title: Urho Kekkonen

text: Nevertheless, during Kekkonen's presidency, a few parties were represented in most governments — mainly the Centrists, Social Democrats, and Swedish People's Party — while the People's Democrats and Communists were often in government from 1966 onwards.


title: Urho Kekkonen

text: Throughout his time as president, Kekkonen did his best to keep political adversaries in check. The Centre Party's rival National Coalition Party was kept in opposition for 20 years despite good election performances. The Rural Party (which had broken away from the Centre Party) was treated similarly. On a few occasions, parliament was dissolved for no other reason than that its political composition did not please Kekkonen. Despite his career in the Centre Party, his relation to the party was often difficult. There was a so-called "K-linja" ("K policy", named after Urho Kekkonen, Ahti Karjalainen and Arvo Korsimo), which promoted friendly relations and bilateral trade with the Soviet Union. Kekkonen consolidated his power within the party by placing supporters of the "K-linja" in leading roles. Various Centre Party members to whose prominence Kekkonen objected often found themselves sidelined, as Kekkonen negotiated directly with the lower level. Chairman of the Centre Party, Johannes Virolainen, was threatened by Kekkonen with the dissolution of parliament when Kekkonen wanted to nominate SDP's Sorsa instead of Virolainen as Prime Minister. Kekkonen's so-called "Mill Letters" were a continuous stream of directives to high officials, politicians, and journalists. Yet Kekkonen by no means always used coercive measures. Some prominent politicians, most notably Tuure Junnila (NCP) and Veikko Vennamo (Rural Party), were able to brand themselves as "anti-Kekkonen" without automatically suffering his displeasure as a consequence.


title: Urho Kekkonen

text: In the presidential election of 1956, Kekkonen defeated the Social Democrat Karl-August Fagerholm 151–149 in the electoral college vote. The campaign was notably vicious, with many personal attacks against several candidates, especially Kekkonen. The tabloid gossip newspaper "Sensaatio-Uutiset" ("Sensational News") accused Kekkonen of fistfighting, excessive drinking and extramarital affairs. The drinking and womanizing charges were partly true. At times, during evening parties with his friends, Kekkonen got drunk, and he had at least two longtime mistresses.


title: Urho Kekkonen

text: As president, Kekkonen continued the neutrality policy of President Paasikivi, which came to be known as the Paasikivi–Kekkonen line. From the beginning, he ruled with the assumption that he alone was acceptable to the Soviet Union as Finnish President. Evidence from defectors like Oleg Gordievsky and files from the Soviet archives show that keeping Kekkonen in power was indeed the main objective of the Soviet Union in its relations with Finland.


title: Urho Kekkonen

text: In August 1958, Karl-August Fagerholm's third cabinet, a coalition government led by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and including Kekkonen's party Agrarian League, was formed. The Communist front SKDL was left out. This irritated the Soviet Union because of the inclusion of ministers from SDP's anti-Communist wing, namely Väinö Leskinen and Olavi Lindblom. They were seen by the Soviet Union as puppets of the anti-Communist SDP chair Väinö Tanner, who had been convicted in the war-responsibility trials. Kekkonen had warned against this but was ignored by SDP. The Night Frost Crisis, as coined by Nikita Khrushchev, led to Soviet pressure against Finland in economic matters. Kekkonen sided with the Soviet Union, working behind the scenes against the cabinet; Fagerholm's cabinet consequently resigned in December 1958. The Finnish Foreign Ministry ignored United States offers for help as promised by Ambassador John D. Hickerson in November 1958. The crisis was resolved by Kekkonen in January 1959, when he privately travelled to Moscow to negotiate with Khrushchev and Andrei Gromyko. The crisis hurt the freedom of the parties to compose coalition governments, so that after the crisis, Kekkonen was seen as the only authority for deciding which parties can participate in cabinets.


title: Urho Kekkonen

text: The second time the Soviets helped Kekkonen came in the Note Crisis in 1961. The most widely held view of the Note Crisis is that the Soviet Union acted to ensure Kekkonen's reelection. Parties competing against Kekkonen attempted to form an anti-Kekkonen alliance, ""Honka-liitto"", to promote Chancellor of Justice Olavi Honka, a non-partisan candidate, in the 1962 presidential elections. Kekkonen had planned to prevent "Honka-liitto" from succeeding by dissolving parliament. However, in October 1961, the Soviet Union sent a diplomatic note demanding common military exercises against the West in reference to the Finno-Soviet Treaty. As a result, Honka dropped his candidacy, leaving Kekkonen with a clear majority (199 / 300 electors) in the 1962 elections. In addition to support from his own party, Kekkonen received the backing of the Swedish People's Party and the Finnish People's Party, a small classical liberal party. Furthermore, the conservative National Coalition Party quietly supported Kekkonen, although they had no official presidential candidate after Honka's withdrawal. Following the Note Crisis, genuine opposition to Kekkonen disappeared, and he acquired an exceptionally strong—later even autocratic—status as the political leader of Finland.


title: Urho Kekkonen

text: Kekkonen's policies, especially towards the USSR, were criticised within his own party by Veikko Vennamo, who broke off his Centre Party affiliation when Kekkonen was elected president in 1956. In 1959, Vennamo founded the Finnish Rural Party, the forerunner of the nationalist True Finns.


title: Urho Kekkonen

text: In the 1960s Kekkonen was responsible for a number of foreign-policy initiatives, including the Nordic nuclear-free zone proposal, a border agreement with Norway, and a 1969 Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. The purpose of these initiatives was to avoid the enforcement of the military articles in the Finno-Soviet Treaty which called for military co-operation with the Soviet Union. Kekkonen thereby hoped to strengthen Finland's moves toward a policy of neutrality. Following the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, pressure for neutrality increased. Kekkonen informed the Soviet Union in 1970 that if it was no longer prepared to recognise Finland's neutrality, he would not continue as president, nor would the Finno-Soviet Treaty be extended.


title: Urho Kekkonen

text: Kekkonen was re-elected for a third term in 1968. That year, he was supported by five political parties: the Centre Party, the Social Democrats, the Social Democratic Union of Workers and Smallholders (a short-lived SDP faction), the Finnish People's Democratic League (a communist front), and the Swedish People's Party. He received 201 votes in the electoral college, whereas the National Coalition party's candidate finished second with 66 votes. Vennamo came third with 33 votes. Although Kekkonen was re-elected with two-thirds of the vote, he was so displeased with his opponents and their behaviour that he publicly refused to stand for the presidency again. Vennamo's bold and constant criticisms of his presidency and policies especially infuriated Kekkonen, who labelled him a "cheat" and "demagogue".


title: Urho Kekkonen

text: Initially, Kekkonen had intended to retire at the end of this term, and the Centre Party already began to prepare for his succession by Ahti Karjalainen. However, Kekkonen began to see Karjalainen as a rival instead, and eventually rejected the idea.


title: Urho Kekkonen

text: On 18 January 1973, the Finnish Parliament extended Kekkonen's presidential term by four years with an exceptive law. By this time, Kekkonen had secured the backing of most political parties, but the major right-wing National Coalition Party, which Kekkonen had opposed, was still skeptical, and stood in the way of the required 5/6 majority. Concurrently, Finland was negotiating a free-trade agreement with the EEC, a deal that was seen as vital by Finnish industry. Kekkonen had implied that only he personally could satisfy the Soviet Union that the deal would not threaten Soviet interests. The tactic secured National Coalition support and the subsequent passing of an exceptive law (an ad hoc law made as an exception to the constitution). The elimination of any significant opposition and competition meant he became Finland's "de facto" political autocrat. His power reached its zenith in 1975 when he dissolved parliament and hosted the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) in Helsinki with the assistance of a caretaker government.


title: Urho Kekkonen

text: After nine political parties supported Kekkonen's candidacy in the 1978 presidential election, including the Social Democratic, Centre and National Coalition parties, no serious rivals remained. He humiliated his opponents by not appearing in televised presidential debates and went on to win 259 out of the 300 electoral college votes, with his nearest rival, Raino Westerholm of the Christian Union, receiving only 25.


title: Urho Kekkonen

text: According to Finnish historians and political journalists, there were at least three reasons why Kekkonen clung on to the Presidency. First, he did not believe that any of his successor candidates would manage Finland's Soviet foreign policy well enough. Second, until at least the summer of 1978, he considered there was room for improvement in Finnish-Soviet relations and that his experience was vital to the process. This is exemplified by the use of his diplomatic skills to reject the Soviet Defence Minister Dmitriy Ustinov's offer to arrange a joined Soviet-Finnish military exercise.


title: Urho Kekkonen

text: Third, he believed that by working for as long as possible he would remain healthy and live longer. Kekkonen's most severe critics, such as Veikko Vennamo, claimed that he remained President so long mainly because he and his closest associates were power-hungry. In 1980 Kekkonen was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize.


title: Urho Kekkonen

text: From December 1980 onwards, Kekkonen suffered from an undisclosed disease that appeared to affect his brain functions, sometimes leading to delusional thoughts. He had begun to suffer occasional brief memory lapses as early as the autumn of 1972; they became more frequent during the late 1970s. Around the same time, Kekkonen's eyesight deteriorated so much that for his last few years in office, all of his official papers had to be typed in block letters. Kekkonen had also suffered from a failing sense of balance since the mid-1970s and from enlargement of his prostate gland since 1974. He was also subject to occasional violent headaches and suffered from diabetes from the autumn of 1979. Rumors about his declining health had begun to circulate in the mid to late 1970s, but the press attempted to silence these rumors to respect the president's privacy.


title: Urho Kekkonen

text: According to biographer Juhani Suomi, Kekkonen gave no thought to resigning until his physical condition began to deteriorate in July 1981. The 80-year-old president then began to seriously consider resigning, most likely in early 1982. Prime Minister Mauno Koivisto finally dealt a defeat to Kekkonen in 1981. In April, Koivisto did what no one else had dared to during Kekkonen's presidency by stating that under the constitution, the prime minister and cabinet were responsible to Parliament, not to the President. Kekkonen asked Koivisto to resign, but he refused. This is generally seen as the death knell of the Kekkonen era; Kekkonen, who felt that he had lost a significant amount of his authority, never fully recovered from the shock caused by this event.


title: Urho Kekkonen

text: Historians and journalists debate the precise meaning of this dispute. According to Seppo Zetterberg, Allan Tiitta, and Pekka Hyvärinen, Kekkonen wanted to force Koivisto to resign to decrease his chances of succeeding him as president. In contrast, Juhani Suomi believed the dispute involved scheming between Koivisto and rival prospective presidential candidates. Kekkonen at times criticised Koivisto for making political decisions too slowly and for his vacillation, especially for speaking too unclearly and philosophically.


title: Urho Kekkonen

text: Kekkonen became ill in August during a fishing trip to Iceland. He went on medical leave on 10 September, before finally resigning due to ill health on 26 October 1981, aged 81. There is no report available about his illness, as the papers have been moved to an unknown location, but it is commonly believed that he suffered from vascular dementia, probably due to atherosclerosis.


title: Urho Kekkonen

text: Kekkonen withdrew from politics during his final years. He died at Tamminiemi on August 31, 1986, three days before his 86th birthday, and was buried with full honours. His heirs restricted access to his diaries and later an "authorised" biography by Juhani Suomi was commissioned, the author subsequently defending the interpretation of the history therein and denigrating most other interpretations. Critics have questioned the value of this work; the historian Hannu Rautkallio considered the biography little else than a "commercial project" designed for selling books rather than aiming for historical accuracy.


title: Urho Kekkonen

text: Some of Kekkonen's actions remain controversial in modern Finland, and disputes continue about how to interpret many of his policies and actions. He often used what was termed the "Moscow card" when his authority was threatened, but he was not the only Finnish politician with close relations to Soviet representatives. Kekkonen's authoritarian behavior during his presidential term was one of the main reasons for the reforms of the Finnish Constitution in 1984–2003. Under these, the powers of Parliament and the prime minister were increased at the expense of presidential power. Several of the changes were initiated by Kekkonen's successors.


title: Urho Kekkonen

text: Although controversial, his policy of neutrality allowed trade with both the Communist and Western blocs. The bilateral trade policy with the Soviet Union was lucrative for many Finnish businesses. His term saw a period of high sustained economic growth and increasing integration with the West. He negotiated entrance into EFTA and thus was an early beginner for Finnish participation in European integration, which later culminated in full membership in the EU and the euro. He remained highly popular during his term, even though such a profile approached that of a personality cult towards the end of his term. He is still popular among many of his contemporaries, particularly in his own Centre Party.


title: Greater omentum

text: The greater omentum (also the great omentum, omentum majus, gastrocolic omentum, epiploon, or, especially in animals, caul) is a large apron-like fold of visceral peritoneum that hangs down from the stomach. It extends from the greater curvature of the stomach, passing in front of the small intestines and doubles back to ascend to the transverse colon before reaching to the posterior abdominal wall. The greater omentum is larger than the lesser omentum, which hangs down from the liver to the lesser curvature. The common anatomical term "epiploic" derives from "epiploon", from the Greek "epipleein", meaning to float or sail on, since the greater omentum appears to float on the surface of the intestines. It is the first structure observed when the abdominal cavity is opened anteriorly (from the front).


title: Greater omentum

text: The greater omentum is the larger of the two peritoneal folds. It consists of a double sheet of peritoneum, folded on itself so that it has four layers.


title: Greater omentum

text: The two layers of the greater omentum descend from the greater curvature of the stomach and the beginning of the duodenum. They pass in front of the small intestines, sometimes as low as the pelvis, before turning on themselves, and ascending as far as the transverse colon, where they separate and enclose that part of the intestine.


title: Greater omentum

text: These individual layers are easily seen in the young, but in the adult they are more or less inseparably blended.


title: Greater omentum

text: The left border of the greater omentum is continuous with the gastrosplenic ligament; its right border extends as far as the beginning of the duodenum.


title: Greater omentum

text: The greater omentum is usually thin, and has a perforated appearance. It contains some adipose tissue, which can accumulate considerably in obese people. It is highly vascularised.


title: Greater omentum

text: The greater omentum is often defined to encompass a variety of structures. Most sources include the following three:


title: Greater omentum

text: The splenorenal ligament (or lienorenal ligament) (from the left kidney to the spleen) is occasionally considered part of the greater omentum. It is derived from the peritoneum, where the wall of the general peritoneal cavity comes into contact with the lesser sac between the left kidney and the spleen; the splenic artery and vein pass between its two layers. It contains the tail of the pancreas, the only intraperitoneal portion of the pancreas, and splenic vessels.


title: Greater omentum

text: The phrenosplenic ligament (lienophrenic ligament or phrenicolienal ligament) is a double fold of peritoneum that connects the thoracic diaphragm and spleen.


title: Greater omentum

text: The phrenicosplenic ligament is part of the greater omentum. Distinctions between the phrenicosplenic ligament and adjacent ligaments, such as the gastrophrenic, gastrosplenic and splenorenal ligaments, which are all part of the same mesenteric sheet, are often nebulous.


title: Greater omentum

text: The right and left gastroepiploic arteries (also known as gastroomental) provide the sole blood supply to the greater omentum. Both are branches of the celiac trunk. The right gastroepiploic artery is a branch of the gastroduodenal artery, which is a branch of the common hepatic artery, which is a branch of the celiac trunk. The left gastroepiploic artery is the largest branch of the splenic artery, which is a branch of the celiac trunk. The right and left gastroepiploic arteries anastomose within the two layers of the anterior greater omentum along the greater curvature of the stomach.


title: Greater omentum

text: The greater omentum develops from the dorsal mesentery that connects the stomach to the posterior abdominal wall. During its development, the stomach undergoes its first 90° rotation along the axis of the embryo, so that posterior structures are moved to the left and structures anterior to the stomach are shifted to the right. As a result, the dorsal mesentery folds over on itself, forming a pouch with its blind end on the left side of the embryo. A second approximately 90° rotation of the stomach, this time in the frontal plane, moves structures inferior if they were originally to the left of the stomach, and superior if they were originally to the stomach's right. Consequently, the blind-ended sac (also called the lesser sac) formed by the dorsal mesentery is brought inferiorly, where it assumes its final position as the greater omentum. It grows to the point that it covers the majority of the small and large intestine.


title: Greater omentum

text: Omentectomy refers to the surgical removal of the omentum, a relatively simple procedure with no documented major side effects, that is performed in cases where there is concern that there may be spread of cancerous tissue into the omentum. Examples for this are ovarian cancer and advanced or aggressive endometrial cancer as well as intestinal cancer and also appendix cancer. The procedure is generally done as an add-on when the primary lesion is removed.


title: Greater omentum

text: The greater omentum may be surgically harvested for reconstruction of the thoracic wall. It has also been used experimentally to reinforce bioengineered tissues transplanted to the surface of the heart for cardiac regeneration.


title: Greater omentum

text: The greater omentum may be surgically harvested to provide revascularization of brain tissue after a stroke.


title: Greater omentum

text: The greater omentum is also known as the great omentum, the omentum majus, the gastrocolic omentum, the epiploon, and the caul.


title: Greater omentum

text: In 1906, the greater omentum was described as the "abdominal policeman" by the surgeon James Rutherford Morrison. This is due to its immunological function, whereby omental tissue seems to "surveil" the abdomen for infection and cover areas of infection when found - walling it off with immunologically active tissue.


title: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons song)

text: "Radioactive" is a song by American pop rock band Imagine Dragons from their major-label debut EP "Continued Silence" and later on their debut studio album, "Night Visions" (2012), as the opening track. It was first sent to modern rock radio on October 29, 2012, and then released to contemporary radio on April 9, 2013. Musically, "Radioactive" is an electronic rock and pop rock song with elements of dubstep. In a 2021 podcast interview called The Turning Point, Dan Reynolds revealed that after almost a decade, he had realized that lyrics were actually about him not giving up hope after losing faith in Mormonism.


title: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons song)

text: The song received positive reviews from critics, who praised the production, lyrics, and vocals, calling it a highlight on the album. Due to heavy rotation on various commercials and trailers, the song became a sleeper hit, peaking at number three on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 chart and becoming the band's first top 10 single as well as being the third best selling song in that country in 2013. It also broke the record for slowest ascension to the top 5 in chart history and held the record for most weeks spent on the "Billboard" Hot 100 at 87 weeks, a record for 7 years. The song has also reached number one in Sweden and in the top 20 in several countries including Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, becoming Imagine Dragons' most successful single to date. It has since been certified Diamond in the US, making it one of the best selling singles of all time.


title: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons song)

text: "Radioactive" received two Grammy Awards nominations for Record of the Year and Best Rock Performance, winning the latter. This was Imagine Dragons' first time being nominated. During the broadcast, they presented a remix of the song with their Interscope label-mate, rapper Kendrick Lamar. The remix was later released for purchase on iTunes.


title: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons song)

text: "Radioactive" was written by Imagine Dragons and producer Alex Da Kid. It is one of the more electronically influenced tracks on "Night Visions" as well as one of the darkest, similar to fourth track "Demons". The song is an electronic rock and alternative rock song with elements of dubstep. The song's lyrics speak of apocalyptic and revolutionist themes: 'I'm waking up to ash and dust' and 'This is it, the apocalypse'. Though the band has publicly maintained its secularity, NPR music critic Ann Powers has opined that the song features strong "religious or spiritual imagery", the likes of which have been common throughout the history of rock music.


title: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons song)

text: "Radioactive" was released to positive reviews. Anne Erickson of "Audio Ink Radio" gave the song a rating of 4.5 out of 5, calling it "hook-y [and] emotional", and stated that the "drama" and "excitement" of the song would allow "Radioactive" to appeal to both alternative pop fans and hard rockers. "AbsolutePunk" gave a positive review, calling the acoustic section of the song "haunting", and called the chorus "hypnotizing". Dara Hickey of "Unreality Shout" also reacted positively, calling the song the "darkest moment" on the album, and stated that, like all the other songs on the album, "Radioactive" was successful in creating a sound that "never fails to take off and send fists skyward". IGN lauded the song, calling it "strangely intense and abrasive", and stated that "Radioactive" was "perhaps the greatest calling card of Imagine Dragons".


title: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons song)

text: "Crave Online" called the song an "opening throb", saying that the song "sexes up the dub-flirtation with a verse hingeing on the line 'this is it, the apocalypse' and a triumphant chorus, with more than a few shades of Hip-Hop in the production", and that the song was as "radio-ready as they come". "Our Vinyl" stated that the "power of this song is outstanding with heavy drums and more of an electronic feel than the rest of the album and strong, impressive vocals from front-man Dan Reynolds which are reciprocated throughout the LP." Jon Dolan of "Rolling Stone" was critical of the song, calling it "a dour moaner that sound[s] like Chris Martin trying to write an Eminem ballad about the end of the world."


title: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons song)

text: In 2018, "Billboard" and "Louder Sound" ranked the song number two and number one, respectively, on their lists of the 10 greatest Imagine Dragons songs.


title: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons song)

text: Hipster Runoff, a satirical and now discontinued readership blog, named it 'the worst song of all time'.


title: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons song)

text: "Radioactive" debuted at 96 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 after the release of "Night Visions" in September 2012 and remained at the lower ends of the chart for some time. In April 2013, the song made its top ten entry at number seven, besting the number 15 position set by previous single "It's Time". In mid June, the song reached number four, breaking the record for the slowest ascension to the top five, besting the previous holder Florida Georgia Line's song "Cruise", which broke the record just three weeks earlier. Two weeks later, the song reached its peak at number three. The song formerly held the record for the longest reign atop the "Billboard" Hot Rock Songs chart at 23 weeks before being surpassed by Walk the Moon's "Shut Up and Dance". "Radioactive" currently holds the record for the longest reign atop the "Billboard" Rock Airplay chart, with 24 weeks.


title: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons song)

text: The song is also the best-selling rock song in US digital history. It was the No. 2 Song of the Summer according to "Billboard" and spent 87 weeks on the "Billboard" Hot 100, breaking the all-time chart longevity record, previously held by Jason Mraz's 2008 single "I'm Yours", and overtaken by The Weeknd's 2019 single "Blinding Lights", which spent 90 weeks on the Hot 100 as of the chart issue dated September 4, 2021. However, it still holds the record for most consecutive weeks on the Hot 100, at 85. It has sold more copies in a calendar year than any other song by a rock act in digital history. "Radioactive" was the third best selling song of 2013 with sales of 5,496,000 for the year. It has gone on to sell 8,234,360 digital copies in the nation as of September 2017, and was certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).


title: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons song)

text: The song has reached number one in Sweden and in the top twenty of several countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand as well as several parts of Europe. In the UK, the song debuted at 35 thanks to strong downloads from the "Hear Me EP" in November. After the release of "Night Visions" in April, the song peaked at number 12, becoming their highest charting single there.


title: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons song)

text: The music video debuted on December 10, 2012. Directed by Syndrome and featuring puppeteers from Puppet Heap, the video revolves around a mysterious female drifter (played by actress Alexandra Daddario) on a quest to save her friends in Imagine Dragons from the perils of a sinister, underground puppet-fighting ring led by actor Lou Diamond Phillips. The Champion of the fight, Gorigula, a large purple beast, beats and kills innocent stuffed animals and puppets forced to fight. After one puppet, Screaming Richard, is killed, the woman's pink teddy bear puppet enters the ring and fights Gorigula, initially being beaten up. After rising from the ground, the teddy bear knocks out Gorigula with a single superpower punch. The ringleader sends two bodyguards to subdue the teddy, whose laser vision disintegrates both of them. The remaining spectators flee, leaving the drifter with the stunned ringleader. The drifter takes a key off the chain around the ringleader's neck and the pink bear pulls the lever, causing the ringleader to fall in the dungeon. The drifter unlocks the door and frees the band. They climb out, while one member notices both the pink bear and the dog puppets on her shoulders. The ringleader is left in the dungeon where the earlier-defeated puppets and stuffed animals soon surround and attack him.


title: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons song)

text: Speaking of the video to MTV, Reynolds said "We read through a ton of scripts from really talented directors, and we came across one that stood out to us in particular, because it put into visuals the general theme of the song, which is kind of an empowering song about an awakening, but it did it in a way that was very different". "A lot of people probably see a post-apocalyptic world when they hear 'Radioactive', understandably, but we wanted to deliver something that was maybe a little different from that ... a lot different from that."


title: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons song)

text: As of December 2021, the music video has over 1.4 billion views on YouTube, making it the group's third most viewed video. It also has over 9 million likes.


title: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons song)

text: The first televised performance of "Radioactive" was executed on the September 4, 2012 airing of ABC late-night talk show "Jimmy Kimmel Live!". The song was performed alongside then-current single "It's Time".


title: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons song)

text: In February 2013, the band started the 145-date "Night Visions Tour", which saw the band perform across North America and Europe. During the North American leg, the band made their first national television appearance, performing "Radioactive" on the February 22, 2013 airing of CBS late-night talk show "Late Show with David Letterman".


title: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons song)

text: In addition to performing the song on the March 28, 2013 airing of NBC late-night talk show "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno", the band also performed "Radioactive" on the July 29, 2013 airing of NBC late-night talk show "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon", following the historic performance of "It's Time" to an empty audience during Hurricane Sandy on the October 29, 2012 airing of "Late Night". They performed the song on "Saturday Night Live" with a guest performance by Kendrick Lamar on February 2, 2014, recreating their teamed performance of the song at the Grammy Awards the previous month.


title: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons song)

text: As one of Taylor Swift's many guest appearances on her 1989 World Tour, the band performed the song with Swift herself in Detroit, Michigan.


title: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons song)

text: "Weird Al" Yankovic recorded a parody version entitled "Inactive" for his 2014 album "Mandatory Fun".


title: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons song)

text: "Radioactive" was covered by American violinist Lindsey Stirling with Texan a cappella group Pentatonix and uploaded to Stirling's YouTube channel, becoming immensely successful and as of December 2018 has over 170 million views. The recording subsequently earned a 2013 YouTube Award.


title: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons song)

text: Lady Antebellum covered the song live backstage on their "Take Me Downtown Tour" and put the video on their YouTube channel.


title: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons song)

text: American production duo Synchronice released a melodic dubstep remix of the song which accumulated over 20,000,000 plays on YouTube and over 15,000,000 plays on their own SoundCloud page.


title: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons song)

text: Dutch symphonic metal band Within Temptation recorded a version on their cover album "The Q-Music Sessions" released in April 2013 and released again on their album "Hydra". American post-hardcore band Our Last Night covered the song.


title: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons song)

text: Masha covered "Radioactive" on her popular YouTube channel on May 25, 2013; the video has received 130,000 views as of December 2018. The Radioactive Chicken Heads recorded a punk rock cover of "Radioactive" and released a music video for their version on YouTube. Ed Kowalczyk (of Live) covered the song for an Australian radio station. Country music artist Dallas Smith covered the song on his Tippin' Point tour.


title: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons song)

text: Independent American singer Madilyn Bailey recorded an acoustic cover that reached number 36 on SNEP, the official French singles chart, in June 2015. Kelly Clarkson covered the song as part of her "Fan Requests" on July 12, 2015, during her "Piece by Piece Tour".


title: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons song)

text: Welsh Metalcore band Bullet for My Valentine recorded a cover in 2018 on their sixth studio album Gravity.


title: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons song)

text: The "Night Visions" track was remixed by the band, featuring guest vocals from American rapper Kendrick Lamar. The remix, while retaining most of the original track from "Continued Silence", was recorded by the band and Kendrick Lamar for release as a single. The single was released on January 27, 2014.


title: Radioactive (Imagine Dragons song)

text: "Radioactive" was first performed by Imagine Dragons and Kendrick Lamar at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards, held at the Staples Center, Los Angeles on January 26, 2014. The song was performed in a mashup with Kendrick Lamar's "M.A.A.D City", a track from his Grammy-nominated album "Good Kid, M.A.A.D City". It was the second most tweeted music moment of 2014. The song was performed by the duo again on the February 1, 2014 airing of NBC late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show "Saturday Night Live".


title: Proof of concept

text: Proof of concept (POC or PoC), also known as proof of principle, is a realization of a certain method or idea in order to demonstrate its feasibility, or a demonstration in principle with the aim of verifying that some concept or theory has practical potential. A proof of concept is usually small and may or may not be complete.


title: Proof of concept

text: These collaborative trials aim to test feasibility of business concepts and proposals to solve business problems and accelerate business innovation goals.


title: Proof of concept

text: A proof of value (PoV) is sometimes used along proof of concept, and differs by focusing more on demonstrating the potential customers use case and value, and is usually less in-depth than a proof of concept.


title: Proof of concept

text: The term has been in use since 1967. In a 1969 hearing of the Committee on Science and Astronautics, Subcommittee on Advanced Research and Technology, "proof of concept" was defined as following:


title: Proof of concept

text: One definition of the term "proof of concept" was by Bruce Carsten in the context of a "proof-of-concept prototype" in his magazine column "Carsten's Corner" (1989):


title: Proof of concept

text: The column also provided definitions for the related but distinct terms 'breadboard' (a term used since 1940), 'prototype', 'engineering prototype', and 'brassboard'.


title: Proof of concept

text: "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow", "300", and "Sin City" were all shot in front of a greenscreen with almost all backgrounds and props computer-generated. All three used proof-of-concept short films. In the case of "Sin City", the short film became the prologue of the final film.


title: Proof of concept

text: Pixar sometimes creates short animated films that use a difficult or untested technique. Their short film "Geri's Game" used techniques for animation of cloth and of human facial expressions later used in "Toy Story 2". Similarly, Pixar created several short films as proofs of concept for new techniques for water motion, sea anemone tentacles, and a slowly appearing whale in preparation for the production of "Finding Nemo".


title: Proof of concept

text: In engineering and technology, a rough prototype of a new idea is often constructed as a "proof of concept". For example, a working concept of an electrical device may be constructed using a breadboard. A patent application often requires a demonstration of functionality prior to being filed. Some universities have proof of concept centers to "fill the 'funding gap'" for "seed-stage investing" and "accelerate the commercialization of university innovations". Proof of concept centers provide "seed funding to novel, early stage research that most often would not be funded by any other conventional source".


title: Proof of concept

text: In the field of business development and sales, a vendor may allow a prospect customer to try a product. This use of proof of concept helps establish viability, isolate technical issues, and suggest an overall direction, as well as provide feedback for budgeting and other forms of internal decision-making processes.


title: Proof of concept

text: In these cases, the proof of concept may mean the use of specialized sales engineers to ensure that the vendor makes a best-possible effort.


title: Proof of concept

text: In both computer security and encryption, "proof of concept" refers to a demonstration that in principle shows how a system may be protected or compromised, without the necessity of building a complete working vehicle for that purpose. Winzapper was a proof of concept which possessed the bare minimum of capabilities needed to selectively remove an item from the Windows Security Log, but it was not optimized in any way.


title: Proof of concept

text: In software development, the term 'proof of concept' often characterizes several distinct processes with different objectives and participant roles: vendor business roles may utilize a proof of concept to establish whether a system satisfies some aspect of the purpose it was designed for. Once a vendor is satisfied, a prototype is developed which is then used to seek funding or to demonstrate to prospective customers.


title: Proof of concept

text: A 'steel thread' is technical proof of concept that touches all of the technologies in a solution. By contrast, a 'proof of technology' aims to determine the solution to some technical problem (such as how two systems might integrate) or to demonstrate that a given configuration can achieve a certain throughput. No business users need be involved in a proof of technology.


title: Proof of concept

text: A pilot project refers to an initial roll-out of a system into production, targeting a limited scope of the intended final solution. The scope may be limited by the number of users who can access the system, the business processes affected, the business partners involved, or other restrictions as appropriate to the domain. The purpose of a pilot project is to test, often in a production environment.


title: Proof of concept

text: Tech demos are designed as proof of concept for the development of video games. They can demonstrate graphical or gameplay capabilities crucial for particular games.


title: Proof of concept

text: Although not suggested by natural language, and in contrast to usage in other areas, "proof of principle" and "proof of concept" are not synonymous in drug development. A third term, "proof of mechanism", is closely related and is also described here. All of these terms lack rigorous definitions and exact usage varies between authors, between institutions and over time. The descriptions given below are intended to be informative and practically useful.


title: Proof of concept

text: The underlying principle is related to the use of biomarkers as surrogate endpoints in early clinical trials. In early development it is not practical to directly measure that a drug is effective in treating the desired disease, and a surrogate endpoint is used to guide whether or not it is appropriate to proceed with further testing. For example, although it cannot be determined early that a new antibiotic cures patients with pneumonia, early indicators would include that the drug is effective in killing bacteria in laboratory tests, or that it reduces temperature in infected patients—such a drug would merit further testing to determine the appropriate dose and duration of treatment. A new anti-hypertension drug could be shown to reduce blood pressure, indicating that it would be useful to conduct more extensive testing of long-term treatment in the expectation of showing reductions in stroke (cerebrovascular accident) or heart attack (myocardial infarction). Surrogate endpoints are often based on laboratory blood tests or imaging investigations like X-ray or CT scan.


title: Proof of concept

text: Phase I is typically conducted with a small number of healthy volunteers who are given single doses or short courses of treatment (e.g., up to 2 weeks). Studies in this phase aim to show that the new drug has some of the desired clinical activity (e.g., that an experimental anti-hypertensive drug actually has some effect on reducing blood pressure), that it can be tolerated when given to humans, and to give guidance as to dose levels that are worthy of further study. Other Phase I studies aim to investigate how the new drug is absorbed, distributed, metabolised and excreted (ADME studies).


title: Proof of concept

text: Phase IIA is typically conducted in up to 100 patients with the disease of interest. Studies in this Phase aim to show that the new drug has a useful amount of the desired clinical activity (e.g., that an experimental anti-hypertensive drug reduces blood pressure by a useful amount), that it can be tolerated when given to humans in the longer term, and to investigate which dose levels might be most suitable for eventual marketing.


title: Proof of concept

text: A decision is made at this point as to whether to progress the drug into later development, or if it should be dropped. If the drug continues, it will progress into later stage clinical studies, termed Phase IIB and Phase III.


title: Proof of concept

text: Phase III studies involve larger numbers of patients—commonly multicenter trials—treated at doses and durations representative of marketed use, and in randomised comparison to placebo and/or existing active drugs. They aim to show convincing, statistically significant evidence of efficacy and to give a better assessment of safety than is possible in smaller, short-term studies.


title: Proof of concept

text: A decision is made at this point as to whether the drug is effective and safe, and if so an application is made to regulatory authorities (such as the US Food and Drug Administration FDA and the European Medicines Agency) for the drug to receive permission to be marketed for use outside of clinical trials.


title: Proof of concept

text: Clinical trials can continue after marketing authorization has been received, for example, to better delineate safety, to determine appropriate use alongside other drugs or to investigate additional uses.


title: Nissan VR engine

text: The VR is a series of twin-turbo DOHC V6 automobile engines from Nissan with displacements varying from . An evolution of the widely successful VQ series, it also draws on developments from the VRH, JGTC, and Nissan R390 GT1 Le Mans racing engines.


title: Nissan VR engine

text: Announced by Infiniti on December 15, 2015 the VR30DDTT was first made available in the Infiniti Q50 sedan, followed by the Infiniti Q60 coupé a year later. Both platforms come in a version. It is on the Ward's 10 Best Engines list for 2017 and 2018.


title: Nissan VR engine

text: Designated the VR38DETT by Nissan, the engine was used from 2007–2022 in the Nissan GT-R and the limited production Nissan Juke-R.


title: Nissan VR engine

text: The VR38DETT featured 24 valves controlled by dual overhead camshafts (2 per cylinder head) with variable valve timing on the intake only. The block is cast aluminium with plasma-sprayed cylinder liner bores. This coating provides a hard protective layer for the piston rings to slide on as the piston moves up and down during its power cycle. The turbine housings for the two IHI turbochargers are integrated into the exhaust manifolds to decrease weight and bolster vehicle balance. The engine also features a pressurized lubrication system controlled thermostatically.


title: Nissan VR engine

text: The VR38DETT is equipped with a feedback control system that changes air fuel ratio depending on the engine load which has a significant effect on reducing the fuel consumption.


title: Nissan VR engine

text: Fully equipped with the first set of catalytic converters, turbos, all of the engine driven accessories, front differential assembly, and turbo outlet pipes, the engine weighed .


title: Nissan VR engine

text: It is a version of VR38DETT engine used in Nissan GT-R, with GT3-spec camshaft, connecting rod and connecting rod bolt, intercooler, intercooler piping, turbocharger, NISMO 1st and 2nd catalyzers, titanium muffler.


title: Nissan VR engine

text: The engines are hand built by five specially trained mechanics called "Takumi Craftsmens" on a special line at Nissan's Yokohama plant and their names are badged on every GT-R engine. The cars are built at their Tochigi plant on a shared production line.


title: Parcheesi

text: Parcheesi is a brand-name American adaptation of the Indian cross and circle board game Pachisi, published by Parker Brothers and Winning Moves Games USA.


title: Parcheesi

text: "Parcheesi" is typically played with two dice, four pieces per player and a with a track around the outside, four corner spaces and four "home paths" leading to a central end space. The most popular "Parcheesi" boards in America have 68 spaces around the edge of the board, 12 of which are darkened "safe spaces". Each corner of the board contains one player's "nest", or .


title: Parcheesi

text: A player rolls the dice and must use the top die pip values shown to move their pieces around the board in one of the following ways:


title: The Red Turtle

text: The Red Turtle (; ) is a 2016 animated fantasy drama film co-written and directed by Dutch animator Michaël Dudok de Wit and produced by Toshio Suzuki from Japan. The film is a co-production between Studio Ghibli and several French companies, including Wild Bunch, and tells the story of a man who becomes shipwrecked on a deserted island and meets a giant red female turtle. The film has no dialogue. It premiered in the "Un Certain Regard" section at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. The film was nominated for the Best Animated Feature Film for the 89th Academy Awards.


title: The Red Turtle

text: A man set adrift by a storm wakes up on a beach. He discovers that he is on a deserted island with plenty of fresh water, fruit and a dense bamboo forest. He builds a raft from bamboo and attempts to sail away, but his raft is destroyed by an unseen monster in the sea, forcing him back to the island. He tries again with a larger raft, but is again foiled by the creature. A third attempt ends with the raft destroyed but this time he is confronted by a giant turtle with a bright red shell.


title: The Red Turtle

text: That evening, the man sees the red turtle crawling up the beach. In anger, he hits it on the head with a bamboo stick, then flips it over onto its back, stranding it. While working on another raft, he feels remorse and returns to the turtle but it is too heavy for him to flip over. He fetches water for it, but when he returns, it is dead. He falls asleep next to it. In the morning, the man is surprised to find a red-haired woman lying unconscious inside the shell, which has split. He fetches water for her and builds a shelter to protect her from the sun. When rain hits, the woman wakes up and goes swimming. The woman casts the shell adrift on the sea and the man does the same to his raft. The two fall in love.


title: The Red Turtle

text: The couple have a red-haired son. The curious boy finds a glass bottle and his father and mother tell him their story. After accidentally falling into the sea, the boy learns he is a natural swimmer, and swims with three green turtles. He swims back to his mother, who hugs him and looks out at the sea with apprehension. The boy grows into a young man. One day, a tsunami hits. After the tsunami recedes, the young man searches for his parents and finds his mother wounded with no sign of his father. He calls the three turtles and they help him swim out into the sea, where they find his father desperately clinging to some bamboo. They rescue him, the young man finds his glass bottle, and the family clean up the wreckage and burn the dead bamboo.


title: The Red Turtle

text: One day the young man has a dream about swimming away into the sea. He says goodbye to his parents and swims away with the three green turtles. The man and woman continue to live on the island and grow old together, still very much in love. One night, after gazing at the moon, the man closes his eyes and dies. The woman grieves. She lies next to him, and lays her hand on his. Her hand transforms into a flipper and, now the red turtle, she crawls down the beach and swims away.


title: The Red Turtle

text: The film was co-produced by Wild Bunch and Studio Ghibli in association with Why Not Productions, along with funding and support from Prima Linea Productions, Arte France Cinéma, CN4 Productions, and Belvision in France, and Nippon Television Network, Dentsu, Hakudodo DY Media Partners, Walt Disney Japan, Mitsubishi Corporation, and Toho in Japan. According to Vincent Maraval, head of Wild Bunch, he visited Studio Ghibli in Japan in 2008 and met with Hayao Miyazaki. Miyazaki showed him the short film "Father and Daughter" and asked him to find its director, Michaël Dudok de Wit, with the prospect of co-producing a feature film. Wild Bunch approached Dudok de Wit in London and convinced him to take on the project. The screenplay was written by Dudok de Wit and Pascale Ferran.


title: The Red Turtle

text: The film had its world premiere on 18 May at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, where it competed in the Un Certain Regard section. On 13 June, it was screened as the opening film of the 2016 Annecy International Animated Film Festival. The regular French release was 29 June 2016.


title: The Red Turtle

text: It was released in Japan on 17 September 2016, by Toho. The movie was released on DVD and Blu-Ray by Walt Disney Japan through the "Ghibli Ga Ippai" label on March 17, 2017, with the Blu-Ray version also containing Michaël Dudok de Wit's other short films.


title: The Red Turtle

text: In May 2016, Sony Pictures Classics acquired the North and Latin American distribution rights for the film and was released in the United States on 20 January 2017.


title: The Red Turtle

text: "The Red Turtle" was played in the London Film Festival on 5 October 2016 and eventually released in the United Kingdom by StudioCanal on 26 May 2017.


title: The Red Turtle

text: "The Red Turtle" received critical acclaim. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 93% score based on 169 reviews, with an average of 8.1/10. The site's critical consensus reads, ""The Red Turtle" adds to Studio Ghibli's estimable legacy with a beautifully animated effort whose deceptively simple story boasts narrative layers as richly absorbing as its lovely visuals." Metacritic reports an 86 out of 100 rating, based on 32 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: The Red Turtle

text: In Japan it was released in theaters on 17 September and grossed a total of $328,750 during its first weekend.


title: Emily Haines

text: Emily Savitri Haines (born 25 January 1974) is a Canadian singer and songwriter. She is the lead singer, keyboardist and songwriter of the rock band Metric and a member of the musical collective Broken Social Scene. As a solo artist, she has performed under her own name and as Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton. Haines possesses the vocal range of a mezzo-soprano.


title: Emily Haines

text: Born in New Delhi, and raised in Fenelon Falls, Ontario, Haines is a dual citizen of Canada and the United States (her parents were both born in the US). She is the daughter of Canadian poet Paul Haines; her mother founded a school for under-privileged children in India. Her middle name, Savitri, is from "", an epic poem by Sri Aurobindo. Her sister is the Canadian television journalist Avery Haines and her brother is Tim Haines, owner of Bluestreak Records in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.


title: Emily Haines

text: Haines grew up in a house rich with experimental art and musical expression and her early influences included Carla Bley, Robert Wyatt, and PJ Harvey. She studied drama at the Etobicoke School of the Arts (ESA), where she met Amy Millan and Kevin Drew, with whom she would later collaborate in Broken Social Scene (co-founded by Drew). During their time at ESA, Haines and Millan formed their first band together.


title: Emily Haines

text: Haines attended the University of British Columbia in Vancouver between 1992 and 1993, and Montreal's Concordia University between 1995 and 1996. In 1996, she distributed a limited-edition album entitled "Cut in Half and Also Double" that included songs written and recorded during her student years.


title: Emily Haines

text: Haines met James Shaw in Toronto in 1997 and began performing as a duo called "Mainstream". After releasing an EP entitled "Mainstream EP", they changed the band's name to "Metric", after a sound programmed by Shaw on his keyboard. Joshua Winstead and Joules Scott-Key joined the band in 2001.


title: Emily Haines

text: As of 2022, Metric has released eight studio albums: "Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?" (2003), "Live It Out" (2005), "Grow Up and Blow Away" (2007, but recorded in 2001), "Fantasies" (2009), "Synthetica" (2012), "Pagans in Vegas" (2015), "Art of Doubt" (2018), and Formentera (2022).


title: Emily Haines

text: Haines also contributed vocals or backing vocals to songs by Broken Social Scene, Jason Collett, Stars, Delerium, K-Os, KC Accidental, The Stills, Tiësto, The Crystal Method, Rezz, and Todor Kobakov.


title: Emily Haines

text: In 2004, Metric appeared in the 2004 drama film "Clean". The band, appearing as themselves, performed their song "Dead Disco" and had minor speaking roles in a backstage scene. "Dead Disco" also featured on "Clean Original Soundtrack". In 2010, she appeared as part of Broken Social Scene, on the soundtrack for the film "This Movie is Broken".


title: Emily Haines

text: In 2006, as Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton, Haines released the studio album "Knives Don't Have Your Back". The songs "Our Hell" and "Doctor Blind" were issued as singles and corresponding music videos were produced. Following the release, Haines undertook a tour of North America in January 2007. "Knives Don't Have Your Back" was followed in 2007 by the EP "What Is Free to a Good Home?", which was inspired by the death of her father. Her solo work is typically more subdued and piano-based than her work with Metric. She often appears with Amy Millan as her opening act.


title: Emily Haines

text: Prior to the fourth Metric album "Fantasies", Haines traveled to Argentina to write. She became good friends with Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson before Reed's death in 2013.


title: Emily Haines

text: Haines contributed to Broken Social Scene's 2017 album Hug of Thunder and performed with Broken Social Scene on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert 30 March 2017. In May 2017, Haines was with Broken Social Scene in Manchester, England, the night after the terror attack at the Ariana Grande concert; she attributes her ability to carry on and play after the attack to the support of former The Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr.


title: Emily Haines

text: On September 15, 2017, Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton released the album "Choir of the Mind"; it was recorded a year earlier in Toronto and released by Last Gang Records and eOne (Entertainment One). The album's lead single, "Fatal Gift", was released on 9 June 2017. In support of the album, Haines toured North America in late 2017.


title: Emily Haines

text: When performing with Metric, Haines plays two synthesizers. Her primary synthesizer is a Sequential Circuits Pro-One, which she has played since the band's early years. As secondary synthesizer, she played a Kawai MP9000, which was replaced by E-mu's PK-6 Proteus Keys in 2003, and was followed by the Clavia Nord Wave in 2012. She also plays the tambourine, electric guitar, piano and harmonica.


title: Emily Haines

text: In August 2013, Haines became involved with FLEET4HEARme, a collaboration with Fleet Jewelry and HearMe, an organization that aims to increase children's access to music programs in public schools. In September 2015, the Canadian outerwear brand Rudsak unveiled a leather jacket customized by Haines. The jacket is a classic black motor-cycle style with lyrics from Metric song "The Governess" on the back.


title: Emily Haines

text: Metric is active in the international advocacy organization Global Citizen, and Haines is involved with its girls and women issues campaign #SheDecides. In 2017, Haines partnered with House of Matriarch High Perfumery to create her own fragrance, "Siren".


title: Apostille Convention

text: The Convention of 5 October 1961 Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents, also known as the Apostille Convention, is an international treaty drafted by the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH). It is intended to simplify the procedure through which a document, issued in one of the contracting states, can be certified for legal purposes in all the other contracting states. A certification under the Convention is called an apostille or Hague apostille (from French "apostille", meaning a marginal or bottom note, from Latin "post illa", literally "after those [words of the text]"). It is an international certification comparable to a notarisation, and may supplement a local notarisation of the document. If the Convention applies between two states, an apostille issued by the state of origin is sufficient to certify the document, and removes the need for further certification by the destination state.


title: Apostille Convention

text: Due to the lack of familiarity with foreign documents or the entities that issue them, many states require that foreign documents be legalized to be accepted there. This legalization procedure generally consists of a chain of certifications, by one or more authorities of the state of origin of the document and of the destination state. The first authority certifies the issuer of the document, and each subsequent authority certifies the previous one, until the final certification is made by an authority of the destination state that can be recognized by the final user there. For example, to be accepted in mainland China, a document from the U.S. state of Maryland not issued by a government official must be certified by a notary public, who must then be certified by the clerk of the circuit court in the notary's county, who must then be certified by the state of Maryland, which must then be certified by the U.S. Department of State, which must finally be certified by the Embassy of China in the United States; a Canadian document to be used in the Netherlands must be certified by Global Affairs Canada or the legalization service of a Canadian province or territory, then by an embassy or consulate of the Netherlands in Canada.


title: Apostille Convention

text: In many cases, the legalization procedure is simplified or exempted altogether. For example, if the purpose of a Canadian document is to apply for a Dutch passport in Canada, it is sufficient for the document to be certified by Global Affairs Canada; for a document issued by a Canadian government authority to be used in Brazil, it is sufficient for the document to be certified by a Brazilian embassy or consulate in Canada; member states of the European Union accept documents issued by each other without certification; and states such as Canada, Japan, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States generally accept documents from any state without any certification.


title: Apostille Convention

text: The Apostille Convention, drafted by the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH), is intended to simplify the legalization procedure by replacing it with a certification called an apostille, issued by an authority designated by the state of origin. Ideally the apostille would be the only certification needed, but in some cases additional certifications in the state of origin may be required before the apostille is issued. In any case, after the apostille, no certification by the destination state is required.


title: Apostille Convention

text: The Convention permits certain states to sign and ratify the Convention, becoming contracting states. For each of these states, or for an extension to one of its territories, the Convention enters into force 60 days after the deposit of its ratification or territorial extension. Other states are also permitted to become contracting states by acceding to the Convention, but without signing it. For each of these states, during the period of six months after it deposits its accession, the other contracting states may object to it, and the Convention enters into force 60 days after this period, between the acceding state and all other contracting states that did not object to it. Later, if a contracting state withdraws its objection, the Convention enters into force between these two states on that date. A successor state of a previous contracting state may declare to continue to be bound by the Convention without a waiting period or accede later as a new state.


title: Apostille Convention

text: However, the Apostille Convention does not apply to documents issued by diplomatic or consular officers, or to administrative documents dealing directly with commercial or customs operations. The reason for this exclusion is that these documents are usually already exempt from legalization.


title: Apostille Convention

text: Each contracting state designates one or more authorities to issue apostilles. Examples of designated authorities are government agencies, ministries, courts, local governments, notarial chambers, embassies and consulates. In some states, each authority is designated to issue apostilles only on certain types of documents. For example, in Hungary, apostilles are issued on court documents by the Ministry of Justice, on notarial documents by the Chamber of Civil Law Notaries, and on other documents by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; in Mexico, apostilles on federal documents are issued by the federal government, and on state documents by the respective state government.


title: Apostille Convention

text: In general, documents issued by a government official can be certified directly with an apostille, while other documents must be certified by a notary, who may then be certified with an apostille. In some cases, additional intermediate certifications may be required; for example, for documents notarized in some U.S. states or issued by New York City, the notary or city official must be certified by the respective county or court, which may then be certified by the respective state with an apostille.


title: Apostille Convention

text: The fee for issuing an apostille varies widely by state. In 2016, the HCCH compiled fees of 54 states and calculated an average of 15.43 EUR. Some states, such as France and Japan, do not charge a fee, while the Cayman Islands charge 150 KYD (180 USD), one of the highest. In some states, the fee also varies by location, authority, quantity, purpose or type of document. For example, in the United States, Indiana does not charge a fee for an apostille of a birth certificate, while Connecticut charges 40 USD for an apostille not related to adoption.


title: Apostille Convention

text: The apostille is a stamp or printed form, placed on the document itself or attached to the document as an allonge. At the top is the title "Apostille", followed by "(Convention de La Haye du 5 octobre 1961)" (French for "Hague Convention of 5 October 1961"). The Convention specifies that this text must be in French. After this text, the apostille contains ten numbered fields, which may be in English, French or the language of the competent authority, and may be repeated in one or more additional languages. The numbered fields contain the following information:


title: Apostille Convention

text: Each competent authority must maintain a register of apostilles issued, for verification on request by anyone.


title: Apostille Convention

text: In 2006, the electronic apostille program (also known as e-APP) was launched to support the electronic issuance and verification of apostilles around the world. Since then, many contracting states have implemented electronic apostilles or electronic registers for their verification.


title: Apostille Convention

text: Apostilles never expire. However, a document certified with an apostille may have an expiration date, or the destination state may require that the document be presented by a certain time.


title: Apostille Convention

text: The apostille replaces the legalization requirement, but the destination state may have additional requirements for the document to be used there. For example, it may require that the document be translated into a certain language, although it must not require a translation of the apostille itself.


title: Apostille Convention

text: The Apostille Convention is beneficial in cases that would otherwise require certifications by both the origin and destination states, as the Convention removes the latter requirement. However, the Convention is neutral in cases that would otherwise require only a certification by the state of origin anyway, similar to an apostille, or no certification at all, and it can be disadvantageous in cases where a consular certification alone would otherwise be sufficient to legalize a document. The Convention requires that contracting states direct their embassies and consulates to no longer perform legalizations of documents where the Convention applies, so in this case the apostille is the only method available to certify the document, not only an alternative to consular legalization, even if the latter would be simpler or less expensive.


title: Apostille Convention

text: For example, before Brazil joined the Apostille Convention, to legalize an educational document from the United States for academic use in Brazil, it was sufficient for the document to be certified by a Brazilian embassy or consulate in the United States, for a fee of 5 USD. After the Convention entered into force in Brazil, its embassy and consulates in the United States can no longer perform legalizations, so U.S. documents must have an apostille to be accepted in Brazil. In some U.S. states, an apostille of an educational document requires more certifications or a higher fee than the Brazilian consular legalization did.


title: Apostille Convention

text: This result is an unintended consequence, as the Convention still allows states to further simplify or eliminate the legalization requirement. The Hague Conference also encourages contracting states to eliminate the need for additional certifications before issuing an apostille, and to ensure that any fees are reasonable.


title: Apostille Convention

text: The apostille only certifies that the signature, signer's capacity, and seal or stamp on the document are from the stated issuer. In other words, it only certifies the origin of the document, but it does not provide information about its content. In 2008, the Hague Conference expressed serious concerns about diplomas and certificates issued by diploma mills, citing their possible use "to circumvent migration controls, possibly by potential terrorists." The risk comes from the fact that the various government stamps give the document an air of authenticity without anyone having checked the underlying document. To address this concern, in 2009 the Hague Conference recommended that authorities add the following statement to apostilles: "This apostille only certifies the signature, the capacity of the signer, and the seal or stamp it bears. It does not certify the content of the document for which it was issued."


title: N'Djamena

text: N'Djamena ( ) is the capital and largest city of Chad. It is also a special statute region, divided into 10 districts or "arrondissements".


title: N'Djamena

text: The city serves as the centre of economic activity in Chad. Meat, fish and cotton processing are the chief industries, and it is a regional market for livestock, salt, dates, and grains.


title: N'Djamena

text: It is a port city located at the confluence of the Logone River with the Chari River, forming a transborder agglomeration with the city of Kousséri (in Cameroon), capital of the Department of Logone-et-Chari, which is on the west bank of both rivers. It had 1,093,492 inhabitants in 2013.


title: N'Djamena

text: N'Djamena was founded as Fort-Lamy by French commander Émile Gentil on 29 May 1900, and named after Amédée-François Lamy, an army officer who had been killed in the Battle of Kousséri about a month earlier. It was a major trading city and became the capital of the region and nation.


title: N'Djamena

text: During the Second World War, the French relied upon the city's airport to move troops and supplies. On 21 January 1942, a lone German He 111 of the Sonderkommando Blaich successfully bombed the airfield at Fort-Lamy, destroying oil supplies and ten aircraft. Fort-Lamy received its first bank branch in 1950, when the Bank of West Africa (BAO) opened a branch there.


title: N'Djamena

text: On 6 April 1973, President François Tombalbaye changed its name to N'Djamena (taken from the Arabic name of a nearby village, "Niǧāmīnā", meaning "place of rest") as part of his "authenticité" program of Africanization. The city was occupied by Libya during the 1980–81 Libyan intervention as part of the Chadian–Libyan conflict, and the associated Transitional Government of National Unity.


title: N'Djamena

text: The city was partly destroyed during the Chadian Civil War, in 1979 and again in 1980. In these years, almost all of the population fled the town, searching for refuge on the opposite bank of the Chari River in Cameroon, next to the city of Kousseri. The residents did not return until 1981–82, after the end of the clashes. Until 1984, facilities and services were subject to strict rationing, and schools remained closed.


title: N'Djamena

text: The period of turmoil in the city was started by the abortive coup attempted by the northerner Prime Minister Hissène Habré against the southerner President Félix Malloum: while Malloum and the national army loyal to him were defeated, the intervention in the battle of other northern factions rival to that of Habré complicated the situation. A temporary truce was reached in 1979 through international mediation, establishing the warlord Goukouni Oueddei as head of a government of national unity with his rival Habré as Defense Minister. The intense rivalry between Goukouni and Habré caused the eruption of new clashes in the city in 1980; N’Djamena found itself divided into sectors controlled by the various warlords. The tug-of-war reached a conclusion after many months only when Goukouni asked for the intervention of the Libyans, whose tanks overwhelmed Habré's defenses in the capital.


title: N'Djamena

text: Following differences between Goukouni and Muammar Gaddafi and international disapproval of Libyan intervention, the Libyan troops left the capital and Chad in 1981. This opened the door to Habré, who marched on N’Djamena, occupying the city with little resistance in 1982 and installing himself as the new president. He was eventually dislodged in a similar fashion in 1990 by a former general of his, Idriss Déby, the head of state of Chad.


title: N'Djamena

text: The city had only 9,976 inhabitants in 1937, but a decade later, in 1947, the population had almost doubled to 18,435. In 1968, after independence, the population reached 126,483. In 1993, it surpassed half a million with 529,555. A good deal of this growth has been due to refugees fleeing into N’Djamena for security, although many people fled N’Djamena, also depending on the political situation. The city surpassed the million mark in population by the early 2010s.


title: N'Djamena

text: On 13 April 2006, a rebel United Front for Democratic Change attack on the city was defeated in the Battle of N’Djamena. The city was once again attacked on 2 February 2008, by UFDD and RFC rebels. ("See Battle of N'Djamena (2008)")


title: N'Djamena

text: While primarily an administrative centre, the city includes the Nassara Strip commercial centre and residential areas, such as Mbololo, Chagoua, Paris Congo and Moursal. The main commercial avenue of the city is the Avenue Charles de Gaulle.


title: N'Djamena

text: N’Djamena has a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen "BSh") with a short wet season and a lengthy dry season. Despite the fact that the city receives on average approximately of rainfall annually, due to the area's very high evapotranspiration, N'Djamena still falls into the semi-arid climate category. The wet season lasts from June to September, with the heaviest rain occurring in August. The dry season essentially covers the remaining eight months. Based on annual temperatures, N'Djamena is one of the hottest major cities on the planet. In only one month of the year (August) do average monthly high temperatures fail to cross the mark. The city's highest temperatures are usually seen between March and May, just before the onset of the heavier rains.


title: N'Djamena

text: N'Djamena's primary economic source is agricultural work. About 80% of the population within N'Djamena works within farming-based industries, including cultivation of crops and growing livestock. The economy in N'Djamena is therefore almost totally reliant on good weather, making the economy struggle in years with low rainfall. N'Djamena receives financial aid from the World Bank, as well as the African Development Bank. There is a high demand for skilled laborers within N'Djamena to work for oil and gas sectors, as well as laborers for foreign non-governmental organizations, medical services, and English teaching. Residents of N'Djamena are liable to pay tax up to a maximum amount of 60% of all net income.


title: N'Djamena

text: Attractions in the city include the Chad National Museum, the Al-Mouna Cultural Center, Our Lady of Peace Cathedral, and several mosques. Within the Chad National Museum, one can view the partial skull of the "Sahelanthropus", called by locals as "Toumaï". This skull was discovered in the northern part of Chad and is considered to be from one of the earliest human ancestors. Views of sunset across the Chari River can also be spectacular. N’Djamena was named Capital of Islamic Culture in 2009.


title: N'Djamena

text: In N'Djamena, education can be thought of as a luxury even though it is compulsory and free and has been since Chad's independence in 1960. Not more than forty percent of elementary age children in Chad have an opportunity to attend classes and with N'Djamena's poor state stability it is even harder for children to get an education. After progressing through elementary school, some students go on to a university. N’Djamena has two universities: the University of N’Djamena with French as the language of instruction, built in 1971; and King Faisal University - Chad with Arabic as the language of instruction, built in 1991. Secondary schools include the long established Lycée Félix Éboué and Lycée technique commercial, the Lycée Montaigne de N'Djamena (French international school). Secondary school within Chad is mandatory, however only 68% of students over the age of 12 attend school. Of that 68%, 70% of these students attend school within N'Djamena. Many of the students in international schools are children of executives, diplomats, and non-governmental organization employees.


title: N'Djamena

text: Among the places of worship, they are predominantly Muslim mosques. There are also Christian churches and temples: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of N'Djamena (Catholic Church), Evangelical Church of Chad, Christian Assemblies in Chad (Plymouth Brethren).


title: N'Djamena

text: N’Djamena is the home of the National Assembly of Chad, along with many political organisations and parties, and every national ministry. The Supreme Court and Court of Appeal are also in N’Djamena, along with every major embassy in Chad, including the French and US embassies. It is sometimes considered within the region of Chari-Baguirmi, although separate.


title: N'Djamena

text: The city is the eastern terminus of the Trans-Sahelian Highway, and is linked to East Africa by the (largely unpaved) N’Djamena–Djibouti Highway. The Tripoli-Cape Town Highway also passes through N’Djamena, making it a key Central African location in the Trans-African Highway network. N’Djamena is linked by road bridge to Kousseri in Cameroon.


title: N'Djamena

text: N’Djamena International Airport Hassan Djamous (IATA code NDJ) is located on the outskirts of the city.


title: N'Djamena

text: Historically, N’Djamena's main link to the exterior was by river boat up the Chari and Logone rivers, but these now carry little trade.


title: Aarthi Agarwal

text: Aarthi Agarwal (March 5, 1984 – June 6, 2015) was an American actress of who primarily worked in Telugu cinema.


title: Aarthi Agarwal

text: Agarwal was born on March 5, 1984, in New Jersey to Gujarati parents. Her younger sister Aditi Agarwal is also an actress in Telugu film industry. At around 14 years of age, actor Suniel Shetty spotted her and invited her to dance on stage in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After the performance, he asked her father to encourage her to take up acting in Bollywood. At age 16, she made her debut with "Paagalpan".


title: Aarthi Agarwal

text: Agarwal made her Telugu film debut in "Nuvvu Naaku Nachav" with actor Venkatesh. She was one of the few non-Telugu speaking actresses to work with noted Indian film stars Chiranjeevi, Nandamuri Balakrishna, Nagarjuna, Venkatesh, Prabhas, Mahesh Babu, Ravi Teja, and Jr NTR.


title: Aarthi Agarwal

text: In 2005, media reported that Agarwal had attempted suicide over the failure of a romantic relationship with a co-star.


title: Aarthi Agarwal

text: In 2006, following an accident at home, she was hospitalized with internal head injuries at Apollo Hospital, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad and put on ventilator support.


title: Aarthi Agarwal

text: On June 6, 2015, Agarwal was pronounced dead on arrival at AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Agarwal, who had undergone a liposuction surgery six weeks prior, had severe breathing problems before her death. Her manager stated the cause of her death was cardiac arrest. She had been living with her parents in Egg Harbor Township.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a federal research facility in Livermore, California, United States. The lab was originally established as the University of California Radiation Laboratory, Livermore Branch in 1952 in response to the detonation of the first atomic bomb by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It later became autonomous in 1971 and was designated a national laboratory in 1981.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: A federally funded research and development center, Lawrence Livermore Lab is primarily funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and it is managed privately and operated by Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC (a partnership of the University of California), Bechtel, BWX Technologies, AECOM, and Battelle Memorial Institute in affiliation with the Texas A&M University System. In 2012, the laboratory had the synthetic chemical element livermorium (element 116) named after it.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: LLNL is self-described as a "premier research and development institution for science and technology applied to national security." Its principal responsibility is ensuring the safety, security and reliability of the nation's nuclear weapons through the application of advanced science, engineering, and technology. The laboratory also applies its special expertise and multidisciplinary capabilities towards preventing the proliferation and use of weapons of mass destruction, bolstering homeland security, and solving other nationally important problems, including energy and environmental needs, scientific research and outreach, and economic competitiveness.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: The laboratory is located on a 1 sq. mi.(2.6 km) site at the eastern edge of Livermore. It also operates a remote experimental test site known as Site 300, situated about southeast of the main lab site. LLNL has an annual budget of about $2.7 billion and a staff of nearly 9,000 employees.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: LLNL was established in 1952, as the University of California Radiation Laboratory, Livermore Branch, an offshoot of the existing University of California Radiation Laboratory at Berkeley. The lab at Livermore was intended to spur innovation and provide competition to the nuclear weapon design laboratory at Los Alamos in New Mexico, home of the Manhattan Project that developed the first atomic weapons. Edward Teller and Ernest Lawrence, director of the Radiation Laboratory at Berkeley, are regarded as the co-founders of the Livermore facility.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: The new laboratory was sited at a former naval air station of World War II. It was already home to several University of California Radiation Laboratory projects that were too large for its location in the Berkeley Hills above the UC campus, including one of the first experiments in the magnetic approach to confined thermonuclear reactions (i.e. fusion). About half an hour southeast of Berkeley, the Livermore site provided much greater security for classified projects than an urban university campus.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: Lawrence tapped his former graduate student Herbert York, age 32, to run Livermore. Under York, the Lab had four main programs: Project Sherwood (the magnetic-fusion program), Project Whitney (the weapons-design program), diagnostic weapon experiments (both for the Los Alamos and Livermore laboratories), and a basic physics program. York and the new lab embraced the Lawrence "big science" approach, tackling challenging projects with physicists, chemists, engineers, and computational scientists working together in multidisciplinary teams. Lawrence died in August 1958 and shortly after, the university's board of regents named both laboratories for him, as the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: Historically, the Berkeley and Livermore laboratories have had very close relationships on research projects, business operations, and staff. The Livermore Lab was established initially as a branch of the Berkeley laboratory. The Livermore lab was not officially severed administratively from the Berkeley lab until 1971. To this day, in official planning documents and records, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is designated as Site 100, Lawrence Livermore National Lab as Site 200, and LLNL's remote test location as Site 300.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: The laboratory was renamed Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (LLL) in 1971. On October 1, 2007 LLNS assumed management of LLNL from the University of California, which had exclusively managed and operated the Laboratory since its inception 55 years before. The laboratory was honored in 2012 by having the synthetic chemical element livermorium named after it. The LLNS takeover of the laboratory has been controversial. In May 2013, an Alameda County jury awarded over $2.7 million to five former laboratory employees who were among 430 employees LLNS laid off during 2008. The jury found that LLNS breached a contractual obligation to terminate the employees only for "reasonable cause." The five plaintiffs also have pending age discrimination claims against LLNS, which will be heard by a different jury in a separate trial. There are 125 co-plaintiffs awaiting trial on similar claims against LLNS. The May 2008 layoff was the first layoff at the laboratory in nearly 40 years.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: On March 14, 2011, the City of Livermore officially expanded the city's boundaries to annex LLNL and move it within the city limits. The unanimous vote by the Livermore city council expanded Livermore's southeastern boundaries to cover 15 land parcels covering that comprise the LLNL site. The site was formerly an unincorporated area of Alameda County. The LLNL campus continues to be owned by the federal government.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: From its inception, Livermore focused on new weapon design concepts; as a result, its first three nuclear tests were unsuccessful. The lab persevered and its subsequent designs proved increasingly successful. In 1957, the Livermore Lab was selected to develop the warhead for the Navy's Polaris missile. This warhead required numerous innovations to fit a nuclear warhead into the relatively small confines of the missile nosecone.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: During the Cold War, many Livermore-designed warheads entered service. These were used in missiles ranging in size from the Lance surface-to-surface tactical missile to the megaton-class Spartan antiballistic missile. Over the years, LLNL designed the following warheads: W27 (Regulus cruise missile; 1955; joint with Los Alamos), W38 (Atlas/Titan ICBM; 1959), B41 (B52 bomb; 1957), W45 (Little John/Terrier missiles; 1956), W47 (Polaris SLBM; 1957), W48 (155-mm howitzer; 1957), W55 (submarine rocket; 1959), W56 (Minuteman ICBM; 1960), W58 (Polaris SLBM; 1960), W62 (Minuteman ICBM; 1964), W68 (Poseidon SLBM; 1966), W70 (Lance missile; 1969), W71 (Spartan missile; 1968), W79 (8-in. artillery gun; 1975), W82 (155-mm howitzer; 1978), B83 (modern strategic bomb; 1979), and W87 (LGM-118 Peacekeeper/MX ICBM; 1982). The W87 and the B83 are the only LLNL designs still in the U.S. nuclear stockpile.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the end of the Cold War, the United States began a moratorium on nuclear testing and development of new nuclear weapon designs. To sustain existing warheads for the indefinite future, a science-based Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP) was defined that emphasized the development and application of greatly improved technical capabilities to assess the safety, security, and reliability of existing nuclear warheads without the use of nuclear testing. Confidence in the performance of weapons, without nuclear testing, is maintained through an ongoing process of stockpile surveillance, assessment and certification, and refurbishment or weapon replacement.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: With no new designs of nuclear weapons, the warheads in the U.S. stockpile must continue to function far past their original expected lifetimes. As components and materials age, problems can arise. Stockpile Life Extension Programs can extend system lifetimes, but they also can introduce performance uncertainties and require maintenance of outdated technologies and materials. Because there is concern that it will become increasingly difficult to maintain high confidence in the current warheads for the long term, the Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration initiated the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) Program. RRW designs could reduce uncertainties, ease maintenance demands, and enhance safety and security. In March 2007, the LLNL design was chosen for the Reliable Replacement Warhead. Since that time, Congress has not allocated funding for any further development of the RRW.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: LLNL conducts research into the properties and behavior of plutonium to learn how plutonium performs as it ages and how it behaves under high pressure (e.g., with the impact of high explosives). Plutonium has seven temperature-dependent solid allotropes. Each possesses a different density and crystal structure. Alloys of plutonium are even more complex; multiple phases can be present in a sample at any given time. Experiments are being conducted at LLNL and elsewhere to measure the structural, electrical and chemical properties of plutonium and its alloys and to determine how these materials change over time. Such measurements will enable scientists to better model and predict plutonium's long-term behavior in the aging stockpile.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: The Lab's plutonium research is conducted in a specially designed facility called the SuperBlock, with emphasis on safety and security. Work with highly enriched uranium is also conducted there. In March 2008, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) presented its preferred alternative for the transformation of the nation's nuclear weapons complex. Under this plan, LLNL would be a center of excellence for nuclear design and engineering, a center of excellence for high explosive research and development, and a science magnet in high-energy-density (i.e., laser) physics. In addition, most of its special nuclear material would be removed and consolidated at a more central, yet-to-be-named site.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: On September 30, 2009, the NNSA announced that about two thirds of the special nuclear material (e.g., plutonium) at LLNL requiring the highest level of security protection had been removed from LLNL. The move was part of NNSA's efforts initiated in October 2006 to consolidate special nuclear material at five sites by 2012, with significantly reduced square footage at those sites by 2017. The federally mandated project intends to improve security and reduce security costs, and is part of NNSA's overall effort to transform the Cold War era "nuclear weapons" enterprise into a 21st-century "nuclear security" enterprise. The original date to remove all high-security nuclear material from LLNL, based on equipment capability and capacity, was 2014. NNSA and LLNL developed a timeline to remove this material as early as possible, accelerating the target completion date to 2012.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: The Lab's work in global security aims to reduce and mitigate the dangers posed by the spread or use of weapons of mass destruction and by threats to energy and environmental security. Livermore has been working on global security and homeland security for decades, predating both the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. LLNL staff have been heavily involved in the cooperative nonproliferation programs with Russia to secure at-risk weapons materials and assist former weapons workers in developing peaceful applications and self-sustaining job opportunities for their expertise and technologies. In the mid-1990s, Lab scientists began efforts to devise improved biodetection capabilities, leading to miniaturized and autonomous instruments that can detect biothreat agents in a few minutes instead of the days to weeks previously required for DNA analysis.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: Today, Livermore researchers address a spectrum of threats – radiological/nuclear, chemical, biological, explosives, and cyber. They combine physical and life sciences, engineering, computations, and analysis to develop technologies that solve real-world problems. Activities are grouped into five programs:


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: LLNL supports capabilities in a broad range of scientific and technical disciplines, applying current capabilities to existing programs and developing new science and technologies to meet future national needs.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has worked out several energy technologies in the field of coal gasification, shale oil extraction, geothermal energy, advanced battery research, solar energy, and fusion energy. Main oil shale processing technologies worked out by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are LLNL HRS (hot-recycled-solid), LLNL RISE ("in situ" extraction technology) and LLNL radiofrequency technologies.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: Over its 60-year history, Lawrence Livermore has made many scientific and technological achievements, including:


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: On July 17, 2009 LLNL announced that the Laboratory had received eight R&D 100 Awards – more than it had ever received in the annual competition. The previous LLNL record of seven awards was reached five times – in 1987, 1988, 1997, 1998 and 2006.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: Also known as the "Oscars of invention," the awards are given each year for the development of cutting-edge scientific and engineering technologies with commercial potential. The awards raise LLNL's total number of awards since 1978 to 129.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: On October 12, 2016, LLNL released the results of computerized modeling of Mars's moon Phobos, finding that it has a connection with keeping the Earth safe from asteroids.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: In December, 2022 scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced, in a breakthrough for fusion power technology, that they have used the technique of inertial confinement fusion to achieve a net gain of energy.The National Ignition Facility (NIF) became the first fusion reactor to achieve breakeven on December 5, 2022, with an experiment producing 3.15 megajoules of energy from a 2.05 megajoule input of laser light for an energy gain of about 1.5.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: Throughout its history, LLNL has been a leader in computers and scientific computing. Even before the Livermore Lab opened its doors, E.O. Lawrence and Edward Teller recognized the importance of computing and the potential of computational simulation. Their purchase of one of the first UNIVAC computers set the precedent for LLNL's history of acquiring and exploiting the fastest and most capable supercomputers in the world. A succession of increasingly powerful and fast computers have been used at the Lab over the years. LLNL researchers use supercomputers to answer questions about subjects such as materials science simulations, global warming, and reactions to natural disasters.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: LLNL has a long history of developing computing software and systems. Initially, there was no commercially available software, and computer manufacturers considered it the customer's responsibility to develop their own. Users of the early computers had to write not only the codes to solve their technical problems, but also the routines to run the machines themselves. Today, LLNL computer scientists focus on creating the highly complex physics models, visualization codes, and other unique applications tailored to specific research requirements. A great deal of software also has been written by LLNL personnel to optimize the operation and management of the computer systems, including operating systems such as TOSS, operating system extensions such as CHAOS (Linux Clustering), and resource management packages such as SLURM. LLNL also initiated and continues leading the development of ZFS on Linux, the official port of ZFS to the Linux operating system.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: In August 2009, a joint venture was announced between Sandia National Laboratories/California campus and LLNL to create an open, unclassified research and development space called the Livermore Valley Open Campus (LVOC). The motivation for the LVOC stems from current and future national security challenges that require increased coupling to the private sector to understand threats and deploy solutions in areas such as high performance computing, energy and environmental security, cyber security, economic security, and non-proliferation.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: The LVOC is modeled after research and development campuses found at major industrial research parks and other U.S. Department of Energy laboratories with campus-like security, a set of business and operating rules devised to enhance and accelerate international scientific collaboration and partnerships with U.S. government agencies, industry and academia. Ultimately, the LVOC will consist of an approximately 110-acre parcel along the eastern edge of the Livermore Laboratory and Sandia sites, and will house additional conference space, collaboration facilities and a visitor's center to support educational and research activities.


title: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

text: LLNL's principal sponsor is the Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA) Office of Defense Programs, which supports its stockpile stewardship and advanced scientific computing programs. Funding to support LLNL's global security and homeland security work comes from the DOE/NNSA Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, as well as the Department of Homeland Security. LLNL also receives funding from DOE's Office of Science, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, and Office of Nuclear Energy. In addition, LLNL conducts work-for-others research and development for various Defense Department sponsors, other federal agencies, including NASA, Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), National Institutes of Health, and Environmental Protection Agency, a number of California State agencies, and private industry.