title: Surge protector

text: These devices are not rated in joules because they operate differently from the earlier suppressors, and they do not depend on materials that inherently wear out during repeated surges. SM suppressors are primarily used to control transient voltage surges on electrical power feeds to protected devices. They are essentially heavy-duty low-pass filters connected so that they allow 50 or 60 Hz line voltages through to the load, while blocking and diverting higher frequencies. This type of suppressor differs from others by using banks of inductors, capacitors and resistors that suppress voltage surges and inrush current to the neutral wire, whereas other designs shunt to the ground wire. Surges are not diverted but actually suppressed. The inductors slow down the energy. Since the inductor in series with the circuit path slows the current spike, the peak surge energy is spread out in the time domain and harmlessly absorbed and slowly released from a capacitor bank.


title: Surge protector

text: Experimental results show that most surge energies occur at under 100 joules, so exceeding the SM design parameters is unlikely. SM suppressors do not present a fire risk should the absorbed energy exceed design limits of the dielectric material of the components because the surge energy is also limited via arc-over to ground during lightning strikes, leaving a surge remnant that often does not exceed a theoretical maximum (such as 6000 V at 3000 A with a modeled shape of 8 × 20 microsecond waveform specified by IEEE/ANSI C62.41). Because SMs work on both the current rise and the voltage rise, they can safely operate in the worst surge environments.


title: Surge protector

text: SM suppression focuses its protective philosophy on a "power supply input", but offers nothing to protect against surges appearing between the input of an SM device and "data lines", such as antennae, telephone or LAN connections, or multiple such devices cascaded and linked to the primary devices. This is because they do not divert surge energy to the ground line. Data transmission requires the ground line to be clean in order to be used as a reference point. In this design philosophy, such events are already protected against by the SM device before the power supply. NIST reports that "Sending them [surges]


title: Surge protector

text: down the drain of a grounding conductor only makes them reappear within a microsecond about 200 meters away on some other conductor." So having protection on a data transmission line is only required if surges are diverted to the ground line.


title: Surge protector

text: SM devices tend to be bulkier and heavier than devices utilizing other surge suppression technologies. The initial costs of SM filters are higher, typically and up, but a long service life can be expected if they are used properly. In-field installation costs can be higher, since SM devices are installed in "series" with the power feed, requiring the feed to be cut and reconnected.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: In England and Wales, life imprisonment is a sentence that lasts until the death of the prisoner, although in most cases the prisoner will be eligible for early release after a minimum term set by the judge. In exceptional cases, however, a judge may impose a "whole life order", meaning that the offender is never considered for parole, although they may still be released on compassionate grounds at the discretion of the Home Secretary. Whole life orders are usually imposed for aggravated murder, and can only be imposed where the offender was at least 21 years old at the time of the offence being committed.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: Until 1957, the mandatory penalty for all adults convicted of murder was death by hanging. The Homicide Act of that year limited the circumstances in which murderers could be executed, mandating life imprisonment in all other cases. The death penalty for murder was suspended for five years by the 1965 Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act and was abolished in 1969 (1973 in Northern Ireland) since which time murder has carried a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: The Criminal Justice Act 2003 introduced new mandatory life sentences and created a new kind of life sentence, called "imprisonment for public protection" which could be imposed even for offences which would otherwise carry a maximum sentence of ten years. The consequent unprecedented levels of prison overcrowding prompted sentencing reform, including stricter criteria for the imposition of such sentences and some restoration of judicial discretion, in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. Imprisonment for public protection was abolished by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, although some prisoners remain incarcerated under the former legislation.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: Life imprisonment is applicable only to defendants aged 18 and over. Those aged under 18 are sentenced to detention at His Majesty's pleasure. Any convict sentenced to a life sentence can in principle be held in custody for their whole life.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: When Parliament was considering abolition of the death penalty, there were many MPs who were against the reform, and the deal offered was that former capital offences would always inevitably merit a mandatory life sentence. Accordingly, life imprisonment replaced the death penalty as punishment for murderers, firstly for those whose sentences were commuted and later for those whose crimes were not "aggravated" within the meaning of the Homicide Act 1957. To begin with, it was fairly common for those sentenced to life to be released in around ten to fifteen years. As time passed, it came to be thought that longer sentences should be imposed, especially in cases such as the Moors Murders, the Yorkshire Ripper and Dennis Nilsen. The Home Secretary was empowered to make Whole Life Orders to ensure that particularly dangerous or heinous criminals served their life sentences without the possibility of parole. As of 2006, mandatory lifers served an average of 14 years and for other lifers the average stood at nine years.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: Formerly, the Home Secretary reserved the right to set the "tariff" or minimum length of term for prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment. However, in November 2000, politicians were stripped of this power in relation to defendants aged under 18, following an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights by the murderers of James Bulger.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: In November 2002, a similar decision in relation to adult offenders followed a successful challenge by convicted double murderer Anthony Anderson. Anderson had been sentenced to life imprisonment in 1988 with a recommended minimum term of 15 years, but the Home Secretary later informed him that he would have to serve at least 20 years. The House of Lords ruled that this was incompatible with his human rights.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: This judgment was upheld by the European Court of Human Rights. Since then, judges have set minimum terms and only the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom can make any amendments to the sentence. Though politicians can no longer decide when or if a life sentence prisoner can be considered for parole, the Attorney General still has the power to petition the Court of Appeal in a bid to increase any prison terms which are seen as unduly lenient. This power can only be exercised within 28 days of the sentence and that limit cannot be extended under any circumstances.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: The Criminal Justice Act 2003 sets out guidelines for how long murderers should spend in prison before being considered for parole. Judges are not obliged to follow the guidelines, but must give reasons in court if they depart from them – whether recommending a lesser or higher minimum term than in accordance with the guidelines.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: The guidelines recommended that multiple murderers (who murder two or more people) whose crimes involved sexual abuse, pre-planning, abduction or terrorism should never be released from prison. Such a sentence is known as a "whole life order". The murder of a single child following abduction, sexual or sadistic conduct also qualifies, as does the murder of a police or prison officer during the course of their duty (since 2015) and murder committed to advance a political, religious or ideological cause – along with any murder which was committed by someone who had previously been convicted of murder. Other multiple murders (two or more) should carry a recommended minimum of 30 years as a starting point sentence prior to consideration of additional aggravating factors and of any mitigating factors.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: A 30-year minimum should also apply to the worst single murders, including those with sexual or racial motives and the use of a firearm – until 2015, the murder of a police officer in the course of duty also came within this category. Most other murders should be subject to a 15-year minimum as a starting point. There have been numerous departures from these guidelines since they were first put into practice. For example, the judge who sentenced American fugitive David Bieber for the murder of a police officer said that he should never be released from prison, whereas statutory guidelines recommended a 30-year minimum for this type of murder – this was a decade before the act was amended to include the murder of a police officer in the course of duty as one of the offenders whose life sentences should mean life.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: On 23 July 2008, David Bieber won a High Court appeal against the whole life tariff recommended by the trial judge, and was instead issued with a minimum term of 37 years, effectively meaning that he would not be released until at least 2041, by which time he would be 75 years old if still alive. In the case of Mark Goldstraw, who killed four people in an arson attack on a house in Staffordshire in 2006, the trial judge set a recommended minimum of 35 years; this crime met the guidelines for a whole life term as it involved planning and resulted in the death of more than one person.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: Many life prisoners have received minimum terms which, due to their length or the fact that the killer was middle aged or elderly when convicted, make it highly likely that they will never be released.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: A prisoner who has served their minimum term becomes eligible for parole. If the Parole Board agrees to release a prisoner who was sentenced to life, they are released on a life licence meaning that they will remain on parole for the remainder of their natural life. Prisoners who break the conditions of their release, or who are found to be a danger to the public, can be immediately returned to prison for an indefinite period under the terms of this licence.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: In England and Wales, the average life sentence prisoners serve are around 15 to 20 years before being paroled, although those convicted of exceptionally grave crimes remain behind bars for considerably longer; Ian Huntley was given a minimum term of 40 years. Some receive whole life sentences which make it almost certain that they will die in prison; they can only be considered for release on appeal to the High Court, or in exceptional circumstances such as great age or ill health.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: By 2015, there were at least 60 prisoners in England and Wales serving such sentences, issued by either the High Court or the Home Office. A number of prisoners have died in prison when serving such sentences including "The Yorkshire Ripper" Peter Sutcliffe, Moors Murderers (Ian Brady and Myra Hindley) and serial killer GP Harold Shipman who committed suicide four years into his sentence.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: For England and Wales, the law regarding release on licence of prisoners is laid out in chapter 2 of the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 (see in particular sections 28–30). This Act was amended and updated by the Criminal Justice Act 2003 chapters 6 and 7.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: For Scotland, the law is set out in the Prisoners and Criminal Proceedings (Scotland) Act 1993, as amended in relation to life prisoners by the Convention Rights (Compliance) (Scotland) Act 2001, which incorporated changes to ensure that the procedure is compliant with the European Convention on Human Rights. The Scottish legal system does not allow a whole life sentence to be issued, but retains other forms of indefinite imprisonment, such as an Order for Lifelong Restriction.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: Under the criminal law of England and Wales, a minimum term (formerly "tariff") is the minimum period that a person serving an indefinite sentence must serve before that person becomes eligible for parole. The sentencing judge bears responsibility for setting the minimum term.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: The factors involved in the determination of a tariff were contested in the 1993 case of Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, two 11-year-old boys who were convicted of the murder of two-year-old James Bulger. Although the trial judge initially recommended that the pair would have to serve at least eight years in custody, the High Court later set a minimum term of 10 years. However, in July 1994 the Home Secretary Michael Howard set a tariff of 15 years, based in part on the public outcry over the murders. The ruling also came shortly after "The Sun" newspaper petitioned the Home Secretary with the signatures of thousands of readers for the two killers to receive stiffer sentences.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: In June 1997, the House of Lords ruled that Howard had acted unlawfully when setting the 15-year minimum terms. This ruling also signalled the end of the Home Secretary's powers to set minimum terms for offenders who committed their crimes before the age of 18.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: In November 2002, following a European Court of Human Rights ruling that the Home Secretary could no longer set minimum terms for life sentence prisoners, the High Court stripped the Home Secretary of his powers to set minimum terms completely. Earlier that year, following a legal challenge by another convicted murderer, Dennis Stafford, the Home Secretary had also been stripped of his powers to overrule the Parole Board's recommendations that a life sentence prisoner should be granted parole.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: Another notable prisoner whose minimum sentence was increased was Myra Hindley, jailed for life in 1966 for her role in the Moors Murders; she was convicted of murdering two children and being an accessory in the murder of a third. Her partner Ian Brady was convicted of all three murders. Their trial judge later recommended to the appropriate authorities that he felt it was unlikely that Brady could ever be rehabilitated and safe to be considered for release, but felt that the same was not true of Hindley once she was removed from Brady's influence, recommending that she should be considered for parole after a period of around 25 years. This ruling was endorsed by at least one Home Secretary and High Court judge, but after the pair confessed to two more murders in 1986, Hindley's minimum term was increased to 30 years and then replaced by a whole life tariff in 1990, although she was not informed of the decision until 1994 - following a High Court ruling that the Home Secretary was obliged to inform all life sentence prisoners when or if they could be considered for parole. This was despite reports by Parole Board and prison officials which stated that Hindley should be considered for parole or at least for a transfer to an open prison as a possible prelude to parole in the near future.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: Lord Longford and David Astor, two high-profile supporters of Hindley, backed her campaign for parole, and claimed that a succession of Home Secretaries were keeping her in prison in attempt to win votes for their respective governments, as well as shying away from an inevitable tabloid media backlash that would accompany lost votes for any government whose Home Secretary failed to block Hindley's release from prison. Some sources also claimed that Hindley was being kept in prison for her own safety more than to protect to the public from any risk she might pose, as she had received numerous deaths threats from relatives of the Moors Murders victims and from members of the public pledging to kill her if she was ever set free. Hindley lodged three appeals against her whole life tariff, but all three appeals were unsuccessful and she remained in prison until her death in November 2002, just over a week before the Home Secretary was stripped of his powers to set minimum terms for life sentence prisoners.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: With the death of Myra Hindley, the Home Secretary had lost perhaps the most high-profile prisoner in the prison system, whose minimum term had been increased by a succession of Home Secretaries, leaving him with limited time to select new high-profile prisoners to impose heavy sentences on. Some of these factors were used as grounds to appeal in June 2010 when one of the killers, Roy Whiting, successfully appealed to have his sentence reduced in the High Court.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: A similar system operates in Scotland, whereby the trial judge fixes a "punishment part" to "satisfy the requirements of retribution and deterrence". The prisoner cannot be considered for parole until this punishment part is served.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: For example, for a murder, someone may be given a life sentence with a minimum term of 15 years. This means they cannot be released on parole until the minimum term is served. Some prisoners serve considerably longer than the minimum term recommended by the trial judge – even if it was later reaffirmed or reduced by a Home Secretary or by the High Court. A notable example is Harry Roberts, jailed for life in 1966 for his role in the murder of three policemen in London. His trial judge recommended that he serve at least 30 years before being considered for parole, but he was not granted parole until 2014, by which time he had served 48 years in prison.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: The terms below are only guidelines for adults, and starting points vary in different legal cases. Starting points may either be increased or decreased depending on aggravating and/or mitigating factors respectively. The guidelines are currently in Schedule 21 of the Sentencing (Pre-consolidation Amendments) Act 2020.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: However, the law still states that life sentence prisoners (and prisoners issued with fixed-term prison sentences) who have been convicted of crimes committed before the Criminal Justice Act 2003 came into force (18 December 2003) are sentenced according to guidelines which existed when the crime was committed.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: The whole life order (formerly a whole life tariff) is a court order whereby a prisoner who is being sentenced to life imprisonment is ordered to serve that sentence without any possibility of parole or conditional release. This order may be made in cases of aggravated murders committed by anyone who was aged 21 or above at the time of the crime; or where the offender was aged between 18 and 20 if the Court considers that the seriousness of the offence, or combination of offences, is exceptionally high even by the standard of offences which would normally result in a whole life order where the offender is aged 21 or over. The purpose of a whole life order is for a prisoner to spend the rest of their life in prison, although they may still be released on compassionate grounds (see compassionate release) or pardoned by the monarch, within the royal prerogative of mercy. It is the most serious criminal penalty that can be imposed for any crime in the United Kingdom.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: Section 30(1) of the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 provides that the Home Secretary may at any time release a life prisoner on licence if satisfied that exceptional circumstances exist which justify the prisoner’s release on compassionate grounds. A prisoner can then be released early when criteria such as great age, injury, disability or ill health are met; this has seen several life sentence prisoners being granted early release a considerable length of time before the date when they could first apply for parole. A whole life order can also be quashed on appeal by the Court of Appeal; a number of prisoners have had their sentences reduced by this method. From 1983, the Home Secretary had the right to decide how long a life sentence prisoner should serve before being considered for parole, and the trial judge was not obliged to recommend when or if an offender should be considered for parole. In some cases, the trial judge had recommended that a life sentence prisoner should at some point be considered for parole, only for the Home Secretary to later impose a whole life order.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: The question of whether a Home Secretary or any of the other appropriate authorities should have the power to impose whole life orders was a controversial one, since a decision to impose such a sanction (or not) could carry political consequences for the Home Secretary and, by extension, the government they served – as well as a backlash by the national media. Perhaps the most notable example is Myra Hindley, sentenced to life in prison in 1966 for her role in the Moors Murders. Her trial judge recommended that she should serve a minimum of 25 years before being considered for parole. However, this was later increased to 30 years and in 1990 to "whole life" by David Waddington. Supporters of her campaign for parole argued that she was being kept in prison to serve the interest of successive Home Secretaries and their respective governments. She died in November 2002, having never managed to win parole; on three occasions she had appealed against the Home Office's ruling that she should never be released, but each of these appeals failed.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: The introduction of the government's tariff-setting procedures in 1983 also came shortly after a number of murderers were convicted of widely reported crimes. Also in 1983, Dennis Nilsen was jailed for life for murdering 11 young men whose dismembered bodies were found at the two flats he had rented in North London. Two years earlier, "Yorkshire Ripper" Peter Sutcliffe had been found guilty of murdering 13 women and attacking seven others in a six-year spree. Nilsen and Sutcliffe remained in prison until their deaths in 2018 and 2020 respectively.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: In 1976, Donald "Black Panther" Neilson was convicted on four charges of murder at the end of a highly publicised trial. All of these murderers were also subjected to a whole life order by subsequent Home Secretaries. Like Nilsen and Sutcliffe, Neilson remained in prison until his death, dying in 2011 after serving 35 years of his life sentence.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: In November 2002, a successful legal challenge by convicted double murderer Anthony Anderson saw the Home Secretary stripped of the final say on how long a life sentence prisoner must serve before parole can be considered, including the right to decide that certain prisoners should never be released. This ruling had been anticipated for several months, and was delivered just days after the death of Myra Hindley, who had been widely expected to gain immediate parole in the event of the Home Secretary being stripped of these sentencing powers.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: A year later, the Criminal Justice Act 2003 was passed, which required that the trial judge recommend the minimum number of years to be served (or order that life should mean life) in the case of anyone being sentenced to life imprisonment. As had been the case when the Home Secretary could determine when or if a life sentence prisoner could be considered for parole, prisoners were entitled to have their sentence reviewed by the High Court. These prisoners can also appeal to the European Court of Human Rights if their appeals to the High Court are unsuccessful.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: In June 1997, the High Court had already stripped the Home Secretary of the power to decide on minimum terms for life sentence prisoners who were convicted before the age of 18, following a legal challenge by solicitors acting for Robert Thompson and Jon Venables. The pair had been found guilty of murdering Merseyside toddler James Bulger in 1993, when they were 11 years old. The trial judge's initial recommendation was that they should not be considered for parole for at least eight years. The Lord Chief Justice later ruled that the pair should serve a minimum sentence of 10 years, but following a petition by "The Sun" newspaper, Home Secretary Michael Howard had ruled during 1994 that the pair should not be released until they had spent at least 15 years in custody.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: Only the Home Secretary can grant a release to a prisoner sentenced to a whole life order, on compassionate grounds including great age or ill health. Only four prisoners known or believed to have been issued with a whole life order have so far been released from their sentences. Three of them were IRA members who were freed under the Good Friday Agreement in 1999, having spent more than 20 years in prison for terrorist offences including murder. The other was gang member Reggie Kray, who was freed from his life sentence in August 2000 after serving 32 years (two years after the expiry of his original 30-year minimum term) due to terminal cancer; although the Home Office never confirmed that he had been issued with a whole life order, his lengthy imprisonment and the fact that he was not paroled when his tariff expired (despite being well into his sixties) helped fuel media speculation that he was among the prisoners who had been issued with a whole life order. He died a few weeks after being freed.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: Many prisoners have also received minimum sentences which are likely to last for most if not all of their remaining lives, such as child killers Roy Whiting and Ian Huntley, who were both convicted of child murder and received 40-year minimum terms which mean that they cannot apply for parole until they are at least 82 and 68 respectively. Whiting's trial judge had originally recommended that life should mean life and just before the High Court stripped politicians of their sentencing powers in November 2002, Home Secretary David Blunkett set Whiting's minimum term at 50 years, which was effectively a whole life order as it meant that he could only apply for parole if he lived to be at least 92. This decision was later appealed before the High Court, and the order was reduced to a 40-year minimum term. Huntley murdered two 10-year-old girls in August 2002, but by the time he was convicted 16 months later, the Home Secretary had been stripped of powers to set minimum terms for life sentence prisoners, and that decision was instead left to the High Court.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: Between 1997 and 2000, Hindley made three appeals against the ruling that life should mean life in her case, but each was unsuccessful. She remained in prison until her death in November 2002, 36 years after she was sentenced. Her campaign for parole was supported by Lord Longford and David Astor, who claimed that she was a reformed character who had merely acted as Ian Brady's accomplice under duress, and had completely changed once removed from his influence. However, opinion polls showed that the majority of the British public was opposed to Hindley being paroled, and the tabloid media largely opposed her release as well. Hindley received numerous death threats from members of the public – including the relatives of some of the Moors Murders victims – who vowed to kill her if she were ever released from prison. Widespread public and media doubt as to whether Hindley's remorse was genuine was further fueled by the fact that Hindley did not confess to two more murders until 1986, and further strengthened the belief of those who opposed her attempts to win parole that the reported turnaround in her life while in prison was nothing more than a ploy to boost her chances of parole.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: Ian Brady, who committed the Moors murders with Myra Hindley, was also told by a succession of Home Secretaries that his life sentence should mean life, but unlike Hindley he never attempted to gain parole, and insisted he never wanted to be released from custody. In 1999, he made an unsuccessful legal challenge to be allowed to starve himself to death. He died in May 2017 after more than 50 years in prison, and was Britain's longest-serving prisoner.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: Since 2003, the law has provided that whole life orders cannot be issued to anyone who was under the age of 21 at the time of their crime, although there had never been a previous case of a whole life order being imposed or recommended to someone who committed their crime before the age of 21.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: Around 100 prisoners are believed to have been issued with whole life orders since the mechanism was first introduced in 1983, although some of them were convicted of their crimes before that date and some of the prisoners known to have been issued with the whole life order have since died in prison or had their sentences reduced on appeal.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: A number of prisoners who are unlikely to ever be released or have received very long sentences have declared their wish to die; for example, Ian Brady. At least two such inmates have died by suicide in prison, Harold Shipman and Daniel Gonzalez, and there have been attempted suicides by such prisoners, including Ian Huntley. A number have died in prison as a result of ill health, including Brady's accomplice Myra Hindley and the "Black Panther" serial murderer and armed robber Donald Neilson.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: Whole life sentences have also been criticised in some quarters for giving offenders no incentive to behave well and co-operate with prison staff, or make any serious attempt at rehabilitation. An example of this was highlighted by the case of Robert Maudsley, sentenced to life for a single murder in 1975, who went on to kill three inmates several years into his sentence.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: Three convicted murderers, Jeremy Bamber, Peter Moore and Douglas Vinter, all murderers who had been sentenced to whole life orders, applied to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, for the court to declare that it is a contravention of the European Convention on Human Rights for someone to be sentenced to lifelong imprisonment. When the initial ruling was delivered in January 2012, the court ruled that because the whole-life orders were imposed by a judge only after consideration of the facts of each case, and because the life prisoners could apply to the Home Secretary for compassionate release, their whole life orders did not breach their human rights.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: A later appeal by the same men led to a ruling in July 2013 that there must be a prospect of review of whole life orders within 25 years of the prisoner being sentenced, and that any impossibility of parole would violate their Article 3 rights. By this stage there were at least 49 prisoners serving such sentences in England and Wales.


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: In February 2014, five judges at the Court of Appeal found the Strasbourg court was incorrect in concluding English and Welsh law never allowed whole life orders to be reduced because the Secretary of State could reduce such orders in "exceptional circumstances", and that all "whole life" prisoners would be entitled to a review of their sentence within 25 years of being sentenced. The whole life order in the United Kingdom is therefore in fact not really life imprisonment without parole, but it is close to it. Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas said whole life orders were compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in the most appalling cases of murder. Thomas said further, "Judges should therefore continue as they have done to impose whole-life orders in those rare and exceptional cases. ... In our judgment the law of England and Wales therefore does provide to an offender 'hope' or the 'possibility' of release in exceptional circumstances which render the just punishment originally imposed no longer justifiable." According to a barrister Edward Fitzgerald, whole-life prisoners since 2014 "are in a sort of limbo. In legal theory they have the right to a review after say 25 or 30 years in the light of their progress. But in actual practice there is no recognition of this fact in any policy statement by the Secretary for Justice and no real means of knowing what it is they must do to win release even after decades in custody".


title: Life imprisonment in England and Wales

text: In February 2015, the ECHR upheld the lawfulness of whole life orders, on the ground that they can be reviewed in exceptional circumstances, following a fresh challenge by murderer Arthur Hutchinson, who had been sentenced to life imprisonment for a triple murder in Sheffield more than 30 years earlier. Another legal challenge to the court by Hutchinson was rejected in January 2017. By this stage, there were believed to be more than 70 prisoners in England and Wales serving whole life sentences.


title: Kurta

text: A kurta is a loose collarless shirt or tunic worn in many regions of South Asia, and now also worn around the world. Tracing its roots to Central Asian nomadic tunics, or upper body garments, of the late-ancient- or early-medieval era, the kurta has evolved stylistically over the centuries, especially in South Asia, as a garment for everyday wear as well as for formal occasions.


title: Kurta

text: The kurta is traditionally made of cotton or silk. It is worn plain or with embroidered decoration, such as "chikan"; and it can be loose or tight in the torso, typically falling either just above or somewhere below the knees of the wearer. The front and back of a traditional kurta are made of rectangular pieces, and its side-seams are left open at the bottom, up to varying lengths, to enable ease of movement.


title: Kurta

text: The sleeves of a traditional kurta fall to the wrist without narrowing, the ends hemmed but not cuffed; the kurta can be worn by both men and women; it is traditionally collarless, though standing collars are increasingly popular. Kurtas are traditionally worn over ordinary pajamas, loose shalwars, or churidars. Among urban youth, kurtas are being increasingly worn over jeans, not only in South Asia, but also in the South Asian diaspora, both the recently established, and the longstanding. Young women and girls in urban areas are increasingly wearing "kurtis", which are short hip-length kurtas, with jeans or leggings, in addition to more traditional lower-body garments.


title: Kurta

text: According to author Roshen Alkazi, stitched ("i.e." cut and sewn) attire came to South Asia from Central Asia. There was a trickle during the Scythian/Parthian/Kushan invasions of the late ancient period, which markedly increased after the incursions of Mahmud of Ghazni, the floodgates opening with the Muslim conquests of the late 12th century, until the kurta became an item of common attire during the Mughal period.


title: Kurta

text: According to Alkazi: ...In the Ghaznavid period, we have only one clear visual reference to their actual costume, those worn by the Mamluk (slave) palace guards of Mahmud of Ghazni, in the wall paintings of Lashkari Bazaar in Afghanistan. They wear the "qaba" made of rich patterned textiles. This was a mid-calf length tunic with long narrow sleeves and "tiraz". The opening is from right to left and has a small loop for closing it higher at the left shoulder. This closing at the left shoulder was one of the earliest forms of neck closing and a relic of this is still seen in the Russian tunic and in the contemporary "kurtas" used in certain parts of India, both of which close at the left shoulder. (p 467)


title: Kurta

text: In 2014, an Indian family court in Mumbai ruled that a husband objecting to his wife wearing a kurta and jeans and forcing her to wear a sari amounts to cruelty inflicted by the husband and can be a grounds for divorce. The wife was thus granted a divorce on the ground of cruelty as defined under section 27(1)(d) of Special Marriage Act, 1954.


title: Kurta

text: A traditional kurta is composed of rectangular fabric pieces with perhaps a few gusset inserts, and is cut so as to leave no waste fabric. The cut is usually simple, although decorative treatments can be elaborate.


title: Kurta

text: The sleeves of a traditional kurta fall straight to the wrist; they do not narrow, as do many Western-cut sleeves. Sleeves are not cuffed, just hemmed and decorated.


title: Kurta

text: The front and back pieces of a simple kurta are also rectangular. The side seams are left open for 6-12 inches above the hem, also referred to as the "chāk", which gives the wearer some ease of movement. (Note: "chāk" derives from the Persian "چاك ćāk, Fissure, cleft, rent, slit, a narrow opening intentionally left in clothes)."


title: Kurta

text: The kurta usually opens in the front; some styles, however, button at the shoulder seam. The front opening is often a hemmed slit in the fabric, tied or buttoned at the top; some kurtas, however, have plackets rather than slits. The opening may be centered on the chest, or positioned off center.


title: Kurta

text: A traditional kurta does not have a collar. Modern variants may feature stand-up collars of the type known to tailors and seamstresses as "mandarin" collars. These are the same sort of collars seen on achkans, sherwanis, and Nehru jackets.


title: Kurta

text: Kurtas worn in the summer months are usually made of thin silk or cotton fabrics; winter season kurtas are made of thicker fabric such as wool or "Khadi silk", a thick, coarse, handspun and handwoven silk that may be mixed with other fibers. A very common fabric for the kurta pajama is linen, or a linen-cotton mix ideal for both summers and winters.


title: Kurta

text: Kurtas are typically fastened with tasselled ties, cloth balls, and loops, or buttons. Buttons are often wood or plastic. Kurtas worn on formal occasions might feature decorative metal buttons, which are not sewn to the fabric, but, like cufflinks, are fastened into the cloth when needed. Such buttons can be decorated with jewels, enameling, and other traditional jewelers' techniques.


title: Kurta

text: Tailors from the South Asia command a vast repertoire of methods, traditional and modern, for decorating fabric. It is likely that all of them have been used, at one time or another, to decorate kurtas. However, the most common decoration is embroidery. Many light summer kurtas feature Chikan embroidery, a specialty of Lucknow, around the hems and front opening. This embroidery is typically executed on light, semi-transparent fabric in a matching thread.


title: Kurta

text: Regional styles include the Bhopali, Hyderabadi, Lucknowi and straight-cut kurtas. The Bhopali kurta (taking its name from Bhopal) is a loose kurta with pleats at the waist, flowing like a skirt reaching midway between the knees and the ankles. It is worn with a straight pajama. The Hyderabadi kurta is named after the former royal state of Hyderabad and is a short top which sits around the waist, with a keyhole neck opening. It was popular with the local royal households. Traditionally, the Hyderabadi kurta was of white material, but modern versions can be of any colour. Over the kurta, some versions have net material, the combination of which is called "jaali karga", worn by men and women.


title: Kurta

text: The traditional Lucknowi kurta can either be short or long, using as much as 12 yards of cloth. The traditional Lucknowi kurta styles have an overlapping panel. However, the term "Lucknowi kurta" now applies to the straight-cut kurta embroidered using local Chikan embroidery. Another style is the kali or kalidar kurta which is similar to a frock and has many panels. The kalidar kurta is made up of several geometrical pieces. It has two rectangular central panels in the back and the front. The kali kurta is worn by men and women.


title: Kurta

text: The straight-cut traditional kurta is known as a "panjabi" in Bangladesh, West Bengal and Assam. Local embroidery designs give a regional outlook to the traditional kurta. In Assam, the Panjabi is worn with a scarf (Gamosa) using local prints. Other designs include Bengali Kantha embroidery; Multani crocheted designs of Multan (Punjab, Pakistan); the Phulkari kurta using the Phulkari embroidery of the Punjab region; Bandhani tye-dyeing of the Cholistan Desert; Delhi style kurtas which include the wooden beaded kurta and a kurta heavily laden with embroidery; and the Sindhi kurta made out of heavy local material called rilli. Sindhi kurtas utilise mirrors and the local art of bandhani (creating patterned textiles by resisting parts of a fabric by tying knots on it before it is dyed). The traditional Punjabi kurta of the Punjab region is wide and falls to the knees and is cut straight. The modern version of the regional kurta is the Mukatsari kurta which originates from Muktsar in Punjab. This modern Punjabi kurta is famous for its slim-fitting cuts and smart fit designs. It is very popular among young politicians.


title: Kurta

text: Kurtas are often worn with jeans. Women sometimes wear kurtas as blouses, usually over jeans pants. Jeans are sometimes preferred over pajamas or leggings as they are more durable for rough use. Most colours of kurtas match with blue jeans. In 2014, an Indian family court in Mumbai ruled that a husband objecting to his wife wearing a kurta and jeans and forcing her to wear a sari amounts to cruelty inflicted by the husband and can be a ground to seek divorce. The wife was thus granted a divorce on the ground of cruelty as defined under section 27(1)(d) of Special Marriage Act, 1954.


title: Kurta

text: Ladies' kurtas/blouses, along with leggings, are most popular in South Asia, and the community from South Asia in Singapore and Malaysia.


title: Kurta

text: In modern usage, a short kurta for women is referred to as the kurti. However, traditionally, the kurti refers to waistcoats, jackets and blouses which sit above the waist without side slits, and are believed to have descended from the tunic of the Shunga period (2nd century B.C.). Kurtis are typically much shorter than the traditional garments and made with lighter materials, like those used in sewing kameez.


title: Fuchsia

text: Fuchsia () is a genus of flowering plants that consists mostly of shrubs or small trees. The first to be scientifically described, "Fuchsia triphylla", was discovered on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic) about 1696–1697 by the French Minim monk and botanist, Charles Plumier, during his third expedition to the Greater Antilles. He named the new genus after German botanist Leonhart Fuchs (1501–1566).


title: Fuchsia

text: The fuchsias are most closely related to the northern hemisphere genus "Circaea", the two lineages having diverged around 41 million years ago.


title: Fuchsia

text: Almost 110 species of "Fuchsia" are recognized; the vast majority are native to South America, but a few occur north through Central America to Mexico, and also several from New Zealand to Tahiti. One species, "F. magellanica", extends as far as the southern tip of South America, occurring on Tierra del Fuego in the cool temperate zone, but the majority are tropical or subtropical. Most fuchsias are shrubs from tall, but one New Zealand species, the kōtukutuku ("F. excorticata"), is unusual in the genus in being a tree, growing up to tall.


title: Fuchsia

text: Fuchsia leaves are opposite or in whorls of three to five, simple lanceolate, and usually have serrated margins (entire in some species), 1–25 cm long, and can be either deciduous or evergreen, depending on the species. The flowers are very decorative; they have a pendulous teardrop shape and are displayed in profusion throughout the summer and autumn, and all year in tropical species. They have four long, slender sepals and four shorter, broader petals; in many species, the sepals are bright red and the petals purple (colours that attract the hummingbirds that pollinate them), but the colours can vary from white to dark red, purple-blue, and orange. A few have yellowish tones. The ovary is inferior and the fruit is a small (5–25 mm) dark reddish green, deep red, or deep purple berry, containing numerous very small seeds.


title: Fuchsia

text: The fruit of the berry of "F. splendens" is reportedly among the best-tasting. Its flavor is reminiscent of citrus and black pepper, and it can be made into jam. The fruits of some other fuchsias are flavorless or leave a bad aftertaste.


title: Fuchsia

text: The majority of "Fuchsia" species are native to Central and South America. A small additional number are found on Hispaniola (two species), in New Zealand (three species) and on Tahiti (one species). Philip A. Munz in his "A Revision of the Genus Fuchsia" classified the genus into seven sections of 100 species. More recent scientific publications, especially those by the botanists Dennis E. Breedlove of the University of California and, currently, Paul E. Berry of the University of Michigan, recognize 108 species and 122 taxa, organized into 12 sections. In New Zealand and Tahiti, section "Skinnera" now consists of only three species as "F." × "colensoi" has been determined to be a naturally occurring hybrid between "F. excorticata" and "F. perscandens". Also, "F. procumbens" has been placed into its own section, "Procumbentes." Two other new sections are "Pachyrrhiza" and "Verrucosa", each with one species. The Plant List, a cooperative endeavor by several leading botanical institutions to maintain a working list of all plant species, lists most currently accepted "Fuchsia" species and synonyms.


title: Fuchsia

text: Mexico to Panama. Flowers on the six species in this section have flat petals and short stamens and are reflexed into the tube. Fruits contain few seeds.


title: Fuchsia

text: Northern Argentina to Colombia and Venezuela, and Hispaniola. With 64 currently recognized species, Sect. "Fuchsia" (syn. "Eufuchsia") is the largest section within the genus. The flowers are perfect, with convolute petals. The stamens are erect and may or may not be exserted from the corolla; the stamens opposite the petals are shorter. The fruit has many seeds.


title: Fuchsia

text: Venezuela to Bolivia. The fifteen species in this section are characterised by a nectary that is fused with the base of the flower tube and petals that are partly or completely lacking.


title: Fuchsia

text: Coastal central Chile. This section is made up of a single species with pendulous axillary pedicels. The leaves are sparse. The sepals are reflexed and slightly shorter than the tube.


title: Fuchsia

text: Southern Argentina and Chile, and Southeastern Brazil. The nine species in this section have the nectary fused to the base of the tube, or hypanthium. The hypanthium is cylindrical and is generally no longer than the sepals. The stamens are long and are exserted beyond the corolla.


title: Fuchsia

text: New Zealand and Tahiti. The three living species have a floral tube with a swelling above the ovary. The sepals curve back on themselves and the petals are small or nearly absent. A new fossil species from the Early Miocene in New Zealand was described in October 2013.


title: Fuchsia

text: Fuchsias are popular garden shrubs, and once planted can live for years with a minimal amount of care. The British Fuchsia Society maintains a list of hardy fuchsias that have been proven to survive a number of winters throughout Britain and to be back in flower each year by July. Enthusiasts report that hundreds and even thousands of hybrids survive and prosper throughout Britain. In the United States, the Northwest Fuchsia Society maintains an extensive list of fuchsias that have proven hardy in members' gardens in the Pacific Northwest over at least three winters.


title: Fuchsia

text: Fuchsias from sections "Quelusia" ("F. magellanica", "F. regia"), "Encliandra", "Skinnera" ("F. excorticata", "F. perscandens") and "Procumbentes" ("F. procumbens") have especially proven to be hardy in widespread areas of Britain and Ireland, as well as in many other countries such as New Zealand (aside from its native species) or the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. A number of species will easily survive outdoors in agreeable mild temperate areas. Though some may not always flower in the average British summer, they will often perform well in other favorable climatic zones. Even in somewhat colder regions, a number of the hardier species will often survive as herbaceous perennials, dying back and reshooting from below ground in the spring.


title: Fuchsia

text: Due to the favorably mild, temperate climate created by the North Atlantic Current fuchsias grow abundantly in the West Kerry and West Cork region of Ireland and in the Isles of Scilly, even colonising wild areas there. While "F. magellanica" is not widespread in Scotland it has been known to grow wild in sheltered areas, such as the banks of local streams in Fife. In the Pacific Northwest region of the United States, "F. magellanica" also easily survives regional winters.


title: Fuchsia

text: Horticultural fuchsias may be categorised as upright and bushy, or trailing. Some can be trained as hedges, such as "F. magellanica". Faster-growing varieties are easiest to train. Care should be taken to choose the hardier cultivars for permanent plantings in the garden as many popular upright Fuchsias such as 'Ernie', 'Jollies Nantes' and 'Maria Landy' are not reliably winter hardy, but rather extremely tender (hardiness zone 10).


title: Fuchsia

text: In the UK, 60 cultivated varieties of fuchsia have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit, including:-


title: Fuchsia

text: Fuchsias are eaten by the caterpillars of some Lepidoptera, such as the elephant hawk-moth ("Deilephila elpenor") and the black-lyre leafroller moth (""Cnephasia" jactatana"). Other major insect pests include aphids, mirid bugs such as "Lygocoris", "Lygus" and "Plesiocoris" spp., vine weevils ("Otiorhynchus" spp.), and greenhouse whitefly ("Trialeurodes vaporariorum"). Problematic mites include the fuchsia gall mite ("Aculops fuchsiae") and red spider mite ("Tetranychus urticae").


title: Fuchsia

text: While the original pronunciation from the word's German origin is ""fook-sya"" , the standard pronunciation for the common name in English is ""fyu-sha"" . As a consequence, "fuchsia" is often misspelled as "" in English.


title: Fuchsia

text: When pronounced as scientific Latin name, the pronunciation would be ""fook-see-a"", if one applies the rule that the root word in honorific Latin names should follow as much as possible the original pronunciation of the name of the person the plant is named for, plus the standard pronunciation of the Latin suffix. In practice, however, English-speaking botanists often pronounce it the same as the common name, ""fyu-sha"".


title: Fuchsia

text: Leonhart Fuchs, the eminent namesake of the genus, was born in 1501 in Wemding in the Duchy of Bavaria. A physician and professor, he occupied the chair of Medicine at the University of Tübingen from his appointment at the age of 34 until his death in 1566. Besides his medical knowledge, according to his record of activities which was extensive for the time, he studied plants. This was usual for the period. Most remedies and medicines were herbal and the two subjects were often inseparable. In the course of his career Fuchs wrote the seminal "De Historia Stirpium Commentarii Insignes", which was richly illustrated and published in 1542. Along with Otto Brunfels (1489–1534) and Hieronymus Bock (1498–1554), also called Hieronymus Tragus, he is today considered one of the three fathers of botany.


title: Fuchsia

text: It was in honour of Fuchs' and his work that the fuchsia received its name shortly before 1703 by Charles Plumier. Plumier compiled his "Nova Plantarum Americanum", which was published in Paris in 1703, based on the results of his third plant-finding trip to the Caribbean in search of new genera. In it he described "Fuchsia triphylla flore coccinea...". Plumier's novel species was accepted by Linnaeus in 1753 but the long descriptive name was shortened in accordance with his binomial system.


title: Fuchsia

text: The first fuchsia species were introduced into English gardens and glasshouses at the end of the 18th century. "Fuchsia coccinea" Aiton arrived at Kew Gardens in 1788 to be formally described in 1789. It was apparently shortly followed by "Fuchsia magellanica" Lam. There is much early confusion between these two similar-looking species in the Quelusia Section and they seem to have hybridized readily as well. "Fuchsia magellanica", however, proved very hardy outdoors and its cultivars soon naturalized in favorable areas of the British Isles. Other species were quickly introduced to greenhouses. Of special interest is the introduction of "Fuchsia fulgens" Moç. & Sessé ex DC in the 1830s as it resulted in an outpouring of new cultivars when crossed with the existing species.


title: Fuchsia

text: Philip Munz, in his "A Revision of the Genus Fuchsia" (1943), repeats the story that the fuchsia was first introduced into England by a sailor who grew it in a window where it was observed by a nurseryman from Hammersmith, a Mr. Lee, who succeeded in buying it and propagating it for the trade. This was supposedly either one of the short-tubed species such as "Fuchsia magellanica" or "Fuchsia coccinea". The story given by Munz first appears in the 1850s and is embellished in various early publications. Captain Firth, a sailor, brought the plant back to England from one of his trips to his home in Hammersmith where he gave it to his wife. Later James Lee of St. Johns Wood, nurseryman and an astute businessman, heard of the plant and purchased it for £80. He then propagated as many as possible and sold them to the trade for prices ranging from £10 to £20 each. In the "Floricultural Cabinet", 1855, there is a report which varies slightly from the above. There it is stated that "F. coccinea" was given to Kew Garden in 1788 by Captain Firth and that Lee acquired it from Kew. Other than a citation at Kew itself that "Fuchsia coccinea" was indeed given to it by a Captain Firth, there is no firm evidence to support any of these introduction stories.


title: Fuchsia

text: Throughout the nineteenth century, plant-collecting fever spread throughout Europe and the United States. Many species of numerous genera were introduced, some as living plants, others as seed. The following fuchsias were recorded in England at Kew: "F. lycioides", 1796; "F. arborescens", 1824; "F. microphylla", 1827; "F. fulgens", 1830; "F. corymbiflora", 1840; and "F. apetala", "F. decussata", "F. dependens" and "F. serratifolia" in 1843 and 1844, the last four species attributable to Messrs. Veitch of Exeter.


title: Fuchsia

text: With the increasing numbers of differing species in England plant breeders began to immediately develop hybrids to develop more desirable garden plants. The first recorded experiments date to 1825 as "F. arborescens" Χ "F. macrostemma" and "F. arborescens" X "F. coccinea" where the quality of the resultant plants was unrecorded.


title: Fuchsia

text: Between 1835 and 1850 there was a tremendous influx to England of both hybrids and varieties, the majority of which have been lost.


title: Fuchsia

text: In 1848 Felix Porcher published the second edition of his book "Le Fuchsia son Histoire et sa Culture". This described 520 cultivars. In 1871 in later editions of M. Porchers book reference is made to James Lye who was to become famous as a breeder of fuchsias in England. In 1883 the first book of English fuchsias was published.


title: Fuchsia

text: Between 1900 and 1914 many of the famous cultivated varieties were produced which were grown extensively for Covent Garden market by many growers just outside London. During the period between the world wars, fuchsia-growing slowed as efforts were made toward crop production until after 1949, when plant and hybrid production resumed on a large scale.


title: Fuchsia

text: In the United States, Sidney Mitchell, a member of the newly formed American Fuchsia Society in San Francisco (1929), shipped a large collection of fuchsias back to California from a nine-month trip to visit gardens in Europe in 1930. Almost immediately after the Society had been established in 1929, a thorough census and collection of fuchsias already growing in California gardens and nurseries had been undertaken under the scientific leadership and direction of Alice Eastwood. The census yielded ninety-one existing cultivars. Armed with that list, Mitchell acquired 51 new fuchsias; 48 of his plants survived the long trip. These were doled out to members of the society and local businesses. Half were also cultivated at the University of California Botanical Garden in Berkeley and the other half at the Berkeley Horticultural Nursery. A wave of interest in fuchsia breeding was launched. Together with the hybrids already in California, many famous American hybrids of the 1940s and 1950s are the descendants of this 1930 group.


title: Luciferase

text: Luciferase is a generic term for the class of oxidative enzymes that produce bioluminescence, and is usually distinguished from a photoprotein. The name was first used by Raphaël Dubois who invented the words "luciferin" and "luciferase", for the substrate and enzyme, respectively. Both words are derived from the Latin word "lucifer", meaning "lightbearer", which in turn is derived from the Latin words for "light" ("lux)" and "to bring or carry" ("ferre)".Luciferases are widely used in biotechnology, for bioluminescence imaging microscopy and as reporter genes, for many of the same applications as fluorescent proteins. However, unlike fluorescent proteins, luciferases do not require an external light source, but do require addition of luciferin, the consumable substrate.


title: Luciferase

text: A variety of organisms regulate their light production using different luciferases in a variety of light-emitting reactions. The majority of studied luciferases have been found in animals, including fireflies, and many marine animals such as copepods, jellyfish, and the sea pansy. However, luciferases have been studied in luminous fungi, like the Jack-O-Lantern mushroom, as well as examples in other kingdoms including bioluminescent bacteria, and dinoflagellates.


title: Luciferase

text: The luciferases of fireflies – of which there are over 2000 species – and of the other Elateroidea (click beetles and relatives in general) are diverse enough to be useful in molecular phylogeny. In fireflies, the oxygen required is supplied through a tube in the abdomen called the abdominal trachea. One well-studied luciferase is that of the Photinini firefly "Photinus pyralis", which has an optimum pH of 7.8.


title: Luciferase

text: Also well studied is the sea pansy, "Renilla reniformis". In this organism, the luciferase (Renilla-luciferin 2-monooxygenase) is closely associated with a luciferin-binding protein as well as a green fluorescent protein (GFP). Calcium triggers release of the luciferin (coelenterazine) from the luciferin binding protein. The substrate is then available for oxidation by the luciferase, where it is degraded to coelenteramide with a resultant release of energy. In the absence of GFP, this energy would be released as a photon of blue light (peak emission wavelength 482 nm). However, due to the closely associated GFP, the energy released by the luciferase is instead coupled through resonance energy transfer to the fluorophore of the GFP, and is subsequently released as a photon of green light (peak emission wavelength 510 nm). The catalyzed reaction is:


title: Luciferase

text: Newer luciferases have recently been identified that, unlike other luciferases, are naturally secreted molecules. One such example is the "Metridia" coelenterazine-dependent luciferase (MetLuc, ) that is derived from the marine copepod "Metridia longa". The "Metridia longa" secreted luciferase gene encodes a 24 kDa protein containing an N-terminal secretory signal peptide of 17 amino acid residues. The sensitivity and high signal intensity of this luciferase molecule proves advantageous in many reporter studies. Some of the benefits of using a secreted reporter molecule like MetLuc is its no-lysis protocol that allows one to be able to conduct live cell assays and multiple assays on the same cell.


title: Luciferase

text: Bacterial bioluminescence is seen in Photobacterium species, "Vibrio fischeri, Vibrio haweyi, and Vibrio harveyi". Light emission in some bioluminescent bacteria utilizes 'antenna' such as lumazine protein to accept the energy from the primary excited state on the luciferase, resulting in an excited lulnazine chromophore which emits light that is of a shorter wavelength (more blue), while in others use a yellow fluorescent protein (YFP) with flavin mononucleotide (FMN) as the chromophore and emits light that is red-shifted relative to that from luciferase.


title: Luciferase

text: Dinoflagellate luciferase is a multi-domain eukaryote protein, consisting of an N-terminal domain, and three catalytic domains, each of which preceded by a helical bundle domain. The structure of the dinoflagellate luciferase catalytic domain has been solved. The core part of the domain is a 10 stranded beta barrel that is structurally similar to lipocalins and FABP.


title: Luciferase

text: The N-terminal domain is conserved between dinoflagellate luciferase and luciferin binding proteins (LBPs). It has been suggested that this region may mediate an interaction between LBP and luciferase or their association with the vacuolar membrane.


title: Luciferase

text: The helical bundle domain has a three helix bundle structure that holds four important histidines that are thought to play a role in the pH regulation of the enzyme. There is a large pocket in the β-barrel of the dinoflagellate luciferase at pH 8 to accommodate the tetrapyrrole substrate but there is no opening to allow the substrate to enter. Therefore, a significant conformational change must occur to provide access and space for a ligand in the active site and the source for this change is through the four N-terminal histidine residues. At pH 8, it can be seen that the unprotonated histidine residues are involved in a network of hydrogen bonds at the interface of the helices in the bundle that block substrate access to the active site and disruption of this interaction by protonation (at pH 6.3) or by replacement of the histidine residues by alanine causes a large molecular motion of the bundle, separating the helices by 11Å and opening the catalytic site. Logically, the histidine residues cannot be replaced by alanine in nature but this experimental replacement further confirms that the larger histidine residues block the active site. Additionally, three Gly-Gly sequences, one in the N-terminal helix and two in the helix-loop-helix motif, could serve as hinges about which the chains rotate in order to further open the pathway to the catalytic site and enlarge the active site.


title: Luciferase

text: A dinoflagellate luciferase is capable of emitting light due to its interaction with its substrate (luciferin) and the luciferin-binding protein (LBP) in the scintillon organelle found in dinoflagellates. The luciferase acts in accordance with luciferin and LBP in order to emit light but each component functions at a different pH. Luciferase and its domains are not active at pH 8 but they are extremely active at the optimum pH of 6.3 whereas LBP binds luciferin at pH 8 and releases it at pH 6.3. Consequently, luciferin is only released to react with an active luciferase when the scintillon is acidified to pH 6.3. Therefore, in order to lower the pH, voltage-gated channels in the scintillon membrane are opened to allow the entry of protons from a vacuole possessing an action potential produced from a mechanical stimulation. Hence, it can be seen that the action potential in the vacuolar membrane leads to acidification and this in turn allows the luciferin to be released to react with luciferase in the scintillon, producing a flash of blue light.


title: Luciferase

text: All luciferases are classified as oxidoreductases (), meaning they act on single donors with incorporation of molecular oxygen. Because luciferases are from many diverse protein families that are unrelated, there is no unifying mechanism, as any mechanism depends on the luciferase and luciferin combination. However, all characterised luciferase-luciferin reactions to date have been shown to require molecular oxygen at some stage.


title: Luciferase

text: In the reaction, molecular oxygen oxidizes flavin mononucleotide and a long-chain aliphatic aldehyde to an aliphatic carboxylic acid. The reaction forms an excited hydroxyflavin intermediate, which is dehydrated to the product FMN to emit blue-green light.


title: Luciferase

text: Nearly all of the energy input into the reaction is transformed into light. The reaction is 80% to 90% efficient. In comparison, the incandescent light bulb only converts about 10% of its energy into light and a 150 lumen per Watt (lm/W) LED converts 20% of input energy to visible light.


title: Luciferase

text: Luciferases can be produced in the lab through genetic engineering for a number of purposes. Luciferase genes can be synthesized and inserted into organisms or transfected into cells. As of 2002, mice, silkworms, and potatoes are just a few of the organisms that have already been engineered to produce the protein.


title: Luciferase

text: In the luciferase reaction, light is emitted when luciferase acts on the appropriate luciferin substrate. Photon emission can be detected by light sensitive apparatus such as a luminometer or modified optical microscopes. This allows observation of biological processes. Since light excitation is not needed for luciferase bioluminescence, there is minimal autofluorescence and therefore virtually background-free fluorescence. Therefore, as little as 0.02 pg can still be accurately measured using a standard scintillation counter.


title: Luciferase

text: In biological research, luciferase is commonly used as a reporter to assess the transcriptional activity in cells that are transfected with a genetic construct containing the luciferase gene under the control of a promoter of interest. Additionally, proluminescent molecules that are converted to luciferin upon activity of a particular enzyme can be used to detect enzyme activity in coupled or two-step luciferase assays. Such substrates have been used to detect caspase activity and cytochrome P450 activity, among others.


title: Luciferase

text: Luciferase can also be used to detect the level of cellular ATP in cell viability assays or for kinase activity assays. Luciferase can act as an ATP sensor protein through biotinylation. Biotinylation will immobilize luciferase on the cell-surface by binding to a streptavidin-biotin complex. This allows luciferase to detect the efflux of ATP from the cell and will effectively display the real-time release of ATP through bioluminescence. Luciferase can additionally be made more sensitive for ATP detection by increasing the luminescence intensity by changing certain amino acid residues in the sequence of the protein.


title: Luciferase

text: Whole animal imaging (referred to as "in vivo" when living or, otherwise called "ex vivo" imaging) is a powerful technique for studying cell populations in live animals, such as mice. Different types of cells (e.g. bone marrow stem cells, T-cells) can be engineered to express a luciferase allowing their non-invasive visualization inside a live animal using a sensitive charge-couple device camera (CCD camera).This technique has been used to follow tumorigenesis and response of tumors to treatment in animal models. However, environmental factors and therapeutic interferences may cause some discrepancies between tumor burden and bioluminescence intensity in relation to changes in proliferative activity. The intensity of the signal measured by in vivo imaging may depend on various factors, such as -luciferin absorption through the peritoneum, blood flow, cell membrane permeability, availability of co-factors, intracellular pH and transparency of overlying tissue, in addition to the amount of luciferase.


title: Luciferase

text: Luciferase is a heat-sensitive protein that is used in studies on protein denaturation, testing the protective capacities of heat shock proteins. The opportunities for using luciferase continue to expand.


title: Ragweed

text: Ragweeds are flowering plants in the genus Ambrosia in the aster family, Asteraceae. They are distributed in the tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas, especially North America, where the origin and center of diversity of the genus are in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. Several species have been introduced to the Old World and some have naturalized and have become invasive species. Ragweed species are expected to continue spreading across Europe in the near future in response to ongoing climate change.


title: Ragweed

text: Other common names include bursages and burrobrushes. The genus name is from the Greek "ambrosia", meaning "food or drink of immortality".


title: Ragweed

text: Ragweed pollen is notorious for causing allergic reactions in humans, specifically allergic rhinitis. Up to half of all cases of pollen-related allergic rhinitis in North America are caused by ragweeds.


title: Ragweed

text: Ragweeds are annual and perennial herbs and shrubs. Species may grow just a few centimeters tall or exceed four meters in height. The stems are erect, decumbent or prostrate, and many grow from rhizomes. The leaves may be arranged alternately, oppositely, or both. The leaf blades come in many shapes, sometimes divided pinnately or palmately into lobes. The edges are smooth or toothed. Some are hairy, and most are glandular.


title: Ragweed

text: Ragweeds are monoecious, most producing inflorescences that contain both staminate and pistillate flowers. Inflorescences are often in the form of a spike or raceme made up mostly of staminate flowers with some pistillate clusters around the base. Staminate flower heads have stamens surrounded by whitish or purplish florets. Pistillate flower heads have fruit-yielding ovules surrounded by many phyllaries and fewer, smaller florets. The pistillate flowers are wind pollinated, and the fruits develop. They are burs, sometimes adorned with knobs, wings, or spines.


title: Ragweed

text: Many "Ambrosia" species occur in desert and semi-desert areas, and many are ruderal species that grow in disturbed habitat types.


title: Ragweed

text: Ragweed pollen is a common allergen. A single plant may produce about a billion grains of pollen per season, and the pollen is transported on the wind. It causes about half of all cases of pollen-associated allergic rhinitis in North America, where ragweeds are most abundant and diverse. Common culprits are common ragweed ("A. artemisiifolia") and great ragweed ("A. trifida").


title: Ragweed

text: Concentration of ragweed pollen—in the absence of significant rainfall, which removes pollen from the air, is the lowest in the early morning hours (6:00 AM), when emissions starts. Pollen concentration peaks at midday. Ragweed pollen can remain airborne for days and travel great distances, and can even be carried out to sea. Ragweeds native to the Americas have been introduced to Europe starting in the nineteenth century and especially during World War I, and have spread rapidly since the 1950s. Eastern Europe, particularly Hungary, has been badly affected by ragweed since the early 1990s, when the dismantling of Communist collective agriculture led to large-scale abandonment of agricultural land, and new building projects also resulted in disturbed, un-landscaped areas.


title: Ragweed

text: The major allergenic compound in the pollen has been identified as "Amb a 1", a 38 kDa nonglycosylated protein composed of two subunits. It also contains other allergenic components, such as profilin and calcium-binding proteins.


title: Ragweed

text: Ragweed allergy sufferers may show signs of oral allergy syndrome, a food allergy classified by a cluster of allergic reactions in the mouth in response to the consumption certain fruits, vegetables, and nuts. Foods commonly involved include beans, celery, cumin, hazelnuts, kiwifruit, parsley, potatoes, bananas, melons, cucumbers, and zucchini. Because cooking usually denatures the proteins that cause the reaction, the foods are more allergenic when eaten raw; exceptions are celery and nuts, which may not be safe even when cooked. Signs of reaction can include itching, burning, and swelling of the mouth and throat, runny eyes and nose, hives, and, less commonly, vomiting, diarrhea, asthma, and anaphylaxis. These symptoms are due to the abnormal increase of IgE antibodies which attach to a type of immune cell called mast cells. When the ragweed antigen then attaches to these antibodies the mast cells release histamine and other symptom evoking chemicals.


title: Ragweed

text: Merck & Co, under license from allergy immunotherapy (AIT) company ALK, has launched a ragweed allergy immunotherapy treatment in sublingual tablet form in the US and Canada.


title: Ragweed

text: As of 2006, research into allergy immunotherapy treatment involved administering doses of the allergen to accustom the body to induce specific long-term tolerance.


title: Ragweed

text: Chemical spraying has been used for control in large areas. Because ragweed only reacts to some of the more aggressive herbicides, it is highly recommended to consult professionals when deciding on dosage and methodology, especially near urban areas. Effective active ingredients include those that are glyphosate-based (Roundup, Glyphogan, Glialka), sulfosate-based (Medallon), and glufosinate ammonium-based (Finale 14SL). In badly infested areas, are usually dispersed. In 2007 several "Ambrosia artemisiifolia" populations were glyphosate resistant, exclusively in the USA.


title: Ragweed

text: Where herbicides cannot be used, mowing may be repeated about every three weeks, as it grows back rapidly. In the past, ragweed was usually cut down, left to dry, and then burned. This method is used less often now, because of the pollution caused by smoke. Manually uprooting ragweed is generally ineffective, and skin contact can cause allergic reaction. If uprooting is the method of choice, it should be performed before flowering. There is evidence that mechanical and chemical control methods are actually no more effective in the long run than leaving the weed in place.


title: Ragweed

text: Fungal rusts and the leaf-eating beetle "Ophraella communa" have been proposed as agents of biological pest control of ragweeds, but the latter may also attack sunflowers, and applications for permits and funding to test these controls have been unsuccessful. The beetle has, however, appeared in Europe, either on its own or as an uncontrolled introduction, and it has started making a dent into


title: Equinor

text: Equinor ASA (formerly Statoil and StatoilHydro) is a Norwegian state-owned multinational energy company headquartered in Stavanger. It is primarily a petroleum company, operating in 36 countries with additional investments in renewable energy. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, Equinor was ranked as the 169th-largest public company in the world. the company has 21,126 employees.


title: Equinor

text: The current company was formed by the 2007 merger of Statoil with the oil and gas division of Norsk Hydro. As of 2017, the Government of Norway is the largest shareholder with 67% of the shares, while the rest is public stock. The ownership interest is managed by the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy. The company is headquartered and led from Stavanger, while most of their international operations are currently led from Fornebu, outside Oslo.


title: Equinor

text: The name "Equinor" was adopted in 2018 and is formed by combining "equi", the root for words such as "equity", "equality", and "equilibrium", and "nor", indicating that the company is of Norwegian origin. The Norwegian meaning of the former name "Statoil" is 'state oil', indicating that the oil company is state owned.


title: Equinor

text: The heritage of Equinor derives from three major Norwegian petroleum companies Statoil, Norsk Hydro, and Saga Petroleum (the latter two merged in 1999).


title: Equinor

text: Den Norske Stats Oljeselskap A/S was founded as a limited company owned by the Government of Norway on 14 July 1972 by a unanimous act passed by the Norwegian parliament Stortinget. The political motivation was Norwegian participation in the oil industry on the continental shelf and to build up Norwegian competency within the petroleum industry to establish the foundations of a domestic petroleum industry. Statoil was required to discuss important issues with the Minister of Industry, later Minister of Petroleum and Energy. Statoil was also required to submit an annual report to the parliament.


title: Equinor

text: In 1973, the company started work acquiring a presence in the petrochemical industry. This resulted in the development of processing plants in Rafnes and, in partnership with Norsk Hydro, the Mongstad plant in 1980. In 1981, the company acquired, as the first Norwegian company, operator rights on the Norwegian continental shelf on the Gullfaks field. 1987-88 saw the largest scandal in the company's history, the Mongstad scandal that made the until then unassailable CEO Arve Johnsen withdraw.


title: Equinor

text: In the 1980s, Statoil decided to become a fully integrated petroleum company and started building the Statoil fuel station brand. The stations in Norway originated as Norol stations, while the stations in Denmark and Sweden were purchased from Esso in 1985, and the stations in Ireland were purchased from British Petroleum in 1992 and ConocoPhillips Jet in the mid 1990s, then sold by Statoil to Topaz Energy in 2006. Statoil also built up a network of stations in part of Eastern Europe in the 1990s.


title: Equinor

text: In 1991, a controversy arose between Statoil and local environmentalists, mainly from Natur og Ungdom and Friends of the Earth Norway, who protested the building of a new research and development centre at Rotvoll, in Trondheim, Norway, a wetlands area close to the city with significant bird life. The controversy climaxed with civil disobedience by the environmentalists, but the centre was still built.


title: Equinor

text: The company was privatised and made a public limited company (allmennaksjeselskap) in 2001, becoming listed on both the Oslo Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange. At the same time, it changed its name to Statoil ASA. The government retained 81.7% of the shares. Through further privatization in 2004 and 2005, the government's share was reduced to 70.9%.


title: Equinor

text: The Statoil/Horton case refers to the company's use of bribes in Iran in 2002–2003 in an attempt to secure lucrative oil contracts in that country. This was mainly achieved by hiring the services of Horton Investments, an Iranian consultancy firm owned by Mehdi Hashemi Rafsanjani, son of former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani. Horton Investments was paid $15.2 million by Statoil to influence important political figures in Iran to grant oil contracts to Statoil. The corruption scandal was uncovered by the Norwegian paper "Dagens Næringsliv" on September 3, 2003. In 2006, the company accepted a $10.5 million fine for violating the U.S Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.


title: Equinor

text: In September 2007, Statoil and the Brazilian oil company Petrobras signed a deal aimed at expanding exploration, sub-sea, and biofuels cooperation. Under the agreement, Statoil became a partner on six offshore licenses, as well as expanding biofuels production. Petrobras and Statoil announced plans to create dozens of refineries in Brazil and the rest of the world where vegetable oil will be added to crude to create a no-sulphur fuel. On 4 March 2008, Statoil bought Anadarko Petroleum's 50% share of the Peregrino oil field for US$1.8 billion.


title: Equinor

text: In 2007, Statoil bought a large area in the Athabasca oil sand field in Canada after purchasing North American Oil Sands Corporation for $2.2 billion. (In 2012, Statoil had 4 oil sand licences ("oljesandlisensene ") as part of the Kai Kos Deh Seh project: Leismer, Corner, Hangingstone, and Thornberry).


title: Equinor

text: In 2009, Statoil launched the world's first operational deep-water floating large-capacity wind turbine, Hywind. The tall tower with a 2.3 MW turbine was towed offshore into the Amoy Fjord in deep water, off of Stavanger, Norway on 9 June 2009 for a two-year test run.


title: Equinor

text: In 1965, Hydro joined Elf Aquitaine and six other French companies to form Petronord to perform searches for oil and gas in the North Sea. Hydro soon became a large company in the North Sea petroleum industry, and also became operator of a number of fields, the first being Oseberg.


title: Equinor

text: In the late 1980s, Hydro acquired the Mobil service stations in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, changing their name to Hydro. In 1995, Hydro merged its stations in Norway and Denmark with Texaco, creating the joint venture HydroTexaco. The service station chain was sold in 2006 to Reitangruppen. In 1999, Hydro acquired Norway's third largest petroleum company Saga Petroleum, which had major upstream operations primarily in Norway and the United Kingdom. The British operations were later sold.


title: Equinor

text: A merger proposal was announced in December 2006. Under the rules of the EEA, the merger was approved by the European Union on 3 May 2007 and by the Norwegian Parliament on 8 June 2007. Statoil's shareholders hold 67.3% of the new company, with Norsk Hydro shareholders owning the remaining 32.7%. The Norwegian Government, the biggest shareholder in both Statoil and Norsk Hydro, holds 67% of the company. Jens Stoltenberg, the then Norwegian Prime Minister, commented that he viewed the merger as "the start of a new era...creating a global energy company and strengthening Norway’s oil and gas industry."


title: Equinor

text: It has been noted within the analyst community that a proposal will create an entity with much more competitive strength versus its much larger European rivals, including BP, Total, and Shell, while also increasing the ability of the company to make strategic acquisitions, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico. It is the ninth largest oil company in the world, and would be the 48th largest company in the world on the current Fortune Global 500 list with a revenue of NOK 480 billion.


title: Equinor

text: The company's management team was initially to be led by President and CEO Helge Lund (who previously held the same posts at Statoil), with Eivind Reiten, the President and CEO of Hydro, acting as Chairman. However, Reiten decided to resign as chairman three days after the merger because of a possible corruption case in Hydro's former oil division. The Vice-Chair and former Minister of Petroleum and Energy Marit Arnstad served as chairperson until 1 April 2008, when Svein Rennemo took up the post on a permanent basis after resigning as the CEO of the Norwegian oil services company Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS).


title: Equinor

text: To reflect a merger of the two companies and with regards of the minor partner, Hydro, it was decided that the joint company should be given a new name. An actual new name was not decided upon at the time of the merger, and StatoilHydro was created for temporary usage only. The firm announced its intention to revert to the name "Statoil ASA", and this was approved by the Annual General Meeting in May 2009. The name was changed on 2 November 2009


title: Equinor

text: The Norwegian state's share of the company after the merge was initially 62.5%. As a parliamentary decision in 2001 said it was a goal that the government should own 67% of Statoil, it was announced that the Norwegian government intended to increase its share. In 2009, it was announced that the Norwegian government had reached its goal of obtaining 67% of Statoil's share.


title: Equinor

text: In 2010, Statoil separated its downstream business into a separate listed company Statoil Fuel & Retail. In 2012 Alimentation Couche-Tard bought Statoil Fuel & Retail for $2.8 billion.


title: Equinor

text: On 24 May 2010, Statoil sold a 40% stake in the Peregrino field to Sinochem, the Chinese state-controlled oil company, for a cash sum of $3.07 billion, but retained 60% and the operatorship.


title: Equinor

text: On 7 April 2010, Statoil announced finding oil and gas reserves in the Fossekall prospect just north of the Norne oil field in the Norwegian Sea. The proved recoverable oil resources were provisionally estimated at between , while the volume of associated and free gas was estimated at between 1 and 3 billion standard cubic metres.


title: Equinor

text: In early June 2011, Statoil ASA has divested 24.1% shares in Gassled joint venture for NOK 17.35 billion ($3.25 billion) to Solveig Gas Norway AS and still has 5% shares in the partnership. In 2016 Statoil sold the Leismer oil sand operation in Canada to Athabasca Oil.


title: Equinor

text: In 2011–2012, Statoil announced a new discovery in the North Sea of , a large new find at its Aldous Major South prospect on the Norwegian continental shelf with recoverable oil between , a large new find at the Skrugard prospect in the northern Norwegian Sea (Barents Sea in Statoil terminology) north of the Snøhvit field off Hammerfest, and a find in the Havis Prospect of the Barents Sea of of oil.


title: Equinor

text: In 2011, Statoil bought Brigham Exploration for $4.4 Billion to gain access to its oil shale operations in North Dakota's Bakken formation. In 2012, Statoil sent 45,000 barrels of oil per day by railroad cars from North Dakota.


title: Equinor

text: In November 2011, a Statoil consultant and two others were tried for having received 7 million Norwegian kroner, in exchange for contracts and payments totaling "several tenfold" of millions of Norwegian kroner.


title: Equinor

text: In June 2013, Statoil announced a funded joint venture with Petrofrontier Corp. in Australia. Petrofrontier's Georgina Basin shale oil and gas bearing structures consistent with other producing areas in Australia and North America.


title: Equinor

text: In 2016, Statoil licensed 66% of the Carcará field in the Santos basin from Petrobras for $2.5 billion.


title: Equinor

text: In October 2014, Statoil sold its 15.5% stake in the Shah Deniz gas field in Azerbaijan to Petronas for a fee of $2.25 billion.


title: Equinor

text: In 2016, Statoil acquired a $3m share of a US wind turbine leasing company. Statoil expects oil demand to peak in the 2020s, and continually decline thereafter due to electric transportation.


title: Equinor

text: Despite finding no oil at its large exploration prospect in the Arctic in 2017, Statoil announced in October 2017 that the company would not give up exploring the Arctic.


title: Equinor

text: In October 2017, Statoil commissioned the 30-MW Hywind Scotland floating wind farm off Peterhead, Scotland. Equinor was contracted to build a wind tower assembly farm in New York City that same year.


title: Equinor

text: In March 2018, Statoil acquired a 50% stake in the Polish Bałtyk Środkowy III and Bałtyk Środkowy II (Middle Baltic II/III) offshore wind farms.


title: Equinor

text: On 15 March 2018, Statoil announced that it would change its name to Equinor following approval by the annual general meeting.


title: Equinor

text: Between 2007 and 2019, the company reported massive losses, including over USD $21.5 billion lost from its US-based assets. In 2019, the company sold its assets in Eagle Ford, Texas to Repsol for $325 million.


title: Equinor

text: In August 2020, Equinor appointed Anders Opedal as its new CEO. That year, the company announced that it would be decreasing employee numbers by 20% and contractor numbers by half in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, in response to falling oil prices.


title: Equinor

text: In January 2021, Equinor acquired a contract to provide off-shore wind power to the city of New York in partnership with BP. The contract with New York State was reportedly the largest offshore wind deal offered by an American state to date.


title: Equinor

text: In February 2021, Equinor completed the sale of its shale assets in the Bakken formation of North Dakota to Grayson Mill Energy for $900 million. That month, a spokesperson for the company stated that Equinor was considering further sales of energy assets in the US, in the aftermath of the global oil price war.


title: Equinor

text: In May 2021, Equinor and Italian energy company Eni announced that they were partnering on developing floating wind farms in the North Sea under a contract with the Norwegian government.


title: Equinor

text: Equinor partnered with Norwegian renewable energy company Vårgrønn in 2021 to acquire wind acreage in the Utsira Nord region of the North Sea.


title: Equinor

text: Equinor is the largest operator on the Norwegian continental shelf, with 60% of the total production. The fields operated are Brage, Heimdal, Grane, Glitne, Gullfaks, Heidrun, Huldra, Kristin, Kvitebjørn, Mikkel, Njord, Norne, Ormen Lange, Oseberg, Sleipner, Snorre, Snøhvit, Statfjord, Sygna, Tordis, Troll, Veslefrikk, Vigdis, Visund, Volve, and Åsgard. The company also has processing plants at Kolsnes, Kårstø, Mongstad, Tjeldbergodden, and Melkøya.


title: Equinor

text: In addition to the Norwegian continental shelf, Equinor operates oil and gas fields in Australia, Algeria, Angola, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Canada, China, Libya, Nigeria, Russia, United States, and Venezuela. Statoil has offices that are looking for possible ventures in the countries of Mexico, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The company has processing plants in Belgium, Denmark, France, and Germany. In 2006, Statoil was given approval to implement the world's largest carbon sequestration project as a means to mitigate carbon emissions to the atmosphere.


title: Equinor

text: Equinor is a partner in Brazil's offshore Peregrino oil field, which came on-stream in 2011. Equinor holds a 15.625% interest in the "Deep Blue" well on Green Canyon 723 in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico.


title: Equinor

text: Equinor has a long history of attempting to get involved in the Russian petroleum sector. Many partnerships have been entered, but the company has never had a major success in Russia. It partnered with Gazprom and Total on the Shtokman project in the Barents Sea, but this was shelved due to high costs and low gas prices. It then shifted from partnership with Gazprom to Rosneft, and in the two companies, have drilled for oil in several areas of Russia, again without any major finds. After the introduction of international sanctions during the Russo-Ukrainian War against Russia, Equinor has kept a much lower public profile on its Russian activities while continuing largely as before. Equinor left Russia in September 2022 after striking a deal with Rosneft, selling its Russian assets and transferring future liabilities and investment commitments for one euro.


title: Equinor

text: The Norwegian economics professor Karl Ove Moene has, in the Norwegian business daily "Dagens Næringsliv", raised the question of Equinor and resource curse. Much economic research show that, while natural resources are positive for nations with sound political structures, such as Norway, they are negative for nations with unsound political structures, and will, despite the riches, result in a lower economic growth. Besides his own research, Moene also points to similar results from Paul Collier.


title: Equinor

text: Equinor is involved in a number of pipelines, including Zeepipe, Statpipe, Europipe I and Europipe II, and Franpipe from the Norwegian continental shelf to Western Europe in addition to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline in Caucasus. The pipelines from Norway are organized through Gassled. In the North Sea, Equinor operates the Oseberg Transport System, Kvitebjørn oil pipeline, Heidrun gas pipeline, Sleipner East pipeline and Vestprosess pipeline.


title: Equinor

text: The company has trading offices for crude oil, refined petroleum products, and natural gas liquids in London, Stamford, Connecticut, and Singapore.


title: Equinor

text: Equinor owns and operates the 30-MW Hywind Scotland floating wind farm off Peterhead, Scotland. Equinor owns 50% stake in the Polish 1,200-MW Bałtyk Środkowy III and Bałtyk Środkowy II offshore wind farms. It also owns 25% stake in the 385-MW Arkona wind farm offshore Germany. Equinor operates the Sheringham Shoal Offshore Wind Farm with 40% stake in the project and has 50% stake in each Creyke Beck A and B and Teesside A wind farms of the Dogger Bank Wind Farm development in the United Kingdom.


title: Equinor

text: The company operated fuel stations under the main brand Statoil, fully automated stations under 1-2-3 and some of the stations under Ingo brand in Denmark and Sweden. In September 2007 Statoil acquired all Nordic Jet stations and continued to use the brand name until 2014 when the Nordic stations were rebranded to the new brand name Ingo. After the aquistion of Norsk Hydro in 2007 also operated 118 Hydro and Uno-X fuel station networks in Sweden until were sold together with 40 Jet stations in Norway in 2009 to Finnish company St1.


title: Equinor

text: In 2010, the downstream operations were separated into new listed company Statoil Fuel & Retail. In total Statoil had about 2,300 fuel station services in Denmark, Estonia, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Russia, and Sweden, as well as significant lubricants and aviation fuel operations.


title: Equinor

text: In 2012 Canadian company Alimentation Couche-Tard agreed to buy the company for $2.8 billion. In 2016, Couche-Tard decided to rebrand all fuel stations into the Circle K brand.


title: Equinor

text: For the fiscal year 2018, Equinor reported earnings of US$7.535 billion, with an annual revenue of US$79.593 billion, an increase of 30.1% over the previous fiscal cycle. Equinor's shares traded at over $18 per share, and its market capitalization was valued at over US$55.5 billion in October 2018. In the fourth quarter of 2021, Equinor had a profit of $15 billion.


title: Equinor

text: In 2016, Equinor (then Statoil) was ranked as the 5th best of 92 oil, gas, and mining companies on indigenous rights in the Arctic.


title: Equinor

text: In November 1987, several members of the board offered their resignation over approximately $780 million worth of cost overruns at the Mongstad refinery. It was seen as a big scandal in the Norwegian press.


title: Equinor

text: Equinor was a partner of Royal Dutch Shell in the Corrib gas project, which had been developing a natural gas field off the northwest coast of County Mayo, Ireland. Citizens protested the project on the grounds that they had been insufficiently consulted and that the pipeline posed a danger. In the summer of 2005, five men from Rossport were jailed for contempt of court after refusing to obey a temporary court injunction, which forbade interfering with the project. The ensuing protests led to the Shell to Sea campaign which opposed the project. In November 2021, Equinor exited the project after selling its 36.5% stake to Vermilion Energy for $434 million (€382 million).


title: Equinor

text: The Statoil corruption case, also known as the Statoil-Horton case (Norwegian: Statoils Horton-sak) refers to Norwegian oil company Statoil’s misconduct and extensive use of bribery in Iran between 2002 and 2003, in an attempt to secure lucrative oil contracts for the company in that country. On June 29, 2004, Statoil was found guilty of corruption by the Norwegian courts and was ordered to pay NOK 20 million in fines. On October 13, 2006, Statoil reached a settlement with US authorities for its involvement in the case and was ordered by a US court to pay US$21 million in fines.


title: Equinor

text: In March 2011, Statoil halted work on two North Sea oil field projects and laid off thousands of people due to a £2 billion U.K. tax on the sector.


title: Equinor

text: In 2012, a UK company, Ecclesiastical Investment, announced they were selling their stake in Statoil, as a result of perceived unethical practices related to Athabasca oil sands projects.


title: Equinor

text: In May 2012, Equinor signed an Arctic exploration deal with Rosneft. In June 2014, Statoil announced it had completed a 12-month exploration program of its Castberg license project in the Arctic and found less-than-expected oil reserves. Production, which had originally been planned to start in 2018, was temporarily shelved while the company and its partners reassessed the viability of the project and explored ways to reduce development costs.