title: Unit testing

text: Unit test cases embody characteristics that are critical to the success of the unit. These characteristics can indicate appropriate/inappropriate use of a unit as well as negative behaviors that are to be trapped by the unit. A unit test case, in and of itself, documents these critical characteristics, although many software development environments do not rely solely upon code to document the product in development.


title: Unit testing

text: When software is developed using a test-driven approach, the combination of writing the unit test to specify the interface plus the refactoring activities performed after the test has passed, may take the place of formal design. Each unit test can be seen as a design element specifying classes, methods, and observable behavior.


title: Unit testing

text: Testing will not catch every error in the program, because it cannot evaluate every execution path in any but the most trivial programs. This problem is a superset of the halting problem, which is undecidable. The same is true for unit testing. Additionally, unit testing by definition only tests the functionality of the units themselves. Therefore, it will not catch integration errors or broader system-level errors (such as functions performed across multiple units, or non-functional test areas such as performance). Unit testing should be done in conjunction with other software testing activities, as they can only show the presence or absence of particular errors; they cannot prove a complete absence of errors. To guarantee correct behavior for every execution path and every possible input, and ensure the absence of errors, other techniques are required, namely the application of formal methods to proving that a software component has no unexpected behavior.


title: Unit testing

text: An elaborate hierarchy of unit tests does not equal integration testing. Integration with peripheral units should be included in integration tests, but not in unit tests. Integration testing typically still relies heavily on humans testing manually; high-level or global-scope testing can be difficult to automate, such that manual testing often appears faster and cheaper.


title: Unit testing

text: Software testing is a combinatorial problem. For example, every Boolean decision statement requires at least two tests: one with an outcome of "true" and one with an outcome of "false". As a result, for every line of code written, programmers often need 3 to 5 lines of test code. This obviously takes time and its investment may not be worth the effort. There are problems that cannot easily be tested at all – for example those that are nondeterministic or involve multiple threads. In addition, code for a unit test is as likely to be buggy as the code it is testing. Fred Brooks in "The Mythical Man-Month" quotes: "Never go to sea with two chronometers; take one or three." Meaning, if two chronometers contradict, how do you know which one is correct?


title: Unit testing

text: Another challenge related to writing the unit tests is the difficulty of setting up realistic and useful tests. It is necessary to create relevant initial conditions so the part of the application being tested behaves like part of the complete system. If these initial conditions are not set correctly, the test will not be exercising the code in a realistic context, which diminishes the value and accuracy of unit test results.


title: Unit testing

text: To obtain the intended benefits from unit testing, rigorous discipline is needed throughout the software development process. It is essential to keep careful records not only of the tests that have been performed, but also of all changes that have been made to the source code of this or any other unit in the software. Use of a version control system is essential. If a later version of the unit fails a particular test that it had previously passed, the version-control software can provide a list of the source code changes (if any) that have been applied to the unit since that time.


title: Unit testing

text: It is also essential to implement a sustainable process for ensuring that test case failures are reviewed regularly and addressed immediately. If such a process is not implemented and ingrained into the team's workflow, the application will evolve out of sync with the unit test suite, increasing false positives and reducing the effectiveness of the test suite.


title: Unit testing

text: Unit testing embedded system software presents a unique challenge: Because the software is being developed on a different platform than the one it will eventually run on, you cannot readily run a test program in the actual deployment environment, as is possible with desktop programs.


title: Unit testing

text: Unit tests tend to be easiest when a method has input parameters and some output. It is not as easy to create unit tests when a major function of the method is to interact with something external to the application. For example, a method that will work with a database might require a mock up of database interactions to be created, which probably won't be as comprehensive as the real database interactions.


title: Unit testing

text: Here is a set of test cases in Java that specify a number of elements of the implementation. First, that there must be an interface called Adder, and an implementing class with a zero-argument constructor called AdderImpl. It goes on to assert that the Adder interface should have a method called add, with two integer parameters, which returns another integer. It also specifies the behaviour of this method for a small range of values over a number of test methods.


title: Unit testing

text: In this case the unit tests, having been written first, act as a design document specifying the form and behaviour of a desired solution, but not the implementation details, which are left for the programmer. Following the "do the simplest thing that could possibly work" practice, the easiest solution that will make the test pass is shown below.


title: Unit testing

text: Using unit-tests as a design specification has one significant advantage over other design methods: The design document (the unit-tests themselves) can itself be used to verify the implementation. The tests will never pass unless the developer implements a solution according to the design.


title: Unit testing

text: Unit testing lacks some of the accessibility of a diagrammatic specification such as a UML diagram, but they may be generated from the unit test using automated tools. Most modern languages have free tools (usually available as extensions to IDEs). Free tools, like those based on the xUnit framework, outsource to another system the graphical rendering of a view for human consumption.


title: Unit testing

text: Unit testing is the cornerstone of extreme programming, which relies on an automated unit testing framework. This automated unit testing framework can be either third party, e.g., xUnit, or created within the development group.


title: Unit testing

text: Extreme programming uses the creation of unit tests for test-driven development. The developer writes a unit test that exposes either a software requirement or a defect. This test will fail because either the requirement isn't implemented yet, or because it intentionally exposes a defect in the existing code. Then, the developer writes the simplest code to make the test, along with other tests, pass.


title: Unit testing

text: Most code in a system is unit tested, but not necessarily all paths through the code. Extreme programming mandates a "test everything that can possibly break" strategy, over the traditional "test every execution path" method. This leads developers to develop fewer tests than classical methods, but this isn't really a problem, more a restatement of fact, as classical methods have rarely ever been followed methodically enough for all execution paths to have been thoroughly tested. Extreme programming simply recognizes that testing is rarely exhaustive (because it is often too expensive and time-consuming to be economically viable) and provides guidance on how to effectively focus limited resources.


title: Unit testing

text: Crucially, the test code is considered a first class project artifact in that it is maintained at the same quality as the implementation code, with all duplication removed. Developers release unit testing code to the code repository in conjunction with the code it tests. Extreme programming's thorough unit testing allows the benefits mentioned above, such as simpler and more confident code development and refactoring, simplified code integration, accurate documentation, and more modular designs. These unit tests are also constantly run as a form of regression test.


title: Unit testing

text: Unit testing is also critical to the concept of Emergent Design. As emergent design is heavily dependent upon refactoring, unit tests are an integral component.


title: Unit testing

text: Unit testing frameworks are most often third-party products that are not distributed as part of the compiler suite. They help simplify the process of unit testing, having been developed for a wide variety of languages.


title: Unit testing

text: It is generally possible to perform unit testing without the support of a specific framework by writing client code that exercises the units under test and uses assertions, exception handling, or other control flow mechanisms to signal failure. Unit testing without a framework is valuable in that there is a barrier to entry for the adoption of unit testing; having scant unit tests is hardly better than having none at all, whereas once a framework is in place, adding unit tests becomes relatively easy. In some frameworks many advanced unit test features are missing or must be hand-coded.


title: Unit testing

text: Some programming languages directly support unit testing. Their grammar allows the direct declaration of unit tests without importing a library (whether third party or standard). Additionally, the boolean conditions of the unit tests can be expressed in the same syntax as boolean expressions used in non-unit test code, such as what is used for and statements.


title: Unit testing

text: Some languages do not have built-in unit-testing support but have established unit testing libraries or frameworks. These languages include:


title: Adsorption

text: Adsorption is the adhesion of atoms, ions or molecules from a gas, liquid or dissolved solid to a surface. This process creates a film of the "adsorbate" on the surface of the "adsorbent". This process differs from absorption, in which a fluid (the "absorbate") is dissolved by or permeates a liquid or solid (the "absorbent"). Adsorption is a "surface phenomenon", while absorption involves the whole volume of the material, although adsorption does often precede absorption. The term "sorption" encompasses both processes, while "desorption" is the reverse of it.


title: Adsorption

text: Like surface tension, adsorption is a consequence of surface energy. In a bulk material, all the bonding requirements (be they ionic, covalent or metallic) of the constituent atoms of the material are fulfilled by other atoms in the material. However, atoms on the surface of the adsorbent are not wholly surrounded by other adsorbent atoms and therefore can attract adsorbates. The exact nature of the bonding depends on the details of the species involved, but the adsorption process is generally classified as physisorption (characteristic of weak van der Waals forces) or chemisorption (characteristic of covalent bonding). It may also occur due to electrostatic attraction.


title: Adsorption

text: Adsorption is present in many natural, physical, biological and chemical systems and is widely used in industrial applications such as heterogeneous catalysts, activated charcoal, capturing and using waste heat to provide cold water for air conditioning and other process requirements (adsorption chillers), synthetic resins, increasing storage capacity of carbide-derived carbons and water purification. Adsorption, ion exchange and chromatography are sorption processes in which certain adsorbates are selectively transferred from the fluid phase to the surface of insoluble, rigid particles suspended in a vessel or packed in a column. Pharmaceutical industry applications, which use adsorption as a means to prolong neurological exposure to specific drugs or parts thereof, are lesser known.


title: Adsorption

text: The adsorption of gases and solutes is usually described through isotherms, that is, the amount of adsorbate on the adsorbent as a function of its pressure (if gas) or concentration (for liquid phase solutes) at constant temperature. The quantity adsorbed is nearly always normalized by the mass of the adsorbent to allow comparison of different materials. To date, 15 different isotherm models have been developed.


title: Adsorption

text: The first mathematical fit to an isotherm was published by Freundlich and Kuster (1906) and is a purely empirical formula for gaseous adsorbates:


title: Adsorption

text: where formula_2 is the mass of adsorbate adsorbed, formula_3 is the mass of the adsorbent, formula_4 is the pressure of adsorbate (this can be changed to concentration if investigating solution rather than gas), and formula_5 and formula_6 are empirical constants for each adsorbent–adsorbate pair at a given temperature. The function is not adequate at very high pressure because in reality formula_7 has an asymptotic maximum as pressure increases without bound. As the temperature increases, the constants formula_5 and formula_6 change to reflect the empirical observation that the quantity adsorbed rises more slowly and higher pressures are required to saturate the surface.


title: Adsorption

text: Irving Langmuir was the first to derive a scientifically based adsorption isotherm in 1918. The model applies to gases adsorbed on solid surfaces. It is a semi-empirical isotherm with a kinetic basis and was derived based on statistical thermodynamics. It is the most common isotherm equation to use due to its simplicity and its ability to fit a variety of adsorption data. It is based on four assumptions:


title: Adsorption

text: These four assumptions are seldom all true: there are always imperfections on the surface, adsorbed molecules are not necessarily inert, and the mechanism is clearly not the same for the very first molecules to adsorb to a surface as for the last. The fourth condition is the most troublesome, as frequently more molecules will adsorb to the monolayer; this problem is addressed by the BET isotherm for relatively flat (non-microporous) surfaces. The Langmuir isotherm is nonetheless the first choice for most models of adsorption and has many applications in surface kinetics (usually called Langmuir–Hinshelwood kinetics) and thermodynamics.


title: Adsorption

text: Langmuir suggested that adsorption takes place through this mechanism: formula_10, where "A" is a gas molecule, and "S" is an adsorption site. The direct and inverse rate constants are "k" and "k". If we define surface coverage, formula_11, as the fraction of the adsorption sites occupied, in the equilibrium we have:


title: Adsorption

text: The value of formula_11 is difficult to measure experimentally; usually, the adsorbate is a gas and the quantity adsorbed is given in moles, grams, or gas volumes at standard temperature and pressure (STP) per gram of adsorbent. If we call "v" the STP volume of adsorbate required to form a monolayer on the adsorbent (per gram of adsorbent), then formula_18, and we obtain an expression for a straight line:


title: Adsorption

text: Through its slope and "y" intercept we can obtain "v" and "K", which are constants for each adsorbent–adsorbate pair at a given temperature. "v" is related to the number of adsorption sites through the ideal gas law. If we assume that the number of sites is just the whole area of the solid divided into the cross section of the adsorbate molecules, we can easily calculate the surface area of the adsorbent.


title: Adsorption

text: The surface area of an adsorbent depends on its structure: the more pores it has, the greater the area, which has a big influence on reactions on surfaces.


title: Adsorption

text: If more than one gas adsorbs on the surface, we define formula_20 as the fraction of empty sites, and we have:


title: Adsorption

text: 1) To choose between the langmuir and freundlich equations, the enthalpies of adsorption must be investigated. While the langmuir model assumes that the energy of adsorption remains constant with surface occupancy, the Freundlich equation is derived with the assumption that the heat of adsorption continually decrease as the binding sites are occupied. The choice of the model based on best fitting of the data is a common misconception.


title: Adsorption

text: 2) The use of the linearized form of the langmuir model is no longer common practice. Advances in computational power allowed for nonlinear regression to be performed quickly and with higher confidence since no data transformation is required.


title: Adsorption

text: Often molecules do form multilayers, that is, some are adsorbed on already adsorbed molecules, and the Langmuir isotherm is not valid. In 1938 Stephen Brunauer, Paul Emmett, and Edward Teller developed a model isotherm that takes that possibility into account. Their theory is called BET theory, after the initials in their last names. They modified Langmuir's mechanism as follows:


title: Adsorption

text: The derivation of the formula is more complicated than Langmuir's (see links for complete derivation). We obtain:


title: Adsorption

text: where "x" is the pressure divided by the vapor pressure for the adsorbate at that temperature (usually denoted formula_25), "v" is the STP volume of adsorbed adsorbate, "v" is the STP volume of the amount of adsorbate required to form a monolayer, and "c" is the equilibrium constant "K" we used in Langmuir isotherm multiplied by the vapor pressure of the adsorbate. The key assumption used in deriving the BET equation that the successive heats of adsorption for all layers except the first are equal to the heat of condensation of the adsorbate.


title: Adsorption

text: The Langmuir isotherm is usually better for chemisorption, and the BET isotherm works better for physisorption for non-microporous surfaces.


title: Adsorption

text: In other instances, molecular interactions between gas molecules previously adsorbed on a solid surface form significant interactions with gas molecules in the gaseous phases. Hence, adsorption of gas molecules to the surface is more likely to occur around gas molecules that are already present on the solid surface, rendering the Langmuir adsorption isotherm ineffective for the purposes of modelling. This effect was studied in a system where nitrogen was the adsorbate and tungsten was the adsorbent by Paul Kisliuk (1922–2008) in 1957. To compensate for the increased probability of adsorption occurring around molecules present on the substrate surface, Kisliuk developed the precursor state theory, whereby molecules would enter a precursor state at the interface between the solid adsorbent and adsorbate in the gaseous phase. From here, adsorbate molecules would either adsorb to the adsorbent or desorb into the gaseous phase. The probability of adsorption occurring from the precursor state is dependent on the adsorbate's proximity to other adsorbate molecules that have already been adsorbed. If the adsorbate molecule in the precursor state is in close proximity to an adsorbate molecule that has already formed on the surface, it has a sticking probability reflected by the size of the S constant and will either be adsorbed from the precursor state at a rate of "k" or will desorb into the gaseous phase at a rate of "k". If an adsorbate molecule enters the precursor state at a location that is remote from any other previously adsorbed adsorbate molecules, the sticking probability is reflected by the size of the S constant.


title: Adsorption

text: These factors were included as part of a single constant termed a "sticking coefficient", "k", described below:


title: Adsorption

text: As S is dictated by factors that are taken into account by the Langmuir model, S can be assumed to be the adsorption rate constant. However, the rate constant for the Kisliuk model ("R"’) is different from that of the Langmuir model, as "R"’ is used to represent the impact of diffusion on monolayer formation and is proportional to the square root of the system's diffusion coefficient. The Kisliuk adsorption isotherm is written as follows, where θ is fractional coverage of the adsorbent with adsorbate, and "t" is immersion time:


title: Adsorption

text: As can be seen in the formula, the variation of "K" must be isosteric, that is, at constant coverage.


title: Adsorption

text: If we start from the BET isotherm and assume that the entropy change is the same for liquefaction and adsorption, we obtain


title: Adsorption

text: The adsorption of ensemble molecules on a surface or interface can be divided into two processes: adsorption and desorption. If the adsorption rate wins the desorption rate, the molecules will accumulate over time giving the adsorption curve over time. If the desorption rate is larger, the number of molecules on the surface will decrease over time. The adsorption rate is dependent on the temperature, the diffusion rate of the solute (related to mean free path for pure gas), and the energy barrier between the molecule and the surface. The diffusion and key elements of the adsorption rate can be calculated using Fick's laws of diffusion and Einstein relation (kinetic theory).


title: Adsorption

text: Under ideal conditions, when there is no energy barrier and all molecules that diffuse and collide with the surface get adsorbed, the number of molecules adsorbed formula_31 at a surface of area formula_32 on an infinite area surface can be directly integrated from Fick's second law differential equation to be:


title: Adsorption

text: where formula_32 is the surface area (unit m), formula_35 is the number concentration of the molecule in the bulk solution (unit #/m), formula_36 is the diffusion constant (unit m/s), and formula_37 is time (unit s). Further simulations and analysis of this equation show that the square root dependence on the time is originated from the decrease of the concentrations near the surface under ideal adsorption conditions. Also, this equation only works for the beginning of the adsorption when a well-behaved concentration gradient forms near the surface. Correction on the reduction of the adsorption area and slowing down of the concentration gradient evolution have to be considered over a longer time.


title: Adsorption

text: Under real experimental conditions, the flow and the small adsorption area always make the adsorption rate faster than what this equation predicted, and the energy barrier will either accelerate this rate by surface attraction or slow it down by surface repulsion. Thus, the prediction from this equation is often a few to several orders of magnitude away from the experimental results. Under special cases, such as a very small adsorption area on a large surface, and under chemical equilibrium when there is no concentration gradience near the surface, this equation becomes useful to predict the adsorption rate with debatable special care to determine a specific value of formula_37 in a particular measurement.


title: Adsorption

text: The desorption of a molecule from the surface depends on the binding energy of the molecule to the surface and the temperature. The typical overall adsorption rate is thus often a combined result of the adsorption and desorption.


title: Adsorption

text: Since 1980 two theories were worked on to explain adsorption and obtain equations that work. These two are referred to as the chi hypothesis, the quantum mechanical derivation, and excess surface work (ESW). Both these theories yield the same equation for flat surfaces:


title: Adsorption

text: where "ads" stands for "adsorbed", "m" stands for "monolayer equivalence" and "vap" is reference to the vapor pressure of the liquid adsorptive at the same temperature as the solid sample. The unit function creates the definition of the molar energy of adsorption for the first adsorbed molecule by:


title: Adsorption

text: The plot of formula_42 adsorbed versus formula_43 is referred to as the chi plot. For flat surfaces, the slope of the chi plot yields the surface area. Empirically, this plot was noticed as being a very good fit to the isotherm by Michael Polanyi and also by Jan Hendrik de Boer and Cornelis Zwikker but not pursued. This was due to criticism in the former case by Albert Einstein and in the latter case by Brunauer. This flat surface equation may be used as a "standard curve" in the normal tradition of comparison curves, with the exception that the porous sample's early portion of the plot of formula_42 versus formula_43 acts as a self-standard. Ultramicroporous, microporous and mesoporous conditions may be analyzed using this technique. Typical standard deviations for full isotherm fits including porous samples are less than 2%.


title: Adsorption

text: Notice that in this description of physical adsorption, the entropy of adsorption is consistent with the Dubinin thermodynamic criterion, that is the entropy of adsorption from the liquid state to the adsorbed state is approximately zero.


title: Adsorption

text: Adsorbents are used usually in the form of spherical pellets, rods, moldings, or monoliths with a hydrodynamic radius between 0.25 and 5 mm. They must have high abrasion resistance, high thermal stability and small pore diameters, which results in higher exposed surface area and hence high capacity for adsorption. The adsorbents must also have a distinct pore structure that enables fast transport of the gaseous vapors.


title: Adsorption

text: Silica gel is a chemically inert, non-toxic, polar and dimensionally stable (< ) amorphous form of SiO. It is prepared by the reaction between sodium silicate and acetic acid, which is followed by a series of after-treatment processes such as aging, pickling, etc. These after-treatment methods results in various pore size distributions.


title: Adsorption

text: Silica is used for drying of process air (e.g. oxygen, natural gas) and adsorption of heavy (polar) hydrocarbons from natural gas.


title: Adsorption

text: Zeolites are natural or synthetic crystalline aluminosilicates, which have a repeating pore network and release water at high temperature. Zeolites are polar in nature.


title: Adsorption

text: They are manufactured by hydrothermal synthesis of sodium aluminosilicate or another silica source in an autoclave followed by ion exchange with certain cations (Na, Li, Ca, K, NH). The channel diameter of zeolite cages usually ranges from 2 to 9 Å. The ion exchange process is followed by drying of the crystals, which can be pelletized with a binder to form macroporous pellets.


title: Adsorption

text: Zeolites are applied in drying of process air, CO removal from natural gas, CO removal from reforming gas, air separation, catalytic cracking, and catalytic synthesis and reforming.


title: Adsorption

text: Non-polar (siliceous) zeolites are synthesized from aluminum-free silica sources or by dealumination of aluminum-containing zeolites. The dealumination process is done by treating the zeolite with steam at elevated temperatures, typically greater than . This high temperature heat treatment breaks the aluminum-oxygen bonds and the aluminum atom is expelled from the zeolite framework.


title: Adsorption

text: Activated carbon is a highly porous, amorphous solid consisting of microcrystallites with a graphite lattice, usually prepared in small pellets or a powder. It is non-polar and cheap. One of its main drawbacks is that it reacts with oxygen at moderate temperatures (over 300 °C).


title: Adsorption

text: Activated carbon can be manufactured from carbonaceous material, including coal (bituminous, subbituminous, and lignite), peat, wood, or nutshells (e.g., coconut). The manufacturing process consists of two phases, carbonization and activation. The carbonization process includes drying and then heating to separate by-products, including tars and other hydrocarbons from the raw material, as well as to drive off any gases generated. The process is completed by heating the material over in an oxygen-free atmosphere that cannot support combustion. The carbonized particles are then "activated" by exposing them to an oxidizing agent, usually steam or carbon dioxide at high temperature. This agent burns off the pore blocking structures created during the carbonization phase and so, they develop a porous, three-dimensional graphite lattice structure. The size of the pores developed during activation is a function of the time that they spend in this stage. Longer exposure times result in larger pore sizes. The most popular aqueous phase carbons are bituminous based because of their hardness, abrasion resistance, pore size distribution, and low cost, but their effectiveness needs to be tested in each application to determine the optimal product.


title: Adsorption

text: Activated carbon is used for adsorption of organic substances and non-polar adsorbates and it is also usually used for waste gas (and waste water) treatment. It is the most widely used adsorbent since most of its chemical (e.g. surface groups) and physical properties (e.g. pore size distribution and surface area) can be tuned according to what is needed. Its usefulness also derives from its large micropore (and sometimes mesopore) volume and the resulting high surface area. Recent research works reported activated carbon as an effective agent to adsorb cationic species of toxic metals from multi-pollutant systems and also proposed possible adsorption mechanisms with supporting evidences.


title: Adsorption

text: The adsorption of water at surfaces is of broad importance in chemical engineering, materials science and catalysis. Also termed surface hydration, the presence of physically or chemically adsorbed water at the surfaces of solids plays an important role in governing interface properties, chemical reaction pathways and catalytic performance in a wide range of systems. In the case of physically adsorbed water, surface hydration can be eliminated simply through drying at conditions of temperature and pressure allowing full vaporization of water. For chemically adsorbed water, hydration may be in the form of either dissociative adsorption, where HO molecules are dissociated into surface adsorbed -H and -OH, or molecular adsorption (associative adsorption) where individual water molecules remain intact


title: Adsorption

text: The low cost ($200/ton) and high cycle rate (2,000 ×) of synthetic zeolites such as Linde 13X with water adsorbate has garnered much academic and commercial interest recently for use for thermal energy storage (TES), specifically of low-grade solar and waste heat. Several pilot projects have been funded in the EU from 2000 to the present (2020). The basic concept is to store solar thermal energy as chemical latent energy in the zeolite. Typically, hot dry air from flat plate solar collectors is made to flow through a bed of zeolite such that any water adsorbate present is driven off. Storage can be diurnal, weekly, monthly, or even seasonal depending on the volume of the zeolite and the area of the solar thermal panels. When heat is called for during the night, or sunless hours, or winter, humidified air flows through the zeolite. As the humidity is adsorbed by the zeolite, heat is released to the air and subsequently to the building space. This form of TES, with specific use of zeolites, was first taught by John Guerra in 1978.


title: Adsorption

text: Typical adsorbents proposed for carbon capture and storage are zeolites and MOFs. The customization of adsorbents makes them a potentially attractive alternative to absorption. Because adsorbents can be regenerated by temperature or pressure swing, this step can be less energy intensive than absorption regeneration methods. Major problems that are present with adsorption cost in carbon capture are: regenerating the adsorbent, mass ratio, solvent/MOF, cost of adsorbent, production of the adsorbent, lifetime of adsorbent.


title: Adsorption

text: In sorption enhanced water gas shift (SEWGS) technology a pre-combustion carbon capture process, based on solid adsorption, is combined with the water gas shift reaction (WGS) in order to produce a high pressure hydrogen stream. The CO stream produced can be stored or used for other industrial processes.


title: Adsorption

text: Protein adsorption is a process that has a fundamental role in the field of biomaterials. Indeed, biomaterial surfaces in contact with biological media, such as blood or serum, are immediately coated by proteins. Therefore, living cells do not interact directly with the biomaterial surface, but with the adsorbed proteins layer. This protein layer mediates the interaction between biomaterials and cells, translating biomaterial physical and chemical properties into a "biological language". In fact, cell membrane receptors bind to protein layer bioactive sites and these receptor-protein binding events are transduced, through the cell membrane, in a manner that stimulates specific intracellular processes that then determine cell adhesion, shape, growth and differentiation. Protein adsorption is influenced by many surface properties such as surface wettability, surface chemical composition and surface nanometre-scale morphology.


title: Adsorption

text: Surfactant adsorption is a similar phenomenon, but utilising surfactant molecules in the place of proteins.


title: Adsorption

text: Combining an adsorbent with a refrigerant, adsorption chillers use heat to provide a cooling effect. This heat, in the form of hot water, may come from any number of industrial sources including waste heat from industrial processes, prime heat from solar thermal installations or from the exhaust or water jacket heat of a piston engine or turbine.


title: Adsorption

text: Although there are similarities between adsorption chillers and absorption refrigeration, the former is based on the interaction between gases and solids. The adsorption chamber of the chiller is filled with a solid material (for example zeolite, silica gel, alumina, active carbon or certain types of metal salts), which in its neutral state has adsorbed the refrigerant. When heated, the solid desorbs (releases) refrigerant vapour, which subsequently is cooled and liquefied. This liquid refrigerant then provides a cooling effect at the evaporator from its enthalpy of vaporization. In the final stage the refrigerant vapour is (re)adsorbed into the solid. As an adsorption chiller requires no compressor, it is relatively quiet.


title: Adsorption

text: Portal site mediated adsorption is a model for site-selective activated gas adsorption in metallic catalytic systems that contain a variety of different adsorption sites. In such systems, low-coordination "edge and corner" defect-like sites can exhibit significantly lower adsorption enthalpies than high-coordination (basal plane) sites. As a result, these sites can serve as "portals" for very rapid adsorption to the rest of the surface. The phenomenon relies on the common "spillover" effect (described below), where certain adsorbed species exhibit high mobility on some surfaces. The model explains seemingly inconsistent observations of gas adsorption thermodynamics and kinetics in catalytic systems where surfaces can exist in a range of coordination structures, and it has been successfully applied to bimetallic catalytic systems where synergistic activity is observed.


title: Adsorption

text: In contrast to pure spillover, portal site adsorption refers to surface diffusion to adjacent adsorption sites, not to non-adsorptive support surfaces.


title: Adsorption

text: The model appears to have been first proposed for carbon monoxide on silica-supported platinum by Brandt "et al." (1993). A similar, but independent model was developed by King and co-workers to describe hydrogen adsorption on silica-supported alkali promoted ruthenium, silver-ruthenium and copper-ruthenium bimetallic catalysts. The same group applied the model to CO hydrogenation (Fischer–Tropsch synthesis). Zupanc "et al." (2002) subsequently confirmed the same model for hydrogen adsorption on magnesia-supported caesium-ruthenium bimetallic catalysts. Trens "et al." (2009) have similarly described CO surface diffusion on carbon-supported Pt particles of varying morphology.


title: Adsorption

text: In the case catalytic or adsorbent systems where a metal species is dispersed upon a support (or carrier) material (often quasi-inert oxides, such as alumina or silica), it is possible for an adsorptive species to indirectly adsorb to the support surface under conditions where such adsorption is thermodynamically unfavorable. The presence of the metal serves as a lower-energy pathway for gaseous species to first adsorb to the metal and then diffuse on the support surface. This is possible because the adsorbed species attains a lower energy state once it has adsorbed to the metal, thus lowering the activation barrier between the gas phase species and the support-adsorbed species.


title: Adsorption

text: Hydrogen spillover is the most common example of an adsorptive spillover. In the case of hydrogen, adsorption is most often accompanied with dissociation of molecular hydrogen (H) to atomic hydrogen (H), followed by spillover of the hydrogen atoms present.


title: Adsorption

text: The spillover effect has been used to explain many observations in heterogeneous catalysis and adsorption.


title: Adsorption

text: Adsorption of molecules onto polymer surfaces is central to a number of applications, including development of non-stick coatings and in various biomedical devices. Polymers may also be adsorbed to surfaces through polyelectrolyte adsorption.


title: Adsorption

text: Adsorption is the first step in the viral life cycle. The next steps are penetration, uncoating, synthesis (transcription if needed, and translation), and release. The virus replication cycle, in this respect, is similar for all types of viruses. Factors such as transcription may or may not be needed if the virus is able to integrate its genomic information in the cell's nucleus, or if the virus can replicate itself directly within the cell's cytoplasm.


title: Adsorption

text: The game of Tetris is a puzzle game in which blocks of 4 are adsorbed onto a surface during game play. Scientists have used Tetris blocks "as a proxy for molecules with a complex shape" and their "adsorption on a flat surface" for studying the thermodynamics of nanoparticles.


title: IPad (4th generation)

text: The iPad (4th generation) (marketed as iPad with Retina display, colloquially referred to as the iPad 4) is a tablet computer produced and marketed by Apple Inc. Compared to its predecessor, the third-generation iPad, the fourth-generation iPad maintained the Retina Display but featured new and upgraded components such as the Apple A6X chip and the Lightning connector, which was introduced on September 12, 2012. It shipped with iOS 6, which provides a platform for audio-visual media, including electronic books, periodicals, films, music, computer games, presentations and web content. Like the third-generation iPad it replaced, it was supported by five major iOS releases, in this case iOS 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. iOS 11, which was released on September 19, 2017, does not support the fourth-generation iPad as that update does not support 32-bit devices and apps.


title: IPad (4th generation)

text: It was announced at a media conference on October 23, 2012 as the fourth generation of the iPad line, and was first released on November 2, 2012, in 35 countries, and then through December in ten other countries including China, India and Brazil. The third generation was discontinued following the fourth's announcement, after only seven months of general availability.


title: IPad (4th generation)

text: The device is available with either a black or white front glass panel and various connectivity and storage options. Storage size options include 16 GB, 32 GB, 64 GB, and 128 GB; the available connectivity options are Wi-Fi only and Wi-Fi + Cellular with LTE capabilities.


title: IPad (4th generation)

text: The fourth-generation iPad received positive reviews and was praised for its hardware improvements as well as the Retina display, which was also featured in the device's predecessor. Furthermore, benchmarks reveal that the fourth-generation iPad is able to perform CPU-reliant tasks twice as fast as its predecessor. During the first weekend of sales, an aggregated amount of 3 million fourth-generation iPads and iPad Minis were sold.


title: IPad (4th generation)

text: Rumors regarding the next-generation iPad emerged shortly after the release of the third-generation iPad. At that point some speculated that the next iPad released would be of a smaller size. Further speculations emerged in July 2012 when DigiTimes, with the help of unspecified sources, claimed that Apple made small revisions to the then upcoming iPad and scheduled its release for late 2012. On October 16, 2012, Apple announced a media event scheduled for October 23 at the California Theatre in San Jose, California. The company did not pre-disclose the subject of the event, but it was widely expected to be regarding the iPad Mini. Photographic images of the device's dock connector and front camera emerged shortly before the media event.


title: IPad (4th generation)

text: At the media event, Apple CEO Tim Cook introduced a new version of iBooks and new generations of the MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, and the iMac before unveiling the fourth-generation iPad and the lower-end iPad Mini. During the unveiling, Apple stated that the fourth-generation iPad would be available to pre-order online in a selected number of countries starting October 26. On November 2, Apple released the Wi-Fi model of device in 35 countries across Europe, East Asia and North America. The cellular model was released in-store a few weeks after the initial release of the device.


title: IPad (4th generation)

text: The release of the fourth-generation iPad led to the discontinuation of its predecessor, which angered many third-generation iPad users. In response, Apple extended its 14-day return policy to 30 days. "ITProPortal" noted that, since the price of both models is identical, consumers that purchased the third-generation iPad within this time frame were effectively allowed to exchange their discontinued device for the fourth-generation model.


title: IPad (4th generation)

text: On January 29, 2013, Apple announced and scheduled the launch of the 128 GB variant of 4th generation iPad. It was released on February 5, 2013.


title: IPad (4th generation)

text: Following the announcement of the iPad Air on October 22, 2013, sales of the fourth-generation iPad were discontinued. The fourth-generation iPad was reintroduced on March 18, 2014, following the discontinuation of the iPad 2. In order to make its reintroduction a low-end device to the iPad Air, its price was cut by 20% over its original launch price. On October 16, 2014, the fourth-generation iPad was discontinued in favor of the iPad Air 2; the iPad Air took its place as the entry-level iPad at that time.


title: IPad (4th generation)

text: The fourth-generation iPad shipped with iOS 6.0 and later, iOS 7. It can act as a hotspot with some carriers, sharing its Internet connection over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or USB, and also access the Apple App Store, a digital application distribution platform for iOS. The service allows users to browse and download applications from the iTunes Store that were developed with Xcode and the iOS SDK and were published through Apple. From the App Store, GarageBand, iMovie, iPhoto, and the iWork apps (Pages, Keynote, and Numbers) are available.


title: IPad (4th generation)

text: The iPad comes with several pre-installed applications, including Siri, Safari, Mail, Photos, Video, Music, iTunes, App Store, Maps, Notes, Calendar, Game Center, Photo Booth, and Contacts. Like all iOS devices, the iPad can sync content and other data with a Mac or PC using iTunes, although iOS 5 and later can be managed and backed up without a computer. Although the tablet is not designed to make phone calls over a cellular network, users can use a headset or the built-in speaker and microphone to place phone calls over Wi-Fi or cellular using a VoIP application, such as Skype. The device has a dictation application, using the same voice recognition technology as the iPhone 4S. The user speaks and the iPad types what they say on the screen, though the iPad must have an internet connection available (via Wi-Fi or cellular network) due to the feature's reliance on Apple servers to translate the speech.


title: IPad (4th generation)

text: The fourth-generation iPad has an optional iBooks application, which displays books and other ePub-format content downloaded from iBooks. Several major book publishers including Penguin Books, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan have committed to publishing books for the device. Despite being a direct competitor to both the Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook, both Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble offer e-reader apps for the iPad.


title: IPad (4th generation)

text: The 4th generation iPad, unlike its immediate predecessor, the 3rd generation iPad, is supported by iOS 10; however, it was announced at the Apple WWDC 2017 that the 4th generation iPad (along with the iPhone 5/5C) will not support iOS 11. iOS 10.3.3 is the latest and final version of iOS to include support for the Wi-Fi only models of these devices. iOS 10.3.4 is the latest and final version of iOS to include support for the cellular models of these devices, released to fix an issue caused by the GPS week number rollover.


title: IPad (4th generation)

text: The device has an Apple A6X SoC which comprises a 32-bit Apple dual-core CPU running at 1.4 GHz and a quad-core PowerVR SGX554MP4 GPU, 1 GB of RAM. It also features a 5-megapixel, rear-facing camera capable of 1080p video recording; and a 720p HD front-facing videophone camera designed for FaceTime. The device features a 9.7" (diagonal) display with a resolution of 2,048 by 1,536 (QXGA) resulting in 3.1 million pixels, this gives the display a pixel density of 264 ppi. The total number of pixels used in the display of the fourth-generation iPad is four times that of the iPad 2 – providing even scaling from the prior model.


title: IPad (4th generation)

text: As with all previous generations of iPhone and iPad hardware, there are four buttons and one switch on the fourth-generation iPad. With the device in its portrait orientation, these are: a "home" button on the face of the device under the display that returns the user to the home screen, a "wake/sleep" button on the top edge of the device, and two buttons on the upper right side of the device performing "volume up/down" functions, under which is a switch whose function varies according to device settings, generally functioning either to switch the device into or out of silent mode or to lock/unlock the orientation of the screen. Externally, the fourth-generation iPad is identical to its predecessor apart from the differences between dock connectors used and change of manufacturers that produce the display. In addition, the Wi-Fi only version weighs 652 grams while the cellular model weighs 662 grams – 2 grams heavier than their respective predecessors. The display responds to other sensors: an ambient light sensor to adjust screen brightness and a 3-axis accelerometer to sense orientation and switch between portrait and landscape modes. Unlike the iPhone and iPod Touch's built-in applications, which work in three orientations (portrait, landscape-left and landscape-right), the iPad's built-in applications support screen rotation in all four orientations, including upside-down. Consequently, the device has no intrinsic "native" orientation; only the relative position of the home button changes.


title: IPad (4th generation)

text: The tablet is manufactured either with or without the capability to communicate over a cellular network. All models can connect to a wireless LAN via Wi-Fi. The fourth-generation iPad is available with 16, 32, 64 or 128 GB of internal flash memory, with no expansion option. Apple sells a "camera connection kit" with an SD card reader, but it can only be used to transfer photos and videos.


title: IPad (4th generation)

text: The audio playback of the fourth-generation iPad has a frequency response of 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. Without third-party software it can play the following audio formats: HE-AAC, AAC, Protected AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, Audible formats (2, 3, 4, AEA, AAX, and AAX+), ALAC, AIFF, and WAV.


title: IPad (4th generation)

text: This iPad uses an internal rechargeable lithium-ion polymer (LiPo) battery that can hold a charge of 11,560 mAh. The batteries are made in Taiwan by Simplo Technology (60%) and Dynapack International Technology (40%). The iPad is designed to be charged with a relatively high current of 2 amps using the included 12 W USB power adapter and Lightning connector. While it can be charged by an older USB port from a computer, these are limited to 500 milliamps (0.5 amps). As a result, if the iPad is in use while powered by a computer, it may charge very slowly, or not at all. High-power USB ports found in newer computers and accessories provide full charging capabilities. Apple claims that the battery can provide up to 10 hours of video, audio playback, or web surfing on Wi-Fi, 9 hours of web surfing over a cellular connection, or one month on standby. Like any rechargeable battery, the iPad's battery loses capacity over time. However, the iPad's battery is not user-replaceable. In a program similar to iPod and iPhone battery-replacement programs, Apple promised to replace an iPad that does not hold an electrical charge with a refurbished unit for a fee. During the battery replacement process, user data is not preserved/transferred, and repaired or refurbished units come with a new case. The warranty on the refurbished unit may vary between jurisdictions.


title: IPad (4th generation)

text: The iPad (4th generation) was the last iPad that has an 32-bit processor and one of the last Apple products to have a 32-bit processor, along with the iPhone 5 and iPhone 5C, which has the A6 chips.


title: IPad (4th generation)

text: The Smart Cover, introduced with the iPad 2, is a screen protector that magnetically attaches to the face of the iPad. The cover has three folds which allow it to convert into a stand, which is also held together by magnets. The Smart Cover can also assume other positions by folding it. Smart Covers have a microfiber bottom that cleans the front of the iPad and wakes up the unit when the cover is removed. It comes in five colors of both polyurethane and the more expensive leather.


title: IPad (4th generation)

text: Apple offers several other accessories, most of which are adapters for the proprietary Lightning connector, the only port besides the headphone jack. A dock holds the iPad at an angle, and has a dock connector and audio line-out port. The iPad can use Bluetooth keyboards that also work with Macs and PCs. The iPad can be charged by a standalone power adapter ("wall charger") compatible with iPods and iPhones, and a 12 watt charger is included.


title: IPad (4th generation)

text: The fourth-generation iPad received positive reviews from critics and commentators. The review by Gareth Beavis of "TechRadar" praised the device for its high-resolution Retina Display, which "TechRadar" wrote is "...one of the most impressive we've seen on a tablet to date." However, the reviewer also wrote that the screen "lacks the 'punch' seen in Super AMOLED screens seen on devices like the Samsung Galaxy Note 2." The review also praised the interface of the iPad for its simple design and easy to use layout. Additionally, other aspects, such as the design of the iPad and updated SoC were noted and praised in the review. Critically, Beavis noted that the iPad can still moderately heat up under medium usage, however not to the extent seen in the third-generation iPad. Tim Stevens of "Engadget" praised the Retina Display and labelled it as the best screen available on tablets. Benchmarks and tests conducted by Engadget resulted in Stevens concluding that the fourth-generation iPad is the fastest Apple mobile device available, surpassing a "record" that the iPhone 5 held for a brief period.


title: IPad (4th generation)

text: Benchmark tests conducted by SlashGear concluded that the SoC of the fourth-generation iPad is able to perform CPU-reliant tasks more than twice as fast as that of the third-generation iPad. A series of benchmark tests conducted on the graphics performance of the fourth-generation iPad by Anandtech resulted in the device achieving the highest score compared to other consumer mobile devices, including the Samsung Galaxy S III, Nexus 10 and third-generation iPad. The performance increase of the fourth-generation iPad varies between tests, however an increase is nonetheless evident. Furthermore, battery longevity tests conducted by the same organization suggests that the battery of the fourth-generation iPad is able to last longer than its predecessor. However, the battery of the updated iPad 2 is able to outlast the fourth-generation iPad.


title: IPad (4th generation)

text: In the first weekend of sales of the iPad Mini and fourth-generation iPad, Apple reported that it sold an aggregated number of 3 million units. "TechRadar" noted that the first weekend sales figures for the fourth-generation iPad are lower than corresponding figures for the third-generation iPad, which sold 3 million units in its first weekend. Subsequent reports and analysis such as that from David Hsieh, a technology analyst, suggest that the iPad mini is selling better than the fourth-generation iPad. Despite the noted slump in sales, Apple's stock price, in direct response to the figures released, rose by 1.4% to $584.62 on November 5.


title: IPad (4th generation)

text: In a repairability review conducted by iFixit, the fourth-generation iPad scored 2 out of 10 (10 being the easiest to repair) due to the use of adhesive to attach components. However, reviewers noted that several components such as the screen and battery could be removed easily for replacement.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is a multilateral development bank that aims to improve economic and social outcomes in Asia. The bank currently has 105 members, including 14 prospective members from around the world. The breakdown of the 105 members by continents are as follows: 42 in Asia, 26 in Europe, 20 in Africa, 8 in Oceania, 8 in South America, and 1 in North America. The bank started operation after the agreement entered into force on 25 December 2015, after ratifications were received from 10 member states holding a total number of 50% of the initial subscriptions of the Authorized Capital Stock.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: The United Nations has addressed the launch of AIIB as having potential for "scaling up financing for sustainable development" and to improve the global economic governance. The starting capital of the bank was US$100 billion, equivalent to of the capital of the Asian Development Bank and about half that of the World Bank.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: The bank was proposed by China in 2013 and the initiative was launched at a ceremony in Beijing in October 2014. It received the highest credit ratings from the three biggest rating agencies in the world, and is seen as a potential rival to the World Bank and IMF.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: The proposal for the creation of an "Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank" was first made by the Vice Chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, a Chinese thinktank, at the Bo'ao Forum in April 2009. The initial context was to make better use of Chinese foreign currency reserves in the wake of the global financial crisis.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: The initiative was officially launched by Chinese leader Xi Jinping on a state visit to Indonesia in October 2013. The Chinese government has been frustrated with what it regards as the slow pace of reforms and governance, and wants greater input in global established institutions like the IMF, World Bank and Asian Development Bank which it claims are heavily dominated by American, European and Japanese interests.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: In April 2014, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang delivered a keynote speech at the opening of the Boao Forum for Asia and said that China was ready to intensify consultations with relevant parties in and outside Asia on the preparations for the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: The Asian Development Bank Institute published a report in 2010 which said that the region requires $8 trillion to be invested from 2010 to 2020 in infrastructure for the region to continue economic development. In a 2014 editorial, "The Guardian" newspaper wrote that the new bank could allow Chinese capital to finance these projects and allow it a greater role to play in the economic development of the region commensurate with its growing economic and political clout. But until March 2015, China in the ADB has only 5.47 percent voting right, while Japan and US have a combined 26 percent voting right (13 percent each) with a share in subscribed capital of 15.7 percent and 15.6 percent, respectively. Dominance by both countries and slow reforms underlie China's wish to establish the AIIB, while both countries worry about China's increasing influence.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: In June 2014 China proposed doubling the registered capital of the bank from $50 billion to $100 billion and invited India to participate in the founding of the bank. On 24 October 2014, twenty-one countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) regarding the AIIB in Beijing, China: Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, India, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Mongolia, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. Indonesia's joining was slightly delayed due to their new presidential administration not being able to review the membership in time. Indonesia signed the MOU on 25 November 2014.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: The U.S. allegedly tried to keep Australia and South Korea from becoming prospective founding members, after they expressed an interest in it. However, both Australia and South Korea applied to join the bank in March 2015.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: Hong Kong's Financial Secretary John Tsang announced in his budget speech in February 2015 that the territory would join the AIIB. It did however not become one of the prospective founding members and negotiated as part of the Chinese delegation.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: In early March 2015, the United Kingdom's Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, announced that the UK had decided to apply to join the Bank, becoming the third Western country to do so after Luxembourg and New Zealand. The announcement was criticised by the U.S. Obama Administration. A US government official told "Financial Times", "We are wary about a trend toward constant accommodation of China, which is not the best way to engage a rising power." The official further stated that the British decision was taken after "no consultation with the US." In response, the UK indicated that the subject had been discussed between Chancellor Osborne and US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew for several months preceding the decision. It was further stated that joining the bank as a founding member would allow the UK to influence the development of the institution. By encouraging Chinese investments in the next generations of nuclear power plants, Osborne announced that "the City of London would become the base for the first clearing house for the yuan outside Asia."


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: Following the criticism, the White House National Security Council, in a statement to "The Guardian", declared, Our position on the AIIB remains clear and consistent. The United States and many major global economies all agree there is a pressing need to enhance infrastructure investment around the world. We believe any new multilateral institution should incorporate the high standards of the World Bank and the regional development banks. Based on many discussions, we have concerns about whether the AIIB will meet these high standards, particularly related to governance, and environmental and social safeguards […] The international community has a stake in seeing the AIIB complement the existing architecture, and to work effectively alongside the World Bank and Asian Development Bank.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: Several other European states – including Germany, France and Italy – followed the UK's decision to join the AIIB in March. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble stated, "We want to contribute our long-standing experience with international financial institutions to the creation of the new bank by setting high standards and helping the bank to get a high international reputation." In March 2015, the South Korean Ministry of Strategy and Finance announced that it, too, is planning to join the AIIB, citing its potential in helping South Korean companies win deals in infrastructural projects as well expanding South Korea's influence in international banking as a founding member. States could indicate their interest in becoming a Prospective Founding Member until 31 March 2015.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: Negotiations took place in the framework of five Chief Negotiators Meetings (CNMs) which took place between November 2014 and May 2015. The Articles of Agreement, the legal framework of the bank, were concluded in the fifth CNM. It was signed on 29 June 2015 by 50 of the named 57 prospective founding members in Beijing, while the other seven signed later.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: On 25 December 2015, the Articles of Agreement entered into force. On 16 January 2016, the board of governors of the bank convened its inaugural meeting in Beijing and declared the bank open for business. Jin Liqun was elected as the bank's president for a five-year term. 17 states (Australia, Austria, Brunei, China, Georgia, Germany, Jordan, Luxembourg, Mongolia, Myanmar, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea and the United Kingdom) together holding 50.1% of the initial subscriptions of Authorized Capital Stock, had deposited the instrument of ratification for the agreement, triggering entry into force, and making them all founding members and bringing the Articles of Agreement, the bank's charter, into force. 35 other states followed later, taking the amount of Authorized Capital Stock held by the 29 members of the bank to 74%.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank can be construed as a natural inter-national extension of the infrastructure-driven economic development framework that has sustained the rapid economic growth of China since the adoption of the Chinese economic reform under Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. It stems from the notion that long-term economic growth can only be achieved through systematic, and broad-based investments in infrastructure assets – in contrast with the more short-term "export-driven" and "domestic consumption" development models favored by mainstream Western Neoclassical economists and pursued by many developing countries in the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century with generally disappointing results.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: In his 29 March 2015 speech at the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) annual conference, Chinese leader Xi Jinping said: [T]he Chinese economy is deeply integrated with the global economy and forms an important driving force of the economy of Asia and even the world at large. […] China's investment opportunities are expanding. Investment opportunities in infrastructure connectivity as well as in new technologies, new products, new business patterns, and new business models are constantly springing up. […] China's foreign cooperation opportunities are expanding. We support the multilateral trading system, devote ourselves to the Doha Round negotiations, advocate the Asia-Pacific free trade zone, promote negotiations on regional comprehensive economic partnership, advocate the construction of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), boost economic and financial cooperation in an all-round manner, and work as an active promoter of economic globalization and regional integration.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: Xi insisted also that the Silk Road Fund and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank would foster "economic connectivity and a new-type of industrialization [in the Asia Pacific area], and [thus] promote the common development of all countries as well as the peoples' joint enjoyment of development fruits."


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: The Articles of Agreement form the legal basis for the Bank. 57 Prospective Founding Members (PFM) named in annex A of the agreement are eligible to sign and ratify the Articles, thus becoming a member of the Bank. Other states, which are parties to the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development or the Asian Development Bank may become members after approval of their accession by the bank.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: The Articles were negotiated by the Prospective Founding Members, with Hong Kong joining the negotiations via China.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: All Prospective Founding Members have signed the Articles, 52 of which have ratified them, comprising 92% of the shares of all PFM. The formal actions towards becoming a Founding Member are shown below, as well as the percentage of the votes and of the shares, in the event all prospective founding states become parties, and no other members are accepted.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: In March 2017, 13 other states were granted prospective membership: 5 regional (Afghanistan, Armenia, Fiji, Timor Leste and Hong Kong, China) and 8 non-regional: Belgium, Canada, Ethiopia, Hungary, Ireland, Peru, Sudan and Venezuela. In May 2017, 7 states were granted prospective membership: 3 regional (Bahrain, Cyprus, Samoa) and 4 non-regional (Bolivia, Chile, Greece, Romania). In June 2017, 3 other states were granted prospective membership: 1 regional (Tonga) and 2 non-regional (Argentina, Madagascar). In 2018, 7 other states were granted prospective membership: 1 regional (Lebanon) and 6 non-regional (Algeria, Ghana, Libya, Morocco, Serbia, Togo). In 2019, 7 other states were granted prospective membership: 7 non-regional (Djibouti, Rwanda, Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Tunisia, Uruguay). They become members after finishing their domestic procedures. As of 8 August 2022, the total number of countries approved for membership of AIIB is 105 (Regional Members: 47, Non-Regional Members: 45, Prospective Members: 13). Countries holding at least 2.0% of either the total subscriptions or voting powers are in bold.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: The Articles of Agreement provide for non-sovereign entities to become members of the bank. In addition to the requirements for sovereign states, the membership of dependent territories must be supported by the state responsible for its external relations.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: The Czech Republic, Nigeria, Iraq, Colombia, Ukraine are considering joining the AIIB as members. Mexico, Japan and the United States have no immediate intention to participate. Taiwan's request to become a Prospective Founding Member was rejected by China as it does not consider the former to be a sovereign state.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: The Authorized Capital Stock of the bank is $100 billion (US dollars), divided into 1 million shares of $100,000 each. Twenty percent are paid-in shares (and thus have to be transferred to the bank), and 80% are callable shares. The allocated shares are based on the size of each member country's economy (calculated using GDP Nominal (60%) and GDP PPP (40%)) and whether they are an Asian or Non-Asian Member. The total number of shares will determine the fraction of authorized capital in the bank. Of the prospective founding members, three states decided not to subscribe to all allocated shares: Malaysia, Portugal, and Singapore, resulting in 98% of available shares being subscribed.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: Three categories of votes exist: basic votes, share votes and Founding Member votes. The basic votes are equal for all members and constitute 12% of the total votes, while the share votes are equal to the number of shares. Each Founding Member furthermore gets 600 votes. An overview of the shares, assuming when all 57 Prospective Founding Members have become Founding Members is shown below (values in bold do not depend on the number of members):


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: The bank's governance structure is composed of the Board of Governors as the top-level and highest decision-making body. It is composed of 1 governor for each member state of the bank and in principle meets once a year. The board of directors, composed of 12 governors, each representing one or more member is responsible for daily operations and tasks delegated to it by the board of governors. Nine of those members are from within the Asia-Pacific region and three representing members outside the region.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: Of the non-regional directors, 1 constituency is made up of EU member states having the Euro as their currency, and 1 from other European countries.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: New members are considered for admission only once a year. An overview of the constituencies is shown below:


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: The former President of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, has said that the need for infrastructure in developing countries is great so that the activities of new organizations would be welcome.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: Economist C. Fred Bergsten describes the AIIB as "helping meet a clear need for more infrastructure funding throughout Asia (and elsewhere)." He concludes that the AIIB "has adhered to internationally agreed norms and best practices, and is innovating some of its own[.]" Additionally, Bergsten writes that China's role in the AIIB "has clearly met the U.S. request for China to function as a 'responsible stakeholder' in the world economy."


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: There is no consensus in the United States about the role of the AIIB. John Ikenberry sees the AIIB as part of "China's emerging institutional statecraft," but argues that it is not clear whether the institution will tie China more deeply into the existing order or become a vehicle to challenge the order. Phillip Lipscy (Stanford University) argues that the United States and Japan should support the AIIB to encourage China's peaceful global leadership and discourage China from pursuing coercive or military options. On the other hand, Paola Subacchi (Chatham House) argues that the AIIB represents a threat to US-dominated global governance.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: Think-tanks such as Chatham House, the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney and the World Pensions Council (WPC) have argued that the successful establishment of a new supranational financial powerhouse headquartered in PRC would be facilitated by the large number of participating developed economies. These experts observe that the establishment of the Beijing-based AIIB does not necessitate rivalry, when economic cooperation is possible, and that the decision by the UK to participate advances its own interests even if some of its allies are opposed.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: As the bank is still in its early years, it has no environmental record. Several organisations have however expressed their concerns over environmental policy of the proposed bank because of the high stake of China in the bank's business. Although the proposed bank declared "AIIB will learn from the best practice in the world and adopt international standards of environmental protection," Oxford scholar of economics and energy policy Yuge Ma has argued that this may be complicated in developing Asian countries.


title: Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

text: During 2016, AIIB committed a total of $1.73 billion to nine projects, among which six projects are joint initiatives with other international lenders such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. It had achieved its loan target of $1.2 billion for the first year.


title: Lloyd Blankfein

text: Lloyd Craig Blankfein (born September 20, 1954) is an American investment banker who has served as senior chairman of Goldman Sachs since 2019, and chairman and chief executive from 2006 until the end of 2018. Previous to leading Goldman Sachs, he was the company's president and chief operating officer (COO) from 2004 to 2006, serving under then-CEO Henry Paulson.


title: Lloyd Blankfein

text: Born and raised in New York City, Blankfein attended Harvard University for his undergraduate and law school studies before briefly entering private law practice. In 1982, he became a precious metals salesman at J. Aron & Co., a small commodities trading firm which was acquired by Goldman in 1981. After leading Goldman's currency and commodities divisions from 1994 to 1997 he was named heir apparent. He served as the president and chief operating officer from 2004 to his ascension to chief executive. Almost immediately after Blankfein assumed the head of the company, the financial crisis of 2007–08 hit the banking industry. His role and handling of the crisis was widely praised and criticized by media outlets, making him a public figure.


title: Lloyd Blankfein

text: After the Federal Reserve implemented dovish monetary policies and the U.S. Treasury bailed out the company, Blankfein took advantage of low interest rates to undercut competition from other investment banks and established Goldman Sachs as the second largest investment bank in the U.S. as others either went bankrupt or fell to acquisition. Blankfein was twice named one of the most influential people in the world by "Time" magazine and won the "Financial Times" Person of the Year award in 2009. According to Bloomberg News, his net worth is estimated to be US$1.1 billion as of July 2015. His salary at Goldman Sachs in 2018 was estimated to be $24 million.


title: Lloyd Blankfein

text: Lloyd Craig Blankfein was born in The Bronx borough of New York City to a low-income, Jewish family on September 20, 1954. His father, Seymour Blankfein, was a clerk with the U.S. Postal Service branch in Manhattan and his mother was a receptionist. He was raised in the Linden Houses, a housing project in the East New York section of Brooklyn. He received primary and secondary education in New York City's public schools graduating valedictorian at Thomas Jefferson High School in 1971. He went on to attend Harvard College where he lived in Winthrop House and graduated with an A.B. in history in 1975. After graduating college, he attended Harvard Law School where he received a J.D. degree in 1978.


title: Lloyd Blankfein

text: Blankfein first worked for the law firms Proskauer Rose and then Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Irvine. In 1982, he joined the commodities trading firm J. Aron & Co. as a precious metals salesman in its London office, after J. Aron was acquired by the investment bank, Goldman Sachs.


title: Lloyd Blankfein

text: Blankfein joined J. Aron & Co. in 1982, after it had been acquired by Goldman Sachs in 1981. When then chairman Stephen Friedman appointed Henry Paulson as his successor, Blankfein was soon tasked with managing or co-managing the company's currency and commodities divisions from 1994 to 1997. After Paulson consolidated control of Goldman, he identified Blankfein as his heir apparent, despite Blankfein ranking third in the corporate hierarchy behind two co-presidents. In 2004, Blankfein was promoted to president and chief operating officer, a position he served in until June 2006. As president, he oversaw the 2000s commodities boom and positioned Goldman to take advantage of rising commodity prices. On May 30, 2006, U.S. President George W. Bush nominated Paulson to serve as the 74th United States Secretary of the Treasury which prompted Paulson to establish a succession plan. Shortly after Paulson was sworn in, Blankfein was asked to serve as chairman and chief executive officer in July 2006.


title: Lloyd Blankfein

text: During the 2007–08 financial crisis, many financial institutions that had dealings in subprime mortgages received a high level of public attention. Goldman Sachs served as a market maker that dealt with financial products that held subprime mortgages. During late 2008, the crisis led the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates and the U.S. Treasury to increase public spending in private banks. In 2009, he was named Financial Times Person of the Year. His citation noted that "his bank stuck to its strengths, unashamedly [took] advantage of the low interest rates and diminished competition resulting from the crisis to make big trading profits."


title: Lloyd Blankfein

text: On January 13, 2010, Blankfein voluntarily testified before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission that he considered Goldman Sachs's role as primarily market maker, not a creator of the product (i.e., subprime mortgage–related securities). Blankfein testified once more before Congress in April 2010 at a hearing of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He said that Goldman Sachs had no moral or legal obligation to inform their clients they were betting against the products they were selling to them because it was not acting in a fiduciary role. Senator Carl Levin accused Blankfein of misleading Congress; however, no perjury charges were brought against Blankfein. Nevertheless, as a precaution Blankfein hired Reid Weingarten, a high-profile defense lawyer who represented former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers and former Enron accounting officer Richard Causey. Two months later, after the publicity of the testimony increased his public status, he was listed as #43 on "Forbes" Magazine's List of The World's Most Powerful People in November 2011.


title: Lloyd Blankfein

text: On March 14, 2012, Greg Smith, a former Goldman executive, wrote a widely circulated op-ed for "The New York Times" titled "Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs", in which he heavily criticized the firm's top leadership and Blankfein in particular for sidelining the interests of the client. Smith claimed that employees were promoted for unloading less profitable products on clients, for trading products that maximized Goldman Sachs' profits, not their clients, and trading illiquid, opaque products. Smith's op-ed was criticized by many, particularly because he worked at Goldman for 12 years before deciding to quit because of moral objections.


title: Lloyd Blankfein

text: In February 2018, to counter low sales and trading profits, Blankfein instituted new hiring priorities. He instructed human resource managers at the firm to focus on employment candidates who were "strategists" or "strats," i.e., highly quantitative and technologically proficient.


title: Lloyd Blankfein

text: On March 15, 2018, Blankfein issued an internal memo advocating for complete gender parity among its workforce. He stated: "At Goldman Sachs we pay women and men in similar roles with similar performance equally. However, the real issue for our firm and many corporations is the under-representation of women and diverse professionals both in magnitude and levels of seniority. We have made some progress, but we have significant work to do, and we, as leaders of our firm, are committed to doing this critical work."


title: Lloyd Blankfein

text: Blankfein's compensation at Goldman Sachs has been at the center of controversy and interest to financial reporters and the general public. He was paid a base salary of $600,000 with a total compensation package of $54.4 million in 2006 as the highest-paid executive on Wall Street. His bonus reflected the performance of Goldman Sachs, which reported record net earnings of $9.5 billion. The compensation included a cash bonus of $27.3 million, with the rest paid in stock and options. A year later, he received total compensation of $53.9 million, which included a base salary of $600,000, a cash bonus of $26.9 million, stocks granted of $15.5 million and options granted of $10.4 million. On April 7, 2009, he recommended guidelines to overhaul executive compensation. According to "The New York Times", he said that lessons from the global financial crisis included the need to "apply basic standards to how we compensate people in our industry". He received US$23 million in salary and bonuses in 2015, which was slightly down from the US$24 million he earned in 2014 from Goldman Sachs. According to the "Financial Times", Blankfein earned an estimated $22.3 million in 2016.


title: Lloyd Blankfein

text: On March 9, 2018, "The Wall Street Journal" reported that Blankfein would step down from leading Goldman Sachs by the end of the year. Later that day, Blankfein tweeted "It's the @WSJ's announcement...not mine. I feel like Huck Finn listening to his own eulogy." On March 12, Goldman announced that Harvey Schwartz, the company's co-chief operating officer and president would be resigning, leaving David Solomon as the second-in-command. Hours after the announcement, media outlets–both domestic and international–informally designated Solomon as Blankfein's heir apparent. It was announced in July 2018 that Solomon would become CEO on October 1, 2018 and chairman by the end of 2018.


title: Lloyd Blankfein

text: Blankfein has self-identified as "a registered Democrat, and a Rockefeller Republican ... conservative on fiscal issues and more liberal on social issues". Blankfein contributes to mostly Democratic party candidates. He donated $4,600 to Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton in 2007, and to the Senate re-election campaigns for the Republicans Rob Portman and Roy Blunt in 2015. During the Obama administration, he visited the White House a total of 14 times. On July 18, 2012 after meeting with Barack Obama's chief of staff, Jack Lew, he was asked whether he had any aspiration to go into government like predecessors Hank Paulson and Robert Rubin. "I have aspirations to be desired," he replied.


title: Lloyd Blankfein

text: During the 2016 presidential election, presidential candidate Bernie Sanders named Blankfein as an example of corporate greed in January 2016. Blankfein responded that Sanders' campaign had "the potential to be a dangerous moment." Blankfein endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, citing her willingness to be bipartisan, in the run-up for the 2016 U.S. presidential election.


title: Lloyd Blankfein

text: He is a supporter of gay marriage and has been a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group for LGBTQ civil rights.


title: Lloyd Blankfein

text: In April 2022, Blankfein argued that revoking Disney's special status, enshrined in the Reedy Creek Improvement Act, due to the company objecting to Governor Ron DeSantis' view on Florida House Bill 1557 represents a form of government retaliation for "exercising free speech." He also said it is a "bad look for a conservative."


title: Lloyd Blankfein

text: At the start of 2012, an international inquiry into the average of interest rates of London known as the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor), found that there was systemic manipulation by various bulge bracket banks for profit. The ensuing July 2012 Libor scandal prompted Blankfein to note that the general distrust of the financial world was worsened: "There was this huge hole to dig out of in terms of getting trust back and now it's just that much deeper."


title: Lloyd Blankfein

text: On June 1, 2017, Blankfein posted his first ever tweet, despite joining Twitter in 2011. He condemned President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Accord, saying "Today's decision is a setback for the environment and for the U.S.'s leadership position in the world. #ParisAgreement".


title: Lloyd Blankfein

text: During the coronavirus pandemic, Blankfein consistently and repeatedly called for loosening coronavirus response measures and reopening the economy. In March 2020, he said “extreme measures to flatten the virus ‘curve’” were sensible “for a time” but that they could crush the economy. He said, “Within a very few weeks let those with a lower risk to the disease return to work.” In May 2020, amid reopenings of the economy, Blankfein said that the U.S. would have to suffer through a spike in coronavirus cases because the U.S. could not provide additional coronavirus-related stimulus. At the time, he wrote, "Is the public health benefit from broad lockdowns at this point worth such extreme damage to livelihoods?" CBS News described Blankfein as "a leading spokesperson" for the "reopen the economy" movement.


title: Lloyd Blankfein

text: Blankfein opposes a wealth tax on billionaires. In 2019, while criticizing Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax, he alluded to her claimed Native American heritage, saying "Maybe tribalism is just in her DNA." Under her wealth tax proposal, Blankfein would have owed more than $30 million per year in taxes on his estimated $1.1 billion wealth.


title: Lloyd Blankfein

text: Blankfein who earned $24 million from Goldman Sachs in 2018 criticized the notion that CEOs are overpaid. In 2019, he said he felt a "lack of appreciation" in society for Wall Streeters.


title: Lloyd Blankfein

text: Blankfein's total compensation from 2000 to 2009 was estimated to be around $240 million. During this time period he personally donated $11 million (4.58% of his total compensation) to charitable organizations. His joint charity foundation, the Lloyd and Laura Blankfein Foundation, donated $620,000 to Harvard Law School, $500,000 to the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, $50,000 to Barnard College, $46,500 to the Robin Hood Foundation, and $10,000 to Carnegie Hall in fiscal year 2010.


title: Lloyd Blankfein

text: He serves on the board of directors of the Partnership for New York City, and on the board of overseers of the Weill Cornell Medical College.


title: Lloyd Blankfein

text: Blankfein is married to Laura Jacobs, an attorney and the daughter of Norman S. Jacobs, the editor-in-chief of the Foreign Policy Association publications. The couple have two sons, Alexander and Jonathan, and a daughter, Rachel.


title: Lloyd Blankfein

text: On September 22, 2015, Blankfein was diagnosed with a form of lymphoma. He received multiple rounds of treatment of chemotherapy and by October 2016 was in remission.


title: Crank: High Voltage

text: Crank: High Voltage (alternately titled Crank 2: High Voltage) is a 2009 American action film written and directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor. It is the sequel to the 2006 film "Crank", and stars Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Clifton Collins Jr., Efren Ramirez, Bai Ling, David Carradine, and Dwight Yoakam. The story follows ex-hitman Chev Chelios, who, shortly after surviving a deadly fall on the streets of Los Angeles, is kidnapped and has his heart stolen by Chinese gangsters who replace it with an artificial organ designed to keep him alive for an hour. Chev then sets out to find his heart while keeping himself electrically charged to stay alive. The film also features several cameo appearances of celebrities from various entertainment media.


title: Crank: High Voltage

text: The film was released in the United Kingdom on April 15, 2009, two days prior to its North American release date, April 17, 2009. Critics were not given advance screening of the film; those who saw it upon release, however, praised Statham's performance but criticized it as excessively violent, offensive, and visually unappealing.


title: Crank: High Voltage

text: Chev Chelios lands in the middle of an intersection after falling out of a helicopter. He is scooped off the street by gangsters and removed from the scene. Chev wakes up in a makeshift hospital and sees doctors removing his heart while Johnny Vang watches. The doctors place an artificial heart in his chest. He wakes up later and escapes, noticing an external battery pack is attached to him. By interrogating a thug, he learns the location of Johnny Vang: the Cypress Social Club.


title: Crank: High Voltage

text: Chev calls Doc Miles, who says that Chev has been fitted with an AbioCor artificial heart. Miles informs Chev that once the external battery pack runs out, the internal battery will kick in and he will have 60 minutes before it stops working. Chev crashes his car, destroying the external battery pack. After getting directions from a driver, Chev has the driver use jumper cables on him to charge the internal battery. At the club, Chev loses Vang but picks up a prostitute named Ria, who sends him to a strip club where Vang is hiding out. In the club, Chev finds Eve, who is now working as a stripper. A group of Mexican mobsters, led by Chico, show up looking for Chev. After a gunfight, Chev learns that a mobster named "El Hurón" ("The Ferret") wants to kill him, but he doesn't find out why.


title: Crank: High Voltage

text: Chev commandeers a police cruiser with Eve and another stripper. The stripper tells Chev that he should look at the Hollywood Racetrack for Johnny Vang. Along the way, Chev meets Venus, the brother of Chev's deceased associate Kaylo. Wanting his help, Chev tells Venus that El Huron was involved in his brother's death. At the horse track Chev begins losing energy again. Another call to Doc Miles informs him that friction will cause static electricity to power the internal battery. Eve arrives and has sex with Chev on the racetrack, which generates enough friction to charge the heart. Chev spots Vang and leaves Eve behind. Vang escapes, and Chev is about to be subdued by security when Don Kim picks Chev up in a limo. He informs Chev that there is a prominent leader in the Triads named Poon Dong, who was in need of a heart transplant and chose Chev's to replace his. Chev kills Don Kim and his henchmen upon learning that Don Kim wishes to return him to Poon Dong for a reward. Meanwhile, Venus calls in Orlando to assist in tracking down El Huron.


title: Crank: High Voltage

text: While searching for Vang, Chev boards an ambulance and steals a battery pack for his artificial heart. Chev exits the ambulance upon seeing Johnny Vang on the street outside and a shootout ensues before Chev subdues Vang. Chev learns that his heart has already been transplanted into Poon Dong. Johnny Vang is shot and killed by Chico as Chev questions him, and Chev is knocked unconscious. Doc Miles uses his secretary, Dark Chocolate, to lure Poon Dong into his apartment to kill him and retrieve Chev's heart.


title: Crank: High Voltage

text: Chev is taken to Catalina Island where El Huron awaits. It is revealed that El Huron is the brother of Ricky and Alex Verona, both of whom Chelios killed. El Huron also reveals that Ricky Verona's disembodied head is being artificially kept alive long enough to watch El Huron kill Chelios. Orlando, Venus and Ria suddenly arrive with backup, and a shootout ensues, killing most of El Huron's men. Ricky Verona's head is killed during the melee. As he starts to slow down, Chev climbs a nearby electric pole and grabs a pair of live wires to recharge, being set on fire by the massive current. He returns fully powered and beats El Huron to death. Due to a hallucination caused by the electric currents, he sees Ria as Eve and kisses her, inadvertently setting her ablaze. Chev walks towards the camera and gives the audience the middle finger.


title: Crank: High Voltage

text: During the end credits, Doc Miles replaces Chev's heart. Chelios's eyes open and his heart monitor indicates normal activity.


title: Crank: High Voltage

text: Celebrity cameos include Ron Jeremy, Ed Powers, Jenna Haze, Nick Manning, Lexington Steele, Chester Bennington, Glenn Howerton, Maynard James Keenan, Danny Lohner, Keith Jardine, Lauren Holly, and Lloyd Kaufman.


title: Crank: High Voltage

text: After the modest success of "Crank" at the box office, its directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor were approached by Lionsgate Films to direct a sequel. Neveldine and Taylor refused, explaining that the idea "sounded ridiculous" and "kinda lame" as they had already "killed" its protagonist, Chev Chelios, at the end of "Crank". According to producer Skip Williamson, the duo passed on the opportunity to direct because "they didn't think they could toughen themselves" due to the "outlandishness" of the first film and would rather stay on as screenwriters. The duo later became interested to direct the finished script; Taylor explained that he and Neveldine "had fallen in love with [the script] and we were not going to let anyone else touch it", believing no other director could direct it better than they. Taylor said the writing process was relatively "easier" on "Crank 2" since the script picked up where the first film left off and adopted the same location and a few characters of the original. As such, Taylor saw the script as an opportunity to write Chelios' dialogue in the way that matched Statham's British vernacular, something he was unable to do on the first film since he had written the role specifically for an American actor before Statham was cast.


title: Crank: High Voltage

text: An October 2007 "Variety" report stated that Jason Statham was set to reprise his role as Chelios for "Crank 2". Statham himself was thrilled to be on the sequel, stating he "was completely excited by how ludicrous and outrageous they made part two. This one takes it to the next level." According to Taylor, Statham called "Crank 2" "the most fun movie I've read since "Lock, Stock"". An April 2008 "Variety" report announced that Amy Smart, Clifton Collins Jr., Bai Ling, Dwight Yoakam, and Efren Ramirez had joined the cast.


title: Crank: High Voltage

text: Filming lasted 31 days in Los Angeles, from April 28 to June 9, 2008. Locations that were used include the Port of Los Angeles, Inglewood, East and Downtown Los Angeles, and the Los Alamitos Race Course where the sex scene between Chev and Eve was filmed. To achieve the same "hyper-kinetic visuals" of the first film, Neveldine, Taylor and cinematographer Brandon Trost acted as camera operators and photographed using "prosumer" high-definition camcorders including Canon's VIXIA HF-10 and XH-A1. The size and weight of these cameras provided the directors mobility (especially when Neveldine filmed chase scenes with Rollerblades on), and allowed them to capture from hard-to-reach areas and wrap filming quickly. Specialty rigs were also developed for the film, one of which was a piece of speed rail bent 180 degrees and mounted with a total of eight cameras that lent a bullet-time look reminiscent of "The Matrix". Although the film looks noticeably handheld, Fig Rigs were used to keep scenes as stable as possible. Nearly 300 hours of footage was shot by the time filming was completed.


title: Crank: High Voltage

text: "Crank: High Voltage" opened in 2,223 theaters in North America and grossed $6,963,565 with an average of $3,133 per theater and ranking #6 at the box office. The film ended up earning $13,684,249 domestically and $20,876,328 internationally for a total of $34,560,577.


title: Crank: High Voltage

text: The film was not screened for critics. Rotten Tomatoes reported a score of 64%, with an average rating of 5.90/10, based on 70 reviews. The website's consensus reads, ""Crank: High Voltage" delivers on its promises: a fast-paced, exciting thrill ride that doesn't take itself too seriously." On Metacritic, the film earned "mixed or average reviews," with a weighted average of 41 out of 100 based on 15 reviews. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of "C−" on a scale of A to F.


title: Crank: High Voltage

text: Critics assessed the film in comparison to the original, to mixed reactions. "The Hollywood Reporter" critic Frank Scheck said it "follows the same formula as the first, with one difference: They've managed to ramp up the action and vulgarity beyond the insane heights of the original". Chris Tilly for "IGN UK" said that "if anything, [the sequel] is even more outlandish and ridiculous than its predecessor". Rob Nelson for "Variety" wrote, "Yet another "D.O.A." for the ADD era, "Crank: High Voltage" rewards the sizable cult audience of 2006's "Crank" with more of the same, only stupider." "The New York Times" critic Jeannette Catsoulis called it "boorish, bigoted and borderline pornographic" like the original. Both Stephanie Zacharek and Alexander Larman criticized how the sequel had dropped the "good-naturedness" of the original in favor of shocking the viewers with excessive profanity and mayhem; Larman said that "the sequel seems content to wallow in mean-spirited unpleasantness, apparently on the grounds that not enough films these days feature, say, graphic genital torture or a man slicing off his own nipples".