title: Poojai

text: Early reports in December had suggested that Shruti Haasan would be signed on to play the film's heroine, though she only confirmed her participation in March 2014. Sathyaraj and Soori were added to the cast to play supporting roles, while actress Kausalya was announced to be making a comeback with the film starring alongside a bevy of other supporting actresses. The team approached Rekha to play Vishal's mother in the film, but her unavailability meant that the team later cast Raadhika. Prathap Pothen and Janaki Sabesh were also selected to play the parents of Shruti Haasan's character. Andrea Jeremiah was selected to dance in a special number, a folk song, with Vishal. Sathyaraj sported a bald look for this film thanks to his simultaneous shoot for S. S. Rajamouli's "" (2015) and his role was said to be "very powerful" and also the "suspense element of the film". Bhojpuri actor Awadhesh Mishra was selected to play an international don in the film which marks his debut in Tamil cinema. Actor Vaibhav Reddy was selected for an important role in the film, however, his was not part of the film. The Youth, Arts and Culture Minister of Bihar state Vinay Bihari was selected to play the role of a district collector in the film's climatic portions when he expressed his interest in acting to Hari when he was in Bihar for location scouting. Barath Raj who has won Mr.INDIA second runner up 2014 title has played a crucial role of collector's son from Bihar. Actress Abhinaya was selected to play a supporting role. Mukesh Tiwari plays antagonistic role in the movie.


title: Poojai

text: Principal photography commenced on 18 April 2014 at Chennai. During the shoot of an action sequence in a one crore worth set at Saligramam, Vishal injured his middle finger in his right hand for which 14 stitches were administered. Thus the shoot was temporarily halted. The item number featuring Vishal and Andrea Jeremiah was shot by early May in the backdrop of the Koyambedu Market in Chennai. Later, the unit proceeded to Coimbatore for filming major portions of the film. At that time, it was known that Hari planned to wrap the film's shoot in 40 working days. A fight sequence was shot in a popular mall multiplex there and scenes involving Vishal and Shruti Hassan were also shot in the mall in Coimbatore. The filming continued at Karaikudi in early July where scenes featuring the principal cast were shot. The shooting continued in hot weather making things difficult while Vishal suffered injuries for the second time in the film's shoot. He suffered a fracture during the shoot of an action sequence after trying to avoid falling on his face while he slipped from an asbestos sheet.


title: Poojai

text: In the first week of August 2014, the film's climax was shot in Patna in a 10-day schedule and by then, 95% of the film's shoot was complete. The climax was said to have few risky stunts which were shot first in the final schedule. Both Vishal and Shruti Hassan carried out the risky stunts and fights by themselves. Some scenes for the climax were also shot in Golconda Fort in Hyderabad in special and enormous sets erected for the climax and a song was also shot there. On its completion, one romantic song was shot at Switzerland and the remaining fast-paced song was shot in Chennai. Vishal and Shruti Haasan completed a hard folk song sequence, which was shot in AVM facilities and choreographed by Baba Baskar. One more song sequence was also shot in Poland. On 29 September 2014, Shruti confirmed that the shooting of the film was completed.


title: Poojai

text: The soundtrack was composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja. The album consists of six tracks and Na. Muthukumar had penned the lyrics for all songs. The track list was released on 29 September 2014, while the audio launch took place on 1 October 2014 at the Loyola-ICAM College of Engineering and Technology. Vishal released the album through his newly launched music label - V Music, a subsidiary of the production house alongside Divo.


title: Poojai

text: The album received mixed reviews from critics. "Behindwoods" gave 2.5 out of 5 stars and concluded that "Yuvan delivers what is needed for a commercial entertainer". "Indiaglitz" gave 2.75 out of 5 and wrote that the album was "a commercial cocktail which could have been better", and chose "Devathai", "Soda Bottle" and "Veraarum" as the album's picks.


title: Poojai

text: During the film's launch, Hari stated that the film would release in October 2014 as a Deepavali release. The same was stated again in the end of July 2014.


title: Poojai

text: Stills featuring Vishal and Shruti Hassan were released on 18 April 2014. The official motion poster teaser of the film was released on 1 September 2014. The official teaser of the film released on 11 September 2014. The satellite rights of the film were sold to Sun TV. The film released in over 1100 screens worldwide.


title: Poojai

text: IB Times called it a typical commercial. The Times of India gave the film 3 stars out of 5 and wrote, ""Poojai" is commercial masala done well. There is action (punchy), sentiment (effective but not affecting), humour (silly but funny once in a while), romance (ludicrous and strictly functional), and the director manages to keep things ticking —the action is often relentless, and the nondescript songs and the comedy scenes (Soori and Pandi doing a pale imitation of Goundamani and Senthil) are breathers for us". The Hindu wrote, ""Poojai", despite not being Hari’s best, could still be successful in the B and C centres, and affirm his bankability. The writing is generally not well thought out though. It seems almost like groups of imperfect scenes were put together in the hope that they’d somehow come together to form a riveting, entertaining whole. "Poojai" then is a refutation of Aristotle’s adage that states that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts". Sify called it "a typical Hari mass entertainer, though this time he has not got the mix in the right proposition". Bangalore Mirror gave 3 stars out of 5 and wrote, "All the formulaic features that usually form part of a Hari film are all intact here as well, the racy screenplay included. But then, the problem is that the theme is too old-fashioned, with a customary villain trying to dominate a particular community and the hero rising in revolt the moment his family gets affected. Neither there is freshness in treatment nor there is novelty in the narration".


title: Poojai

text: Indo-Asian News Service gave 2 stars and wrote, "Gopalakrishnan (Hari) has written "Poojai" with the mindset that anything that comes from his camp will be lapped up by audiences, no matter how good or bad it is. If you've followed his films over the years, it's easier to predict "Poojai" from start to finish with eyes closed. Because of which you realise the director never tries to innovate with his films and usually sticks to a template he's done to death". Behindwoods stated "the director takes us through a roller coaster in the first half. But it feels like Hari loses the grip post interval a bit and the film plods in the second half, with misplaced song sequences and repetitive action blocks..."Poojai" is still a watchable entertainer to spend time on, with your family on a festive day", giving it a rating of 2.25 out of 5. Indiaglitz.com wrote, ""Poojai" is a mix of a lot of genres, but they seem disproportionate for the times and taste of this day. However, it is an entertaining three hours of festivity, to chill out on. Most importantly, thanks to Hari for a thoroughbred masala movie after a long time in Kollywood". Cinemalead rated 2.25 out of 5 and wrote,"Customary commercial potboiler!"


title: Poojai

text: Poojai was dubbed into Telugu as Pooja which was simultaneously released with the original version. The first look poster of the Telugu dubbed version titled "Pooja" was released on 11 August 2014. According to "Andhraboxoffice", the Telugu version was commercially successful, delivering Rs. 5.51 crores.


title: Poojai

text: The film was initially planned to be remade in Kannada as "Ayush" with Darshan. However, in 2017 officially remade in Kannada as "Anjani Putra" by A.Harsha with Puneeth Rajkumar and Rashmika Mandanna in the lead.


title: Hiroshi Abe (actor)

text: Abe was born in Yokohama as the youngest in a family of three children. He attended Yokohama Mitsuzawa elementary school, then Yokohama City Matsumoto Junior High School, then Kanagawa Prefectural Hakusan High School. After retaking the university entrance examinations once, he attended the Department for Electrical Engineering in the Faculty of Science and Technology of Chuo University in Tokyo and graduated with a degree in electrical engineering. In 1985 while in college he applied to the "Shueisha 3rd Nonno Boyfriend Award" and won the championship because his sister recommended the award. Since then, during his university days, he was a charismatic model for magazines such as Men's Non-no and "Nonno". He later transitioned from modelling into acting.


title: Hiroshi Abe (actor)

text: He made his debut as an actor in the movie "Haikara-san: here comes Miss Modern" (1987) - in which he co-starred with Yoko Minamino, a popular idol of the time who was a fan of Abe himself, and received an autograph. He also released an album in 1988 as a pop idol.


title: Hiroshi Abe (actor)

text: After that year he mainly worked as an actor, but because of his title and appearance as a model he was given only secondary and mundane roles (he said he was "riding with a Ferrari"). Furthermore, there was the problem that it was difficult to take a double shot with a woman because of his height. Gradually, the work in drama decreased, and he suffered from a big feeling of impatience.


title: Hiroshi Abe (actor)

text: He was not blessed with work for three years and made a living from pachinko. Around this time he started ancient martial arts which led to later work. Around this time, he invested in an apartment. Due to the decline in real estate values as a result of the bursting of the bubble economy, and the decline in his popularity, he was left with a large debt. As a sort of revenge, he was the target of the variety show "What is that person now?" which searched for "the celebrity that once dominated the world". According to his book, when he heard that Ken Takahara starred in the NHK drama "Chihoru's Elegy" in 1992, he wanted to appear even in an unnamed bit part, and he tried to get it even though it was a small part.


title: Hiroshi Abe (actor)

text: In 1993 he starred as a bisexual detective director in "Atami Murder Case Monte Carlo Illusion" written and directed by Kohei Tsuka.


title: Hiroshi Abe (actor)

text: In 1994 he co-starred in "Shinoidare" (directed by Tatsuoki Hosono) with Koji Yakusho and received the Special Award at the Japanese Professional Movie Awards in combination with "Kyouju Luger P08".


title: Hiroshi Abe (actor)

text: Starting with playing the role of the talented Rōjū Matsudaira Norisato in the 1995 NHK Taiga drama "Hachidai Shogun Yoshimune", the number of appearances in historical dramas increased over time, especially in the Taiga dramas "Genroku Ryoran" (1999), "Musashi MUSASHI" (2003), "Yoshitsune" (2005) and appeared in succession in an important role in "Heart of a Samurai" (2009).


title: Hiroshi Abe (actor)

text: In 2000, he secured a supporting role in the drama "TRICK", in which he co-starred with Yukie Nakama, he played the role thoroughly and used many photographs of his modelling era as self-deprecation material. In addition, he was in charge of the postscript of "The Summer of the Ubume" which was written by Natsuhiko Kyogoku, triggered by the movie "The Summer of the Ubume Birds" that appeared in 2005. He wrote his impressions of appearing in a movie.


title: Hiroshi Abe (actor)

text: His performance in the TV drama "The Man Who Can't Get Married" won the FNS Good Work Grand Prize in 2006.


title: Hiroshi Abe (actor)

text: He was in charge of the voice acting for the role of Kenshiro for the animated movie "" released on 11th March 2006.


title: Hiroshi Abe (actor)

text: In 2009, Abe won the Best Actor award in the 63rd Mainichi Film Award for his performances in "Still Walking" and "Aoi Tori". Abe also starred in Hideki Takeuchi's "Thermae Romae". He then played a supporting role in Hirokazu Kore-eda's "I Wish".


title: The Prince's Trust

text: The Prince's Trust () is a charity in the United Kingdom founded in 1976 by King Charles III (then Prince of Wales) to help vulnerable young people get their lives on track. It supports 11-to-30-year-olds who are unemployed or struggling at school and at risk of exclusion. Many of the young people helped by the trust face issues such as homelessness, mental health problems, or trouble with the law.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: It runs a range of training programmes, providing practical and financial support to build young people's confidence and motivation. Each year they work with about 60,000 young people, with three in four moving on to employment, education, volunteering, or training.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: In 1999, the numerous trust charities were brought together as the Prince's Trust and acknowledged by Queen Elizabeth II at a ceremony in Buckingham Palace where she granted it a royal charter. The following year it devolved in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and other English regions but overall control remained in London. The Prince's Trust fundraising and campaign events are often hosted by and feature entertainers from around the world. In April 2011 the youth charity Fairbridge became part of the trust. In 2015, Prince's Trust International was launched to collaborate with other charities and organisations in other countries (mostly Commonwealth nations) to help young people in those countries.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: The Prince's Trust is one of the most successful funding organisations in the UK and is the UK's leading youth charity, having helped over 950,000 young people turn their lives around, created 125,000 entrepreneurs, and given business support to 395,000 people in the UK. From 2006 to 2016, its work for the youth has been worth an estimated £1.4 billion.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: In 2019, the Prince's Trust signed a partnership with the Department of Health and Social Care to support 10,000 young people (16-to-30-year-olds) into health and social care jobs. This initiative aims to future-proof the sector, provide employment opportunities to young people, and support the department's "widening participation" goals, increasing the diversity of its workforce.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: The Prince's Trust aims to work with young people aged 11 to 30. The goal is to assist them in moving into work, education, or training.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: Charles III founded the Prince's Trust and is now its president, a figurehead position with no legal responsibility. The Prince's Trust Council are the trustees of the charity and are legally responsible for management, administration and deciding policy.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: John Booth was announced as the chairman of the Prince's Trust Council in July 2018 and Sir Lloyd Dorfman CBE, who previously held this position, became the chairman of Prince's Trust International.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: Nick Stace, the former chief executive of The Trust, joined in October 2017, replacing Dame Martina Milburn DCVO CBE who is a member of the Board and Group Chief Executive for the Prince's Trust. At the end of 2019, Jonathan Townsend took over as Interim CEO.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: In 2019 the Prince's Trust employed 1241 people including 1106 people who worked in charitable purposes and support, and 235 in fundraising. The cost of employing these staff is £38 million a year and is the organisation's single biggest expenditure.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: The Chief Executive of the Prince's Trust Group (covering the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United States and International) is Martina Milburn who joined the organisation in 2004. Previously she worked as the Chief Executive of BBC Children in Need. Milburn was appointed Group Chief Executive in 2017.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: The first are young ambassadors, these are young leaders who are volunteers and support the Prince's Trust in different ways including motivating other young people and winning contributors and the media about the work the Prince's Trust do.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: The second are job ambassadors. These group have taken part in a Prince's Trust programme and have graduated from being a Young Ambassador. They are then employed by the Prince's Trust and work to inspire, motive and assist the young people in fulfilling the programmes they enrol in.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: Lastly, there are celebrity ambassadors who help raise awareness of the work that is done by the Prince's Trust in young people's lives. Celebrity ambassadors also involve themselves by visiting the young people during courses and programmes, host and help fundraising events and additionally start and support campaigns for the Prince's Trust. Current Celebrity Ambassadors include: Phil Collins, Phillip Schofield, Gary Lineker, Jeremy Irons, Tom Hardy, Geri Halliwell, Benedict Cumberbatch, Idris Elba, Gemma Arterton and Sharon Osbourne.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: In 2017, the Prince's Trust recruited Tom Fletcher and Giovanna Fletcher as the charity's first Digital Celebrity Ambassadors, following the great support they had given following their attendance at our Celebrate Success Awards.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: The trust has five charitable subsidiaries, each of which has its own board of trustees: Prince's Trust International, Prince's Trust Australia, Prince's Trust Canada, Prince's Trust New Zealand, and Prince's Trust America.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: In 2019, Prince's Trust International also operated in Barbados, Greece, India, Jamaica, Jordan, Malta and Pakistan.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: The trust also has one non-charitable subsidiary, Prince's Trust Trading Limited, which is responsible for the trust's commercial activities.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: In 2009–10 the Prince's Trust charity, and its trading subsidiary, Prince's Trust Trading Ltd, had a total income of nearly £36 million, and expenditure of £38 million. Facing the impact of the economic climate and a decline in funding it drew on its reserves, which stand at £22 million, representing roughly six months operating costs. The Prince's Trust is one of the 100 largest charities in the UK ranked by expenditure.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: Voluntary income represented the largest source of funding for the organisation, totalling £18 million in 2009–10 (representing a very small increase on 2008–09. Public Sector income (contracts and grants to deliver support to young people from statutory bodies) fell from £17 million to just under £14 million. The cost of raising the voluntary income was £5.5 million, which means that for every £1 donated, 70p was spent on charitable activities.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: The Prince's Trust expenditure of £38.2 million was made up of £30 million spent on charitable activities with the rest being spent on administration and other costs. The £30 million spent on charitable activities was divided between the different programme areas such as the Team programme and the Enterprise programme. £1.2 million went on grants to young people and institutions.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: The Enterprise programme is the offer for which the Prince's Trust is best known for. Helping young people to become their own boss by starting a business, 18 to 30-year-olds are given practical, mentoring and financial support of up to £5,000.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: As part of the programme, each young person is appointed a business mentor who provide one-to-one support for up to two years to develop and grow their business, acting as a sounding board to share thoughts and concerns, as well as empowering them to make their own decisions.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: The Prince's Trust offers Enterprise Online, to enable 18 to 30-year-olds to explore becoming their own boss, learning at their own pace with dedicated support along the way. From developing quick pitches to get investors interested in your business to marketing strategy advice to bring in sales, it has everything young people need – including access to mentors to help them achieve their goals.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: Team is a 12-week personal development programme which gives young people that are NEET (not in education, employment or training) and aged 16–25 the chance to gain new skills, complete a qualification and meet new people through team-building activities, a residential trip, community project and work placement. The course is usually run by a local organisation known as the delivery partner.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: The people going on Team are usually unemployed, and if they are receiving Jobseekers' Allowance and other benefits they are still able to receive these whilst on the course. People going on the course also get their travel expenses and other costs paid. Some people in employment also go on part of a course but their employer has to pay a course fee of £1,250 to the Prince's Trust. The Prince's Trust employs fundraisers with "proven sales experience" to persuade employers to pay for their employees to go on the Prince's Trust Team Course. In 2006/7 the Prince's Trust received nearly £687,000 from employer's fees for Team courses.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: As part of the programme participants go on a trip to an outbound activity centre where they focus on communication, teamwork and confidence building. Later in the programme they work on their Maths and English skills, and give back to their local community by volunteering, raising awareness and fundraising for causes that matter to them. Participants also complete a two-week work experience placement.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: Get intos are short courses that give young people experience and training in a specific sector, to allow them to gain employability skills to move into work. Focus industries include retail, rail, construction, logistics and hospitality.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: In 2017, The Prince's Trust launched Employability Online, to enable 18 to 30-year-olds to gain the essential skills they need to secure the job they want. From understanding what job is right for you to tips on making your CV stand out, it has everything young people need – including access to e-mentors to help them achieve their goals.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: Get Started s are short courses that give young people the chance to take part in a week of activities that allow them to develop skills with help from industry experts. Working with partners including the Premier League, ASOS and Sony, they work towards a group challenge while developing skills and confidence.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: The Fairbridge programme offers group activities and one-to-one support for young people to develop skills and confidence. It starts with a five-day Access course delivered from one of The Trust's 18 centres across the UK, and includes a residential trip.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: Once the Access course is complete, young people choose from a range of activities, from sports to drama and photography to cooking, to help them reach their goals.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: In 2016, L’Oréal Paris partnered with the Prince's Trust to develop a confidence training course for the Fairbridge programme, covering relationships, body language and employability.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: The Prince's Trust education programme, Achieve (formerly known as xl clubs) provides young people at risk of underachieving and exclusion the chance to try new activities to boost their confidence, while gaining a recognised qualification.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: Delivered in schools, youth centres, pupil referral units, youth offender institutions and Prince's Trust centres, the course allows young people to explore personal and social development; life skills; active citizenship; enterprise; and skills to prepare them for work.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: In 2006/7 the Prince's Trust spent £4 million on the xl programme and of this £298,000 consisted of grants to clubs, £1.26 million was spent on Prince's Trust staff costs and £2.3 million on other direct costs and support costs.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: The Prince's Trust Development Awards remove young people's financial barriers to enable them to take the next step into work, education or training. Covering course fees, transport or equipment, eligible young people can receive up to £500.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: Mosaic moved into the Prince's Trust in April 2016. Its programmes – which run in primary and secondary schools and prisons and include an Enterprise challenge competition – aim to bridge the aspirations-attainment gap by linking young people with inspirational role models and helping boost their confidence, self-efficacy and long-term employability.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: The Future Leaders programme gives young people the foundations of leadership and teamwork. The programme was launched by Prince's Trust Goodwill Ambassador Gareth Southgate in May 2019.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: Get Hired is a monthly recruitment event run by The Trust. At each event, up to 20 employers with live entry-level vacancies do ten-minute interviews with candidates.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: The Jason Kanabus Fund was created from the £2.5 million left to the Prince's Trust by Jason Kanabus, a young farmer in Sussex who died from cancer in July 2006. He left his money to the Prince's Trust, with the request that the income was used to help young people become established in farming.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: The Prince's Trust celebrates the achievements of young people each year through its Prince's Trust Awards (formerly known as Celebrate Success Awards).


title: The Prince's Trust

text: Sponsored by TK Maxx and HomeSense, these series of awards events are an opportunity to pay tribute to the bravery, determination and sheer hard work that the young people demonstrate. The process begins each summer when staff, volunteers, partners and supporters nominate the exceptional young people they've met. In each of the regions and countries, judging panels select finalists in seven award categories.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: Throughout the autumn The Trust holds 11 Oscar-style regional award ceremonies across the country before hosting a national final in London where the red carpet is rolled out.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: Hosted by Ant and Dec and attended by a range of celebrity ambassadors, including Thierry Henry, Gemma Arterton and Emilia Fox, it recognises the Young Achiever of the Year, Young Ambassador of the Year and many more. And since 2022, it airs on ITV


title: The Prince's Trust

text: The Prince's Trust obtains money from two main sources. Firstly, there is the income received as a result of the charitable activities it undertakes, and secondly it raises voluntary income. 87p in every £1 donated to the Prince's Trust is spent on charitable activities.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: This totalled nearly £16 million in 2007/8 and was mostly contract payments for courses, training, mentoring and other services. Of the £16 million, nearly £2 million came from local and national government, over £9 million from other public sector sources, nearly £4 million from the European Union and £753,000 from the Community Fund.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: It is unclear how much money in total came from the European Union (EU), as although some money (£4 million) is declared as coming directly, other money can be channelled indirectly through other organisations. Previously much of the EU money for the Prince's Trust came from the European Social Fund (ESF) and could only be spent to help young people who are Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET). Some of the ESF money went directly to the Prince's Trust (£816,000 2006/7), but mostly it went to the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) who "doubled it up" with government money that then had the same restrictions placed on it. Some LSC money was given directly to the Prince's Trust (£1.3 million 2006/7) but the majority went to the regional LSC offices who took out contracts with the regional Prince's Trust offices to provide services for unemployed young people. The ESF money was channelled through so many routes it is difficult to determine how much it amounted to, but in 2006 the funding provided by the LSC to the Prince's Trust in total came to approximately £11 million, although clearly these figures have decreased somewhat in recent years.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: The voluntary income raised in 2007-8 was more than £20 million, consisting of £5.2 million from charitable trusts, £4.7 million in corporate donations, £4.5 in individual donations and £2.1 million donations in kind.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: Leadership Groups are an important part of the trust's fundraising from individuals. These groups are made up of successful (i.e. rich) individuals within certain business sectors, such as the Technology and Construction sectors. The aim with these groups is that the individuals not only give donations, but also that they encourage employee donations and volunteering from within their organisations.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: The trust still has some fundraising events, including a Rock Gala that aired on 25 December 2010 on DirecTV. In 2012, the Prince's Trust was one of the main beneficiaries of Bob Finch and Michael Holland's Oil Aid.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: The Prince's Trust Group's mission is to transform lives and build sustainable communities across the world. Together, the group of Prince's Trust charities will support around 90,000 people during 2019–20.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: Established in 2018, the Prince's Trust Group includes the work of the Prince's Trust in the UK alongside a group of charities including: Prince’s Trust International, Prince’s Trust Australia, Prince’s Trust New Zealand, Prince’s Trust Canada and most recently Prince's Trust America. Through the Prince's Trust Group young people are supported to access education, employment and self-employment in Australia, Barbados, Canada, Greece, India, Jordan, Malta, New Zealand and Pakistan. During 2019–20, Prince's Trust Group will start supporting young people in Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica and Malaysia.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: His Highness The Aga Khan is the Global Founding Patron of the Prince's Trust Group. American singer and songwriter, Lionel Richie, is the founding Global Ambassador and Chairman of the Global Ambassador Group.


title: The Prince's Trust

text: Since establishing in 1976, the Prince's Trust has helped over 950,000 young people turn their lives around in the UK through money and advice from the charity and returned through in the last 10 years alone. Additionally, the Prince's Trust has also help start about 90,000 businesses in other countries since going internationally.The outcome of the fund's activities has been studied by many groups. A study by Meager et al in 2006 found


title: S4C

text: S4C (, "Sianel Pedwar Cymru", meaning "Channel Four Wales") is a Welsh language free-to-air public broadcast television channel. Launched on 1 November 1982, it was the first television channel to be aimed specifically at a Welsh-speaking audience. S4C's headquarters are based in Carmarthen, at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David's creative and digital centre, Yr Egin. It also has regional offices in Caernarfon and Cardiff. As of 2019–20, S4C had an average of 101 employees. S4C is the fourth-oldest terrestrial television channel in Wales after BBC One, ITV and BBC Two.


title: S4C

text: As with Channel 4 (which launched the next day in the rest of the UK), S4C commissions all of its programmes from independent producers. BBC Cymru Wales produces programmes for S4C as part of its public service remit, including the news service "Newyddion". From its launch until 2010, S4C also carried English-language programming acquired from Channel 4, which could not be received over-the-air in most of Wales; these programmes aired in non-peak hours, and did not always air in pattern with Channel 4's scheduling.


title: S4C

text: On digital terrestrial television, S4C has broadcast exclusively in Welsh since the platform's launch in 1998, with the existing bilingual schedule continuing on analogue television. After the completion of the digital switchover in Wales on 31 March 2010, Channel 4 became available on Freeview, and S4C ceased its carriage of English-language programmes. S4C offers translated, English-language subtitles for its Welsh programming.


title: S4C

text: Before the launch of S4C on Monday 1 November 1982, Welsh speakers had been served by occasional programmes in Welsh, broadcast as regional opt-outs on BBC Cymru Wales and HTV Cymru Wales (the ITV franchise in Wales), usually at off-peak or inconvenient times. This was unsatisfactory for Welsh speakers, who saw the arrangement as a sop, and at the same time an annoyance for non-Welsh speakers, who found the English-language programmes seen in the rest of the UK often rescheduled or not transmitted at all.


title: S4C

text: On 14 September 1962, the ITV network had created a licence area for North and West Wales, which was awarded to "Wales (West and North) Limited". This traded as Teledu Cymru and provided significant levels of Welsh-language programming. However, problems with transmission infrastructure and poor market research led to financial difficulties within two years, and after going bankrupt, the station was taken over by its neighbour Television Wales and the West.


title: S4C

text: During the 1970s, Welsh-language activists had campaigned for a television service in the language, which already had its own radio station, BBC Radio Cymru. Both the Conservative and Labour parties promised a Welsh-language fourth channel, if elected to government in the 1979 general election. Shortly after the Conservatives won a majority in the election, the new Home Secretary, William Whitelaw, decided against a Welsh fourth channel, and suggested that, except for an occasional opt-out, the service should be the same as that offered in the rest of the UK. This led to acts of civil disobedience, including refusals to pay the television licence fee, thereby running the risk of prosecution or even a prison sentence, and sit-ins in BBC and HTV studios. Some took more extreme measures, including attacking television transmitters in Welsh-speaking areas.


title: S4C

text: On 17 September 1980, the former president of Plaid Cymru, Gwynfor Evans, threatened to go on hunger strike if the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher did not honour its commitment to provide a Welsh-language television service. S4C started broadcasting on 1 November 1982, broadcasting around 22 hours a week of programmes, mostly during prime time with a teatime slot for children with English language programmes from Channel 4, rescheduled to fit around the Welsh programmes.


title: S4C

text: In September 2013, S4C began a study into the possible relocation of its headquarters. S4C’s former headquarters, which opened in 1991, were located at Parc Ty Glas Industrial Estate, Llanishen, following a move from Cathedral Road and Sophia Close in Pontcanna, Cardiff. In January 2013, a new multi-use media centre was opened on its Llanishen site. In March 2014, it was announced that Carmarthen was the winner with a bid led by the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. The university owns the land where the Canolfan S4C Yr Egin (S4C Yr Egin Centre) would be built. The building would also be home to other companies in the creative industries. There was a strong bid for relocation to Caernarfon, where the channel had a pre-existing office, but there was disappointment that the bid was unsuccessful. In 2016, it was revealed that S4C was paying £3 million upfront rent to UWTSD, and that it would pay rent over the next 20 years. Concern was expressed about the arrangement and the lack of transparency around commercial payments between two publicly funded bodies. The University of Wales Trinity Saint David applied for funding for the building work and received £3m from the Welsh Government and a further £3m from the Swansea Bay city deal.


title: S4C

text: In June 2018, it was revealed that more staff would be leaving the channel than moving to work in Carmarthen. S4C started relocating to the new building from September 2018, and 54 jobs moved to the new HQ. An office in Cardiff was retained for technical purposes until full changeover to the new BBC Wales Headquarters, with 70 staff there. A significant percentage of the technical posts were to transfer to the BBC. In September 2018, S4C committed to ten years of lease on its Caernarfon office at Doc Fictoria (Victoria Dock), which has 12 full-time staff, and was opened in 2008. In January 2021 S4C's Presentation, Library, Promotion and Commercial departments moved to BBC Wales headquarters in Central Square, Cardiff. The first programmes were broadcast from there 27 January 2021, beginning with the channel's children's service, Cyw, at 6:00 a.m. Liz Scourfield's first live presentation aired later that morning, before the news bulletin at 12:00.


title: S4C

text: S4C's remit is to provide a service which features a wide range of programmes in the Welsh language. Like Channel 4, S4C does not produce programmes of its own; instead, it commissions programmes from BBC Cymru Wales and independent producers (although the quantity purchased from ITV Cymru Wales has greatly reduced since the early years of S4C), and it has particularly developed a reputation for commissioning children's animation, such as "SuperTed", "Rocky Hollow", "Fireman Sam" (also broadcast by the BBC) Wil Cwac Cwac (shown on ITV), "Gogs", "", "Animated Tales of the World" and the 1992–1996 French co-production "Natalie".


title: S4C

text: BBC Cymru Wales fulfils its public service requirement by producing programmes in Welsh, including "Newyddion", S4C's news bulletin, and a soap opera, "Pobol y Cwm", and providing them to S4C free of charge. It has also provided (or licensed) Welsh-language versions of English-language programmes, such as the original "Teletubbies". On the analogue service, S4C showed programmes produced for Channel 4 in the rest of the United Kingdom – either simultaneously or time-shifted – outside of peak hours. These programmes were provided to S4C by Channel 4, free of charge.


title: S4C

text: To make content more accessible to English speakers, all Welsh-language programming carries English subtitles. Originally these were on Sbectel teletext page 888, with Welsh subtitles on page 889, with both subtitle languages now also available on digital television platforms. For speakers of English who are learning Welsh, certain programmes, particularly children's programmes "Planed Plant Bach" (now Cyw) and "Planed Plant" (now Stwnsh), carry subtitles featuring Welsh subtitles with additional English translations in brackets next to more difficult Welsh-language words. TV films produced for S4C have received some good foreign reviews; "Hedd Wyn" was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Oscar in 1994 and "Solomon & Gaenor" was nominated in 2000.


title: S4C

text: The S4C analogue signal also spilled over on to the east coast of Ireland. In the past it was rebroadcast in a number of areas there on UHF terrestrial signals by so-called 'deflectors'. Up until the 1990s, S4C was also carried by some Irish cable and MMDS providers before being replaced by Channel 4. The S4C channels continue to be available in the Republic of Ireland via the Freesat satellite service.


title: S4C

text: Up until 2009, S4C ran its own teletext service, Sbectel (""Sbec"", Welsh for "a peek" or "a glimpse", and a reference to an S4C schedule insert formerly included in the "TVTimes" issues for the HTV Wales region).


title: S4C

text: 13.5 million people throughout the UK watched S4C on television at some time during 2020–2021. The number of people who watched S4C on TV every week throughout the UK increased from 702,000 in 2019–2020 to 823,000 in 2020–2021. On an average week in 2020–2021, approximately 321,000 people in Wales watched S4C on TV. 150,000 Welsh speakers in Wales watched S4C each week during this period. 20,200 was the average audience in the peak hours during 2020–2021.


title: S4C

text: The BARB rolling four-week viewing figures for January 2022 were 0.05% across the UK. If scaled up for Wales alone, this would be just a 1.0% audience share.


title: S4C

text: The programme that enjoyed the channel's highest viewing figures in 2019-2020 was "Sgorios" coverage of Wales' Euro 2020 qualifier match against Hungary in November 2019, which drew 366,000 viewers.


title: S4C

text: There were also 38.2 million viewing sessions of S4C content on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in 2018–2019, with 8.6 million viewing sessions of S4C content on S4C Arlein and BBC iPlayer.


title: S4C

text: When digital terrestrial television launched in 1998, S4C added a second, full-time Welsh-language channel called S4C Digidol ('digital') on 1 November 1998. Following the switch-off of analogue terrestrial signals on 31 March 2010, Wales became the first fully digital region in the UK, with both S4C and Channel 4 becoming available to all homes. As a result, S4C now broadcasts solely in the Welsh language and, as well as on Freeview in Wales, is available throughout Britain, Ireland and the rest of western Europe on Freesat and Sky. A review commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in 2004 suggested that "S4C should operate a single core service after digital switchover".


title: S4C

text: In addition, S4C also operated a sister channel, S4C2 (S4C Dau) until 2010. It formerly broadcast coverage of the National Assembly for Wales when in session. The programme content was provided by the BBC who, from January 2010, now make it available online and via BBC Parliament. Like the main channel, S4C2 was available within Wales on Freeview and throughout the UK and Ireland on Freesat and Sky. S4C2 had two audio feeds, allowing viewers to select between an untranslated version and an English-only version where all Welsh spoken is translated into English. Delayed coverage of Assembly proceedings is now broadcast overnight on S4C's main channel on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. In addition to the analogue TV signal transmitted throughout Wales, S4C, along with United News & Media, owned the company S4C Digital Networks (SDN). SDN was awarded the UK-wide contract to provide half a digital multiplex worth of programming. The other half continues to belong to the broadcaster Channel 5.


title: S4C

text: On 27 April 2005, S4C sold its share of SDN to ITV plc for approximately £34 million, though it still has the half-multiplex as of right in Wales. ITV already owned some of SDN due to the consolidation of the ITV industry: Granada bought UNM's stake in SDN, and this was then incorporated into the united ITV plc. In January 2007, S4C announced plans to launch a Welsh-language children's service. The new service, in the form of a programming block, launched on 23 June 2008. Under the name Cyw (chick), it brings together a wide range of programmes for nursery-age children, and S4C plans eventually to extend the service to include the Stwnsh strand for older children and a third service for teenagers and young people. The service currently airs on weekdays from 7 am to 1.30 pm on S4C.


title: S4C

text: S4C launched a high-definition simulcast of S4C called 'Clirlun' on 19 July 2010 to coincide with terrestrial digital switchover in Wales. Clirlun was broadcast on Freeview channel 53 only, and not via other platforms. However, following funding cuts and a review of core services it was announced on 11 July 2012 that Clirlun would close before the end of the year. Clirlun closed at midnight on the evening of 1 December 2012, with Channel 4 HD taking over its transmission capacity with effect from the next day, 2 December 2012.


title: S4C

text: It was announced on 20 May 2016 that S4C would relaunch a high-definition service S4C HD on Freesat and Sky in Wales and across the UK from 7 June onwards. Following the 2016 relaunch of S4C HD, the channel returned to Freeview in HD from 7pm on Wednesday 19 January 2022. It will broadcast for peak viewing hours only, from 7pm on weekday evenings and from 2pm on weekends, sharing capacity with the HD version of the BBC's children's service CBBC.


title: S4C

text: In December 2014, S4C became available on the BBC iPlayer website, both live and on demand, initially as part of an 18-month trial.


title: S4C

text: S4C launched on 1 November 1982 (the day before Channel 4 started in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland), its on-air appearance has always been a representation of the Welsh society and people, but this representation has changed several times. Initial idents featured clips from the natural landscapes of Wales with a basic logo animation and a synthesizer fanfare, with the logo forming as "WALES4CYMRU".


title: S4C

text: On 2 May 1987, the ident changed to a computer-generated ident featuring an animation of the streamlined S4C logo and the colours of the logo were blue, green and red. The font used for this logo was Bodoni MT Bold. On 7 September 1990, the new ident was introduced, depicting a piece of Welsh slate with colours blue, green and red washing over the letters S4C until 31 May 1993.


title: S4C

text: On 1 June 1993, S4C introduced a new series of idents, which depicted inanimate objects as having characteristics of dragons (such as flight or breathing fire), as a reference to the red dragon on the flag of Wales. On 10 February 1995, the channel introduced a new logo (in the Futura typeface) replaces the original serif logo, featuring a tilde representing a dragon with a flame next to the "C" as if were breathing fire. The idents were designed, created and directed by Charlotte Castle, Brian Eley and Martin Lambie-Nairn.


title: S4C

text: Inanimate objects in the regular idents contained a dragon made of flags, a kite, an oxy-acetylene, a pair of scissors, a shepherd dragon man, a sousaphone, a standpipe, an extinguisher, an iron, a pencil, a flashlight, a pedal bin, a fan, a sport screen, a spray can, a vacuum cleaner, a stapler, a computer mouse, a garlic crusher, a lawnmower, a magic hat, a shower, an egg cup and a loudspeaker.


title: S4C

text: Many variants were made over the course during its 13-year existence (such as the shots, angles and music) until the dragon idents were withdrawn on 31 December 2006:


title: S4C

text: On 18 January 2007, S4C announced that their digital channels would be refreshed with a new corporate logo and brand. The new branding was implemented online on 17 January, with S4C's television channels adopting it the next day. The new branding, developed by the London-based firm Proud Creative, was intended to portray S4C as a more "contemporary" multi-platform broadcaster, and downplayed "traditional" Welsh imagery such as dragons. Its idents were filmed around various parts of the country, and themed around magnetism—representing the "uncontrollable attraction" of Welsh people and their "emotional affinity to the homeland, whether near or far". The magnetism-themed idents were later accompanied by a new set developed in collaboration with the agency Minivegas, consisting of live-action scenes with dynamic, animated elements that can react to the voice of the continuity announcer.


title: S4C

text: A new S4C logo and brand developed by Sugar Creative Studio was introduced on 10 April 2014; the new design was developed around a concept of providing "context" to S4C's target audience and programming. The design revolves heavily around a trapezium shape used within the channel's new logo, which is prominently used within aspects of the channel's overall marketing and branding.


title: S4C

text: S4C has faced criticism for poor viewing figures since its launch. Leaked internal reports in March 2010 showed that 'over the 20-day period from February 15 to last Saturday, March 6, as many as 196 of the 890 programmes put out by S4C were rated as having zero viewers'. The story was widely reported across the UK and was referenced in Parliament by the then Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt. In response, an S4C spokesperson stated that 90% of those programmes were aimed at pre-school children, and that BARB (the organisation that compiles television ratings in the UK) only takes into account viewers aged four years and over. The remaining 10% consisted of repeats and daytime news bulletins which did not attract the minimum 1,000 viewers necessary to register on a UK-wide analysis.


title: S4C

text: On 28 July 2010, S4C's chief executive, Iona Jones, left her post without explanation. Assembly members and Members of Parliament requested an independent investigation into the circumstances leading up to her departure. The S4C Authority refused to comment further and commissioned a review into how the broadcaster was governed in August 2010. On 3 February 2011, it was announced that issues between Iona Jones and S4C had been settled. Eight days later, the Shortridge Report on corporate governance was made public.


title: S4C

text: Owen Evans, previously the deputy permanent secretary to the Welsh Government, became chief executive in October 2017. Siân Doyle, a former managing director of telecommunications company TalkTalk, succeeded Evans as CEO on 1 January 2022.


title: S4C

text: From its inception, S4C was in part publicly financed: funding came both from its advertising revenue and a fixed annual grant from the UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), receiving £102m in 2010 and then £90m in 2011 after the Conservative Party won the general elections in 2010 which consequently made considerable cuts to its funding. Additionally, some Welsh-language programming (including "Newyddion" and "Pobol y Cwm") was produced by BBC Wales as part of the BBC's public service remit, and provided to S4C free of charge. There is an agreement in place until 2022 for 10 hours a week of programming to be provided to S4C, which is valued at £19.4m annually.


title: S4C

text: From 2013, responsibility for funding S4C began to transfer to the BBC, with the DCMS reducing its funding by 94% by 2015. The BBC was to provide around £76m of funding to S4C by this date, resulting in a cut of around 25% to S4C's annual budget. In 2016, it was agreed that the BBC would provide £74.5m a year funding to S4C from the licence fee until 2022. The UK government announced in 2018 that it would continue providing £6.72m until 2020, with the aim of S4C being funded wholly from the licence fee from 2022. This would see S4C's funding being decided as part of the licence fee settlement, for 10-year periods.


title: S4C

text: Prior to 2011, S4C received ~£102m (which would be an estimate of ~£122.8m in January 2022 after inflation), with the new allocated funds of 2022 (which is £82m), the loss in 2022 alone compared with 2010 is estimated to be ~£40.8m and an overall loss of ~£450m between 2011 and 2022.


title: S4C

text: In addition to public funding, S4C generates around 2% of its income through commercial sources, such as advertising.


title: S4C

text: S4C is controlled by the S4C Authority ("Awdurdod S4C"), an independent body unconnected to Ofcom. Ofcom are the regulator for S4C's content, as they are with other UK television channels such as ITV and Channel 4.


title: S4C

text: S4C maintains its own catch-up service called Clic. Clic is a free online video on demand service which offers live-streaming, signed programming, a 35-day catch-up service, and archive programming. Clic is available across the UK but also contains a limited selection of worldwide programming. Clic's catch-up service is split into seven categories: Drama, Entertainment, Factual and Arts, Music, Sport, and two Children's categories, Cyw (ages 3–6) and Stwnsh (ages 7–13). A Clic app was released for Apple's iOS devices on 18 August 2011.


title: S4C

text: In late 2014, S4C's programmes and live-streaming also became available to view on the BBC's catch-up service, BBC iPlayer. Both services offer English and Welsh subtitles to some shows.


title: S4C

text: There were 8.2 million viewing sessions to S4C content on Clic and BBC iPlayer in 2017–2018. This was an increase of 600,000 from the 7.6 million viewing sessions on those platforms in 2016–2017. In the 2020–2021 period, the viewing session number increased to 11 million.


title: Ribozyme

text: Ribozymes (ribonucleic acid enzymes) are RNA molecules that have the ability to catalyze specific biochemical reactions, including RNA splicing in gene expression, similar to the action of protein enzymes. The 1982 discovery of ribozymes demonstrated that RNA can be both genetic material (like DNA) and a biological catalyst (like protein enzymes), and contributed to the RNA world hypothesis, which suggests that RNA may have been important in the evolution of prebiotic self-replicating systems. The most common activities of natural or in vitro-evolved ribozymes are the cleavage or ligation of RNA and DNA and peptide bond formation. For example, the smallest ribozyme known (GUGGC-3') can aminoacylate a GCCU-3' sequence in the presence of PheAMP. Within the ribosome, ribozymes function as part of the large subunit ribosomal RNA to link amino acids during protein synthesis. They also participate in a variety of RNA processing reactions, including RNA splicing, viral replication, and transfer RNA biosynthesis. Examples of ribozymes include the hammerhead ribozyme, the VS ribozyme, Leadzyme and the hairpin ribozyme.


title: Ribozyme

text: Researchers who are investigating the origins of life through the RNA world hypothesis have been working on discovering a ribozyme which has the capacity to self-replicate, which would require it to have the ability to catalytically synthesize polymers of RNA. This should be able to happen in prebiotically plausible conditions with high rates of copying accuracy to prevent degradation of information but also allowing for the occurrence of occasional errors during the copying process to allow for Darwinian evolution to proceed.


title: Ribozyme

text: Attempts have been made to develop ribozymes as therapeutic agents, as enzymes which target defined RNA sequences for cleavage, as biosensors, and for applications in functional genomics and gene discovery.


title: Ribozyme

text: Before the discovery of ribozymes, enzymes, which are defined as catalytic proteins, were the only known biological catalysts. In 1967, Carl Woese, Francis Crick, and Leslie Orgel were the first to suggest that RNA could act as a catalyst. This idea was based upon the discovery that RNA can form complex secondary structures. These ribozymes were found in the intron of an RNA transcript, which removed itself from the transcript, as well as in the RNA component of the RNase P complex, which is involved in the maturation of pre-tRNAs. In 1989, Thomas R. Cech and Sidney Altman shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry for their "discovery of catalytic properties of RNA." The term "ribozyme" was first introduced by Kelly Kruger "et al." in 1982 in a paper published in "Cell".


title: Ribozyme

text: It had been a firmly established belief in biology that catalysis was reserved for proteins. However, the idea of RNA catalysis is motivated in part by the old question regarding the origin of life: Which comes first, enzymes that do the work of the cell or nucleic acids that carry the information required to produce the enzymes? The concept of "ribonucleic acids as catalysts" circumvents this problem. RNA, in essence, can be both the chicken and the egg.


title: Ribozyme

text: In the 1980s Thomas Cech, at the University of Colorado at Boulder, was studying the excision of introns in a ribosomal RNA gene in "Tetrahymena thermophila". While trying to purify the enzyme responsible for the splicing reaction, he found that the intron could be spliced out in the absence of any added cell extract. As much as they tried, Cech and his colleagues could not identify any protein associated with the splicing reaction. After much work, Cech proposed that the intron sequence portion of the RNA could break and reform phosphodiester bonds. At about the same time, Sidney Altman, a professor at Yale University, was studying the way tRNA molecules are processed in the cell when he and his colleagues isolated an enzyme called RNase-P, which is responsible for conversion of a precursor tRNA into the active tRNA. Much to their surprise, they found that RNase-P contained RNA in addition to protein and that RNA was an essential component of the active enzyme. This was such a foreign idea that they had difficulty publishing their findings. The following year, Altman demonstrated that RNA can act as a catalyst by showing that the RNase-P RNA subunit could catalyze the cleavage of precursor tRNA into active tRNA in the absence of any protein component.


title: Ribozyme

text: Since Cech's and Altman's discovery, other investigators have discovered other examples of self-cleaving RNA or catalytic RNA molecules. Many ribozymes have either a hairpin – or hammerhead – shaped active center and a unique secondary structure that allows them to cleave other RNA molecules at specific sequences. It is now possible to make ribozymes that will specifically cleave any RNA molecule. These RNA catalysts may have pharmaceutical applications. For example, a ribozyme has been designed to cleave the RNA of HIV. If such a ribozyme were made by a cell, all incoming virus particles would have their RNA genome cleaved by the ribozyme, which would prevent infection.


title: Ribozyme

text: Despite having only four choices for each monomer unit (nucleotides), compared to 20 amino acid side chains found in proteins, ribozymes have diverse structures and mechanisms. In many cases they are able to mimic the mechanism used by their protein counterparts. For example, in self cleaving ribozyme RNAs, an in-line SN2 reaction is carried out using the 2’ hydroxyl group as a nucleophile attacking the bridging phosphate and causing 5’ oxygen of the N+1 base to act as a leaving group . In comparison, RNase A, a protein that catalyzes the same reaction, uses a coordinating histidine and lysine to act as a base to attack the phosphate backbone.


title: Ribozyme

text: Like many protein enzymes metal binding is also critical to the function of many ribozymes. Often these interactions use both the phosphate backbone and the base of the nucleotide, causing drastic conformational changes. There are two mechanism classes for the cleavage of phosphodiester backbone in the presence of metal. In the first mechanism, the internal 2’- OH group attacks phosphorus center in a SN mechanism. Metal ions promote this reaction by first coordinating the phosphate oxygen and later stabling the oxyanion. The second mechanism also follows a SN displacement, but the nucleophile comes from water or exogenous hydroxyl groups rather than RNA itself. The smallest ribozyme is UUU, which can promote the cleavage between G and A of the GAAA tetranucleotide via the first mechanism in the presence of Mn. The reason why this trinucleotide rather than the complementary tetramer catalyze this reaction may be because the UUU-AAA pairing is the weakest and most flexible trinucleotide among the 64 conformations, which provides the binding site for Mn.


title: Ribozyme

text: Phosphoryl transfer can also be catalyzed without metal ions. For example, pancreatic ribonuclease A and hepatitis delta virus(HDV) ribozymes can catalyze the cleavage of RNA backbone through acid-base catalysis without metal ions. Hairpin ribozyme can also catalyze the self-cleavage of RNA without metal ions but the mechanism is still unclear.


title: Ribozyme

text: Ribozyme can also catalyze the formation of peptide bond between adjacent amino acid by lowering the activation entropy.


title: Ribozyme

text: Although ribozymes are quite rare in most cells, their roles are sometimes essential to life. For example, the functional part of the ribosome, the biological machine that translates RNA into proteins, is fundamentally a ribozyme, composed of RNA tertiary structural motifs that are often coordinated to metal ions such as Mg as cofactors. In a model system, there is no requirement for divalent cations in a five-nucleotide RNA catalyzing "trans"-phenylalanation of a four-nucleotide substrate with 3 base pairs complementary with the catalyst, where the catalyst/substrate were devised by truncation of the C3 ribozyme.


title: Ribozyme

text: The best-studied ribozymes are probably those that cut themselves or other RNAs, as in the original discovery by Cech and Altman. However, ribozymes can be designed to catalyze a range of reactions (see below), many of which may occur in life but have not been discovered in cells.


title: Ribozyme

text: RNA may catalyze folding of the pathological protein conformation of a prion in a manner similar to that of a chaperonin.


title: Ribozyme

text: RNA can also act as a hereditary molecule, which encouraged Walter Gilbert to propose that in the distant past, the cell used RNA as both the genetic material and the structural and catalytic molecule rather than dividing these functions between DNA and protein as they are today; this hypothesis is known as the "RNA world hypothesis" of the origin of life. Since nucleotides and RNA and thus ribozymes can arise by inorganic chemicals, they are candidates for the first enzymes, and in fact, the first "replicators", i.e. information-containing macro-molecules that replicate themselves. An example of a self-replicating ribozyme that ligates two substrates to generate an exact copy of itself was described in 2002.


title: Ribozyme

text: The discovery of catalytic activity of RNA solved the "chicken and egg" paradox of the origin of life, solving the problem of origin of peptide and nucleic acid central dogma. According to this scenario, at the origin of life all enzymatic activity and genetic information encoding was done by one molecule, the RNA.


title: Ribozyme

text: Ribozymes have been produced in the laboratory that are capable of catalyzing the synthesis of other RNA molecules from activated monomers under very specific conditions, these molecules being known as RNA polymerase ribozymes. The first RNA polymerase ribozyme was reported in 1996, and was capable of synthesizing RNA polymers up to 6 nucleotides in length. Mutagenesis and selection has been performed on an RNA ligase ribozyme from a large pool of random RNA sequences, resulting in isolation of the improved "Round-18" polymerase ribozyme in 2001 which could catalyze RNA polymers now up to 14 nucleotides in length. Upon application of further selection on the Round-18 ribozyme, the B6.61 ribozyme was generated and was able to add up to 20 nucleotides to a primer template in 24 hours, until it decomposes by cleavage of its phosphodiester bonds.


title: Ribozyme

text: The rate at which ribozymes can polymerize an RNA sequence multiples substantially when it takes place within a micelle.


title: Ribozyme

text: The next ribozyme discovered was the "tC19Z" ribozyme, which can add up to 95 nucleotides with a fidelity of 0.0083 mutations/nucleotide. Next, the "tC9Y" ribozyme was discovered by researchers and was further able to synthesize RNA strands up to 206 nucleotides long in the eutectic phase conditions at below-zero temperature, conditions previously shown to promote ribozyme polymerase activity.


title: Ribozyme

text: The RNA polymerase ribozyme (RPR) called tC9-4M was able to polymerize RNA chains longer than itself (i.e. longer than 177 nt) in magnesium ion concentrations close to physiological levels, whereas earlier RPRs required prebiotically implausible concentrations of up to 200mM. The only factor required for it to achieve this was the presence of a very simple amino acid polymer, lysine decapeptide.


title: Ribozyme

text: The most complex RPR synthesized by that point was called 24-3, which was newly capable of polymerizing the sequences of a substantial variety of nucleotide sequences and navigating through complex secondary structures of RNA substrates inaccessible to previous ribozymes. In fact, this experiment was the first to use a ribozyme to synthesize a tRNA molecule. Starting with the 24-3 ribozyme, Tjhung et al. applied another fourteen rounds of selection to obtain an RNA polymerase ribozyme by "in vitro" evolution termed '38-6' that has an unprecedented level of activity in copying complex RNA molecules. However, this ribozyme is unable to copy itself and its RNA products have a high mutation rate. In a subsequent study, the researchers began with the 38-6 ribozyme and applied another 14 rounds of selection to generate the '52-2' ribozyme, which compared to 38-6, was again many times more active and could begin generating detectable and functional levels of the class I ligase, although it was still limited in its fidelity and functionality in comparison to copying of the same template by proteins such as the T7 RNA polymerase.


title: Ribozyme

text: An RPR called t5(+1) adds triplet nucleotides at a time instead of just one nucleotide at a time. This heterodimeric RPR can navigate secondary structures inaccessible to 24-3, including hairpins. In the initial pool of RNA variants derived only from a previously synthesized RPR known as the Z RPR, two sequences separately emerged and evolved to be mutualistically dependent on each other. The Type 1 RNA evolved to be catalytically inactive, but complexing with the Type 5 RNA boosted its polymerization ability and enabled intermolecular interactions with the RNA template substrate obviating the need to tether the template directly to the RNA sequence of the RPR, which was a limitation of earlier studies. Not only did t5(+1) not need tethering to the template, but a primer was not needed either as t5(+1) had the ability to polymerize a template in both 3' → 5' and 5' 3 → 3' directions.


title: Ribozyme

text: A highly evolved RNA polymerase ribozyme was able to function as a reverse transcriptase, that is, it can synthesize a DNA copy using an RNA template. Such an activity is considered to have been crucial for the transition from RNA to DNA genomes during the early history of life on earth. Reverse transcription capability could have arisen as a secondary function of an early RNA dependent RNA polymerase ribozyme.


title: Ribozyme

text: An RNA sequence that folds into a ribozyme capable of invading duplexed RNA, rearranging into an open holopolymerase complex and then searching for a specific RNA promoter sequence, and upon recognition rearrange again into a processive form that polymerizes a complementary strand of the sequence. This ribozyme is capable of extending duplexed RNA by up to 107 nucleotides, and does so without needing to tether the sequence being polymerized.


title: Ribozyme

text: Since the discovery of ribozymes that exist in living organisms, there has been interest in the study of new synthetic ribozymes made in the laboratory. For example, artificially-produced self-cleaving RNAs that have good enzymatic activity have been produced. Tang and Breaker isolated self-cleaving RNAs by in vitro selection of RNAs originating from random-sequence RNAs. Some of the synthetic ribozymes that were produced had novel structures, while some were similar to the naturally occurring hammerhead ribozyme. In 2015, researchers at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois at Chicago have engineered a tethered ribosome that works nearly as well as the authentic cellular component that produces all the proteins and enzymes within the cell. Called Ribosome-T, or Ribo-T, the artificial ribosome was created by Michael Jewett and Alexander Mankin. The techniques used to create artificial ribozymes involve directed evolution. This approach takes advantage of RNA's dual nature as both a catalyst and an informational polymer, making it easy for an investigator to produce vast populations of RNA catalysts using polymerase enzymes. The ribozymes are mutated by reverse transcribing them with reverse transcriptase into various cDNA and amplified with error-prone PCR. The selection parameters in these experiments often differ. One approach for selecting a ligase ribozyme involves using biotin tags, which are covalently linked to the substrate. If a molecule possesses the desired ligase activity, a streptavidin matrix can be used to recover the active molecules.


title: Ribozyme

text: Lincoln and Joyce used "in vitro" evolution to develop ribozyme ligases capable of self-replication in about an hour, via the joining of pre-synthesized highly complementary oligonucleotides.


title: Ribozyme

text: Although not true catalysts, the creation of artificial self-cleaving riboswitches, termed aptazymes, has also been an active area of research. Riboswitches are regulatory RNA motifs that change their structure in response to a small molecule ligand to regulate translation. While there are many known natural riboswitches that bind a wide array of metabolites and other small organic molecules, only one ribozyme based on a riboswitch has been described, "glmS". Early work in characterizing self-cleaving riboswitches was focused on using theophylline as the ligand. In these studies an RNA hairpin is formed which blocks the ribosome binding site, thus inhibiting translation. In the presence of the ligand, in these cases theophylline, the regulatory RNA region is cleaved off, allowing the ribosome to bind and translate the target gene. Much of this RNA engineering work was based on rational design and previously determined RNA structures rather than directed evolution as in the above examples. More recent work has broadened the ligands used in ribozyme riboswitches to include thymine pyrophosphate (2). Fluorescence-activated cell sorting has also been used to engineering aptazymes.


title: Ribozyme

text: Ribozymes have been proposed and developed for the treatment of disease through gene therapy (3). One major challenge of using RNA based enzymes as a therapeutic is the short half-life of the catalytic RNA molecules in the body. To combat this, the 2’ position on the ribose is modified to improve RNA stability. One area of ribozyme gene therapy has been the inhibition of RNA-based viruses.


title: Ribozyme

text: A type of synthetic ribozyme directed against HIV RNA called gene shears has been developed and has entered clinical testing for HIV infection.


title: Ribozyme

text: Similarly, ribozymes have been designed to target the hepatitis C virus RNA, SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV), Adenovirus and influenza A and B virus RNA. The ribozyme is able to cleave the conserved regions of the virus's genome which has been shown to reduce the virus in mammalian cell culture. Despite these efforts by researchers, these projects have remained in the preclinical stage.


title: 16K resolution

text: 16K resolution is a display resolution with approximately 16,000 pixels horizontally. The most commonly discussed 16K resolution is , which doubles the pixel count of 8K UHD in each dimension, for a total of four times as many pixels. This resolution has 132.7 megapixels, 16 times as many pixels as 4K resolution and 64 times as many pixels as 1080p resolution.


title: 16K resolution

text: As of June 2022, 16K resolutions can be run using multi-monitor setups with AMD Eyefinity or Nvidia Surround.


title: 16K resolution

text: In 2016, AMD announced a target for their future graphics cards to support 16K resolution with a refresh rate of 240Hz for "true immersion" in VR.


title: 16K resolution

text: Linus Tech Tips released a series of videos in 2017 attempting to play video games at 16K using sixteen 4K monitors.


title: 16K resolution

text: In 2018, US filmmaker Martin Lisius released a short time-lapse film titled, "Prairie Wind" that he produced using a 2-camera Canon EOS 5DS system he developed. Two still images were stitched together to create one pixel image and then rendered as 16K resolution video with an extremely wide aspect ratio of . This is among the first known 16K videos to exist.


title: 16K resolution

text: Sony introduced a commercial 16K display at NAB 2019 that is set to be released in Japan. It is made up of 576 modules (each ) in a formation of 48 by 12 modules, forming a screen, with aspect ratio.


title: 16K resolution

text: On June 26, 2019, VESA formally released the DisplayPort 2.0 standard with support for one 16K (-pixel) display supporting 30-bit-per-pixel 4:4:4 RGB/-color HDR video at a refresh rate of 60Hz using DSC video compression.


title: Remember When (The Sopranos)

text: "Remember When" is the 80th episode of the HBO television series "The Sopranos", the third episode of the second half of the show's sixth season, and the 15th episode of the season overall. Written by Terence Winter and directed by Phil Abraham, it originally aired on April 22, 2007, and was watched by 6.85 million viewers on its premiere.


title: Remember When (The Sopranos)

text: The FBI recovers the body of bookie Willie Overall Tony's first murder based on information from Soprano family capo Larry Boy Barese. Tony and Paulie drive to Miami to lay low until the heat is off. On the way down, Tony asks Paulie how Johnny heard about Ralphie's joke about his wife the incident which nearly led to hostilities between the Soprano and Lupertazzi families but Paulie says he does not know. While Paulie was Tony's role model growing up, Tony now doubts his loyalty and usefulness. In Miami, the two men meet Beansie's Cuban contacts and agree to trade in stolen goods. Tony also arranges a bridge loan of $200,000 from Hesh to cover a string of losing sports bets.


title: Remember When (The Sopranos)

text: Larry tells the FBI that the late Jackie Aprile, Sr. killed Overall. Upon receiving this news, Tony rents a sport fishing boat to celebrate with Paulie. However, Paulie is uneasy as he remembers the killing of Big Pussy on a boat. On the open sea, Tony questions Paulie again about the joke leak; Paulie again denies involvement. Tony glances at a hatchet and some fishing knives, but the tension passes. That night, Paulie has a dream in which he sees Pussy and asks him in a panic, "Tell me, when my time comes--will I stand up?" When they return to New Jersey, Paulie sends Tony and Carmela a $2,000 espresso machine. When she wonders why, Tony explains that they owe their lifestyle to the hard work of people like Paulie.


title: Remember When (The Sopranos)

text: In New York City, Faustino "Doc" Santoro and his bodyguard are murdered in a hit arranged by Phil, who becomes the new boss of the Lupertazzi family.


title: Remember When (The Sopranos)

text: Junior is visited at his mental care center by his former soldiers Pat Blundetto and Beppy Scerbo. Junior begs them to aid his escape but soon loses his resolve. He returns to his old mob habits, bribing an orderly and organizing an illicit poker game for other patients. Professor Lynch, a patient Junior teases, informs on him and the game is ended. Junior finds an admiring follower in a young patient named Carter Chong, who has been institutionalized for his anger issues.


title: Remember When (The Sopranos)

text: Junior assaults Professor Lynch and is given a new regimen of sedatives. Carter devises a plan to distract the orderlies handing the pills to Junior so that he can covertly throw them away. Some of the drugs were meant to combat Junior's incontinence, and he soon humiliatingly wets himself. The orderly is fired for taking bribes and Junior is threatened with a transfer to a less pleasant, state-run facility if he does not take his medications. He complies with the treatment, much to Carter's disillusionment. Junior tries to make up with him, but calls him "Anthony." At a piano recital, Carter starts throwing paper balls at the pianist; when Junior shows disapproval, Carter becomes enraged and ferociously attacks him.


title: Remember When (The Sopranos)

text: Junior is next seen with the other patients (though not Carter) receiving animal-assisted therapy in the garden. He is in a wheelchair, with one arm in a cast, apart from the others.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: Operation Bodenplatte (; "Baseplate"), launched on 1 January 1945, was an attempt by the Luftwaffe to cripple Allied air forces in the Low Countries during the Second World War. The goal of "Bodenplatte" was to gain air superiority during the stagnant stage of the Battle of the Bulge so that the German Army and Waffen-SS forces could resume their advance. The operation was planned for 16 December 1944, but was delayed repeatedly due to bad weather until New Year's Day, the first day that happened to be suitable.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: Secrecy for the operation was so tight that not all German ground and naval forces had been informed of the operation and some units suffered casualties from friendly fire. British signals intelligence recorded the movement and buildup of German air forces in the region, but did not realise that an operation was imminent.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: The operation achieved some surprise and tactical success, but was ultimately a failure. A great many Allied aircraft were destroyed on the ground but replaced within a week. Allied aircrew casualties were quite small, since the majority of Allied losses were grounded aircraft. The Germans, however, lost many pilots who could not be readily replaced.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: Post-battle analysis suggests only 11 of the Luftwaffe's 34 air combat "Gruppen" (groups) made attacks on time and with surprise. The operation failed to achieve air superiority, even temporarily, while the German ground forces continued to be exposed to Allied air attack. "Bodenplatte" was the last large-scale strategic offensive operation mounted by the Luftwaffe during the war.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: The armies of the Western Allies were supported by the Allied Air Forces as they advanced across Western Europe in 1944. The Royal Air Force (RAF) and its Second Tactical Air Force—under the command of Air Marshal Arthur Coningham—moved No. 2 Group RAF, No. 83 Group RAF, No. 84 Group RAF and No. 85 Group RAF to continental Europe in order to provide constant close air support. The RAF harassed the German air, sea and ground forces by hitting strong points and interdicting their supply lines while reconnaissance units apprised the Allies of German movements. With Allied air superiority, the German Army could not operate effectively. The Luftwaffe, equally, found it difficult to provide effective air cover for the German Army. Although German aircraft production peaked in 1944 the Luftwaffe was critically short of pilots and fuel, and lacked experienced combat leaders.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: The land battles moved towards the River Rhine, to the east of which lay the German heartland. Most of France had been liberated, as had the Belgian cities Brussels and Antwerp. Although Operation Market Garden had failed in 1944, by 1945 the Allies had overrun most of the southern Netherlands and the Scheldt Estuary. As the ground forces moved across Europe, the Allied tactical air forces moved into new bases on the continent, to continue providing close support. The only limiting factor for the Allies was the weather. As winter came, rain and mud turned airfields into quagmires, so large-scale air and land operations came to a halt.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: The situation might well have continued until the spring thaw had the German High Command ("Oberkommando der Wehrmacht") not launched the Battle of the Bulge on 16 December 1944. This land offensive was intended to improve the German military position by capturing Antwerp and separating the British Army from United States Army forces. Part of the planning for the German land operation required the attack to be conducted under the cover of bad winter weather, which kept the main Allied asset, the Tactical Air Forces, on the ground. It initially succeeded, but the weather also grounded the Luftwaffe for the most part. Nevertheless, the Luftwaffe did manage to put 500 aircraft into the air on 16 December, more than had been achieved for a long time. This first day had been the originally planned date for the strike against Allied airfields, named Operation Bodenplatte. However, the weather proved particularly bad and operations were shut down.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: The offensive achieved surprise and much initial success. To counter the attack from the air, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) handed operational control of its XXIX Tactical Air Command and part of its Ninth Air Force, under the command of Major General Hoyt Vandenberg, to the RAF and Arthur Coningham. On 23 December, the RAF Second Tactical Air Force provided the American forces with much needed support, and helped prevent a German capture of Malmedy and Bastogne. This left the Germans with only the logistical bottleneck of St. Vith to support their operations. The German attack faltered.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: The Luftwaffe had been far from absent over the front in December. It flew several thousand sorties over the theatre. Its encounters with the RAF and USAAF had meant heavy losses in "matériel" and pilots. On the eight days of operations between 17 and 27 December 1944, 644 fighters were lost and 227 damaged. This resulted in 322 pilots killed, 23 captured and 133 wounded. On the three days of operations 23–25 December, 363 fighters were destroyed. None of the "Geschwaderkommodoren" expected any large-scale air operations by the end of the month.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: In September 1944, Adolf Hitler resolved to recover Germany's deteriorating fortunes by launching an offensive in the West. On 16 September, Hitler directed "Generalleutnant" Werner Kreipe—Chief of the Luftwaffe's General Staff—to prepare the necessary aircraft for the offensive. On 21 October, Kreipe ordered the air fleet defending the Greater German "Reich" ("Luftflotte Reich") to hand over seven "Jagdgeschwader" and "Schlachtgeschwader" to Air Command West ("Luftwaffenkommando West") for a future offensive.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: On 14 November, Hermann Göring—Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe—ordered the 2. "Jagddivision" and the 3. "Jagddivision" to prepare their units for a large-scale ground attack operation in the Ardennes. Preparations were to be complete by 27 November. The attack was to be carried out on the first day of the offensive.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: "Generalmajor" Dietrich Peltz was to plan the operation having been appointed C-in-C of II. "Fliegerkorps" on 8 December. "Luftwaffenkommando" West had ordered all units—except "Jagdgeschwader" 300 and 301—to attend the main planning meeting in Flammersfeld on 5 December. On 14 December, Peltz officially initiated plans for a major blow against the Allies in northwest Europe. Peltz was not a fighter pilot; his combat record was as a dive bomber pilot, flying the Junkers Ju 87 "Stuka". His experiences in Poland, in France, and during the early campaigns on the Eastern Front had moulded him into an outstanding ground attack specialist, making him an ideal candidate for planning "Bodenplatte".


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: On 15 December, this plan was worked out with the help of the Luftwaffe's "Jagd-Geschwaderkommodore", among them Gotthard Handrick ("Jagdabschnittsführer Mittelrhein"; Fighter Sector Leader Middle Rhine), Walter Grabmann and Karl Hentschel, commanders of 3. and 5. "Jagddivision" respectively. It was originally scheduled to support the Battle of the Bulge, the German Army's offensive, which began 16 December 1944. However, the same bad weather that prevented the RAF and USAAF from supporting their own ground forces also prevented the Luftwaffe from carrying out the operation. It was therefore not launched until 1 January 1945. By this time, the German Army had lost momentum owing to Allied resistance and clearing weather, which allowed Allied Air Forces to operate. The German Army attempted to restart the attack by launching Operation Northwind ("Unternehmen Nordwind"). The Luftwaffe was to support this offensive through "Bodenplatte".


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: The plan of "Bodenplatte" called for a surprise attack against 17 Allied air bases in Belgium, the Netherlands and France. The object was to destroy or cripple as many Allied aircraft, hangars and airstrips as possible. Every fighter and fighter-bomber "Geschwader" (Wing) currently occupied with air defence along the Western Front was redeployed. Additional night-fighter units ("Nachtjagdgeschwader") and medium bomber units ("Kampfgeschwader") acted as pathfinders. The strike formations themselves were mostly single-engine Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighters.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: However, in a blunder, the planners had set flight paths that took many units over some of the most heavily defended areas on the continent, namely the V2 launch sites around The Hague. These sites were protected by large numbers of German anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) units. At the turn of 1944/45 Air Command West had 267 heavy and 277 medium or light AAA batteries, and in addition to this there were 100 "Kriegsmarine" AAA batteries along the Dutch coast. Most of these lay in the sector of the 16th AAA Division, with its control station at Doetinchem, northeast of Arnhem. Some of the AAA units been warned about the air operation but were not kept up to date with developments about changing timetables and the flight plan of German formations. As a result, one quarter of the German fighter units lost aircraft to friendly fire before the attacks could be initiated.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: After five years of war and heavy attrition many of the Luftwaffe's pilots were inexperienced and poorly trained, deficient in marksmanship and flight skills. There was a shortage of experienced instructors, and many of the training units were forced to fly front-line operations in order to bolster the front-line "Jagdgeschwader". Aviation fuel supplies were also at a premium, limiting the duration of training. Long-range Allied fighters exacerbated this situation by shooting down many training aircraft. By late 1944 there were no safe areas in which pilots could be trained without the possibility of air attack. The result was a "vicious circle": poorly trained pilots were quickly lost in combat or accidents, and the need to replace them put more pressure on the training system. Allied personnel who witnessed the attacks remarked on the poor aim of the strafing aircraft, and many of the Luftwaffe aircraft shot down by Allied anti-aircraft fire were caught because they were flying too slowly and too high.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: The plan called for strict radio silence and secrecy in order to maintain surprise. Maps were also only half complete, identified only enemy installations, and left out flight paths, lest the document fall into Allied hands enabling them to trace the whereabouts of German fighter bases. Most commanders were also refused permission to brief their pilots until moments before take-off. This created operational confusion. Commanders got across only the bare essentials of the plan. When the operation got under way, many German pilots still did not understand what the operation was about, or what exactly was required of them. They were convinced it was just a reconnaissance in force over the front, and were happy to follow their flight leaders on this basis.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: It is unclear whether all of the following were deliberately targeted. Evidence suggests that Grimbergen, Knocke and Ophoven were targeted in error, as was Heesch. In all, the "Oberkommando der Luftwaffe" (OKL) deployed 1,035 aircraft from several "Jagdgeschwader" (JG—fighter wings) "Kampfgeschwader" (KG—bomber wings), "Nachtjagdgeschwader" (NJG—night fighter wings) and "Schlachtgeschwader" (SG—ground attack wings); of these, 38.5% were Bf 109s, 38.5% Fw 190As, and 23% Fw 190Ds.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: Following the Operation Bodenplatte raids, the Allies retrieved several log-books from crashed German aircraft. In several of these, the entry ""Auftrag Hermann 1.1. 1945, Zeit: 9.20 Uhr"" was translated as "Operation Hermann to commence on 1 January 1945, at 9:20am." This led the Allies to believe the operation itself was named Hermann for "Reichsmarschall" Hermann Göring. Five further different codes were used for the attack:


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: Allied intelligence failed to detect the German intention. In Ultra transcripts, there were only a few indications of what was happening on the other side of the front. On 4 December 1944, II "Jagdkorps" had ordered stockpiling for navigational aids, such as "golden-rain" flares and smoke bombs. Allied intelligence made no written observations of this communication. They also disregarded communications to Junkers Ju 88 groups regarding the use of flares when leading formations. Intelligence concluded that these instructions were designed for a ground support mission rather than an interception operation. This was reasonable, but no indications of possible ground targets were given.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: On 20 December, a 3. "Jagddivision" message was intercepted confirming that the locations for emergency landing grounds during a "special undertaking" had remained unchanged. This was a clear indication that something was amiss, but Allied intelligence did not comment on it. It also ignored more messages indicating that low-level attacks were being practised. Allied intelligence, by 16 December, had monitored the reshuffling of both German Army and Luftwaffe formations opposite the American-held front at the Ardennes. Yet nothing major was suspected.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: "Jagdgeschwader" 1 (JG 1) was responsible for the attack on the Ursel and Maldegem airfields. "Oberstleutnant" Herbert Ihlefeld led the "Geschwader". The formation was mixed; Stab., (headquarters flight or "Stabschwarm", attached to every "Geschwader"), I. and II./JG 1 operated the Fw 190 while the III./JG 1 flew the Bf 109. I./JG 1 lost four of their number to friendly anti-aircraft fire. Three of the four pilots were killed.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: The attacks at Maldegem and Ursel began at 08:30. Both I. and II./JG 1 became involved in intense dogfights. III./JG 1 had lost only one aircraft over the target (and not to enemy fire). I./JG lost a further Fw 190 to friendly anti-aircraft fire as it made its way to Ursel. I./JG 1 lost at least two further Fw 190s to friendly anti-aircraft fire. Casualties could have been heavier, had the British anti-aircraft defences of Maldegem airfield not been moved in December.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: Stab. and I./JG 1 lost 13 Fw 190s and nine pilots were missing; five were killed and four were captured. Thus the loss rates in personnel and "matériel" were 39 and 56%, respectively. III./JG 1 lost only three Bf 109s with one pilot dead and two captured. I./JG 1 claimed 30 British or New Zealand Spitfires on the ground and two shot down over Maldegem. At Maldegem, 16 aircraft were destroyed, and at Ursel only six were lost. The claims of I./JG 1 were actually more in line with British and New Zealand total losses at both Maldegem and Ursel. No. 131 Wing RAF / Polish Wing lost 13 Spitfires plus two damaged beyond repair, a total of 15 lost. At Ursel, six aircraft were destroyed, including, a B-17, two Lancasters and a Mosquito. I. and III./JG 1 lost a total of 16 aircraft and 12 pilots.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: II./JG 1 attacked the airfield at St. Denijs Westrem. Of the 36 II./JG 1 Fw 190s that took off, 17 were shot down, a staggering 47% loss rate. Among the pilots lost were several experienced fliers. In exchange, the Germans shot down two Spitfires, and seven forced-landed. At St. Denijs Westrem 18 Spitfires were destroyed on the ground.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: Altogether JG 1 lost 25 pilots and 29 aircraft. This return for around 60 enemy aircraft (54 on the ground) cannot be considered a complete success, although the damage at St. Denijs Westrem and Maldegem had been significant. Just nine of the fighters lost by JG 1 are confirmed to have been shot down in combat with Spitfires. It is possible a further three were shot down by Spitfires, or perhaps ground fire. Two Spitfires were shot down and destroyed, with two more damaged. One pilot of each squadron (308 and 317) was killed. The total Spitfire losses were perhaps 32.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: "Schlachtgeschwader" 4 and "Jagdgeschwader" 2 (SG 4 and JG 2) were to strike at Sint-Truiden airfield. JG 2 was commanded by Kurt Bühligen. I./JG 2's ground crews made ready 35 of 46 Fw 190s, 29 of which were Fw 190Ds. Only 33 pilots were fit for operations, so the "Gruppe" reported only 33 Fw 190s ready. II./JG 2 could field 20 of 29 Bf 109s. Stab./JG 2 had three Fw 190s ready for the mission. It is not clear whether Bühligen took part in the mission. III./JG 2 reported 40 Fw 190s operational, 34 of them Fw 190Ds. However, only 28 of the 43 pilots in the unit were fit for operations and the formation fielded only 28 fighters. In total, 84 aircraft were ready on 31 December, including 28 Fw 190D-9s.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: SG 4 was led by Alfred Druschel. It had 152 machines on strength, of which just 60 were operational, yet the 129 pilots were fit for action. Stab./SG 4 had three Fw 190s and two pilots. I./SG 4 had 21 Fw 190s operational and 27 pilots ready. II./SG 4 reported 27 Fw 190s ready, but pilot strength is unknown. III./SG 4 reported 24 Fw 190s, but only 16 were available at the forward airfields. Pilot strength is unknown. Best estimations make it around 60 Fw 190s operational, of which 55 took part.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: At 09:12, JG 2 crossed the front line at Malmedy and was greeted by an enormous volume of Allied ground fire. The entire area was heavily defended by anti-aircraft artillery, since the area had been the scene of heavy fighting, but also had been attacked by V-1 and V-2 missiles. I./JG 2 lost at least seven fighters to ground fire alone. III./JG 2 lost 10 fighters. A possible seven Bf 109s from II./JG 2 were also lost to ground fire. JG 2 attacked Asch and Ophoven airfields by mistake.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: JG 2's mission was a disaster. I./JG 2 lost 18 Fw 190s and six more were damaged by ground fire and enemy aircraft. This represented 73% of their force. Of the 15 pilots missing, six would survive as POWs. II./JG 2 lost five Bf 109s and three were damaged a loss rate of 40%. Pilot losses were three missing, one dead and one wounded. III./JG 2 lost 19 Fw 190s and three were damaged, a loss rate of 79%. Nine pilots were killed, two were wounded and four were captured. JG 2 losses, according to another source, amounted to 40% of its force. Pilot losses were 24 killed or posted missing, 10 captured and four wounded. Another source asserts that pilot losses stood at 23 killed or missing.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: SG 4's mission was also a disaster. During the assembly phase, they flew across JG 11's flight path, and the formation was broken up. Some of the pilots joined JG 11 in the confusion. Unable to recover the formation, I. and II./SG 4 then decided to head home. The "Geschwaderkommodore", Druschel, had continued with five other pilots from III./SG 4 who had lost contact with their "Gruppe". They crossed the front near Hürtgenwald around 09:10. As they did so, American anti-aircraft batteries opened fire, claiming seven aircraft in the next 30 minutes. Only six of the 50 Fw 190s of SG 4 carried out an attack, against airfields near Aachen and the Asch aerodrome. Of these six, four did not return. Druschel himself was reported missing.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: The target of "Jagdgeschwader" 6 (JG 6) was Volkel. I. and III./JG 6 were to attack while II./JG 6 was to provide cover against Allied fighters. I./JG 6 got 29 of its 34 Fw 190s ready, while 25 of II./JG 6's fighters took part. Overall, most of the 99 Fw 190s were made available for the operation. III./JG 6 received orders to target petrol installations on the airfield only. Only 78 Fw 190s took off.


title: Operation Bodenplatte

text: While on course, JG 6 approached the airfield of Heesch and some of its pilots assumed it to be Volkel airfield. It is unlikely that the Heesch strip, built in October 1944, was known to the Luftwaffe. No. 126 Wing RCAF was based there and had dispatched its 411 and 442 Squadrons on recce missions early that morning so the majority of its units were airborne. Its 401 Squadron was readying for takeoff when JG 6 appeared at 09:15. Most of the German pilots had failed to notice the airfield, concentrating on keeping formation at low altitude. 401 Squadron scrambled. Some of the German fighters were authorised to engage, while the main body continued to search for Volkel. Stab., and II./JG 6 stumbled on another strip at Helmond, which contained no aircraft. Several German pilots believed it to be Volkel and attacked, losing several of their number to ground fire. II./JG 6 suffered severely from Spitfire and Tempests based at Helmond. Very little damage was done at Heesch or Helmond.