minerals containing a great abundance of microscopic inclusions, with examples including opal and cordierite, jadeite. Many minerals with a greasy lustre also feel greasy to the touch.


title: Lustre (mineralogy)

text: Metallic (or splendent) minerals have the lustre of polished metal, and with ideal surfaces will work as a reflective surface. Examples include galena, pyrite and magnetite.


title: Lustre (mineralogy)

text: Pearly minerals consist of thin transparent co-planar sheets. Light reflecting from these layers give them a lustre reminiscent of pearls. Such minerals possess perfect cleavage, with examples including muscovite and stilbite.


title: Lustre (mineralogy)

text: Resinous minerals have the appearance of resin, chewing gum or (smooth-surfaced) plastic. A principal example is amber, which is a form of fossilized resin.


title: Lustre (mineralogy)

text: Silky minerals have a parallel arrangement of extremely fine fibres, giving them a lustre reminiscent of silk. Examples include asbestos, ulexite and the satin spar variety of gypsum. A fibrous lustre is similar, but has a coarser texture.


title: Lustre (mineralogy)

text: Submetallic minerals have similar lustre to metal, but are duller and less reflective. A submetallic lustre often occurs in near-opaque minerals with very high refractive indices, such as sphalerite, cinnabar, anthracite, and cuprite.


title: Lustre (mineralogy)

text: Vitreous minerals have the lustre of glass. (The term is derived from the Latin for glass, "vitrum".) This type of lustre is one of the most commonly seen, and occurs in transparent or translucent minerals with relatively low refractive indices. Common examples include calcite, quartz, topaz, beryl, tourmaline and fluorite, among others.


title: Lustre (mineralogy)

text: Asterism is the display of a star-shaped luminous area. It is seen in some sapphires and rubies, where it is caused by impurities of rutile. It can also occur in garnet, diopside and spinel.


title: Lustre (mineralogy)

text: Aventurescence (or aventurization) is a reflectance effect like that of glitter. It arises from minute, preferentially oriented mineral platelets within the material. These platelets are so numerous that they also influence the material's body colour. In aventurine quartz, chrome-bearing fuchsite makes for a green stone and various iron oxides make for a red stone.


title: Lustre (mineralogy)

text: Chatoyant minerals display luminous bands, which appear to move as the specimen is rotated. Such minerals are composed of parallel fibers (or contain fibrous voids or inclusions), which reflect light into a direction perpendicular to their orientation, thus forming narrow bands of light. The most famous examples are tiger's eye and cymophane, but the effect may also occur in other minerals such as aquamarine, moonstone and tourmaline.


title: Lustre (mineralogy)

text: Colour change is most commonly found in alexandrite, a variety of chrysoberyl gemstones. Other gems also occur in colour-change varieties, including (but not limited to) sapphire, garnet, spinel. Alexandrite displays a colour change dependent upon light, along with strong pleochroism. The gem results from small-scale replacement of aluminium by chromium oxide, which is responsible for alexandrite's characteristic green to red colour change. Alexandrite from the Ural Mountains in Russia is green by daylight and red by incandescent light. Other varieties of alexandrite may be yellowish or pink in daylight and a columbine or raspberry red by incandescent light. The optimum or "ideal" colour change would be fine emerald green to fine purplish red, but this is rare.


title: Lustre (mineralogy)

text: Iridescence is the 'play' or 'fire' of rainbow-coloured light caused by very thin regular structures or layers beneath the surface of a gemstone. Similar to a thin film of oil on water, these layers interfere with the rays of reflected light, reinforcing some colours and cancelling others. Iridescence is seen at its best in precious opal.


title: Lustre (mineralogy)

text: Schiller (German, literally "shimmer"), is the metallic iridescence originating from below the surface of a stone that occurs when light is reflected between layers of minerals. It is seen in moonstone and labradorite and is very similar to adularescence and aventurescence.


title: Mang Inasal

text: Mang Inasal Philippines, Inc., also known as Mang Inasal, (Hiligaynon for "Mr. Barbecue") is a barbecue fast food restaurant chain in the Philippines, established in Iloilo City in 2003.


title: Mang Inasal

text: The company was started by Edgar "Injap" Sia II, who owned his first business at the age of twenty. Sia engaged in the food business at twenty-six years of age, opening the first Mang Inasal branch in December 2003 at the Robinsons Mall Carpark in Iloilo City. The restaurant was an instant success, despite stiff competition from other established grilled-food restaurants.


title: Mang Inasal

text: The chain opened its first branches within the Visayan region, then expanded to neighboring Mindanao to the south before spreading to Metro Manila. The company started franchising in 2005. By 2008, Mang Inasal had opened 23 restaurants, with ten being franchised. In 2009, Mang Inasal expanded to over a hundred branches.


title: Mang Inasal

text: In October 2010, 70% of Mang Inasal was acquired by Jollibee Foods Corporation (JFC), for ($68.8 million). In April 2016, JFC (Jollibee Food Corporation) acquired the remaining 30% previously belonging to Injap Investment owned by Inasal's founder.


title: Vicente Gonzalez (politician)

text: Vicente Gonzalez Jr. (; born September 4, 1967) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the United States representative for Texas's 15th congressional district since 2017. He is a member of the Democratic Party. His district includes a narrow ribbon of South Texas stretching from San Antonio's outer suburbs to the Rio Grande Valley, and includes Brooks, Duval, Guadalupe, Jim Hogg, Karnes, and Live Oak counties, and parts of Hidalgo and Wilson counties.


title: Vicente Gonzalez (politician)

text: Gonzalez was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1967. He grew up in a working-class family, often working odd jobs that displayed entrepreneurial skills. He went to Roman Catholic School in Corpus Christi for part of his childhood. In 11th grade, he dropped out of high school. He returned to school through a G.E.D. and enrolled at Del Mar Junior College, where he received an associate degree in banking and finance. In 1992, Gonzalez earned his Bachelor of Science in aviation business administration from the Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University on the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station. In 1996, he graduated from Texas Wesleyan University School of Law (now the Texas A&M University School of Law) with a Juris Doctor.


title: Vicente Gonzalez (politician)

text: Gonzalez founded his law firm, V. Gonzalez & Associates, in 1997. He recovered tens of millions of dollars for plaintiffs nationwide and was nominated to the "Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum". He is a member of Texas's and New York's bar associations. He is also licensed to practice before the United States Supreme Court.


title: Vicente Gonzalez (politician)

text: As a newcomer to politics, Gonzalez declared his candidacy in 2016 for the United States House of Representatives in after Rubén Hinojosa, the incumbent representative, announced he would not run for reelection. He won the Democratic Party nomination, defeating Sonny Palacios in the runoff election. He defeated Republican Tim Westley in the November general election with 57.3% of the vote to Westley's 37.7%.


title: Vicente Gonzalez (politician)

text: In 2020, Gonzalez's seat became unexpectedly competitive. He defeated Republican Monica De La Cruz by a narrower margin than he had in his previous two victories, with 50.5% of the vote to Cruz-Hernandez's 47.6%.


title: Vicente Gonzalez (politician)

text: After Texas's redistricting based on the 2020 census, Gonzalez in November 2021 announced that he would run for reelection in the 34th district. The 15th district became more Republican but the neighboring 34th became significantly more Democratic. The Texas state legislature put Gonzalez's residence in the 34th. The incumbent in the 34th district, Filemon Vela Jr., had announced earlier in 2021 that he was not seeking reelection, and would endorse Gonzalez regardless of where he ran. Gonzalez won the district's March 2022 Democratic primary. The Republicans nominated Mayra Flores. After Vela resigned on March 31, 2022, Gonzalez declined to run in and instead endorsed Democrat Dan Sanchez in the consequential special election on June 14, 2022, held in the 34th's older, more competitive boundaries. Flores, however, opted to run in the special election, and won with 50.9% of the vote to Sanchez's 43.4%. As a result, Gonzalez and Flores competed against each other in the November 8 general election, in which Gonzalez defeated Flores to become the next representative for the 34th District. In the same election, Gonzalez's 2020 opponent Monica De La Cruz ran in and won in the redrawn 15th District, making her the successor to Gonzalez for that district.


title: Vicente Gonzalez (politician)

text: Gonzalez was sworn on January 3, 2017. He is only the seventh person to represent this district since its creation in 1903.


title: Vicente Gonzalez (politician)

text: In January 2019, Gonzalez and other members of the bipartisan U.S. House Problem Solvers Caucus met with President Donald Trump in an unsuccessful bid to end the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history.


title: Vicente Gonzalez (politician)

text: In August 2021, Gonzalez joined a group of conservative Democrats, dubbed "The Unbreakable Nine", who threatened to derail the Biden administration's $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package meant to tackle the nation's infrastructure.


title: Vicente Gonzalez (politician)

text: On July 29, 2022, Gonzalez and four other Democrats joined the Republicans in voting against a bill banning assault weapons.


title: Vicente Gonzalez (politician)

text: Gonzalez's wife, Lorena, is a former teacher and school administrator from McAllen, Texas. His father was a merchant seaman who served in the Korean War. Gonzalez lives in McAllen.


title: Mission burrito

text: A Mission burrito (also known as a San Francisco burrito or a Mission-style burrito) is a type of burrito that first became popular during the 1960s in the Mission District of San Francisco, California. It is distinguished from other burritos by its large size and inclusion of rice and other ingredients. A key method to the burritos' construction is to steam the wheat flour tortilla to increase its flexibility prior to adding the other ingredients, although that is not a requirement and burritos may be grilled instead. It has been referred to as one of three major styles of burritos in the United States, following the earlier, simple burrito consisting of beans, rice, and meat. It precedes the California burrito, which was developed in the 1980s and contains cheese and potatoes.


title: Mission burrito

text: Many taquerías in the Mission and greater San Francisco Bay Area specialize in Mission burritos. It is typically a large flour tortilla that is wrapped and folded around a variety of ingredients, served in a piece of aluminum foil. A food critic for the "San Francisco Chronicle" counted hundreds of taquerias in the Bay Area, and noted that the question of which taqueria makes the best burrito can "encourage fierce loyalty and ferocious debate". New York-based writer Calvin Trillin said that the burrito in San Francisco "has been refined and embellished in much the same way that the pizza has been refined and embellished in Chicago". Since its commercial availability began in the 1960s, the style has spread widely throughout the United States and Canada.


title: Mission burrito

text: Long-time residents of the Mission District trace the origins of the Mission burrito back to the 1960s. The owners of "La Cumbre" Taqueria near Valencia and 16th have been credited as the first taqueria to sell this style of burrito. The creation of the style is credited to Raul and Micaela Duran who sold burritos from their meat market, which, in 1972, they converted into the La Cumbre Taqueria. They date the birth of the San Francisco burrito to September 29, 1969.


title: Mission burrito

text: However, like most such claims, this is debated by others who claim to remember similar burritos from earlier in the decade. If the claims of the owner of "El Faro" are true, the first San Francisco burrito was sold September 26, 1961 to a group of San Francisco firefighters, using two 6-inch tortillas in place of what later became the large single tortilla. The fact that he did not have—and had not previously considered the need for—larger tortillas suggests that the birth of the Mission burrito as we now know it did not come earlier than that time. Yet the Mission burrito does have historical forebears in burritos made elsewhere. Some assert that the original San Francisco burritos were directly inspired by burritos brought by California Central Valley farmworkers into the fields, then reproduced in the city. One restaurant consultant remembered his teen years in the fields in the 1960s this way:


title: Mission burrito

text: Other burrito researchers trace the burrito's ancestry even further back to miners of the 19th century. The first printed references to burritos came in the 1930s; in the 1950s and 1960s, versions of the burrito spread through the American Southwest and beyond.


title: Mission burrito

text: But while the Mexican-American burrito began as a wider regional phenomenon, most would agree that the Mission burrito emerged as a recognizable and distinct local culinary movement during the 1970s and 1980s. One writer asserts that the Mission burrito—a large, compact and quite cheap meal—played a special role for those who lived through the local economic recession of the 1980s and early 1990s.


title: Mission burrito

text: During the dot-com boom, the Mission District saw rapid gentrification, with lower paid workers forced out of the area by increasing rents. One anti-gentrification activist denounced the way that chain restaurants like Green Burrito were taking over the area, selling more expensive, "Anglo" versions of the burrito.


title: Mission burrito

text: The rhetoric of burrito politics underscores the role of the Mission burrito in both bohemian and Chicano culture in San Francisco, as evidenced by a 1993 article published in the "SF Weekly", featuring Chicano Studies professor Jose Cuellar.


title: Mission burrito

text: Though an authentic mission burrito is made in San Francisco's Mission District at family owned Mexican restaurants called "taquerias", Chipotle Mexican Grill, Qdoba Mexican Grill, Panchero's Mexican Grill, Freebirds World Burrito, Barberitos, and Taco del Mar are large national chains in North America that arguably offer versions of a San Francisco style burrito. Chipotle was started by a chef who directly acknowledges the inspiration of Mission taquerias. The New York City-based restaurant chain BurritoVille, which existed from 1992 to 2008, specialized in San Francisco-style burritos. Atlanta was home to a couple of the first San Francisco-style burrito restaurants on the East Coast, Frijoleros and Tortillas, from the mid-1980s until the early 2000s.


title: Mission burrito

text: Some New York establishments advertise "Cal-Mex" or "San Francisco style" burritos. Two chains of Boston taquerias (Anna's Taqueria and Boca Grande Taqueria) are directly modeled after a local Bay Area chain, and other burrito businesses also cite the influence of San Francisco burritos.


title: Mission burrito

text: A small chain of establishments have been appearing in the UK under the name "Mission Burrito" selling Mission-style burritos in Oxford, Reading, and Bristol and Bath.


title: Mission burrito

text: The aluminum foil wrapping, which is present whether the customer is eating in the restaurant or taking out, acts as a structural support to ensure that the burrito's tortilla "skin" does not rupture or unravel.


title: Mission burrito

text: Diners eating Mission burritos customarily forgo utensils entirely and eat the burrito with their hands, tearing the foil gradually down as they eat from above, but keeping the foil on the bottom to continue to support the structure of the uneaten portion. Adding salsa to the burrito before each subsequent bite is a popular practice.


title: Sedition Act of 1918

text: The Sedition Act of 1918 () was an Act of the United States Congress that extended the Espionage Act of 1917 to cover a broader range of offenses, notably speech and the expression of opinion that cast the government or the war effort in a negative light or interfered with the sale of government bonds.


title: Sedition Act of 1918

text: It forbade the use of "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government, its flag, or its armed forces or that caused others to view the American government or its institutions with contempt. Those convicted under the act generally received sentences of imprisonment for five to 20 years. The act also allowed the Postmaster General to refuse to deliver mail that met those same standards for punishable speech or opinion. It applied only to times "when the United States is in war." The U.S. was in a declared state of war at the time of passage, the First World War. The law was repealed on December 13, 1920.


title: Sedition Act of 1918

text: Though the legislation enacted in 1918 is commonly called the Sedition Act, it was actually a set of amendments to the Espionage Act.


title: Sedition Act of 1918

text: Therefore, many studies of the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act find it difficult to report on the two "acts" separately. For example, one historian reports that "some fifteen hundred prosecutions were carried out under the Espionage and Sedition Acts, resulting in more than a thousand convictions." Court decisions do not use the shorthand term Sedition Act, but the correct legal term for the law, the Espionage Act, whether as originally enacted or as amended in 1918.


title: Sedition Act of 1918

text: The Espionage Act of 1917 made it a crime to interfere with the war effort, disrupt military recruitment, or to attempt to aid a nation at war with the U.S. Wartime violence on the part of local groups of citizens, sometimes mobs or vigilantes, persuaded some lawmakers that the law was inadequate. In their view the country was witnessing instances of public disorder that represented the public's own attempt to punish unpopular speech in light of the government's inability to do so. Amendments to enhance the government's authority under the Espionage Act would prevent mobs from doing what the government was not able to.


title: Sedition Act of 1918

text: President Wilson and his Attorney General Thomas Watt Gregory viewed the bill as a political compromise. They hoped to avoid hearings that would embarrass the administration for its failure to prosecute offensive speech. They also feared other proposals that would have withdrawn prosecutorial authority from the Justice Department and placed it in the War Department, creating a sort of civilian court-martial process of questionable constitutionality. The final vote for passage was 48 to 26 in the Senate and 293 to 1 in the House of Representatives, with the sole dissenting vote in the House cast by Socialist Meyer London of New York.


title: Sedition Act of 1918

text: While much of the debate focused on the law's precise language, there was considerable opposition in the Senate, almost entirely from Republicans, especially Henry Cabot Lodge and Hiram Johnson. Johnson defended free speech and Lodge complained the administration had failed to use the laws already in place. Former President Theodore Roosevelt voiced opposition as well.


title: Sedition Act of 1918

text: Officials in the Justice Department who had little enthusiasm for the law nevertheless hoped that even without generating many prosecutions it would help quiet public calls for more government action against those thought to be insufficiently patriotic.


title: Sedition Act of 1918

text: Most U.S. newspapers "showed no antipathy toward the act" and "far from opposing the measure, the leading papers seemed actually to lead the movement in behalf of its speedy enactment."


title: Sedition Act of 1918

text: The legislation came so late in the war, just a few months before Armistice Day, that prosecutions under the provisions of the Sedition Act were few. One notable case was that of Mollie Steimer, convicted under the Espionage Act as amended by the Sedition Act. U.S. Attorneys at first had considerable discretion in using these laws, until Attorney General Gregory, a few weeks before the end of the war, instructed them not to act without his approval. Enforcement varied greatly from one jurisdiction to the next, with most activity in the Western states where the Industrial Workers of the World labor union was active. For example, Marie Equi was arrested for giving a speech at the IWW hall in Portland, Oregon, and was convicted after the war was over.


title: Sedition Act of 1918

text: In April 1918, the government arrested industrialist William C. Edenborn, a naturalized citizen from Germany, at his railroad business in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was accused of speaking "disloyally" when he allegedly belittled the threat of Germany to the security of the United States.


title: Sedition Act of 1918

text: In June 1918, the Socialist Party figure Eugene V. Debs of Indiana was arrested for violating the Sedition Act by undermining the government's conscription efforts. He was sentenced to ten years in prison. He served his sentence in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary from April 13, 1919, until December 1921, when President Harding commuted Debs' sentence to time served. In March 1919, President Wilson, at the suggestion of Attorney General Gregory, released or reduced the sentences of some two hundred prisoners convicted under the Espionage Act or the Sedition Act.


title: Sedition Act of 1918

text: With the act rendered inoperative by the end of hostilities, Attorney General (AG) A. Mitchell Palmer waged a public campaign, not unrelated to his own campaign for the Democratic nomination for president, in favor of a peacetime version of the Sedition Act. He sent a circular outlining his rationale to newspaper editors in January 1919, citing the dangerous foreign-language press and radical attempts to create unrest in African American communities. He testified in favor of such a law in early June 1920. At one point, Congress had more than 70 versions of proposed language and amendments for such a bill, but it took no action on the controversial proposal during the campaign year of 1920. After a court decision later in June cited AG Palmer's anti-radical campaign for its abuse of power, the conservative "Christian Science Monitor" found itself unable to support him any more, writing on June 25, 1920: "What appeared to be an excess of radicalism...was certainly met with...an excess of suppression." The Alien Registration Act of 1940 was the first American peacetime sedition act.


title: Sedition Act of 1918

text: The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Sedition Act in "Abrams v. United States" (1919), as applied to people urging curtailment of production of essential war material. Oliver Wendell Holmes used his dissenting opinion to make a commentary on what has come to be known as "the marketplace of ideas". Subsequent Supreme Court decisions, such as "Brandenburg v. Ohio" (1969), make it unlikely that similar legislation would be considered constitutional today.


title: Sedition Act of 1918

text: As part of a sweeping repeal of wartime laws, Congress repealed the Sedition Act on December 13, 1920. In 1921, president Woodrow Wilson offered clemency to most of those convicted under the Sedition Act.


title: Everlasting Gobstopper

text: The Everlasting Gobstopper is a gobstopper candy from Roald Dahl's 1964 children's novel "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". According to its creator Willy Wonka, it was intended "for children with very little pocket money". It not only changes colours and flavours when sucked on, but also never gets any smaller or disappears. In 1976, the name of the fictional candy was used for a product similar to a normal gobstopper, or jawbreaker.


title: Everlasting Gobstopper

text: Although only briefly mentioned in the book and its 2005 film adaptation, the 1971 film adaptation "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory" used the Everlasting Gobstopper as a plot device in which Wonka's business rival Slugworth attempts to bribe the children visiting the Wonka factory to steal one for him. This is later revealed as a lie; Slugworth is actually Mr. Wilkinson, one of Wonka's workers. The proposal is a test Wonka set up to judge the worthiness of the ticket holders to take over the factory, given to all five children.


title: Everlasting Gobstopper

text: An actual Everlasting Gobstopper prop used in the Gene Wilder movie was sold for $100,000 to the owners of the television show "Pawn Stars".


title: Everlasting Gobstopper

text: A product called the Forever lasting Gobstopper was introduced in 1976 by the Chicago candy company Breaker Confections. Breaker Confections had licensed the "Willy Wonka" name in 1971 so that their candy could be used as merchandising tie-ins for the film "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory", which was released the same year. The Willy Wonka Candy Company brand was later bought by Nestlé, and production has been moved to Itasca, Illinois.


title: Everlasting Gobstopper

text: The everlasting gobstopper is like a normal gobstopper or jawbreaker and is composed of several discrete layers. The layers allow for the colour and flavour changing effects described in the book. They are available in a variety of different flavour combinations and usually have a chalky center with a cherry flavour. A version with a chewy center is also available.


title: Everlasting Gobstopper

text: The everlasting gobstopper product resembles the gobstopper from the book and its 2005 film adaptation far more than the ones in the 1971 film. The versions from the 1971 film are a multi-coloured, bumpy, spiky candy, while ones in the book and the 2005 film are round, single-coloured spheres.


title: Everlasting Gobstopper

text: Seasonal variants such as "Gobstopper Snowballs" and "Gobstopper Heart-breakers" are available during winter holidays and around the time of Valentine's Day, respectively. An example is the Gobstopper Candy Cane, which is the company's only non-spherical Gobstopper: the product is modelled after the regular candy canes that are popular during the Christmas season.


title: Ifẹ

text: Ifẹ̀ (, also "Ilé-Ifẹ̀") is an ancient Yoruba city in south-western Nigeria. The city is located in present-day Osun State. Ife is about 218 kilometers northeast of Lagos with a population of over 500,000 people, which is the highest in Osun State according to population census of 2006.


title: Ifẹ

text: According to the traditions of the Yoruba religion, Ilé Ifè was founded by the order of the Supreme God Olodumare by Obatala. It then fell into the hands of his brother Oduduwa, which created enmity between the two. Oduduwa created a dynasty there, and sons and daughters of this dynasty became rulers of many other kingdoms in Yorubaland. The first Oòni of Ife is a descendant of Oduduwa, which was the 401st Orisha. The present ruler since 2015 is Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi Ojaja II, Ooni of Ife who is also a Nigerian accountant. Named as the city of 401 deities, Ife is home to many worshippers of these deities and is where they are routinely celebrated through festivals.


title: Ifẹ

text: Ilé-Ifè is famous worldwide for its ancient and naturalistic bronze, stone and terracotta sculptures, dating back to between 1200 and 1400 CE.


title: Ifẹ

text: According to Yoruba religion, Olodumare, the Supreme God, ordered Obatala to create the earth, but on his way he found palm wine which he drank and became intoxicated. Therefore, the younger brother of the latter, Oduduwa, took the three items of creation from him, climbed down from the heavens on a chain and threw a handful of earth on the primordial ocean, then put a cockerel on it so that it would scatter the earth, thus creating the land on which Ile Ife would be built. Oduduwa planted a palm nut in a hole in the newly formed land and from there sprang a great tree with sixteen branches, a symbolic representation of the clans of the early Ife city-state. The usurpation of creation, by Oduduwa, gave rise to the ever-lasting conflict between him and his elder brother Obatala, which is still re-enacted in the modern era by the cult groups of the two clans during the Itapa New Year festival. On account of his creation of the world, Oduduwa became the ancestor of the first divine king of the Yoruba, while Obatala is believed to have created the first Yoruba people out of clay. The meaning of the word ""ife"" in Yoruba is "expansion"; "Ile-Ife" is therefore in reference to the myth of origin as "The Land of Expansion" (the word, Ile, as pronounced in modern Yoruba language, means house or home, which could make the name of the town mean "The House of Expansion").


title: Ifẹ

text: Oduduwa had sons, daughters, and a grandson, who went on to found their own kingdoms and empires, namely Ila Orangun, Owu, Ketu, Sabe, Egba, Popo and Oyo. Oranmiyan, Oduduwa's last born, was one of his father's principal ministers and overseer of the nascent Edo empire after Oduduwa granted the plea of the Edo people for his governance. When Oranmiyan decided to go back to Ile Ife, after a period of service and exile in Benin, he left behind a child named Eweka that he had in the interim with an indigenous princess of Benin. The young boy went on to become the first legitimate ruler and Oba of the second Edo dynasty that has ruled what is now Benin from that day to this. Oranmiyan later went on to found the Oyo empire that stretched at its height from the western banks of the river Niger to the Eastern banks of the river Volta. It would serve as one of the most powerful of Africa's medieval states, prior to its collapse in the 19th century.


title: Ifẹ

text: The Oòni (or king) of Ife is a descendant of the godking Oduduwa, and is counted first among the Yoruba kings. He is traditionally considered the 401st spirit ("Orisha"), the only one that speaks. In fact, the royal dynasty of Ife traces its origin back to the founding of the city more than ten thousand years before the birth of Jesus Christ. The present ruler is Oba Enitan Adeyeye Ogunwusi (Ojaja II). The Ooni ascended his throne in 2015. Following the formation of the Yoruba Orisha Congress in 1986, the Ooni acquired an international status the likes of which the holders of his title hadn't had since the city's colonisation by the British. Nationally he had always been prominent amongst the Federal Republic of Nigeria's company of royal Obas, being regarded as the "chief priest and custodian of the holy city" of all the Yorubas. In former times, the palace of the Ooni of Ife was a structure built of authentic enameled bricks, decorated with artistic porcelain tiles and all sorts of ornaments. At present, it is a more modern series of buildings. The current Ooni, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi Ojaja II, Ooni of Ife, (born October 17, 1974) is a Nigerian accountant and the 51st Ooni of Ife. He succeeded the late Oba Okunade Sijuwade(Olubuse II) who was the 50th ooni of Ife, and who had died on July 28, 2015.


title: Ifẹ

text: Ife is well known as the city of 401 deities (also known as irumole or orishas). It is said that every day of the year the traditional worshippers celebrate a festival of one of these deities. Often the festivals extend over more than one day and they involve both priestly activities in the palace and theatrical dramatisations in the rest of the kingdom. Historically the King only appeared in public during the annual Olojo festival (celebration of the new dawn); other important festivals here include the Itapa festival for Obatala and Obameri, the Edi festival for Moremi Ajasoro, and the Igare masqueraders.


title: Ifẹ

text: Kings and gods were often depicted with large heads because the artists believed that the "Ase" was held in the head, the "Ase" being the inner power and energy of a person. Both historic figures of Ife and the offices associated with them are represented. One of the best documented among this is the early king Obalufon II who is said to have invented bronze casting and is honored in the form of a naturalistic copper life-size mask.


title: Ifẹ

text: The city was a settlement of substantial size between the 12th and 14th centuries, with houses featuring potsherd pavements. Ilé-Ifè is known worldwide for its ancient and naturalistic bronze, stone and terracotta sculptures, which reached their peak of artistic expression between 1200 and 1400 CE In the period around 1300 CE the artists at Ife developed a refined and naturalistic sculptural tradition in terracotta, stone and copper alloy—copper, brass, and bronze—many of which appear to have been created under the patronage of King Obalufon II, the man who today is identified as the Yoruba patron deity of brass casting, weaving and regalia. After this period, production declined as political and economic power shifted to the nearby kingdom of Benin which, like the Yoruba kingdom of Oyo, developed into a major empire.


title: Ifẹ

text: Bronze and terracotta art created by this civilization are significant examples of naturalism in pre-colonial African art and are distinguished by their variations in regalia, facial marking patterns, and body proportions. Ancient Ife also was famous for its glass beads which have been found at sites as far away as Mali, Mauritania, and Ghana.


title: Ifẹ

text: Igbo Olokun: Igbo Olokun used to be a forested, sacred grove (igbo) that housed shrines at which the goddess Olokun was worshipped. Igbo Olokun in the city of Ile-Ife, in south-western Nigeria, was said to have a history of glass makers with unique manufacturing techniques in West Africa. The recovery of glass beads and associated production materials were found there during excavation. Analysis of the composition of the artefacts and preliminary dating of the site, which puts the main timing of glass-working between the 11th and 15th centuries AD. The results of these studies suggest that glass bead manufacture at this site was largely independent of glass-making traditions documented farther afield, and that Igbo Olokun may represent one of the earliest known glass-production workshops in West Africa. The location is not divulged except on request and permission of the keepers of the shrine because it is a sacred grove.


title: Ifẹ

text: Oduduwa Shrine and Grove: The shrine of the progenitor of the Yoruba race. Worshippers and initiates flood the place seeking blessings and pay obeisance to the originator of their civilization.


title: Ifẹ

text: Agbonniregun Temple: The grove of Ọrunmila an Orisha. He is the Orisha of wisdom, knowledge, and divination. This source of knowledge is believed to have a keen understanding of the human form and of purity, and is therefore praised as often being more effective than other remedies.


title: Ifẹ

text: Burnt pipes (or tuyere), stone tools, broken calabash, decorated potsherds, and pottery (e.g., rimsherd, plane-sherd body, broken, and washed pottery) were excavated at Iyekere. Iron smelting, charcoal utilized in the process of smelting, and iron slags involved in pitting were also discovered.


title: Ifẹ

text: Iron smelting occurred in the Ife region. The yield and efficiency were quite high as the iron smelting process yielded ore grade near 80 percent iron oxide, lean slag possessed less than 60 percent iron oxide, and no greater than the required amount of iron oxide in the slag was left for slag formation. While more excavation is needed to produce a more accurate estimate for the age of the smelting site, it can be approximated to likely being precolonial, during the Late Iron Age.


title: Ifẹ

text: Igbo Olokun, also known as Olokun Grove, may be one of the earliest workshops for producing glass in West Africa. Glass production may have begun during, if not before, the 11th century. The 11th - 15th century were the peak of glass production. High lime, high alumina (HLHA) and low lime, high alumina (LLHA) glass are distinct compositions that were developed using locally sourced recipes, raw materials, and pyrotechnology. The presence of HLHA glass beads discovered throughout West Africa (e.g., Igbo-Ukwu in southern Nigeria, Gao and Essouk in Mali, and Kissi in Burkina Faso), after the ninth century CE, reveals the broader importance of this glass industry in the region and shows its participation in regional trade networks (e.g., trans-Saharan trade, trans-Atlantic trade). Glass beads served as “the currency for negotiating political power, economic relations, and cultural/spiritual values” for “Yoruba, West Africans, and the African diaspora.”


title: Ifẹ

text: In Osun Grove, the distinct glassmaking technology produced by the Yoruba persisted into the seventeenth century.


title: Ifẹ

text: The main city of Ife is divided into two local government areas: Ife East, headquartered at Oke-ogbo and Ife central at Ajebandele area of the city. Both local governments are composed of a total of 21 political wards. The city has an estimated population of 355,813 people.


title: Ifẹ

text: Latitudes 7°28′N and 7°45′N and longitudes 4°30′E and 4°34′E. Ile-Ife is a rural area with settlements where agriculture is occupied by most. Ife has an undulating terrain underlain by metamorphic rocks and characterized by two types of soils, deep clay soils on the upper slopes and sandy soils on the lower parts. Within the tropical savanna climate zone of West Africa. It has average rainfall of usually from March to October and a mean relative humidity of 75% to 100%. Ife is east of the city of Ibadan and connected to it through the Ife-Ibadan highway; Ife is also from Osogbo and has road networks to other cities such as Ede, Ondo and Ilesha. There is the Opa river and reservoir, that serves as a water treatment facility for OAU college.


title: Ifẹ

text: Ife contains universities that are very well known in Nigeria and internationally such as Obafemi Awolowo University formerly University of Ife and Oduduwa University. It also contains attractions like the Natural History Museum of Nigeria. Ife is home to a regional agricultural center with an area that produces vegetables, grain cocoa, tobacco, and cotton. Ife has a few open markets, such as Oja Titun or Odo-gbe market with about 1,500 shops.


title: Ifẹ

text: In terms of development, the Ife central area of Ilé Ifè is more developed. The areas include Parakin, Eleyele, Modomo, Damico, and Crown Estate Area. These areas are characterized by modern houses, good road network, constant electricity and security.


title: Lacinato kale

text: Lacinato kale (, ) or, in Italian and often in English, (, ; literally "black cabbage") is a variety of kale with a long tradition in Italian cuisine, especially that of Tuscany. It is also known as Tuscan kale, Italian kale, dinosaur kale, kale, flat back kale, palm tree kale, or black Tuscan palm. Lacinato kale has been grown in Tuscany for centuries, and is one of the traditional ingredients of minestrone and ribollita.


title: Lacinato kale

text: Lacinato kale grows tall and has dark blue-green leaves with an "embossed texture"; its taste is described as "slightly sweeter and more delicate" than curly kale and "slightly bitter [and] earthy". The lacinato variety is sometimes called "dinosaur kale" because its bumpy leaves may resemble what dinosaur skin looked like, and perhaps because the unique appearance of the leaves is evocative of primordial flora. Because of its taste, it has been called "the darling of the culinary world".


title: Lacinato kale

text: Lacinato kale, like most other kale varieties, is usually blanched first, and then sautéed with other, flavourful ingredients; in Campanian cuisine, anchovies are often added. It is commonly used in pastas and soups, but can also be eaten raw, in a salad.


title: Lacinato kale

text: In Tuscan cuisine, lacinato kale is often used in ribollita (literally: "reboiled"), a thick, hearty soup made up of ingredients cooked for a meal the day before.


title: Lacinato kale

text: In Dutch, it is called (as in German) or , referring to the palm-like shape with the leaves growing from the stem, especially after the bottom leaves are harvested. In Swedish and Finnish, it is known as or , meaning 'black cabbage'.


title: Lacinato kale

text: Lacinato kale dates to the 18th century in Italy. This cultivar is popular among gardeners because of its colour and texture, and was amongst the plants Thomas Jefferson recorded in his 1777 garden at Monticello. The plant grows to a height of two feet, with blistered leaves often over in length and wide. The straplike leaves are typically harvested from the bottom of the stem, leaving the remainder of the plant resembling a palm tree.


title: Share repurchase

text: Share repurchase, also known as share buyback or stock buyback, is the re-acquisition by a company of its own shares. It represents an alternate and more flexible way (relative to dividends) of returning money to shareholders. When used in coordination with increased corporate leverage, buybacks can increase share prices.


title: Share repurchase

text: In most countries, a corporation can repurchase its own stock by distributing cash to existing shareholders in exchange for a fraction of the company's outstanding equity; that is, cash is exchanged for a reduction in the number of shares outstanding. The company either retires the repurchased shares or keeps them as treasury stock, available for re-issuance.


title: Share repurchase

text: Under U.S. corporate law, there are six primary methods of stock repurchase: open market, private negotiations, repurchase "put" rights, two variants of self-tender repurchase (a fixed price tender offer and a Dutch auction), and accelerate repurchases. More than 95% of the buyback programs worldwide are through an open-market method, whereby the company announces the buyback program and then repurchases shares in the open market (stock exchange). In the late 20th and the early 21st century, there was a sharp rise in the volume of share repurchases in the United States: US$5 billion in 1980 rose to US$349 billion in 2005. Large share repurchases started later in Europe than in the United States, but are nowadays a common practice around the world.


title: Share repurchase

text: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rule 10b-18 sets requirements for stock repurchase in the United States.


title: Share repurchase

text: Companies typically have two uses for profits. Firstly, some part of profits can be distributed to shareholders in the form of dividends or stock repurchases. The remainder of profits are retained earnings, kept inside the company and used for investing in the future of the company, if profitable ventures for reinvestment of retained earnings can be identified. However, sometimes companies may find that some or all of their retained earnings cannot be reinvested to produce acceptable returns.


title: Share repurchase

text: Share repurchases are an alternative to dividends. When a company repurchases its own shares, it reduces the number of shares held by the public. The reduction of the float, or publicly traded shares, means that even if profits remain the same, the earnings per share increase. Repurchasing shares when a company's share price is undervalued benefits non-selling shareholders (frequently insiders) and extracts value from shareholders who sell. There is strong evidence that companies are able to profitably repurchase shares when the company is widely held by retail investors who are unsophisticated (e.g., small investors) and more likely to sell their shares to the company when those shares are undervalued. By contrast, when the company is held primarily by insiders and institutional investors, who are more sophisticated, it is harder for companies to profitably repurchase shares. Companies can also more readily repurchase shares at a profit when the stock is liquidly traded and the companies' activity is less likely to move the share price.


title: Share repurchase

text: Financial markets are unable to accurately gauge the meaning of repurchase announcements, because companies will often announce repurchases and then fail to complete them. Repurchase completion rates increased after companies were required to retroactively disclose their repurchase activity, the result of an effort to reduce the perceived or potential exploitation of public investors. Normally, investors have more of an adverse reaction to dividend cuts than postponing or even abandoning the share buyback program. So, rather than pay out larger dividends during periods of excess profitability then having to reduce them during leaner times, companies prefer to pay out a conservative portion of their earnings, perhaps half, with the aim of maintaining an acceptable level of "dividend cover". Some evidence of this phenomenon for American firms is provided by Alok Bhargava who found that higher dividend payments lower share repurchases though the converse is not true.


title: Share repurchase

text: Aside from paying out free cash flow, repurchases may also be used to signal and/or take advantage of undervaluation. If a firm's manager believes their firm's stock is currently trading below its intrinsic value, they may consider repurchases. An open market repurchase, whereby no premium is paid on top of current market price, offers a potentially profitable investment for the manager. That is, they may repurchase the currently undervalued shares, wait for the market to correct the undervaluation whereby prices increase to the intrinsic value of the equity, and re-issue them at a profit. Alternatively, they may undertake a fixed price tender offer, whereby a premium is often offered over current market price; this sends a strong signal to the market that they believe that the firm's equity is undervalued, which is proven by their willingness to pay above market price to repurchase the shares. However, scholars also suggest that repurchases sometimes might be a cheap talk and convey a misleading signal due to the flexibility of repurchases.


title: Share repurchase

text: Company executive compensation is often affected by share buybacks. Part of their rewards may be tied to their ability to meet earnings per share targets. Moreover, all share buybacks enhance the value of promised shares in their share incentive schemes. Bhargava reported that stock options exercised by top executives increase future share repurchases by U.S. firms. Higher share repurchases, in turn, significantly lowered the research and development expenditures that are important for raising productivity. Further, increasing earnings per share does not equate to increases in shareholder value. This investment ratio is influenced by accounting policy choices and fails to take into account the cost of capital and future cash flows which are the determinants of shareholder value.


title: Share repurchase

text: Safeguards should be in place to ensure that decisions about share buybacks are not motivated by their effect on executive or managerial reward. Earnings per share targets need adjusting to take out the financial leveraging effect of the buyback and similarly share incentive schemes need adjusting to neutralize unwarranted enhancement.


title: Share repurchase

text: Share repurchases avoid the accumulation of excessive amounts of cash in the corporation. Companies with strong cash generation and limited needs for capital spending will accumulate cash on the balance sheet, which makes the company a more attractive target for takeover, since the cash can be used to pay down the debt incurred to carry out the acquisition. Anti-takeover strategies, therefore, often include maintaining a lean cash position and share repurchases bolster the stock price, making a takeover more expensive.


title: Share repurchase

text: Share repurchases also allow companies to distribute their earnings to investors without resulting in immediate taxation on capital gains. For example, if a company were to pay $100,000 in dividends on one million shares or as 10¢ dividend per share, investors may incur tax upon this disbursement. This means that instead of receiving 10¢ of earnings per share, they receive 8.5¢ (.10×(1 − .15)) at a 15% tax rate with 1.5¢ going to the government. An investor with 10 shares will receive 85¢ and the government collects 15¢. As the company has to pay out this money the share price drops accordingly, from $10 to $9.90, so the investor with 10 shares now has $99 + 85¢ dividend, or $99.85. Of course, investors will not necessarily respond to a dividend payment by selling off shares and reducing share price; while the payment of the dividend technically reduces the company's book value, the ability and willingness to pay a dividend is often seen positively, and the share price may even increase.


title: Share repurchase

text: Compare this with spending $100,000 buying back shares. This will remove 10,000 shares from the market, leaving 990,000 shares at $10 each (($10,000,000 − US$100,000)/990,000 = $10). Now, the investor with 10 shares still has US$100, and the government receives no immediate tax revenue. Ultimately, there should be no net change in investor wealth assuming a fully equity-financed business. This disparity however assumes there is no capital gains tax for the selling shareholders.


title: Share repurchase

text: NYU professor Edward Wolff has criticized this approach for exacerbating the existing wealth inequality in the U.S. by shifting the tax burden away from the richest 1% of U.S families, which by 2016 held nearly 40% of the nation's wealth, to the bottom 90% which holds nearly half this amount.


title: Share repurchase

text: Share buy-backs are more tax-efficient than dividends when the tax rate on capital gains is lower than the tax rate on dividends.


title: Share repurchase

text: The most common share repurchase method in the United States is the open-market stock repurchase, representing almost 95% of all repurchases. A firm will announce that it will repurchase some shares in the open market from time to time as market conditions dictate and maintains the option of deciding whether, when, and how much to repurchase. Open-market repurchases can span months or even years. There are, however, daily buyback limits which restrict the amount of stock that can be bought over a particular time interval again ranging from months to even years. According to SEC Rule 10b-18, the issuer cannot purchase more than 25% of the average daily volume.


title: Share repurchase

text: Open-market stock repurchases which greatly add to the long-term demand for shares in the market are likely to affect prices as long as the repurchase operations continue. For example, AstraZeneca embarked on an $11 billion share repurchase in 2011 and 2012 in a market which they estimated had an annual turnover of $30 billion, when excluding short-term share transactions. AstraZeneca claimed at the 2013 AGM that their open market interventions would not have temporary price effects whilst the interventions continued, but offered no evidence.


title: Share repurchase

text: An accelerated share repurchase (ASR) is a share buyback strategy where a company repurchases a large chunk of its publicly traded equity shares. Companies rely on specialized investment banks to effectuate the transaction. In a typical ASR transaction, the company delivers the cash up front to the investment bank and enters into a forward contract to have its shares delivered at specified future date, adhering to regulations. Subsequently, the bank, borrows shares of the company, and delivers those shares back to the company. Companies often engage in accelerated share repurchase (ASR) programs, if they have certain convictions about the intrinsic valuation of the company or if they have commitments of capital return to shareholders.


title: Share repurchase

text: Prior to 1981, all tender offer repurchases were executed using a fixed-price tender offer. This offer specifies in advance a single purchase price, the number of shares sought, and the duration of the offer, with public disclosure required. The offer may be made conditional upon receiving tenders of a minimum number of shares, and it may permit withdrawal of tendered shares prior to the offer's expiration date. Shareholders decide whether or not to participate, and if so, the number of shares to tender to the firm at the specified price. Frequently, officers and directors are precluded from participating in tender offers. If the number of shares tendered exceeds the number sought, then the company purchases less than all shares tendered at the purchase price on a pro rata basis to all who tendered at the purchase price. If the number of shares tendered is below the number sought, the company may choose to extend the offer's expiration date.


title: Share repurchase

text: The introduction of the Dutch auction share repurchase in 1981 allows an alternative form of tender offer. A Dutch auction offer specifies a price range within which the shares will ultimately be purchased. Shareholders are invited to tender their stock, if they desire, at any price within the stated range. The firm then compiles these responses, creating a demand curve for the stock. The purchase price is the lowest price that allows the firm to buy the number of shares sought in the offer, and the firm pays that price to all investors who tendered at or below that price. If the number of shares tendered exceeds the number sought, then the company purchases less than all shares tendered at or below the purchase price on a pro rata basis to all who tendered at or below the purchase price. If too few shares are tendered, then the firm either cancels the offer (provided it had been made conditional on a minimum acceptance), or it buys back all tendered shares at the maximum price.


title: Share repurchase

text: In broad terms, a selective buyback is one in which identical offers are not made to every shareholder, for example, if offers are made to only some of the shareholders in the company. In the United States, no special shareholder approval of a selective buyback is required. In the UK, however, the scheme must first be approved by all shareholders, or by a special resolution (requiring a 75% majority) of the members in which no vote is cast by selling shareholders or their associates. Selling shareholders may not vote in favor of a special resolution to approve a selective buyback. The notice to shareholders convening the meeting to vote on a selective buyback must include a statement setting out all material information that is relevant to the proposal, although it is not necessary for the company to provide information already disclosed to the shareholders, if that would be unreasonable.


title: Share repurchase

text: A company may also buy back shares held by or for employees or salaried directors of the company or a related company. This type of buyback, referred to as an "employee share scheme buyback", requires an ordinary resolution. A listed company may also buy back its shares in on-market trading on the stock exchange, following the passing of an ordinary resolution if over the 10/12 limit. The stock exchange's rules apply to "on-market buybacks". A listed company may also buy unmarketable parcels of shares from shareholders (called a "minimum holding buyback"). This does not require a resolution but the purchased shares must still be canceled.


title: Share repurchase

text: Share repurchases have been critically evaluated since the 1970's but after 1982, the Securities and Exchange Commission largely condoned them. At that time, the agency already ascertained "that a large volume of stock buybacks would manipulate the market". Only when Rule 10b-18 was implemented in the US, stock repurchases were seen as "virtually unregulated".


title: Share repurchase

text: According to Lenore Palladino, an economist at the Roosevelt Institute, stock buy back programs are "one of the drivers of our imbalanced economy, in which corporate profits and shareholder payments continue to grow while wages for typical workers stay flat."


title: Share repurchase

text: In April 2022, after Starbucks brought back Howard Schultz as interim CEO, he suspended its stock repurchasing program, and said "This decision will allow us to invest more into our people and our stores — the only way to create long-term value for all stakeholders."


title: Basilic vein

text: The basilic vein is a large superficial vein of the upper limb that helps drain parts of the hand and forearm. It originates on the medial (ulnar) side of the dorsal venous network of the hand and travels up the base of the forearm, where its course is generally visible through the skin as it travels in the subcutaneous fat and fascia lying superficial to the muscles. The basilic vein terminates by uniting with the brachial veins to form the axillary vein.


title: Basilic vein

text: As it ascends the medial side of the biceps in the arm proper (between the elbow and shoulder), the basilic vein normally perforates the brachial fascia (deep fascia) superior to the medial epicondyle, or even as high as mid-arm.


title: Basilic vein

text: Near the region anterior to the cubital fossa (in the bend of the elbow joint), the basilic vein usually communicates with the cephalic vein (the other large superficial vein of the upper extremity) via the median cubital vein. The layout of superficial veins in the forearm is highly variable from person to person, and there is a profuse network of unnamed superficial veins that the basilic vein communicates with.


title: Basilic vein

text: Around the inferior border of the teres major muscle and just proximal to the basilic vein's termination, the anterior and posterior circumflex humeral veins drain into it.


title: Basilic vein

text: Along with other superficial veins in the forearm, the basilic vein is an acceptable site for venipuncture. Nevertheless, IV nurses sometimes refer to the basilic vein as the "virgin vein", since with the arm typically supinated during phlebotomy the basilic vein below the elbow becomes awkward to access, and is therefore infrequently used.


title: Basilic vein

text: Vascular surgeons sometimes utilize the basilic vein to create an AV (arteriovenous) fistula or AV graft for hemodialysis access in patients with kidney failure.


title: Interactive voice response

text: Interactive voice response (IVR) is a technology that allows telephone users to interact with a computer-operated telephone system through the use of voice and DTMF tones input with a keypad. In telecommunications, IVR allows customers to interact with a company's host system via a telephone keypad or by speech recognition, after which services can be inquired about through the IVR dialogue. IVR systems can respond with pre-recorded or dynamically generated audio to further direct users on how to proceed. IVR systems deployed in the network are sized to handle large call volumes and also used for outbound calling as IVR systems are more intelligent than many predictive dialer systems.


title: Interactive voice response

text: IVR systems can be used stand-alone to create caller self-service solutions for instance for mobile purchases, banking payments, services, retail orders, utilities, travel information and weather conditions. In combination with systems such an automated attendant and ACD, call routing can be highly optimised for a better caller experience and workforce efficiency. A common misconception refers to an automated attendant as an IVR. The terms are distinct and mean different things to traditional telecommunications professionals—the purpose of an IVR is to take input, process it, and return a result, whereas that of an automated attendant is to route calls. Having said that, since commercially available call handling systems cover both functionalities, they are often referred to as IVR. The term voice response unit (VRU) is sometimes used as well.


title: Interactive voice response

text: Despite the increase in IVR technology during the 1970s, the technology was considered complex and expensive for automating tasks in call centers. Early voice response systems were DSP technology based and limited to small vocabularies. In the early 1980s, Leon Ferber's Perception Technology became the first mainstream market competitor, after hard drive technology (read/write random-access to digitized voice data) had reached a cost-effective price point. At that time, a system could store digitized speech on disk, play the appropriate spoken message, and process the human's DTMF response.


title: Interactive voice response

text: As call centers began to migrate to multimedia in the late 1990s, companies started to invest in computer telephony integration (CTI) with IVR systems. IVR became vital for call centers deploying universal queuing and routing solutions and acted as an agent which collected customer data to enable intelligent routing decisions. With improvements in technology, systems could use speaker-independent voice recognition of a limited vocabulary instead of requiring the person to use DTMF signaling.


title: Interactive voice response

text: Starting in the 2000s, voice response became more common and cheaper to deploy. This was due to increased CPU power and the migration of speech applications from proprietary code to the VXML standard.


title: Interactive voice response

text: DTMF decoding and speech recognition are used to interpret the caller's response to voice prompts. DTMF tones are entered via the telephone keypad.


title: Interactive voice response

text: Other technologies include using text-to-speech (TTS) to speak complex and dynamic information, such as e-mails, news reports or weather information. IVR technology is also being introduced into automobile systems for hands-free operation. TTS is computer generated synthesized speech that is no longer the robotic voice traditionally associated with computers. Real voices create the speech in fragments that are spliced together (concatenated) and smoothed before being played to the caller.


title: Interactive voice response

text: An automatic call distributor (ACD) is often the second point of contact when calling many larger businesses. An ACD uses digital storage devices to play greetings or announcements, but typically routes a caller without prompting for input. An IVR can play announcements and request an input from the caller. This information can be used to profile the caller and used by an ACD to route the call to an agent with a particular skill set.


title: Interactive voice response

text: Interactive voice response can be used to front-end a call center operation by identifying the needs of the caller. Information can be obtained from the caller such as an account number. Answers to simple questions such as account balances or pre-recorded information can be provided without operator intervention. Account numbers from the IVR are often compared to caller ID data for security reasons and additional IVR responses are required if the caller ID does not match the account record.


title: Interactive voice response

text: IVR call flows are created in a variety of ways. A traditional IVR depended upon proprietary programming or scripting languages, whereas modern IVR applications are generated in a similar way to Web pages, using standards such as VoiceXML, CCXML, SRGS and SSML. The ability to use XML-driven applications allows a web server to act as the application server, freeing the IVR developer to focus on the call flow.


title: Interactive voice response

text: IVR speech recognition interactions (call flows) are designed using 3 approaches to prompt for and recognize user input: directed, open-ended, and mixed dialogue.


title: Interactive voice response

text: A directed dialogue prompt communicates a set of valid responses to the user (e.g. "How can I help you? ... Say something like, "account balance, order status," or "more options""). An open-ended prompt does not communicate a set of valid responses (e.g. "How can I help you?"). In both cases, the goal is to glean a valid spoken response from the user. The key difference is that with directed dialogue, the user is more likely to speak an option exactly as was communicated by the prompt (e.g. "account balance"). With an open-ended prompt, however, the user is likely to include extraneous words or phrases (e.g. "I was just looking at my bill and saw that my balance was wrong."). The open-ended prompt requires a greater degree of natural language processing to extract the relevant information from the phrase (i.e. "balance"). Open-ended recognition also requires a larger grammar set, which accounts for a wider array of permutations of a given response (e.g. "balance was wrong", "wrong balance", "balance is high", "high balance"). Despite the greater amount of data and processing required for open-ended prompts, they are more interactively efficient, as the prompts themselves are typically much shorter.


title: Interactive voice response

text: A mixed dialogue approach involves shifting from open-ended to directed dialogue or vice versa within the same interaction, as one type of prompt may be more effective in a given situation. Mixed dialog prompts must also be able to recognize responses that are not relevant to the immediate prompt, for instance in the case of a user deciding to shift to a function different from the current one.


title: Interactive voice response

text: Higher level IVR development tools are available to further simplify the application development process. A call flow diagram can be drawn with a GUI tool and the presentation layer (typically VoiceXML) can be automatically generated. In addition, these tools normally provide extension mechanisms for software integration, such as an HTTP interface to a website and a Java interface for connecting to a database.


title: Interactive voice response

text: In telecommunications, an audio response unit (ARU) (often included in IVR systems) is a device that provides synthesized voice responses to DTMF keypresses by processing calls based on (a) the call-originator input, (b) information received from a database, and (c) information in the incoming call, such as the time of day. ARUs increase the number of information calls handled and provide consistent quality in information retrieval.


title: Interactive voice response

text: IVR systems are used to service high call volumes at lower cost. The use of IVR allows callers' queries to be resolved without a live agent. If callers do not find the information they need, the calls may be transferred to a live agent. The approach allows live agents to have more time to deal with complex interactions. When an IVR system answers multiple phone numbers, the use of DNIS ensures that the correct application and language is executed. A single large IVR system can handle calls for thousands of applications, each with its own phone numbers and script.


title: Interactive voice response

text: Call centers use IVR systems to identify and segment callers. The ability to identify customers allows services to be tailored according to the customer profile. The caller can be given the option to wait in the queue, choose an automated service, or request a callback. The system may obtain caller line identification (CLI) data from the network to help identify or authenticate the caller. Additional caller authentication data could include account number, personal information, password and biometrics (such as voice print). IVR also enables customer prioritization. In a system wherein individual customers may have a different status, the service will automatically prioritize the individual's call and move customers to the front of a specific queue.