title: Carina Nebula

text: HD 93129 is a triple star system of O-class stars in Carina. All three stars of are among the most luminous in the galaxy; consists of two clearly resolved components, and , and itself is made up of two much closer stars.


title: Carina Nebula

text: HD 93129 A has been resolved into two components. The spectrum is dominated by the brighter component, although the secondary is only 0.9 magnitudes fainter. is an O2 supergiant and Ab is an O3.5 main sequence star. Their separation has decreased from 55 milliarcseconds in 2004 to only 27 mas in 2013, but an accurate orbit is not available.


title: Carina Nebula

text: HD 93129 B is an O3.5 main-sequence star 3 arcseconds away from the closer pair. It is about 1.5 magnitudes fainter than the combined , and is approximately the same brightness as .


title: Carina Nebula

text: HD 93250 is one of the brightest stars in the region of the Carina Nebula. It is only 7.5 arcminutes from Eta Carinae, and is considered to be a member of the same loose open cluster , although it appears closer to the more compact .


title: Carina Nebula

text: HD 93250 is known to be a binary star, however, individual spectra of the two components have never been observed but are thought to be very similar. The spectral type of has variously been given as O5, O6/7, O4, and O3. It has sometimes been classified as a main sequence star and sometimes as a giant star. The Galactic O-Star Spectroscopic Survey has used it as the standard star for the newly created O4 subgiant spectral type.


title: Carina Nebula

text: The more massive member of the pair is an O3.5 main sequence star. The spectrum shows some ionized nitrogen and helium emission lines, indicating some mixing of fusion products to the surface and a strong stellar wind. The mass calculated from apsidal motion of the orbits is . This is somewhat lower than expected from evolutionary modelling of a star with its observed parameters.


title: Carina Nebula

text: The less massive member is an O8 main sequence star of approximately . It moves in its orbit at a speed of over and is considered to be a relativistic binary, which causes the apses of the orbit to change in a predictable way.


title: Silent Hill: Homecoming

text: Silent Hill: Homecoming is a 2008 survival horror game developed by Double Helix Games and published by Konami Digital Entertainment. The sixth installment in the "Silent Hill" series, "Homecoming" follows the journey of Alex Shepherd, a soldier returning from war, to his hometown of Shepherd's Glen, where he finds the town in disarray, and his younger brother missing. As he continues on his search to find his younger brother, he discovers more about the Order, a cult, as well as the town's history, and his own past.


title: Silent Hill: Homecoming

text: The game was released on September 30, 2008, in North America for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and the Microsoft Windows version was released in North America on November 6, 2008, exclusively through Valve's Steam digital content delivery service. Versions were simultaneously released in Europe, including a retail Microsoft Windows version, on February 27, 2009. The Japanese release was cancelled. On July 25, 2018, the game alongside "Silent Hill HD Collection" became backward compatible on Xbox One.


title: Silent Hill: Homecoming

text: The player assumes the role of Alex Shepherd, a Special Forces soldier who returns home from an overseas tour of duty to find that his father and younger brother are missing, and that his mother has gone into catatonia. Alex begins to search for his brother, leading him to Silent Hill after searching his hometown of Shepherd's Glen.


title: Silent Hill: Homecoming

text: Overall gameplay is similar to past entries in the series. The player, as Alex, explores the various environments and locales, searching for clues to advance the plot, such as photographs, drawings and other items which are placed inside Alex's journal, which the player may read at any time. To assist the player, Alex will turn his head towards items and clues to inform the player that the object may be picked up; other recurring items include weapons and ammunition, which give off a glow as a visual cue to the player, and health drinks. Puzzle elements also play a part in the game, and Alex's journal may refer to photographs and other items that can help the player decipher such puzzles as keypad entries. For the first time in the series, the player may select responses when engaging in dialogue with other characters encountered in the game, which in turn may affect how the player sees the plot unfold.


title: Silent Hill: Homecoming

text: In addition to exploration, combat is another major element to the gameplay, and the player must fight the various monsters that appear. In contrast to the more naïve everyman protagonists of previous games, combat in "Homecoming" takes into account Alex's experience as a soldier. The player is able to perform light and heavy attacks, or mix them to perform combinations, and may also perform a variety of finishing moves to ensure that the monsters are dead, a gameplay mechanic first featured in a rudimentary form in "". Attacking enemies also leaves wounds in them that match the motion carried out by Alex in inflicting the attack. In terms of controlling Alex, the player may also perform new maneuvers such as targeting the enemy before attacking them, dodging enemy attacks, and performing counter-attacks. As well as melee weapons, pistols, rifles and shotguns are available as firearms, which can be upgraded to stronger versions later in the game: firearm handling is also rendered in a more realistic manner, with Alex having to shoulder long guns and suffering aim effects like recoil. In addition to the changes in combat, and unlike previous entries in the series, the player is also able to fully control and rotate the camera as they choose; one analog stick controls player movement, and the other controls the camera.


title: Silent Hill: Homecoming

text: At the start of the game, the player controls Alex through a nightmare concerning his younger brother, Josh, before Alex wakes up in the cab of a truck driven by Travis Grady, the protagonist from "", who gives him a ride to his hometown of Shepherd's Glen. The town, named for a distant ancestor who helped found it, is covered in fog and deserted. At home, he finds his mother in a catatonic state, murmuring about his father leaving to find Josh; promising to find Josh, Alex leaves.


title: Silent Hill: Homecoming

text: Alex soon discovers that many more people have gone missing in Shepherd's Glen since he left, when he finds his childhood friend Elle Holloway pinning "missing" signs to a board outside the police department. As Alex explores the town, he witnesses the separate deaths of Mayor Bartlett and Dr. Fitch by monsters in the Otherworld, both of whom have a child who is missing. Back in Shepherd's Glen, Alex allies himself with Deputy Wheeler in the police department. Alex eventually learns that his father was involved in the secrets of the town and had left to attempt to resolve the town's problems, but before Alex is able to get answers from his mother at home, he is knocked unconscious as The Order—a religious cult from Silent Hill which has been taking people from the town— kidnaps his mother.


title: Silent Hill: Homecoming

text: Alex, Elle, and Wheeler take a boat across Toluca Lake to find Alex's father in Silent Hill but are intercepted by the Order. Elle and Wheeler are taken to Silent Hill's penitentiary, where Alex attempts to rescue them. He finds his mother bound; the player must make a decision regarding whether to kill her out of mercy or not, which will affect the outcome of the game. After rescuing Elle's mother, Judge Holloway, and separating from Wheeler once more, Alex finds the Order's church, where he secretly listens to his father in the confessional; the player may choose to forgive him, again affecting the outcome of the game. Alex later runs into his father, who reveals that Alex was never a soldier and has been in a mental hospital since "the accident" occurred. He begs forgiveness before he is killed by a monster called the Bogeyman (resembling Pyramid Head from "Silent Hill 2").


title: Silent Hill: Homecoming

text: Continuing to the Order's underground facility, Alex is captured by Judge Holloway, who reveals that everything that has happened is due to a broken pact. 150 years ago, the four founding families broke away from Silent Hill's Order to move to Shepherd's Glen. They were allowed to do so on the condition that once every 50 years they would sacrifice one of their children in a preordained fashion. On this occasion, while Joey Bartlett, Scarlett Fitch and Nora Holloway were successfully sacrificed by their parents, the Shepherd sacrifice failed, and as a result, the Order had been reformed to try to appease their god. Judge Holloway tries to kill Alex, who kills her in self-defense. Alex rescues Elle from the facility and, after finding Wheeler injured and allowing the player to choose whether to save him—once more affecting the game's ending—continues on alone to find Josh.


title: Silent Hill: Homecoming

text: Realizing he was the intended sacrifice, Alex experiences a flashback showing Josh's true fate. When Alex was younger, he had taken Josh rowing out on the lake, where Josh showed Alex a ring, which his father had chosen to give to him instead of Alex. Out of jealousy, Alex struggled with Josh to try to take the ring, and as they fought Josh accidentally fell into the lake and drowned. His father retrieved the body and explained that Alex had "ruined it for all of us", since he had chosen Alex, and not Josh; unable to accept Josh's death, Alex was then sent to the mental hospital (and not enlisting to the military as he initially believed), and with Josh instead of Alex sacrificed, the Order's pact was broken. After fighting the final boss, the manifestation of Josh's spirit, Alex finally has the chance to apologize and states that he never wanted Josh's death. Alex leaves the family ring and their father's angle-head army flashlight on Josh's body and exits the chamber.


title: Silent Hill: Homecoming

text: There are five endings available, which depend on the player's actions during the game, including whether the player kills Alex's mother, forgives Alex's father, and saves Deputy Wheeler. These range from the single positive ending to the game—where Alex comes to terms with his past actions and reunites with Elle to leave Shepherd's Glen—to three other endings: Alex getting drowned by his father, waking up in the hospital and receiving a shock treatment, or being turned into a Bogeyman. There is also a joke ending, where both Alex and Elle are abducted by a UFO while Wheeler witnesses. In addition to these endings, if the player collects all of Josh's pictures or clears the game on the "hard" difficulty, a first-person post-credits scene is played where Alex finds Josh sitting on the bottom bunk of his bed and Josh takes a picture of Alex with a camera.


title: Silent Hill: Homecoming

text: Chief designer of "Silent Hill: Homecoming", Masashi Tsuboyama, announced the game's development in a 2004 interview with Eurogamer, in which he also debunked previous internet rumors that it was to be called "Shadows of the Past". No information was initially imparted about the platform the game would appear on, other than it would be appearing on the next generation of consoles, which had yet to be released. Around two years later, an interview with composer Akira Yamaoka revealed more information; he hinted that they had hoped to carry on "plans of the earlier Silent Hill platforms", and that the team were creating a title with the idea of "fear in daylight", with similar psychological roots to "Silent Hill 2". The suggestion that the story and gameplay would be more like that of the second entry in the series in the way the player is directed, and in the character's behavior, was reaffirmed in a later interview, along with the idea of creating the game for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms.


title: Silent Hill: Homecoming

text: However, most of the ideas previously hinted at were not found in subsequent information releases. At E3 2007, a new teaser trailer was displayed by Konami that revealed the title of the game to be "Silent Hill V", and that the game would be released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Further to this trailer, Konami executives also revealed that the developer would not in fact be Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo as in previous iterations, but that, like "Silent Hill: Origins", it would be developed by a Western developer, The Collective. The Collective had merged with Backbone Entertainment in 2005 to form Foundation 9 Entertainment, and Foundation 9 then merged The Collective with Shiny Entertainment to create Double Helix Games. The team had been working on the production of "Harker", another survival horror title, but this was placed on indefinite hiatus during "Homecoming"'s production.


title: Silent Hill: Homecoming

text: Double Helix drew inspiration not only from past installments in the game series but also from the first "Silent Hill" movie adaptation; this is most evident in the transition from the normal world to the Otherworld, whose "ripping" effect almost matches that found in the movie. Other similarities from the same source includes the reaction of nurses to light, the bug-like creatures seen in the movie, and the Pyramid Head rendition, known as the "Bogeyman" in this game. Homages to previous games in the series include a reference to the long-running joke of the lead character placing their hand in a toilet bowl to retrieve items. Lead designer Jason Allen described the intentions of the development team to be to maintain the depth of storytelling and atmosphere of the series whilst making combat more intuitive and less frustrating. The script, in-game journal entries, and instruction manual were written by Patrick J. Doody and Chris Valenziano, based on the story and the summary of events provided by lead designer Jason Allen, lead artist Brian Horton, and lead level designer Daniel Jacobs.


title: Silent Hill: Homecoming

text: Despite the change in development team, Akira Yamaoka returned from past installments in the series to create both music and sound effects for the game. It was the first game in the series to use surround sound. Yamaoka wrote 70 minutes of music for the game, and insisted on working with Mary Elizabeth McGlynn to provide vocals, as fan reaction to her voice on previous "Silent Hill" titles has been favorable. "Homecoming"s soundtrack was released on November 24, 2008. McGlynn provided vocals for four tracks.


title: Silent Hill: Homecoming

text: "Homecoming" had difficulties in passing censors in some countries before it could go on sale. The Australian classification board, the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC), refused to classify the game, due to "impact violence and excessive blood effects". The objectionable scenes included various body parts being drilled into, as well as the bisection of a character by an enemy. This had the effect of banning the game for sale in the country, and representatives for publisher Atari mentioned that they would be asking Konami to tone down the violence to allow the game to receive the needed MA15+ rating for its sale to be permitted in early 2009.


title: Silent Hill: Homecoming

text: The German version of the game was also postponed to 2009 for cuts to be made to pass the German censors after the uncensored version was rejected by the Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle. The game was re-submitted after being altered in the same way as the Australian version and received the rating "keine Jugendfreigabe" (meaning 18+).


title: Silent Hill: Homecoming

text: On November 19, 2010, the Amtsgericht Frankfurt am Main confiscated all Xbox 360 versions imported from the UK (thus being uncensored) for violation of (representation of violence), effectively banning it from sale within Germany.


title: Silent Hill: Homecoming

text: "Homecoming" was released in North America on September 30, 2008, for both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles. In North America, Central America and South America, the PC version is only available via the Steam content delivery network. It was intended to launch on the same date as the console versions, but was delayed, finally becoming available on Steam on November 6, 2008. A European release on all platforms was intended for the same month, but was delayed to February 2009. In contrast to the American regions, a PC retail release on DVD was made available in Europe.


title: Silent Hill: Homecoming

text: "Homecoming"s average at Metacritic is 71 out of 100 for the PS3 version, 70 out of 100 for the Xbox 360 version and 64 out of 100 for the PC version. As the second external developer working on a "Silent Hill" entry, and the first for a home console iteration, Double Helix were under scrutiny from reviewers and "Silent Hill" fans to see how a Western developer would handle the franchise; many reviewers found the change in developer to be a positive move overall, while some, acknowledging faults in the final product, expressed interest in seeing further "Silent Hill" games from the same developer. In contrast, Zero Punctuation commented that the game was as an example of Japanese franchises being downgraded by Westernization, particularly in the different approaches taken to induce fear in the player.


title: Silent Hill: Homecoming

text: Praise was given to the graphics and environments, described as "fantastic", with Shepherd's Glen in particular being "rendered brilliantly", and "the upgraded visuals bestow a filmic quality to everything and the world's eerie transformations look better than ever". Surprise was expressed at the darkness of the game, with the flashlight seemingly having less effect than in previous games, and making some markers, such as doors, hard to spot.


title: Silent Hill: Homecoming

text: The music, written by series regular Akira Yamaoka, and the ambient audio, were received well, being "atmospheric, moody and beautifully presented"; combined with "an amazing score", the audio goes "a long way toward establishing the expected Silent Hill mood", though some concern was expressed that the music was "somewhat misplaced" and did not fit in so well. Voice acting, which has traditionally been seen as one of the series' weaker points, was evaluated as better than the series' usual attempts, but occasionally "flat" when more emotion was needed.


title: Silent Hill: Homecoming

text: The game's plot received a largely mixed reception. While some reviewers graded it positively, describing it as "intriguing and disturbing", it was also noted that it "isn't particularly original, and there are no great surprises", even though it "still makes for a very involving journey into the macabre". Several reviewers likened the story to a subplot of the main "Silent Hill" mythos which, while able to "stand on its own", "barely mentions certain characters which fairly dominate the backstory of previous SH games". Some critics expressed disappointment at the predictability of the main twist in the story regarding Alex's predicament, while others found it "genuinely shocking". Croshaw's Zero Punctuation review was generally negative, stating that while the level design, story and combat were all competent, the game had little to do with what he liked about the "Silent Hill" series and would have been better served as a completely different franchise.


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) is the resonant oscillation of conduction electrons at the interface between negative and positive permittivity material in a particle stimulated by incident light. SPR is the basis of many standard tools for measuring adsorption of material onto planar metal (typically gold or silver) surfaces or onto the surface of metal nanoparticles. It is the fundamental principle behind many color-based biosensor applications and lab-on-a-chip sensors. It should be stressed that SPR is not a resonance on the planar surface and it is a polariton or surface-wave like phenomenon.


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: The surface plasmon polariton is a non-radiative electromagnetic surface wave that propagates in a direction parallel to the negative permittivity/dielectric material interface. Since the wave is on the boundary of the conductor and the external medium (air, water or vacuum for example), these oscillations are very sensitive to any change of this boundary, such as the adsorption of molecules to the conducting surface.


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: To describe the existence and properties of surface plasmon polaritons, one can choose from various models (quantum theory, Drude model, etc.). The simplest way to approach the problem is to treat each material as a homogeneous continuum, described by a frequency-dependent relative permittivity between the external medium and the surface. This quantity, hereafter referred to as the materials' "dielectric function", is the complex permittivity. In order for the terms that describe the electronic surface plasmon to exist, the real part of the dielectric constant of the conductor must be negative and its magnitude must be greater than that of the dielectric. This condition is met in the infrared-visible wavelength region for air/metal and water/metal interfaces (where the real dielectric constant of a metal is negative and that of air or water is positive).


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: LSPRs (localized surface plasmon resonances) are collective electron charge oscillations in metallic nanoparticles that are excited by light. They exhibit enhanced near-field amplitude at the resonance wavelength. This field is highly localized at the nanoparticle and decays rapidly away from the nanoparticle/dielectric interface into the dielectric background, though far-field scattering by the particle is also enhanced by the resonance. Light intensity enhancement is a very important aspect of LSPRs and localization means the LSPR has very high spatial resolution (subwavelength), limited only by the size of nanoparticles. Because of the enhanced field amplitude, effects that depend on the amplitude such as magneto-optical effect are also enhanced by LSPRs.


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: In order to excite surface plasmon polaritons in a resonant manner, one can use electron bombardment or incident light beam (visible and infrared are typical). The incoming beam has to match its momentum to that of the plasmon. In the case of p-polarized light (polarization occurs parallel to the plane of incidence), this is possible by passing the light through a block of glass to increase the wavenumber (and the momentum), and achieve the resonance at a given wavelength and angle. S-polarized light (polarization occurs perpendicular to the plane of incidence) cannot excite electronic surface plasmons.


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: where k(formula_2) is the wave vector, formula_3 is the relative permittivity, and formula_4 is the relative permeability of the material (1: the glass block, 2: the metal film), while formula_2 is angular frequency and formula_6 is the speed of light in a vacuum.


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: Typical metals that support surface plasmons are silver and gold, but metals such as copper, titanium or chromium have also been used.


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: When using light to excite SP waves, there are two configurations which are well known. In the Otto configuration, the light illuminates the wall of a glass block, typically a prism, and is totally internally reflected. A thin metal film (for example gold) is positioned close enough to the prism wall so that an evanescent wave can interact with the plasma waves on the surface and hence excite the plasmons.


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: In the Kretschmann configuration (also known as Kretschmann–Raether configuration), the metal film is evaporated onto the glass block. The light again illuminates the glass block, and an evanescent wave penetrates through the metal film. The plasmons are excited at the outer side of the film. This configuration is used in most practical applications.


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: When the surface plasmon wave interacts with a local particle or irregularity, such as a rough surface, part of the energy can be re-emitted as light. This emitted light can be detected "behind" the metal film from various directions.


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: Surface plasmon resonance can be implemented in analytical instrumentation. SPR instruments consist of a light source, an input scheme, a prism with analyte interface, a detector, and computer.


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: The detectors used in surface plasmon resonance convert the photons of light reflected off the metallic film into an electrical signal. A position sensing detector (PSD) or charged-coupled device (CCD) may be used to operate as detectors.


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: Surface plasmons have been used to enhance the surface sensitivity of several spectroscopic measurements including fluorescence, Raman scattering, and second-harmonic generation. However, in their simplest form, SPR reflectivity measurements can be used to detect molecular adsorption, such as polymers, DNA or proteins, etc. Technically, it is common to measure the angle of minimum reflection (angle of maximum absorption). This angle changes in the order of 0.1° during thin (about nm thickness) film adsorption. (See also the Examples.) In other cases the changes in the absorption wavelength is followed. The mechanism of detection is based on that the adsorbing molecules cause changes in the local index of refraction, changing the resonance conditions of the surface plasmon waves. The same principle is exploited in the recently developed competitive platform based on loss-less dielectric multilayers (DBR), supporting surface electromagnetic waves with sharper resonances (Bloch surface waves).


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: If the surface is patterned with different biopolymers, using adequate optics and imaging sensors (i.e. a camera), the technique can be extended to surface plasmon resonance imaging (SPRI). This method provides a high contrast of the images based on the adsorbed amount of molecules, somewhat similar to Brewster angle microscopy (this latter is most commonly used together with a Langmuir–Blodgett trough).


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: For nanoparticles, localized surface plasmon oscillations can give rise to the intense colors of suspensions or sols containing the nanoparticles. Nanoparticles or nanowires of noble metals exhibit strong absorption bands in the ultraviolet–visible light regime that are not present in the bulk metal. This extraordinary absorption increase has been exploited to increase light absorption in photovoltaic cells by depositing metal nanoparticles on the cell surface. The energy (color) of this absorption differs when the light is polarized along or perpendicular to the nanowire. Shifts in this resonance due to changes in the local index of refraction upon adsorption to the nanoparticles can also be used to detect biopolymers such as DNA or proteins.


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: Related complementary techniques include plasmon waveguide resonance, QCM, extraordinary optical transmission, and dual-polarization interferometry.


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: The first SPR immunoassay was proposed in 1983 by Liedberg, Nylander, and Lundström, then of the Linköping Institute of Technology (Sweden). They adsorbed


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: human IgG onto a 600-Ångström silver film, and used the assay to detect anti-human IgG in water solution. Unlike many other immunoassays, such as ELISA, an SPR immunoassay is "label free" in that a label molecule is not required for detection of the analyte. Additionally, the measurements on SPR can be followed real-time allowing the monitoring of individual steps in sequential binding events particularly useful in the assessment of for instance sandwich complexes.


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: Multi-parametric surface plasmon resonance, a special configuration of SPR, can be used to characterize layers and stacks of layers. Besides binding kinetics, MP-SPR can also provide information on structural changes in terms of layer true thickness and refractive index. MP-SPR has been applied successfully in measurements of lipid targeting and rupture, CVD-deposited single monolayer of graphene (3.7Å) as well as micrometer thick polymers.


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: The most common data interpretation is based on the Fresnel formulas, which treat the formed thin films as infinite, continuous dielectric layers. This interpretation may result in multiple possible refractive index and thickness values. However, usually only one solution is within the reasonable data range. In multi-parametric surface plasmon resonance, two SPR curves are acquired by scanning a range of angles at two different wavelengths, which results in a unique solution for both thickness and refractive index.


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: In many cases no detailed models are applied, but the sensors are calibrated for the specific application, and used with interpolation within the calibration curve.


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: Due to the versatility of SPR instrumentation, this technique pairs well with other approaches, leading to novel applications in various fields, such as biomedical and environmental studies.


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: When coupled with nanotechnology, SPR biosensors can use nanoparticles as carriers for therapeutic implants. For instance, in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, nanoparticles can be used to deliver therapeutic molecules in targeted ways. In general, SPR biosensing is demonstrating advantages over other approaches in the biomedical field due to this technique being label-free, lower in costs, applicable in point-of-care settings, and capable of producing faster results for smaller research cohorts.


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: In the study of environmental pollutants, SPR instrumentation can be used as a replacement for former chromatography-based techniques. Current pollution research relies on chromatography to monitor increases in pollution in an ecosystem over time. When SPR instrumentation with a Kretschmann prism configuration was used in the detection of chlorophene, an emerging pollutant, it was demonstrated that SPR has similar precision and accuracy levels as chromatography techniques. Furthermore, SPR sensing surpasses chromatography techniques through its high-speed, straightforward analysis.


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: One of the first common applications of surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy was the measurement of the thickness (and refractive index) of adsorbed self-assembled nanofilms on gold substrates. The resonance curves shift to higher angles as the thickness of the adsorbed film increases. This example is a 'static SPR' measurement.


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: the resonance point (the angle of minimum reflectance), and measure the reflectivity changes at that point.


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: This is the so-called 'dynamic SPR' measurement. The interpretation of the data assumes that the structure of the film does not change significantly during the measurement.


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: When the affinity of two ligands has to be determined, the equilibrium dissociation constant must be determined. It is the equilibrium value for the product quotient. This value can also be found using the dynamic SPR parameters and, as in any chemical reaction, it is the dissociation rate divided by the association rate.


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: For this, a bait ligand is immobilized on the dextran surface of the SPR crystal. Through a microflow system, a solution with the prey analyte is injected over the bait layer. As the prey analyte binds the bait ligand, an increase in SPR signal (expressed in response units, RU) is observed. After desired association time, a solution without the prey analyte (usually the buffer) is injected on the microfluidics that dissociates the bound complex between bait ligand and prey analyte. Now as the prey analyte dissociates from the bait ligand, a decrease in SPR signal (expressed in resonance units, RU) is observed. From these association ('on rate', ) and dissociation rates ('off rate', ), the equilibrium dissociation constant ('binding constant', ) can be calculated.


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: The actual SPR signal can be explained by the electromagnetic 'coupling' of the incident light with the surface plasmon of the gold layer. This plasmon can be influenced by the layer just a few nanometer across the gold–solution interface i.e. the bait protein and possibly the prey protein. Binding makes the reflection angle change;


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: As SPR biosensors facilitate measurements at different temperatures, thermodynamic analysis can be performed


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: to obtain a better understanding of the studied interaction. By performing measurements at different temperatures,


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: typically between 4 and 40 °C, it is possible to relate association and dissociation rate constants with activation


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: As SPR allows real-time monitoring, individual steps in sequential binding events can be thoroughly assessed when investigating the suitability between antibodies in a sandwich configuration. Additionally, it allows the mapping of epitopes as antibodies of overlapping epitopes will be associated with an attenuated signal compared to those capable of interacting simultaneously.


title: Surface plasmon resonance

text: Recently, there has been an interest in magnetic surface plasmons. These require materials with large negative magnetic permeability, a property that has only recently been made available with the construction of metamaterials.


title: Dough

text: Dough is a thick, malleable, sometimes elastic paste made from grains or from leguminous or chestnut crops. Dough is typically made by mixing flour with a small amount of water or other liquid and sometimes includes yeast or other leavening agents, as well as ingredients such as fats or flavorings.


title: Dough

text: Making and shaping dough begins the preparation of a wide variety of foodstuffs, particularly breads and bread-based items, but also including biscuits, cakes, cookies, dumplings, flatbreads, noodles, pasta, pastry, pizza, piecrusts, and similar items. Dough can be made from a wide variety of flour, commonly wheat and rye but also maize, rice, legumes, almonds, and other cereals or crops.


title: Dough

text: Doughs vary widely depending on ingredients, the desired end product, the leavening agent (particularly whether the dough is based on yeast or not), how the dough is mixed (whether quickly mixed or kneaded and left to rise), and cooking or baking technique. There is no formal definition of what makes dough, though most doughs have viscoelastic properties.


title: Dough

text: Sometimes meringue is considered a dough. The English recipe for "Satan Biscuit" dates to 1677, and earlier recipes are known by different names. Some included flour like a 1604 recipe for "white bisket bread".


title: Dough

text: For yeast-based and sponge (such as sourdough) breads, a common production technique is the dough is mixed, kneaded, and then left to rise. Many bread doughs call for a second stage, where the dough is kneaded again, shaped into the final form, and left to rise a final time (or proofed) before baking. Kneading is the process of working a dough to produce a smooth, elastic dough by developing gluten. This process is both temperature and time-dependent; temperatures that are either too hot or too cold will cause the yeast to not develop, and rising times that are either too short or too long will affect the final product.


title: Dough

text: Pasta is typically made from a dry dough that is kneaded and shaped, either through extrusion, rolling out in a pasta machine, or stretched or shaped by hand (as for gnocchi or dumplings). Pasta may be cooked directly after production (so-called "fresh pasta") or dried, which renders it shelf-stable.


title: Dough

text: Doughs for biscuits and many flatbreads which are not leavened with yeast are typically mixed but not kneaded or left to rise; these doughs are shaped and cooked directly after mixing.


title: Dough

text: While breads and other products made from doughs are often baked, some types of dough-based foods are cooked over direct heat, such as tortillas, which are cooked directly on a griddle. Fried dough foods are also common in many cultures.


title: Dough

text: Pancakes, waffles, some kinds of bar cookies such as brownies, and many cakes and quick breads (including muffins and the like) are often made with a semi-liquid batter of flour and liquid that is poured into the final shape, rather than a solid dough. Unlike bread dough, these batters are not stabilized by the formation of a gluten network.


title: Kitchee SC

text: Kitchee Sports Club (; ; ) is a Hong Kong professional football club based in Kowloon. It was founded in 1931 and currently competes in the Hong Kong Premier League.


title: Kitchee SC

text: The club has won the Hong Kong title with 11 times, including Hong Kong First Division six times and Hong Kong Premier League five times. It also won the Hong Kong Senior Shield 7 times and the Hong Kong FA Cup 6 times in their history. In the last 10 years, Kitchee won slightly more than 50% of all possible trophies being competed in Hong Kong. The club is also the first team from Hong Kong to win a game in the history of the AFC Champions League group stage and the first Hong Kong club to advance to the round of 16.


title: Kitchee SC

text: In the late 1920s, a group of Hong Kongers formed a football team in order to compete in the Hong Kong Third Division. It was not until 1931, however, that the team was established as Kitchee Sports Club.


title: Kitchee SC

text: Kitchee was founded as a grassroots organization, as such, they lacked the funding to pay the administrative and facilities costs necessary to become a multi sports club. It was not until 1934 when the club were able to raise the money to rent an office at 130 Johnston Road in Wan Chai, that they were admitted as members of the Hong Kong Football Association.


title: Kitchee SC

text: In 1939, Japanese bombs accidentally hit Hong Kong during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The club's records during this time were destroyed during the bombing.


title: Kitchee SC

text: As the Pacific War began, Hong Kong fell to the Japanese on 25 December 1941, therefore the club's operations were suspended during the three-year, eight-month Japanese occupation of Hong Kong.


title: Kitchee SC

text: After the Japanese surrender of Hong Kong in August 1945, former members of Kitchee returned to the club. They resolved to help revitalize the and establish the Chinese Football Association of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Chinese Football Referees’ Association and the Hong Kong Chinese Footballer's Fraternity.


title: Kitchee SC

text: Following the war, Kitchee were admitted into the 1947–48 Hong Kong First Division League where they won the league title, the club's first major trophy. Between 1947 and 1964, the club won three Hong Kong First Division titles, one Second Division title, four Hong Kong Senior Shield's and one Hong Kong Junior Shield.


title: Kitchee SC

text: During this period, Kitchee discovered Hong Kong football legends and Lam Sheung Yee. Yiu led the club to its first two First Division titles and later became known as the "Treasure of Hong Kong Football." Lam spent a total 14 years at Kitchee, split between two spells, and was a part of every Kitchee squad which won a trophy between 1948 and 1964.


title: Kitchee SC

text: In 1965–66, Kitchee won only one game while drawing four others in the season, finishing second bottom of the table. The club were relegated after a 17-year spell in the top flight. In the subsequent season, Kitchee slid into the Third Division for the first time in three decades.


title: Kitchee SC

text: In the late 1980s, Law Ding Chun was hired as the new chairman of Kitchee. Law moved quickly to modernize the operations of Kitchee, buying insurance for all of his players in order to provide them with peace of mind in the event of an injury. His changes worked as Kitchee were soon promoted back to the Second Division.


title: Kitchee SC

text: In 1991–92, Kitchee won the Second Division title, returning to the top flight for the first time in 26 years. The squad during this period featured many future Hong Kong internationals including Yau Kin Wai, Chung Ho Yin, , Yeung Ching Kwong, Dale Tempest, as well as former England international Mark Barham. Kitchee spent three seasons in the top flight before they were relegated along with Kui Tan at the end of the 1994–95 season.


title: Kitchee SC

text: During the 1998–99 season, Kitchee won promotion back to the First Division as well as the Hong Kong Junior Shield. The following year, the squad were led by a backbone of young local players such as Lee Wai Lun, Man Pei Tak and Ng Wai Chiu. However, these were soon poached by bigger clubs and due to inadequate replacements, the performance of the team suffered and Kitchee were once again relegated at the conclusion of the 2000–01 season.


title: Kitchee SC

text: Ahead of the 2002–03 season, former Hong Kong national team manager was hired as Kitchee's manager. He led the team to the Second Division title in his one and only season as manager.


title: Kitchee SC

text: Following their return to the First Division in 2003, Kitchee became one of the most prominent teams in Hong Kong, winning three trophies in two seasons under coach Dejan Antonic: two in (2005–2006) and one in 2006–07 season. The club secured 2nd place in the league, along with league champions South China who had already qualified for the AFC Cup as the Hong Kong Senior Shield winners. As a result, Kitchee became one of two Hong Kong representatives in the 2008 AFC Cup.


title: Kitchee SC

text: Since 2009, the club has been a partner of the Chinese University of Hong Kong in its Injury Prevention and Performance Enhancement (IPPE) program.


title: Kitchee SC

text: Kitchee were invited to take part in the 2010 Singapore Cup, becoming the first Hong Kong team to take part in the tournament. The club lost to Etoile FC 4-6 over two legs in the quarter final.


title: Kitchee SC

text: In the 2010–11 season, under coach Josep Gombau, Kitchee won its first league title in 47 years by one point over arch rival South China, allowing the club to compete in both the 2011 Barclays Asia Trophy, where they lost 0:4 to Chelsea and 0:3 to Blackburn Rovers, and in the 2012 AFC Cup.


title: Kitchee SC

text: Between 2011–14, Kitchee players combined to win the Footballer of the Year award for four straight years. The recipients of this award were Roberto Losada in 2011, Lo Kwan Yee in 2012, Huang Yang in 2013 and Fernando Recio in 2014.


title: Kitchee SC

text: In 2012, Kitchee Foundation submitted a successful proposal to The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust for a youth football training centre. The club received over HK$44 million from the trust for the establishment of a training ground at Shek Mun, Shatin, New Territories. The Jockey Club Kitchee Centre, as it was later called, opened in 2014. The trust provided 90% of the funding, with the rest coming in part from the proceeds of a Kitchee vs Arsenal exhibition match where they drew 2–2. Apart from serving as the training ground of Kitchee first team and Kitchee Academy, the Centre also provides facilities for the Education Bureau-approved Professional Footballer Preparatory Programme, which Kitchee jointly offers with Yan Chai Hospital Tung Chi Ying Memorial Secondary School, in order to integrate football training into regular school curriculum and schedule.


title: Kitchee SC

text: In October 2012, Arsenal donated HK$780,000 to Kitchee Foundation in support of the youth training centre.


title: Kitchee SC

text: The club won the 2013–14 First Division title. The following season, Kitchee won the inaugural Hong Kong Premier League, the 2014–15 HKFA Cup and the 2014–15 League Cup, completing the treble for the second time.


title: Kitchee SC

text: In 2016–17, Kitchee completed a treble for the third time, capturing the 2016–17 Senior Shield, the 2016–17 Hong Kong FA Cup and the 2016-17 Hong Kong Premier League title. The club promoted long time assistant coach Chu Chi Kwong to head coach role and Director of Football. Brazilian attacking midfielder Fernando won the 2017 Footballer of the Year award while striker Sandro won the Golden Boot.


title: Kitchee SC

text: During the 2017 AFC Champions League qualifiers, Kitchee won against Vietnam's Hà Nội 3–2 but lost in the playoff rounds to Ulsan Hyundai in penalties.


title: Kitchee SC

text: Kitchee directly qualified 2018 AFC Champions League group stage through their HKPL title. To prepare for the competition, the club successfully signed famous Uruguayan footballer Diego Forlán to play for them. The club managed to achieve a 1–0 win over Kashiwa Reysol at home, becoming the first team from Hong Kong to win a game in the history of the AFC Champions League group stage. Domestically, Kitchee won the 2017–18 Hong Kong Premier League, 2017–18 Hong Kong FA Cup and the 2017–18 Hong Kong Sapling Cup, completing a treble for the second consecutive season and the fourth in club history.


title: Kitchee SC

text: In 2021, the club signed former Montenegrin international Dejan Damjanović, who won the Golden Boot with 17 goals in his first season with the club. The Bluewaves won the 2020–21 Hong Kong Premier League title on the final day of the season, besting rivals Eastern 2-0. Kitchee followed up their domestic success by accumulating 11 poiunts in their 2021 AFC Champions League, a record for a Hong Kong club in the competition.


title: Kitchee SC

text: During the 2022 AFC Champions League, Kitchee made history by becoming the first Hong Kong club to advance to the round of 16.


title: Kitchee SC

text: Kitchee's supporter group is known as "Ultras Bluewave". The group was formed in 2015, as is active at home and away matches in both the Hong Kong Premier League, and in continental competition.


title: Gdynia

text: Gdynia ( ; ; , (1939–1945); , , , ) is a city in northern Poland and a seaport on the Baltic Sea coast. With a population of 243,918, it is the 12th-largest city in Poland and the second-largest in the Pomeranian Voivodeship after Gdańsk. Gdynia is part of a conurbation with the spa town of Sopot, the city of Gdańsk, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the Tricity ("Trójmiasto") with around 1,000,000 inhabitants.


title: Gdynia

text: Historically and culturally part of Kashubia and Eastern Pomerania, Gdynia for centuries remained a small fishing village. By the 20th-century it attracted visitors as a seaside resort town. In 1926, Gdynia was granted city rights after which it enjoyed demographic and urban development, with a modernist cityscape. It became a major seaport city of Poland. In 1970, protests in and around Gdynia contributed to the rise of the Solidarity movement in nearby Gdańsk.


title: Gdynia

text: The port of Gdynia is a regular stopover on the cruising itinerary of luxury passenger ships and ferries travelling to Scandinavia. Gdynia's downtown, designated a historical monument of Poland in 2015, is an example of building an integrated European community and includes Functionalist architectural forms. Its axis is based around 10 Lutego Street and connects the main train station with the Southern Pier. The city is also known for holding the annual Gdynia Film Festival. In 2013, Gdynia was ranked by readers of "The News" as Poland's best city to live in, and topped the national rankings in the category of "general quality of life". In 2021, the city entered the UNESCO Creative Cities Network and was named UNESCO City of Film.


title: Gdynia

text: The area of the later city of Gdynia shared its history with Pomerelia (Eastern Pomerania). In prehistoric times, it was the center of Oksywie culture; it was later populated by Slavs with some Baltic Prussian influences. In the late 10th century, the region was united with the emerging state of Poland by its first historic ruler Mieszko I. During the reign of Bolesław II, the region seceded from Poland and became independent, to be reunited with Poland in 1116/1121 by Bolesław III. In 1209, the present-day district of Oksywie was first mentioned ("Oxhöft"). Following the fragmentation of Poland, the region became part of the Duchy of Pomerania (Eastern), which became separate from Poland in 1227, to be reunited in 1282. The first known mention of the name "Gdynia", as a Pomeranian (Kashubian) fishing village dates back to 1253. The first church on this part of the Baltic Sea coast was built there. In 1309–1310, the Teutonic Order invaded and annexed the region from Poland. In 1380, the owner of the village which became Gdynia, Peter from Rusocin, gave the village to the Cistercian Order. In 1382, Gdynia became property of the Cistercian abbey in Oliwa. In 1454, King Casimir IV Jagiellon signed the of act of incorporation of the region to the Kingdom of Poland, and the Thirteen Years' War, the longest of all Polish-Teutonic wars, started. It ended in 1466, when the Teutonic Knights recognized the region as part of Poland. Administratively, Gdynia was located in the Pomeranian Voivodeship in the province of Royal Prussia in the Greater Poland Province of the Kingdom of Poland and later of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.


title: Gdynia

text: In 1772, Gdynia was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia in the First Partition of Poland. Gdynia, under the Germanized name "Gdingen", was included within the newly formed province of West Prussia and was expropriated from the Cistercian Order. In 1789, there were only 21 houses in Gdynia. Around that time Gdynia was so small that it was not marked on many maps of the period: it was about halfway from Oksywie and Mały Kack, now districts of Gdynia. In 1871, the village became part of the German Empire. In the early 20th century Gdynia was not a poor fishing village as it is sometimes described; it had become a popular tourist spot with several guest houses, restaurants, cafés, several brick houses and a small harbour with a pier for small trading ships. The first Kashubian mayor was Jan Radtke. It is estimated that around 1910 the population of Gdynia was 895 people.


title: Gdynia

text: Following World War I, in 1918, Poland regained independence, and following the Treaty of Versailles, in 1920, Gdynia was re-integrated with the reborn Polish state. Simultaneously, the nearby city of Gdańsk ("Danzig") and surrounding area was declared a free city and put under the League of Nations, though Poland was given economic liberties and requisitioned for matters of foreign representation.


title: Gdynia

text: The decision to build a major seaport at Gdynia village was made by the Polish government in winter 1920, in the midst of the Polish–Soviet War (1919–1920). The authorities and seaport workers of the Free City of Danzig felt Poland's economic rights in the city were being misappropriated to help fight the war. German dockworkers went on strike, refusing to unload shipments of military supplies sent from the West to aid the Polish army, and Poland realized the need for a port city it was in complete control of, economically and politically.


title: Gdynia

text: Construction of Gdynia seaport started in 1921 but, because of financial difficulties, it was conducted slowly and with interruptions. It was accelerated after the Sejm (Polish parliament) passed the "Gdynia Seaport Construction Act" on 23 September 1922. By 1923 a 550-metre pier, of a wooden tide breaker, and a small harbour had been constructed. Ceremonial inauguration of Gdynia as a temporary military port and fishers' shelter took place on 23 April 1923. The first major seagoing ship, the French Line steamer "Kentucky", arrived on 13 August 1923 after being diverted because of a strike at Gdansk.


title: Gdynia

text: To speed up the construction works, the Polish government in November 1924 signed a contract with the French-Polish Consortium for Gdynia Seaport Construction. By the end of 1925, they had built a small seven-metre-deep harbour, the south pier, part of the north pier, a railway, and had ordered the trans-shipment equipment. The works were going more slowly than expected, however. They accelerated only after May 1926, because of an increase in Polish exports by sea, economic prosperity, the outbreak of the German–Polish trade war which reverted most Polish international trade to sea routes, and thanks to the personal engagement of Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski, Polish Minister of Industry and Trade (also responsible for the construction of Centralny Okręg Przemysłowy). By the end of 1930 docks, piers, breakwaters, and many auxiliary and industrial installations were constructed (such as depots, trans-shipment equipment, and a rice processing factory) or started (such as a large cold store).


title: Gdynia

text: Trans-shipments rose from 10,000 tons (1924) to 2,923,000 tons (1929). At this time Gdynia was the only transit and special seaport designed for coal exports.


title: Gdynia

text: In the years 1931–1939 Gdynia harbour was further extended to become a universal seaport. In 1938 Gdynia was the largest and most modern seaport on the Baltic Sea, as well as the tenth biggest in Europe. The trans-shipments rose to 8.7 million tons, which was 46% of Polish foreign trade. In 1938 the Gdynia shipyard started to build its first full-sea ship, the "Olza".


title: Gdynia

text: The city was constructed later than the seaport. In 1925 a special committee was inaugurated to build the city; city expansion plans were designed and city rights were granted in 1926, and tax privileges were granted for investors in 1927. The city started to grow significantly after 1928.


title: Gdynia

text: A new railway station and the Post Office were completed. The State railways extended their lines, built bridges and also constructed a group of houses for their employees. Within a few years houses were built along some of road leading northward from the Free City of Danzig to Gdynia and beyond. Public institutions and private employers helped their staff to build houses.


title: Gdynia

text: In 1933 a plan of development providing for a population of 250,000 was worked out by a special commission appointed by a government committee, in collaboration with the municipal authorities. By 1939 the population had grown to over 120,000.


title: Gdynia

text: During the German invasion of Poland, which started World War II in September 1939, Gdynia was the site of fierce Polish defense. On 13 September 1939, the Germans carried out first arrests of local Poles in the southern part of the city, while the Polish defense was still ongoing in the northern part. On 14 September 1939, the Germans captured the entire city, and then occupied it until 1945. On 15–16 September, the Germans carried out further mass arrests of 7,000 Poles, while Polish soldiers still fought in nearby Kępa Oksywska. The German police surrounded the city and carried out mass searches of weapons. Arrested Poles were held and interrogated in churches, cinemas and halls, and then around 3,000 people were released until 18 September. The occupiers established several prisons and camps for Polish people, who were afterwards either deported to concentration camps or executed. Some Poles from Gdynia were executed by the Germans near Starogard Gdański in September 1939. In October and November 1939, the Germans carried out public executions of 52 Poles, including activists, bank directors and priests, in various parts of the city. In November 1939, the occupiers also murdered hundreds of Poles from Gdynia during the massacres in Piaśnica committed nearby as part of the "Intelligenzaktion". Among the victims were policemen, officials, civil defenders of Gdynia, judges, court employees, the director and employees of the National Bank of Poland, merchants, priests, school principals, teachers, and students of local high schools. On the night of 10–11 November, the German security police carried out mass arrests of over 1,500 Poles in the Obłuże district, and then murdered 23 young men aged 16-20, in retaliation for breaking windows at the headquarters of the German security police. On 11 November, a German gendarme shot and killed two Polish boys who were collecting Polish books from the street, which were thrown out of the windows by new German settlers in the Oksywie district. The Germans renamed the city to "Gotenhafen" after the Goths, an ancient Germanic tribe, who had lived in the area. 10 Poles from Gdynia were also murdered by the Russians in the large Katyn massacre in April–May 1940.


title: Gdynia

text: Some 50,000 Polish citizens, who moved to Gdynia after 1920, were expelled to the General Government (German-occupied central Poland) to make space for new German settlers in accordance with the "Lebensraum" policy. Local Kashubians who were suspected to support the Polish cause, particularly those with higher education, were also arrested and executed. The German gauleiter Albert Forster considered Kashubians of "low value" and did not support any attempts to create a Kashubian nationality. Despite such circumstances, local Poles, including Kashubians, organized Polish resistance groups, Kashubian Griffin (later Pomeranian Griffin), and the exiled "Związek Pomorski" in the United Kingdom. In 1943, local Poles managed to save some kidnapped Polish children from the Zamość region, by buying them from the Germans at the local train station.


title: Gdynia

text: The harbour was transformed into a German naval base. The shipyard was expanded in 1940 and became a branch of the Kiel shipyard ("Deutsche Werke Kiel A.G."). The city became an important base, due to its being relatively distant from the war theater, and many German large ships—battleships and heavy cruisers—were anchored there. During 1942, Dr Joseph Goebbels authorized relocation of to Gotenhafen Harbour as a stand-in for during filming of the German-produced movie "Titanic", directed by Herbert Selpin.


title: Gdynia

text: The city was the location of two subcamps of the Stutthof concentration camp. The first subcamp was located in the Orłowo district in 1941–1942, the second, named "Gotenhafen", was located at the shipyard in 1944–1945.


title: Gdynia

text: The seaport and the shipyard both witnessed several air raids by the Allies from 1943 onwards, but suffered little damage. Gdynia was used during winter 1944–45 to evacuate German troops and refugees trapped by the Red Army. Some of the ships were hit by torpedoes from Soviet submarines in the Baltic Sea on the route west. The ship sank, taking about 9,400 people with her – the worst loss of life in a single sinking in maritime history. The seaport area was largely destroyed by withdrawing German troops and millions of encircled refugees in 1945 being bombarded by the Soviet military (90% of the buildings and equipment were destroyed) and the harbour entrance was blocked by the German battleship that had been brought to Gotenhafen for major repairs.


title: Gdynia

text: On 28 March 1945, the city was captured by the Soviets and restored to Poland. The Soviets installed a communist regime, which stayed in power until the Fall of Communism in the 1989. The post-war period saw an influx of settlers from Warsaw which was destroyed by Germany, and other parts of the country as well as Poles from the cities of Wilno (now "Vilnius") and Lwów (now "Lviv") from the Soviet-annexed former eastern Poland. Also Greeks, refugees of the Greek Civil War, settled in the city. The port of Gdynia was one of the three Polish ports through which refugees of the Greek Civil War reached Poland.


title: Gdynia

text: On December 17th, 1970, worker demonstrations took place at Gdynia Shipyard. Workers were fired upon by the police. Janek Wiśniewski was one of 40 killed, and was commemorated in a song by Mieczysław Cholewa, "Pieśń o Janku z Gdyni". One of Gdynia's important streets is named after Janek Wiśniewski. The event was also portrayed in Andrzej Wajda's movie "Man of Iron".


title: Gdynia

text: The climate of Gdynia is an oceanic climate owing to its position of the Baltic Sea, which moderates the temperatures, compared to the interior of Poland. The climate is cool throughout the year and there is a somewhat uniform precipitation throughout the year. Typical of Northern Europe, there is little sunshine during the year. Because of its latitude, Gdynia has 17 hours of daylight in midsummer but only around 7 hours in midwinter.


title: Gdynia

text: Gdynia is divided into smaller divisions: "dzielnicas" and "osiedles". Gdynia's "dzielnicas" include: Babie Doły, Chwarzno-Wiczlino, Chylonia, Cisowa, Dąbrowa, Działki Leśne, Grabówek, Kamienna Góra, Karwiny, Leszczynki, Mały Kack, Obłuże, Oksywie, Orłowo, Pogórze, Pustki Cisowskie-Demptowo, Redłowo, Śródmieście, Wielki Kack, Witomino-Leśniczówka, Witomino-Radiostacja, Wzgórze Św. Maksymiliana.


title: Gdynia

text: "Osiedles": Bernadowo, Brzozowa Góra, Chwarzno, Dąbrówka, Demptowo, Dębowa Góra, Fikakowo, Gołębiewo, Kacze Buki, Kolibki, Kolonia Chwaszczyno, Kolonia Rybacka, Krykulec, Marszewo, Międzytorze, Niemotowo, Osada Kolejowa, Osada Rybacka, Osiedle Bernadowo, Port, Pustki Cisowskie, Tasza, Wiczlino, Wielka Rola, Witomino, Wysoka, Zielenisz.


title: Gdynia

text: Gdynia is a relatively modern city. Its architecture includes the 13th century St. Michael the Archangel's Church in Oksywie, the oldest building in Gdynia, and the 17th century neo-Gothic manor house located on Folwarczna Street in Orłowo.


title: Gdynia

text: The surrounding hills and the coastline attract many nature lovers. A leisure pier and a cliff-like coastline in Kępa Redłowska, as well as the surrounding Nature Reserve, are also popular locations. In the harbour, there are two anchored museum ships, the destroyer and the tall ship frigate "Dar Pomorza". A -long promenade leads from the marina in the city center, to the beach in Redłowo.


title: Gdynia

text: Most of Gdynia can be seen from Kamienna Góra ( asl) or the viewing point near Chwaszczyno. There are also two viewing towers, one at Góra Donas, the other at Kolibki.


title: Gdynia

text: In 2015 the Emigration Museum opened in the city. Other museums include the Gdynia Aquarium, Experyment Science Center, Abraham's house, Żeromski's house, Gdynia Automotive Museum, Naval Museum, and Gdynia City Museum.


title: Gdynia

text: Gdynia holds many examples of early 20th-century architecture, especially monumentalism and early functionalism, and modernism. Historic Urban Layout of the City Center was drafted by Adam Kuncewicz and Roman Feliński in 1926. The central axis of Gdynia is built around 10 Lutego Street, Kosciuszka Square and the Southern Pier. The structure of the city is designed to emphasize the connection of Gdynia and Poland with the Baltic Sea. Examples of modernist architecture are the buildings of the Bank of Poland and many tenement houses ("kamienice"). Another good example of modernism is "PLO Building" situated at 10 Lutego Street.


title: Gdynia

text: The architecture of central Gdynia was inspired by the work of European architects such as Erich Mendelssohn and is sometimes compared to the White City of Tel Aviv. The center of Gdynia has become a symbol of modernity, but was included in the list of historical monuments of Poland and is a candidate for the UNESCO World Heritage List.


title: Gdynia

text: Gdynia hosts the Gdynia Film Festival, the main Polish film festival. The International Random Film Festival was hosted in Gdynia in November 2014.


title: Gdynia

text: Since 2003 Gdynia has been hosting the Open'er Festival, one of the biggest contemporary music festivals in Europe. The festival welcomes many foreign hip-hop, rock and electronic music artists every year. In record-high 2018 it was attended by over 140,000 people, who enjoyed the lineup headlined by Bruno Mars, Gorillaz, Arctic Monkeys, and Depeche Mode.


title: Gdynia

text: Another important summer event in Gdynia is the Viva Beach Party, which is a large two-day techno party made on Gdynia's Public Beach and a summer-welcoming concerts CudaWianki. Gdynia also hosts events for the annual Gdańsk Shakespeare Festival.


title: Gdynia

text: In 2008, Gdynia made it onto the "Monopoly Here and Now World Edition" board after being voted by fans through the Internet. Gdynia occupies the space traditionally held by Mediterranean Avenue, being the lowest voted city to make it onto the Monopoly Here and Now board, but also the smallest city to make it in the game. All of the other cities are large and widely known ones, the second smallest being Riga. The unexpected success of Gdynia can be attributed to a mobilization of the town's population to vote for it on the Internet.


title: Gdynia

text: An abandoned factory district in Gdynia was the scene for the survival series "Man vs Wild", season 6, episode 12. The host, Bear Grylls, manages to escape the district after blowing up a door and crawling through miles of sewer.


title: Gdynia

text: Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the supervillain in the James Bond novels, was born in Gdynia on 28 May 1908, according to "Thunderball".


title: Gdynia

text: In 2007, 364,202 passengers, 17,025,000 tons of cargo and containers passed through the port. Regular car ferry service operates between Gdynia and Karlskrona, Sweden.


title: Gdynia

text: The conurbation's main airport, Gdańsk Lech Wałęsa Airport, lays approximately south-west of central Gdynia, and has connections to approximately 55 destinations. It is the third largest airport in Poland. A second General Aviation terminal was scheduled to be opened by May 2012, which will increase the airport's capacity to 5mln passengers per year.


title: Gdynia

text: Another local airport, (Gdynia-Kosakowo Airport) is situated partly in the village of Kosakowo, just to the north of the city, and partly in Gdynia. This has been a military airport since the World War II, but it has been decided in 2006 that the airport will be used to serve civilians. Work was well in progress and was due to be ready for 2012 when the project collapsed following a February 2014 EU decision regarding Gdynia city funding as constituting unfair competition to Gdańsk airport. In March 2014, the airport management company filed for bankruptcy, this being formally announced in May that year. The fate of some PLN 100 million of public funds from Gdynia remain unaccounted for with documents not being released, despite repeated requests for such from residents to the city president, Wojciech Szczurek.


title: Gdynia

text: Trasa Kwiatkowskiego links Port of Gdynia and the city with Obwodnica Trójmiejska, and therefore A1 motorway. National road 6 connects Tricity with Słupsk, Koszalin and Szczecin agglomeration.


title: Gdynia

text: The principal station in Gdynia is Gdynia Główna railway station, and Gdynia has five other railway stations. Local services are provided by the 'Fast Urban Railway,' Szybka Kolej Miejska (Tricity) operating frequent trains covering the Tricity area including Gdańsk, Sopot and Gdynia. Long-distance trains from Warsaw via Gdańsk terminate at Gdynia, and there are direct trains to Szczecin, Poznań, Katowice, Lublin and other major cities. In 2011-2015 the Warsaw-Gdańsk-Gdynia route is undergoing a major upgrading costing $3 billion, partly funded by the European Investment Bank, including track replacement, realignment of curves and relocation of sections of track to allow speeds up to , modernization of stations, and installation of the most modern ETCS signalling system, which is to be completed in June 2015. In December 2014 new Alstom Pendolino high-speed trains were put into service between Gdynia, Warsaw and Kraków reducing rail travel times to Gdynia by 2 hours.


title: Gdynia

text: There are currently 8 universities and institutions of higher education based in Gdynia. Many students from Gdynia also attend universities located in the Tricity.


title: The Next Episode

text: "The Next Episode" is a single by American rapper-producer Dr. Dre, released on June 26, 2000 as the third single from his second studio album, "2001" (1999). The track features Snoop Dogg, Kurupt and Nate Dogg, but only Snoop Dogg is credited. It is a sequel to Dre and Snoop's famous single "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang" from the former's debut album, "The Chronic".


title: The Next Episode

text: The song has been performed live numerous times by both Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. Notable performances include the 2000 Up in Smoke Tour and as the opener to Super Bowl LVI halftime show on February 13, 2022.


title: The Next Episode

text: The single is produced by Dr. Dre and fellow Aftermath producer Mel-Man. Dre's verse was written by then Aftermath artists Hittman, The D.O.C. and Ms. Roq. The single's title harks back to Dre's and Snoop Dogg's smash hit "Nuthin' But a "G" Thang" from Dre's 1992 solo debut "The Chronic", in which Snoop Dogg instructs listeners at the end of the chorus to "just chill till the next episode". That line refers to the song "It's My Thing" from the EPMD album "Strictly Business", which in fact did not refer to this single but to its predecessor, a song from 1993 originally recorded for "Doggystyle" but not included in its final version. Snoop, Dre, and Nate each have verses, while Kurupt shares the hook with Snoop and Dre. The song has many references to 2Pac's "California Love", which he did with Dre while at Death Row Records, and To Live & Die in LA. Originally listed on the back cover of "Doggystyle" as "Tha Next Episode", the original version of the song was by Snoop Dogg featuring Dr. Dre, and had a much different beat and different lyrics. The original was 4:36 long, and referred to Dre's "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang" numerous times. The background of the original was later used in Warren G's "Runnin' Wit No Breaks" on the "Regulate...G Funk Era" album.


title: The Next Episode

text: The song's predominant sample interpolates "The Edge" by David McCallum and producer David Axelrod, originally released on McCallum's 1967 album "Music: A Bit More Of Me".


title: The Next Episode

text: The music video is set in a strip club with many strippers pole-dancing. It also features many rappers, including Hittman, Ice Cube, Warren G, and Xzibit.


title: The Next Episode

text: A remix with the same name by Snoop Dogg and Lil' Mo appears on the mixtape "DJ Felli Fel Featuring Snoop Dogg - The Heavy Hitters", released in 2002. A remix with the music from "Paradise City" by Guns N' Roses is available unofficially. A version dubbed by The Game as a diss toward 50 Cent was released in 2005. A remix titled "TNE 2006" was released to radio airplay in 2006. It features Snoop Dogg & Nate Dogg. Joe Budden rapped over the beat during an appearance on DJ Green Lantern Sirius Satellite Radio show with Charles Hamilton. The prizefighter remix was released in 2001, featuring 2Pac, DMX and Nas. RED drummer Joe Rickard is known to perform this song among other popular rap and hip hop songs live in concert in a medley. A version in Arabic appeared in the 2012 film "The Dictator" performed by Aiwa, Mr Tibbz, and actor Sacha Baron Cohen as the film's title character, Admiral General Aladeen. In November 2014, trap music producer San Holo released a remix of the song that has since garnered over 250 million views on YouTube. A version by Lyric Jones, Rah Digga and Mark Batson appears in the 2018 film "Dude".


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: The Joy Luck Club is a 1989 novel written by Amy Tan. It focuses on four Chinese immigrant families in San Francisco who start a club known as The Joy Luck Club, playing the Chinese game of mahjong for money while feasting on a variety of foods. The book is structured similarly to a mahjong game, with four parts divided into four sections to create sixteen chapters. The three mothers and four daughters (one mother, Suyuan Woo, dies before the novel opens) share stories about their lives in the form of short vignettes. Each part is preceded by a parable relating to the themes within that section.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: In 1993, the novel was adapted into a feature film directed by Wayne Wang and starring Ming-Na Wen, Lauren Tom, Tamlyn Tomita, France Nguyen, Rosalind Chao, Kieu Chinh, Tsai Chin, Lisa Lu, and Vivian Wu. The screenplay was written by the author Amy Tan along with Ronald Bass. The novel was also adapted into a play, by Susan Kim, which premiered at Pan Asian Repertory Theatre in New York.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: "The Joy Luck Club" consists of sixteen interlocking stories about the lives of four Chinese immigrant mothers and their four American-born daughters. In 1949, the four mothers meet at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco and agree to continue to meet to play mahjong. They call their mahjong group the Joy Luck Club. The stories told in this novel revolve around the Joy Luck Club women and their daughters. Structurally, the novel is divided into four major sections, with two sections focusing on the stories of the mothers and two sections on the stories of the daughters.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: The first section, "Feathers from a Thousand Li Away", introduces the Joy Luck Club through daughter Jing-Mei Woo, whose late mother Suyuan Woo founded the Joy Luck Club, and focuses on the four mothers. Jing-Mei relates the story of how her mother Suyuan was the wife of an officer in the Kuomintang during World War II and how she was forced to flee from her home in Kweilin and abandon her twin daughters. Suyuan later found out that her first husband died. She later married Canning Woo and immigrated to the United States where their daughter, Jing-Mei, was born. Suyuan and Canning attempted to find Suyuan's daughters, and Canning assumed that Suyuan had given up hope. Jing-Mei, who has been asked to take her mother's place in the Joy Luck Club, learns from the other mothers that her half-sisters are alive. They ask that Jing-Mei go to China and meet her sisters, and tell them about Suyuan's death.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: The other three mothers relate the stories of their childhood. An-Mei Hsu's story relates how her mother left her family to become the fourth concubine of Wu Tsing, a rich merchant, while An-Mei was raised by her maternal grandmother. Her mother returns only to cut off a piece of her flesh to cook a soup in hopes of healing An-Mei's grandmother, though An-Mei's grandmother still dies.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: Lindo Jong explains how in childhood she was forced into a loveless marriage and was pressured by her mother-in-law's desire for Lindo to produce grandchildren. Through her own ingenuity, Lindo fabricates a convincing story to annul her marriage and emigrate to the United States.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: The final story of the first section follows Ying-Ying St. Clair, who tells the story of how she fell into a lake during the Zhongqiujie festival when she was only four. After being rescued by a group of fishermen, she realizes that she is lost. This experience emotionally traumatizes her, and she is dropped at the shore, and wanders into an outdoor performance featuring the Moon Lady, said to grant wishes. But when Ying-Ying approaches the Moon Lady after the play to wish to be returned to her family, she discovers the Moon Lady is played by a man.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: The second section traces the childhoods of the Joy Luck children. In the first story, Waverly Jong talks about how she started playing chess, first with her brothers and then with old men in the playground near her school. At the age of nine, she becomes a national chess champion. She is embarrassed when her mother, Lindo, introduces her to everyone she meets, showing her off like a trophy and seeming to take the credit for her daughter's brilliance. This leads to an angry confrontation between the two of them.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: Lena relates the stories her mother told her when she was younger (her great grandfather sentenced a beggar to die in the worst possible manner). Lena's family moves to North Hill from Oakland. Her mother, who seems restless, delivers an anencephalic child who dies at birth. In Lena's eyes, her mother becomes a 'living ghost'.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: The story of their neighbors and the relationship between the mother and the daughter of the neighboring household is also mentioned. Rose Hsu Jordan wishes to tell her mother that she plans to divorce her husband Ted. She reflects on their relationship. She then goes on to relate an incident in which her family (her parents and six siblings) go to the beach. Her youngest brother, Bing, drowns. She returns along with her mother An Mei to search for Bing, but in vain.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: The last story is that of Jing Mei Woo and the pressure that her mother puts on her to perform exceedingly well in some field (to be a child prodigy). She begins to learn to play the piano but does not perform well in a concert and stops playing. This disappoints her mother because she wanted her to be a great pianist and Jing-Mei shows no interest in being anything else but herself. Around her 30th birthday, Suyuan presents her an old piano which she used to play as a child. Although Jing-Mei admits she had forgotten how to play the piano, Suyuan encourages her to try again. She admits to Jing-Mei that she still has the talent to be a great pianist, but self-doubt holds her back.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: The third section follows the Joy Luck children as adult women, all facing various conflicts. In Lena's story, she narrates her troubling marital problems and how she fears being inferior to her husband, Harold Livotny. She does not realize he has taken advantage of her both at home and at work, where he is also her boss and earns much more than her. Ying-Ying is very much aware of this. She pointed out how Lena knew a table would crumble yet did nothing to stop it, symbolizing that her marriage will crumble because it has a weak foundation. Lena finally admits she is not happy in her marriage to Harold and is lost inside. Ying-Ying encourages her to stop being passive and stand up to her husband or nothing will change.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: Waverly Jong worries about her mother's opinion of her white fiancé, Rich, and recalls quitting chess after becoming angry at her mother in the marketplace. She believes that her mother will still have absolute power over her and will object to her forthcoming marriage to Rich, after she did the same to her previous husband, Marvin Chen, with whom she has a daughter, Shoshana. After a disastrous attempt at a dinner party to tell her mother of their wedding, Waverly confronts her mother the morning afterwards and realizes that her mother has known all along about her relationship with Rich and has accepted him.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: Rose Hsu Jordan learns that Ted intends to marry someone else after divorcing her. She realizes through her mother's advice that she needs to fight for her rights and refuses to sign the conditions set forth by his divorce papers. She hires a good lawyer and wins possession of the house, forcing Ted to take her more seriously.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: In Jing-Mei's story, Jing-Mei has an argument with Waverly at a Chinese New Year's dinner the year before the story begins. Realizing that Jing-Mei has been humiliated, Suyuan gives her a special jade pendant called "life's importance", which she has worn since Jing-Mei was an infant. Jing-Mei regrets that she never learned the meaning of the pendant's name. She also confronts Suyuan with the belief that she had always been disappointed in Jing-Mei and admitted she could never live up to her high expectations. Jing-Mei believes that because she has never finished college, does not have a good career, and remains unmarried, she is seen as a failure in her mother's eyes. Suyuan eventually reveals her true meaning; that while Waverly has style, she lacks the kind and generous heart that Jing-Mei has. She also tells Jing-Mei that she understands the frustrations of never being good enough in her eyes and admits she is proud of Jing-Mei.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: The final section of the novel, the title of which refers to the Chinese goddess Xi Wangmu, returns to the viewpoints of the mothers as adults dealing with difficult choices. An-Mei reveals what happened after her grandmother died, she angered her relatives by leaving with her mother. They return to the home where her mother lived as the abused fourth concubine of Wu Tsing, whose second concubine manipulates and controls the household and has taken An-Mei's half-brother as her son. An-Mei learns how her mother was forced into accepting her position after Wu Tsing's second wife arranged for An-Mei's mother to be raped and shamed. When she came to her family for help, they cruelly turned their backs on her mother and told her to leave. An-Mei finds her mother has poisoned herself two days before Chinese New Year, knowing that Wu Tsing's superstitious beliefs will ensure An-Mei will grow up in favorable conditions.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: During the funeral, she takes her younger half-brother and forces Wu Tsing to honor both them and their deceased mother out of fear of him being haunted by their mother's ghost. The angry Second Wife attempts to dispute her claims and tries to discredit her. An-Mei quickly makes an example of her by destroying the fake pearl necklace that she originally gave to her, which exposes her cruelty and manipulation. This causes the Second Wife to realize that she has lost control of the household and brought trouble on herself, so she backs down. Fearing bad karma on the way, Wu Tsing honors both An-Mei and her brother as his children and their mother as his favorite First Wife.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: Ying-Ying St. Clair reveals how her first husband, a womanizer, abandoned her and how she married an American man she did not love after relinquishing her sense of control in her life. She later took back her sense of control when she finally had a talk with Lena and convinced her to leave Harold.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: Lindo Jong relates how she arrived in San Francisco and met An-Mei Hsu when they both worked at a fortune-cookie factory, which eventually gave her the means to plant the idea of marriage in her boyfriend's head.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: The novel's final episode returns to Jing-Mei, and her mother's desire to find her lost twin daughters. Jing-Mei and her father fly to China, where Jing-Mei meets her half-sisters and embraces her Chinese heritage. In doing so, she was finally able to make peace with Suyuan.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: During the Second World War, Suyuan lives in the Republic of China while her husband at the time served as an officer in Chungking (Chongqing). She starts the original Joy Luck Club with her three friends to cope with the War. There is little to eat, but they pretend it is a feast, and talk about their hopes for the future. On the day of the Japanese invasion, Suyuan leaves her house with nothing but a bag of clothes, a bag of food, and her twin baby daughters.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: During the long journey, Suyuan contracts such severe dysentery that she feels certain she will die. Fearing that a dead mother would doom her babies' chances of rescue, she reluctantly and emotionally leaves her daughters under a barren tree, together with all her belongings, along with a note asking anyone who might find the babies to care for them and contact the father. Suyuan then departs, expecting to die. However, she is rescued by a truck and finds out her husband has died. She later remarries, goes to America, and forms a new Joy Luck Club with three other Chinese female immigrants she met at church. She gives birth to another daughter, but her abandonment of her twin girls haunts her for the rest of her life. After many years, Suyuan learns that the twins were adopted, but dies of a brain aneurysm before she can meet them. It is her American-born daughter Jing-mei who fulfills her long-cherished wish of reuniting with them.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: As Suyuan dies before the novel begins, her history is told by Jing-mei, based on her knowledge of her mother's stories, anecdotes from her father, and what the other members of the Joy Luck Club tell her.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: An-Mei is raised by her grandparents and other relatives during her early years in Ningbo after her widowed mother shocks the family by becoming a concubine to a middle-aged wealthy man after her first husband's death. This becomes a source of conflict for the young An-Mei, as her aunts and uncles deeply resent her mother for such a dishonorable act. They try to convince An-Mei that it is not fitting for her to live with her disgraced mother, who is now forbidden to enter the family home. An-Mei's mother, however, still wishes to be part of her daughter's life. After An-Mei's grandmother dies, An-mei moves out to live with her mother in the home of her mother's new husband, Wu-Tsing, much to the disagreement of her relatives who insists she remains at home with them.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: An-Mei learns that her mother was coerced into being Wu-Tsing's concubine through the manipulations of his Second Wife, the favourite. This woman arranged for An-Mei's mother, still in mourning for her original husband, to be raped by Wu-Tsing. When her mother came to her family for their assistance, they cruelly refused and disowned her. The stigma left An-Mei's mother with no choice but to marry Wu-Tsing and become his new but lowly Fourth Wife. She later lost her baby son to Second Wife, who claimed the boy as her own child to ensure her place in the household. Second Wife also tried to win over An-mei upon her arrival in Wu-Tsing's mansion, giving her a necklace made of "pearls" that her mother later revealed were actually glass beads, by crushing one with her teacup. An-Mei's mother re-knots the necklace to hide the missing bead, but now An-Mei knows the truth about Second Wife's seeming generosity.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: Wu-Tsing is a highly superstitious man, and Second Wife takes advantage of this weakness by making false suicide attempts and threatening to haunt him as a ghost if he does not let her have her way. According to Chinese tradition, a person's soul comes back after three days to settle scores with the living. Wu-Tsing, therefore, is known to be afraid to face the ghost of an angry or scorned wife. After Second Wife fakes a suicide attempt to prevent An-Mei and her mother from getting their own small house, An-Mei's mother successfully commits suicide herself, eating tangyuan laced with lethal amounts of opium. Also taking advantage of Wu Tsing's beliefs, she times her death so that her soul is due to return on the first day of the Lunar New Year, a day when all debts must be settled lest the debtor suffer great misfortune. An-Mei takes her younger brother's arm and demands that Wu Tsing honor them and her mother or face great consequences. When Second Wife attempts to dispute this at the funeral rites, An-Mei quickly makes an example of her and shows her awareness of Second Wife's deceptions by crushing the fake pearl necklace under her feet. This symbolizes her new power over the woman who made her mother's life miserable by abusing her and taking her brother away. Now fearing An-Mei, Second Wife realizes the bad karma she has brought upon herself and backs down, having lost control of the house. With this in mind, Wu-Tsing promises to treat his Fourth Wife's children, including An-Mei, as if they were his very own flesh and blood and their mother as his honored First Wife.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: An-Mei later immigrates to America, marries, and gives birth to seven children (four sons, three daughters). The youngest, a son named Bing, drowns at age four.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: Lindo is a strong-willed woman, a trait that her daughter Waverly attributes to her having been born in the year of the Horse. When Lindo was only twelve, she was forced to move in with a neighbor's young son, Huang Tyan Yu, through the machinations of the village matchmaker. After some training for household duties through her in-laws, she and Tyan-yu married when she turned sixteen. She soon realized that her husband was a mere boy at heart and had no sexual interest in her. It is loosely implied that he might have been gay. Lindo began to care for her husband as a brother, but her cruel mother-in-law expected Lindo to produce a grandson. She restricted most of Lindo's daily activities, eventually ordering her to remain on bed rest until she could conceive and deliver a child.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: Determined to escape this unfortunate situation, Lindo carefully observed the other people in the household and eventually formed a clever plan to escape her marriage without dishonoring herself, her family and her in-laws. She managed to convince her in-laws that Huang Tyan Yu was actually fated to marry another girl who was already pregnant with his "spiritual child", and that her own marriage to him would only bring bad luck to the family. The girl she described as his destined wife was, in fact, a mere servant in the household, indeed pregnant but abandoned by her lover. Seeing this as an opportunity for her to be married and live comfortably, the servant girl cheerfully agreed with Lindo.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: Freed from her first marriage, Lindo decided to immigrate to America. She married a Chinese American man named Tin Jong and has three children: sons Winston and Vincent, and daughter Waverly.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: Lindo experiences regret over losing some of her Chinese identity by living so long in America (she is treated like a tourist on a visit to China); however, she expresses concern that Waverly's American upbringing has formed a barrier between them.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: From a young age, Ying-Ying is told by her wealthy and conservative family that Chinese girls should be meek and gentle. This is especially difficult for her, as she feels it out of step with her character as a Tiger. She begins to develop a passive personality and represses her feelings as she grows up in Wuxi. Ying-Ying marries a charismatic man named Lin Xiao not out of love, but because she believed it was her fate. Her husband is revealed to be abusive and openly has extramarital affairs with other women. When Ying-Ying discovers she is pregnant, she has an abortion and decides to live with her relatives in a smaller city in China.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: After ten years, she moves to Shanghai and works in a clothing store, where she meets an American man named Clifford St. Clair. He falls in love with her, but Ying-Ying cannot express any strong emotion after her first marriage. He courts her for four years, and she agrees to marry him after learning that Lin Xiao had died, which she takes as the proper sign to move on. She allows Clifford to control most aspects of her life; he mistranslates her words and actions, and even changes her name to "Betty". Ying-Ying gives birth to her daughter, Lena, after moving to San Francisco with St. Clair. When Lena is around ten years old, Ying-Ying becomes pregnant a third time, but the baby boy is anencephalic and soon dies.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: Ying-Ying is horrified when she realises that Lena, a Tiger like herself, has inherited or emulated her passive behaviors and trapped herself in a loveless marriage with a controlling husband. She finally resolves to call upon the more assertive qualities of her Tiger nature, to appeal to those qualities in Lena. She will tell Lena her story in the hope that she will be able to break free from the same passivity that ruined most of her young life back in China.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: Jing-Mei has never fully understood her mother and seems directionless in life. During Jing's childhood, her mother used to tell her that she could be anything she wants; however, she particularly wanted her daughter to be gifted, a child star who amazes the world, like Ginny Tiu (seen briefly on television) or June's rival Waverly. At the beginning of the novel, June is chosen to replace her mother's seat in the Joy Luck Club after her mother's death. At the end of the novel, June is still trying to deal with her mother's death, and she visits China to see the twin half-sisters (Wang Chwun Yu and Wang Chwun Hwa) whom her mother had been forced to abandon when the Japanese attacked China. Only when she visits China to meet her half-sisters and tell them about their mother, Jing-Mei finally accepts her Chinese heritage and makes her peace with her mother.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: One critic has suggested that the reason for the communication gap between Jing-Mei and her mother, and between the other daughters and their mothers—a major theme of the novel—occurs because the mothers come from a high context culture and the Americanized daughters from a low context culture. The mothers believe that the daughters will intuitively understand their cryptic utterances, but the daughters don't understand them at all.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: Rose is somewhat passive and is a bit of a perfectionist. She had an unsettling childhood experience when her youngest brother, Bing, drowned while she was supposed to be watching him, and his body was never recovered. Rose marries a doctor, Ted Jordan, who loves her but also wants to spite his snooty, racist mother. After a malpractice suit, Ted has a mid-life crisis and decides to leave Rose. Rose confides in her mother and An-mei tells her the story of her own childhood. When Ted comes for the divorce papers, Rose finds her voice and tells him that he can't just throw her out of his life, comparing herself to his garden, once so beloved, now unkempt and full of weeds. An-Mei tells her that Ted has been cheating on her, which Rose thinks is absurd, but she later discovers this to be true. She hires a good lawyer and fights for possession of the house, which she eventually wins. This forces Ted to take Rose more seriously and not continue taking her for granted. It's unknown if they ever reconciled.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: Waverly is an independent-minded and intelligent woman, but is annoyed by her mother's constant criticism. Well into her adult life, she finds herself restrained by her subconscious fear of letting her mother down. During their childhood, June and Waverly become childhood rivals; their mothers constantly compared their daughters' development and accomplishments. Waverly was once a gifted chess champion, but quit after feeling that her mother was using her daughter's talent to show off, taking credit for Waverly's wins. Waverly does not necessarily understand the origin of her mother's comments or what context for which they are intended. Waverly is “unable to feel at home in… [her] relationship with [her] mother."


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: She has a daughter, Shoshana, from her first marriage with Marvin Chen, and she is engaged to her boyfriend Rich Schields. When Waverly believes that Lindo will object to her engagement to Rich after a failed dinner party, she discovers her mother had already accepted it.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: Throughout Lena's childhood, she gradually becomes her mother's voice and interprets her mother's Chinese words for others. Like her father Clifford, she translates Ying-ying's words to sound more pleasant than what Ying-ying actually says. Ying-ying has taught Lena to beware of consequences, to the extent that Lena visualizes disaster in the taking of any risk. Lena's husband, Harold, is also her boss. He takes the credit for Lena's business and design ideas. He demands financial "equality" in their marriage. Lena is an associate while Harold is a partner, so he has a larger salary than she does. However, he insists that all household expenses be divided equally between them. Harold believes that by making everything equal, they can make their love equal as well. Lena feels frustrated and powerless. She settles for what Harold tells her is right: “in Chinese society…the man is the one who creates the rules and the woman… has no choice [except] obeying these rules." Harold's act of dictatorship over Lena could be the reason for her created self-doubt: "in…patriarchy, men possess the highest status... so that women's position is subordinate to them." She is like her mother, like a ghost, and her mother wants to help her regain her spirit and stand up for herself. When Ying-Ying breaks a leg from a table belonging to Harold, Lena finally admitted she's unhappy in her marriage including how frustrated she is with him for taking credit for her business and design ideas. Ying-Ying encourages her to leave Harold and not come back until he treats her with more respect.


title: The Joy Luck Club (novel)

text: While "The Joy Luck Club" earned high praise, it also received criticism for perpetuating racist stereotypes about Asian Americans. Literary figures such as Chinese American author Frank Chin said that it depicted Chinese culture as backwards, cruel, and misogynistic. He attributed the popularity of "The Joy Luck Club" to playing up racist stereotypes welcomed in mainstream America. He also noted that it lacks authenticity for its fabricated Chinese folk tales that depict "Confucian culture as seen through the interchangeable Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Vietnamese mix (depending on which is the yellow enemy of the moment) of Hollywood."