title: Optogenetics

text: Optogenetic activation of olfactory sensory neurons was critical for demonstrating timing in odor processing and for mechanism of neuromodulatory mediated olfactory guided behaviors (e.g. aggression, mating) In addition, with the aid of optogenetics, evidence has been reproduced to show that the "afterimage" of odors is concentrated more centrally around the olfactory bulb rather than on the periphery where the olfactory receptor neurons would be located. Transgenic mice infected with channel-rhodopsin Thy1-ChR2, were stimulated with a 473 nm laser transcranially positioned over the dorsal section of the olfactory bulb. Longer photostimulation of mitral cells in the olfactory bulb led to observations of longer lasting neuronal activity in the region after the photostimulation had ceased, meaning the olfactory sensory system is able to undergo long term changes and recognize differences between old and new odors.


title: Optogenetics

text: Optogenetics, freely moving mammalian behavior, "in vivo" electrophysiology, and slice physiology have been integrated to probe the cholinergic interneurons of the nucleus accumbens by direct excitation or inhibition. Despite representing less than 1% of the total population of accumbal neurons, these cholinergic cells are able to control the activity of the dopaminergic terminals that innervate medium spiny neurons (MSNs) in the nucleus accumbens. These accumbal MSNs are known to be involved in the neural pathway through which cocaine exerts its effects, because decreasing cocaine-induced changes in the activity of these neurons has been shown to inhibit cocaine conditioning. The few cholinergic neurons present in the nucleus accumbens may prove viable targets for pharmacotherapy in the treatment of cocaine dependence


title: Optogenetics

text: "In vivo" and "in vitro" recordings of individual CAMKII AAV-ChR2 expressing pyramidal neurons within the prefrontal cortex demonstrated high fidelity action potential output with short pulses of blue light at 20 Hz (Figure 1).


title: Optogenetics

text: "In vivo" repeated optogenetic stimulation in healthy animals was able to eventually induce seizures. This model has been termed optokindling.


title: Optogenetics

text: "In vivo" repeated optogenetic stimulation of pyramidal cells of the piriform cortex in healthy animals was able to eventually induce seizures. "In vitro" studies have revealed a loss of feedback inhibition in the piriform circuit due to impaired GABA synthesis.


title: Optogenetics

text: Optogenetics was applied on atrial cardiomyocytes to end spiral wave arrhythmias, found to occur in atrial fibrillation, with light. This method is still in the development stage. A recent study explored the possibilities of optogenetics as a method to correct for arrythmias and resynchronize cardiac pacing. The study introduced channelrhodopsin-2 into cardiomyocytes in ventricular areas of hearts of transgenic mice and performed "in vitro" studies of photostimulation on both open-cavity and closed-cavity mice. Photostimulation led to increased activation of cells and thus increased ventricular contractions resulting in increasing heart rates. In addition, this approach has been applied in cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) as a new biological pacemaker as a substitute for electrode based-CRT. Lately, optogenetics has been used in the heart to defibrillate ventricular arrhythmias with local epicardial illumination, a generalized whole heart illumination or with customized stimulation patterns based on arrhythmogenic mechanisms in order to lower defibrillation energy.


title: Optogenetics

text: Optogenetic stimulation of the spiral ganglion in deaf mice restored auditory activity. Optogenetic application onto the cochlear region allows for the stimulation or inhibition of the spiral ganglion cells (SGN). In addition, due to the characteristics of the resting potentials of SGN's, different variants of the protein channelrhodopsin-2 have been employed such as Chronos, CatCh and f-Chrimson. Chronos and CatCh variants are particularly useful in that they have less time spent in their deactivated states, which allow for more activity with less bursts of blue light emitted. Additionally, using engineered red-shifted channels as f-Chrimson allow for stimulation using longer wavelengths, which decreases the potential risks of phototoxicity in the long term without compromising gating speed. The result being that the LED producing the light would require less energy and the idea of cochlear prosthetics in association with photo-stimulation, would be more feasible.


title: Optogenetics

text: Optogenetic stimulation of a modified red-light excitable channelrhodopsin (ReaChR) expressed in the facial motor nucleus enabled minimally invasive activation of motoneurons effective in driving whisker movements in mice. One novel study employed optogenetics on the Dorsal Raphe Nucleus to both activate and inhibit dopaminergic release onto the ventral tegmental area. To produce activation transgenic mice were infected with channelrhodopsin-2 with a TH-Cre promoter and to produce inhibition the hyperpolarizing opsin NpHR was added onto the TH-Cre promoter. Results showed that optically activating dopaminergic neurons led to an increase in social interactions, and their inhibition decreased the need to socialize only after a period of isolation.


title: Optogenetics

text: Studying the visual system using optogenetics can be challenging. Indeed, the light used for optogenetic control may lead to the activation of photoreceptors, as a result of the proximity between primary visual circuits and these photoreceptors. In this case, spatial selectivity is difficult to achieve (particularly in the case of the fly optic lobe). Thus, the study of the visual system requires spectral separation, using channels that are activated by different wavelengths of light than rhodopsins within the photoreceptors (peak activation at 480 nm for Rhodopsin 1 in "Drosophila"). Red-shifted CsChrimson or bistable Channelrhodopsin are used for optogenetic activation of neurons (i.e. depolarization), as both allow spectral separation. In order to achieve neuronal silencing (i.e. hyperpolarization), an anion channelrhodopsin discovered in the cryptophyte algae species "Guillardia theta" (named GtACR1). can be used. GtACR1 is more light sensitive than other inhibitory channels such as the Halorhodopsin class of chlorid pumps and imparts a strong conductance. As its activation peak (515 nm) is close to that of Rhodopsin 1, it is necessary to carefully calibrate the optogenetic illumination as well as the visual stimulus. The factors to take into account are the wavelength of the optogenetic illumination (possibly higher than the activation peak of GtACR1), the size of the stimulus (in order to avoid the activation of the channels by the stimulus light) and the intensity of the optogenetic illumination. It has been shown that GtACR1 can be a useful inhibitory tool in optogenetic study of "Drosophila"'s visual system by silencing T4/T5 neurons expression. These studies can also be led on intact behaving animals, for instance to probe optomotor response.


title: Optogenetics

text: Optogenetically inhibiting or activating neurons tests their necessity and sufficiency, respectively, in generating a behavior. Using this approach, researchers can dissect the neural circuitry controlling motor output. By perturbing neurons at various places in the sensorimotor system, researchers have learned about the role of descending neurons in eliciting stereotyped behaviors, how localized tactile sensory input and activity of interneurons alters locomotion, and the role of Purkinje cells in generating and modulating movement. This is a powerful technique for understanding the neural underpinnings of animal locomotion and movement more broadly.


title: Optogenetics

text: The currently available optogenetic actuators allow for the accurate temporal control of the required intervention (i.e. inhibition or excitation of the target neurons) with precision routinely going down to the millisecond level. The temporal precision varies, however, across optogenetic actuators, and depends on the frequency and intensity of the stimulation.


title: Optogenetics

text: Experiments can now be devised where the light used for the intervention is triggered by a particular element of behavior (to inhibit the behavior), a particular unconditioned stimulus (to associate something to that stimulus) or a particular oscillatory event in the brain (to inhibit the event). This kind of approach has already been used in several brain regions:


title: Optogenetics

text: Sharp waves and ripple complexes (SWRs) are distinct high frequency oscillatory events in the hippocampus thought to play a role in memory formation and consolidation. These events can be readily detected by following the oscillatory cycles of the on-line recorded local field potential. In this way the onset of the event can be used as a trigger signal for a light flash that is guided back into the hippocampus to inhibit neurons specifically during the SWRs and also to optogenetically inhibit the oscillation itself. These kinds of "closed-loop" experiments are useful to study SWR complexes and their role in memory.


title: Optogenetics

text: Analogously to how natural light-gated ion channels such as channelrhodopsin-2 allows optical control of ion flux, which is especially useful in neuroscience, natural light-controlled signal transduction proteins also allow optical control of biochemical pathways, including both second-messenger generation and protein-protein interactions, which is especially useful in studying cell and developmental biology. In 2002, the first example of using photoproteins from another organism for controlling a biochemical pathway was demonstrated using the light-induced interaction between plant phytochrome and phytochrome-interacting factor (PIF) to control gene transcription in yeast. By fusing phytochrome to a DNA-binding domain and PIF to a transcriptional activation domain, transcriptional activation of genes recognized by the DNA-binding domain could be induced by light. This study anticipated aspects of the later development of optogenetics in the brain, for example, by suggesting that "Directed light delivery by fiber optics has the potential to target selected cells or tissues, even within larger, more-opaque organisms." The literature has been inconsistent as to whether control of cellular biochemistry with photoproteins should be subsumed within the definition of optogenetics, as optogenetics in common usage refers specifically to the control of neuronal firing with opsins, and as control of neuronal firing with opsins postdates and utilizes distinct mechanisms from control of cellular biochemistry with photoproteins.


title: Optogenetics

text: In addition to phytochromes, which are found in plants and cyanobacteria, LOV domains(Light-oxygen-voltage-sensing domain) from plants and yeast and cryptochrome domains from plants are other natural photosensory domains that have been used for optical control of biochemical pathways in cells. In addition, a synthetic photosensory domain has been engineered from the fluorescent protein Dronpa for optical control of biochemical pathways. In photosensory domains, light absorption is either coupled to a change in protein-protein interactions (in the case of phytochromes, some LOV domains, cryptochromes, and Dronpa mutants) or a conformational change that exposes a linked protein segment or alters the activity of a linked protein domain (in the case of phytochromes and some LOV domains). Light-regulated protein-protein interactions can then be used to recruit proteins to DNA, for example to induce gene transcription or DNA modifications, or to the plasma membrane, for example to activate resident signaling proteins. CRY2 also clusters when active, so has been fused with signaling domains and subsequently photoactivated to allow for clustering-based activation. The LOV2 domain of "Avena sativa"(common oat) has been used to expose short peptides or an active protein domain in a light-dependent manner. Introduction of this LOV domain into another protein can regulate function through light induced peptide disorder. The asLOV2 protein, which optogenetically exposes a peptide, has also been used as a scaffold for several synthetic light induced dimerization and light induced dissociation systems (iLID and LOVTRAP, respectively). The systems can be used to control proteins through a protein splitting strategy. Photodissociable Dronpa domains have also been used to cage a protein active site in the dark, uncage it after cyan light illumination, and recage it after violet light illumination.


title: Optogenetics

text: The ability to optically control signals for various time durations is being explored to elucidate how cell signaling pathways convert signal duration and response to different outputs. Natural signaling cascades are capable of responding with different outputs to differences in stimulus timing duration and dynamics. For example, treating PC12 cells with epidermal growth factor (EGF, inducing a transient profile of ERK activity) leads to cellular proliferation whereas introduction of nerve growth factor (NGF, inducing a sustained profile of ERK activity) leads to differentiation into neuron-like cells. This behavior was initially characterized using EGF and NGF application, but the finding has been partially replicated with optical inputs. In addition, a rapid negative feedback loop in the RAF-MEK-ERK pathway was discovered using pulsatile activation of a photoswitchable RAF engineered with photodissociable Dronpa domains.


title: Optogenetics

text: Professor Elias Manjarrez´s research group introduced the Optogenetic noise-photostimulation. This is a technique that uses random noisy light to activate neurons expressing ChR2. An optimal level of optogenetic-noise photostimulation on the brain can increase the somatosensory evoked field potentials, the firing frequency response of pyramidal neurons to somatosensory stimulation, and the sodium current amplitude.


title: Megaloceros

text: Megaloceros (from Greek: + , literally "Great Horn"; see also Lister (1987)) is an extinct genus of deer whose members lived throughout Eurasia from the early Pleistocene to the beginning of the Holocene and were important herbivores during the Ice Ages. The largest species, "Megaloceros giganteus", vernacularly known as the "Irish elk" or "giant elk", is also the best known. Fallow deer are thought to be their closest living relatives. "Megaloceros" is part of the deer family which includes moose, elk, reindeer, and other cervids.


title: Megaloceros

text: Most members of the genus were extremely large animals that favoured meadows or open woodlands. They are the most cursorial deer known, with most species averaging slightly below at the withers. The various species of the Cretan genus "Candiacervus" – the smallest of which, "C. rhopalophorus" was just high at the shoulder – are sometimes included in "Megaloceros" as a subgenus.


title: Megaloceros

text: Despite its name, the Irish elk was neither restricted to Ireland nor closely related to either species commonly referred to as elk ("Alces alces" in British English and other European languages; "Cervus canadensis" in North American English) but instead is closely related to the fallow deer genus "Dama". The genus was part of a Late Neogene Eurasian radiation of fallow deer relatives of which today only two taxa remain.(Lister "et al." 2005, Hughes "et al." 2006).


title: Megaloceros

text: Although sometimes synonymized with "Megaloceros", "Praemegaceros", "Sinomegaceros" and "Megaceroides" are apparently generically distinct. "M. savini" and related taxa ("novocarthaginiensis" and "matritensis)" are split into the separate genus "Praedama" by some scholars.


title: ...I Care Because You Do

text: ...I Care Because You Do is the third studio album by electronic musician Richard D. James under the alias Aphex Twin, released on 24 April 1995 by Warp. Containing material recorded between 1990 and 1994, the album marked James's return to a percussive sound following the largely beatless "Selected Ambient Works Volume II" (1994), and pairs abrasive rhythms with symphonic and ambient elements. The cover artwork is a self-portrait by James.


title: ...I Care Because You Do

text: "I Care Because You Do" peaked at number 24 on the UK Albums Chart. It was supported by the single and EP release of the track "Ventolin". The album received positive reviews, with "Entertainment Weekly", "Spin", and "Rolling Stone" commending it as a return to form for James. It garnered comparisons to the work of composer Philip Glass, who later re-recorded the track "Icct Hedral" for James's 1995 EP "Donkey Rhubarb". In 2017, "Pitchfork" ranked "I Care Because You Do" the 13th best IDM album of all time.


title: ...I Care Because You Do

text: Each track on "I Care Because You Do" is annotated with a date, revealing that the tracks were created between 1990 and 1994. It was James' final album to be recorded primarily with analogue technology before he turned to digital production methods. Many of the song titles are anagrams.


title: ...I Care Because You Do

text: According to AllMusic, the album finds James "pairing his hardcore experimentalism with more symphonic ambient material, aligned with the work of many post-classical composers" such as Philip Glass. Writer Dave Thompson described the album as "pulling together calm, serene moments then launching into battering and bruising beat-heavy tracks," observing that the rhythms shift "from trancey to hip-hoppish." Thompson also noted the influence of modern composers such as Glass. "Rolling Stone" stated that the music had "little to do with techno in any of its more popular guises," also comparing it to the work of composers Glass and John Cage but asserting that the album draws "most strongly from hip-hop. James' trademark is to put rhythm and percussion above all else; his beautiful, haunting melodies are relegated to the back of the mix."


title: ...I Care Because You Do

text: "Exclaim!" stated that the album has been described as "occupying a middle-ground between Philip Glass and the Wu-Tang Clan." "Spin" wrote that the album "showed up trip-hop laziness", while "Dummy Mag" described James as taking trip hop and "refashioning [the] voguish genre in his own image". "Entertainment Weekly" wrote that "By adding layers of soft, warm synthesizer chords over skull-grinding electronic percussion, James creates sounds that are simultaneously comforting and scary." In 2003, "NME" summarized the album as "a shotgun wedding of analogue rave and ambient porridge." "Rolling Stone" stated in 2004 that the increasingly active drum backing on the album was inspired by the presence of drum and bass music in the United Kingdom.


title: ...I Care Because You Do

text: "...I Care Because You Do" was released on 24 April 1995. It was released on vinyl, compact disc and cassette. It charted for two weeks in the United Kingdom, peaking at number 24 on the UK Albums Chart. "I Care Because You Do" was re-issued on vinyl by the record label 1972 on 18 September 2012. Warp also re-issued the album in vinyl with a download card on 8 October 2012. In 2017, the album was re-released in digital format with eight bonus tracks.


title: ...I Care Because You Do

text: The cover artwork is a self-portrait painted by James. It was the first of several Aphex Twin releases to feature an image of his grinning face on the cover.


title: ...I Care Because You Do

text: Following the album's release, composer Philip Glass contributed an orchestral arrangement to "Icct Hedral" that was included on the 1995 EP "Donkey Rhubarb".


title: ...I Care Because You Do

text: "Select" ranked the album at 42 on its "Top 50 Albums of the Year" list; saying "I Care Because You Do" was James's best since "Surfing on Sine Waves" and his "most coherent one to date", additionally stating that James had the ability to "make the avant-garde sound pop" and that he "delivers complex contemporary systems music in the most deliciously simple forms". "The Sydney Morning Herald" gave a positive review, surmising that "As ever, his palette of sound is astonishing, his arrangements effective and deliberate". "Rolling Stone" described the album as "classical music for a generation raised on samplers", stating that James was "making some of the most engaging and important music of our time."


title: ...I Care Because You Do

text: "Entertainment Weekly" praised the album and called it superior to "Selected Ambient Works Volume II", writing that it "reintroduces tension, more beats per minute, and sonic grime into his music" and additionally noting that it "creates sounds that are simultaneously comforting and scary – a fitting metaphor for the contemporary clash of technology and the humans befuddled by it." "Spin" also stated that album was superior to "Selected Ambient Works Volume II" as it "cut the middle of [techno]'s kitchen-sink aesthetic without sacrificing melody coherence or rhythm". "Spin" also described it as "a real album with its own gestalt," in which capacity it bested the "truly great" James albums "Selected Ambient Works 85–92" (1992) and "Classics" (1995). "Select" later placed the album at 42nd place on their list of the best albums of 1995, referring to the album as "leftfield, sound pop brilliance".


title: ...I Care Because You Do

text: In a retrospective of James' work in "The Rolling Stone Album Guide", Sasha Frere-Jones found that the album's newer tracks were its best ones. Justin Boreta from the group The Glitch Mob publicly revisited the album in 2015, praising it for "the juxtaposition between heavy darkness and gentle depth". "The A.V. Club" described it as "a perfect bridge between James' implementation of experimental techno and glossy ambient." In 2017, "Pitchfork" ranked it the 13th best IDM album of all time.


title: ...I Care Because You Do

text: The album credits only state that "Everything by Richard D. James. Self portrait painted by me. Design help from John."


title: Gorakhpur Junction railway station

text: Gorakhpur Junction railway station (station code:GKP) is located in the city of Gorakhpur in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It has the world's second longest railway platform after Hubli Junction railway station. It serves as the headquarters of the North Eastern Railway, part of Indian Railways. The station offers Class A-1 railway station facilities.


title: Gorakhpur Junction railway station

text: Gorakhpur Junction railway station is a major railway station in the state of Uttar Pradesh especially in the Purvanchal region (Eastern Uttar Pradesh) and it connects Eastern Uttar Pradesh to Bihar, Nepal and Northern India to Bihar.


title: Gorakhpur Junction railway station

text: The metre-gauge Gonda loop, running between Gorakhpur and Gonda, was constructed by the Bengal and North Western Railway between 1886 and 1905. The Kaptanganj–Siwan metre-gauge line was opened in 1913. The metre-gauge Nautanwa branch line was opened in 1925.


title: Gorakhpur Junction railway station

text: Conversion to broad gauge started with the Gorakhpur–Siwan section in 1981. The Gorakhpur–Paniyahwa section was converted in 1991. The Gorakhpur–Gonda loop was converted around 1985, and the Nautanwa branch line at about the same time. The Kaptanganj–Siwan line was converted around 2011


title: Gorakhpur Junction railway station

text: A remodeling of the Gorakhpur railway station was launched in 2009. The remodeling work was completed on war-footing within the scheduled time. With the inauguration of the remodeled yard on 6 October 2013, Gorakhpur has a platform measuring with ramp and without it. This is world's second longest railway platform.


title: Gorakhpur Junction railway station

text: Gorakhpur is amongst the top hundred booking stations of Indian Railways. It handles over 190 trains daily. On some special occasions the number of trains increases upto 473. Some of the other railway stations in Uttar Pradesh handling large numbers of passengers are Kanpur Central, Varanasi Junction, Mathura Junction and Mughalsarai.


title: Barbara Dare

text: Barbara Dare (born February 27, 1963) is an American former pornographic actress. She was one of the industry's initial contract performers with Essex Video and Vivid Entertainment and is an AVN and XRCO Hall of Fame inductee.


title: Barbara Dare

text: Dare was born in Wichita Falls, Texas. After her father, a dentist, left the Air Force, the family moved to Wayne, New Jersey. She was raised in the Jewish faith. Early in her professional career, Dare self-identified as a lesbian, having personal relationships with women.


title: Barbara Dare

text: Dare began appearing in adult films in the mid-1980s after meeting people who were involved in the adult film industry at Plato's Retreat and also made appearances in magazines such as "Hustler", "Swank", and "High Society". In 1989, she joined fellow adult film actress Stephanie Rage as authors of a monthly article for "Swank".


title: Barbara Dare

text: Dare was one of the top adult film stars of the 1980s. She appeared in scenes with several (at the time) top adult films stars, including Tracey Adams and Ginger Lynn. She became one of the first women in the industry to sign an exclusivity contract with Essex Video for 10 movies a year and an annual salary of $150,000 and would later leave that studio to sign with Vivid Entertainment and become one of the earliest Vivid Girls. Dare's final film was "Bratgirl" (1992); she retired in 1994.


title: Barbara Dare

text: Jerry Butler stated in his autobiography that Dare had a "commanding screen presence" while on set, in spite of her smaller physical stature.


title: Barbara Dare

text: Dare was interviewed in 1987 for the episode of the television news series "Frontline" regarding the death of Shauna Grant.


title: Barbara Dare

text: She also had minor roles in mainstream productions such as the Roy Scheider and Ann-Margret film "52 Pick-Up" in 1986 and the live-action/animated comedy-horror B-movie "Evil Toons" (where she was credited as "Stacey Nix") in 1992.


title: Japanese funeral

text: The majority of funerals (, "sōgi" or , "sōshiki") in Japan include a wake, the cremation of the deceased, a burial in a family grave, and a periodic memorial service. According to 2007 statistics, 99.81% of deceased Japanese are cremated.


title: Japanese funeral

text: Other practices in Japan include Shinto funerals and the Ryukyuan people’s indigenous sepultural culture.


title: Japanese funeral

text: Although Japan has become a more secular society (see Religion in Japan), , 90% of funerals are conducted as Buddhist ceremonies. Immediately after a death (or, in earlier days, just before the expected death), relatives moisten the dying or deceased person's lips with water, a practice known as . Most Japanese homes maintain Buddhist altars, or , for use in Buddhist ceremonies; and many also have Shinto shrines, or . When a death occurs, the shrine is closed and covered with white paper to keep out the impure spirits of the dead, a custom called . A small table decorated with flowers, incense, and a candle is placed next to the deceased's bed.


title: Japanese funeral

text: The relatives and authorities are informed, and a death certificate is issued. Funeral arrangements typically are made by the eldest son and are begun by contacting a temple to schedule the event. Some days are more auspicious than others, based on an old Chinese six-day lunar cycle; in particular, the second day, called , is superstitiously understood to mean "pulling your friends along with you" ("tomo" = friends; "hiku" = pull, although the original significance was different) and is therefore considered a terrible day for a funeral but a good day for a wedding.


title: Japanese funeral

text: The body is washed and the orifices are blocked with cotton or gauze. An "encoffining" ritual (called a "nōkan") is sometimes performed, in which professional ritually dress and prepare the body and place it in the coffin (this is portrayed in the 2008 film "Departures"). The ceremony is now rarely performed, and may be limited to rural areas where older traditions are maintained. Whether or not the encoffining ceremony is performed, a deceased female is dressed in a white kimono, and a deceased male is dressed in a suit or a kimono. Makeup may be applied. The body is put on dry ice in a casket. Items—such as a white kimono, a pair of sandals, six coins for crossing the River of Three Crossings, and burnable items of which the deceased was fond (for example, cigarettes and candy) are placed in the casket, which is then put on an altar for the wake. The body is placed with its head toward the north or, as a second choice, toward the west. In Buddhism, the western orientation reflects the western realm of Amida Buddha.


title: Japanese funeral

text: During life, both men and women cross the front of a kimono or yukata with the left side over the right. On those occasions in which the corpse is clothed in a traditional kimono, the kimono is crossed right over left.


title: Japanese funeral

text: Held as soon as possible after death, a Japanese wake is called , lit. "passing the night". All funeral guests wear black: men wear black suits with white shirts and black ties, and women wear either black dresses or black kimono. If the deceased was an adherent to Buddhism, a set of prayer beads called may be carried by the guests. People attending the wake or funeral offer condolence money to the host/hostess, in special black-and-silver envelopes ( or ). Depending on the relationship to the deceased and the wealth of the guest, the amount may be equivalent to between 3,000 and 30,000 yen. The guests are seated, with immediate relatives seated closest to the front. The Buddhist priest then chants a section from a sutra. The family members will each offer incense three times to the incense urn in front of the deceased. At the same time, the assembled guests will perform the same ritual at another location behind the family members' seats. The wake ends once the priest has completed the sutra. Each departing guest is given a gift, which has a value of about half or one quarter of the condolence money received from this guest. The closest relatives may stay and keep vigil with the deceased overnight in the same room.


title: Japanese funeral

text: The funeral proper, called , is usually on the day after the wake. The procedure is similar to the wake, and incense is offered while a priest chants a sutra. The ceremony differs slightly as the deceased receives a new Buddhist name (戒名, "kaimyō"; lit. "precept name") written in Kanji. This name is said to prevent the return of the deceased if their name is called. The length of the name depends also on either the virtue of the person's lifespan or more commonly, the size of the donation of the relatives to the temple, which may range from a generally common name to the most elaborate names for 1 million yen or more. The high prices charged by the temples are a controversial issue in Japan, especially since some temples put pressure on families to buy a more expensive name. The kanji for these "kaimyō" are usually very ancient, and sometimes with esoteric meanings.


title: Japanese funeral

text: At the end of the funeral ceremony, the guests and family may place flowers in the casket around the deceased's head and shoulders before the casket is sealed and carried to the elaborately decorated hearse and transported to the crematorium. In some regions of Japan, the coffin is nailed shut by the mourners using a stone.


title: Japanese funeral

text: The coffin is placed on a tray in the crematorium. The family witnesses the sliding of the body into the cremation chamber. A cremation usually takes about two hours, and the family returns at a scheduled time when the cremation has been completed.


title: Japanese funeral

text: The relatives pick the bones out of the ashes and transfer them to the urn using large chopsticks or metal chopsticks, two relatives holding the same bone at the same time with their chopsticks. In other customs, they pass the bones from chopsticks to chopsticks. Known as , this is the only time in Japan when it is proper for two people to hold the same item at the same time with chopsticks. At all other times, holding anything with chopsticks by two people at the same time, or passing an item from chopsticks to chopsticks, is considered to be a major social "faux pas" as this will remind bystanders about a funeral. The bones of the feet are picked up first, and the bones of the head are picked up last. This is to ensure that the deceased is not upside down in the urn. The , which is a bone located in the neck: the second cervical vertebra ("axis"), is the most significant bone to be placed in the urn. The word "nodobotoke" in a living person, however, refers to the visible Adam's apple, which is a different organ.


title: Japanese funeral

text: In some cases, the ashes may be divided among more than one urn. For example, some ashes go to a family grave, and some go to the temple or even to a company grave or to a space burial. Depending upon the local custom, the urn may stay at the family home for a period or may be directly taken to the graveyard.


title: Japanese funeral

text: In the Ryukyu Islands, the traditional burial was somewhat different from that in the mainland Japan. Instead of cremation, the body would be temporarily interred in the family tomb (a large burial vault, often of the turtle-back variety); after a few years, once the flesh had decomposed, the bones would be washed and put into the funerary urn, to be permanently stored elsewhere in the tomb.


title: Japanese funeral

text: A typical Japanese grave is usually a consisting of a stone monument, with a place for flowers, incense, and water in front of the monument and a chamber or crypt underneath for the ashes.


title: Japanese funeral

text: The date of the erection of the grave and the name of the person who purchased it may be engraved on the side of the monument. The names of the deceased are often but not always engraved on the front of the monument. When a married person dies before his or her spouse, the name of the spouse may also be engraved on the stone, with the letters painted red. After the death and the burial of the spouse, the red ink is removed from the stone. This is usually done for financial reasons, as it is cheaper to engrave two names at the same time than to engrave the second name when the second spouse dies. It can also be seen as a sign that they are waiting to follow their spouse into the grave. However, this practice is less frequent nowadays. The names of the deceased may also be engraved on the left side, or on a separate stone in front of the grave. Often, the name is also written on a sotōba, a separate wooden board on a stand behind or next to the grave. These sotōba may be erected shortly after death, and new ones may be added at certain memorial services.


title: Japanese funeral

text: Some graves may also have a box for business cards, where friends and relatives visiting the grave can drop their business card, informing the caretakers of the grave of the respects the visitors have paid to the deceased.


title: Japanese funeral

text: The high prices of funeral plots, costing on average 2 million yen, have led to a new service of , where a locker-sized grave can be purchased for about 400,000 yen. Some of these may even include a touch screen showing a picture of the deceased, messages, a family tree, and other information. Due to the cost of land, a graveyard in Tokyo has recently been opened by a temple in floors 3 to 8 of a nine-story building, where the lower floors are for funeral ceremonies.


title: Japanese funeral

text: There are a number of cases where the ashes of deceased persons have been stolen from graves. The ashes of famous cartoonist Machiko Hasegawa and of the wife of real estate chairman Takichi Hayasaka were stolen for ransom. The ashes of famous novelist Yukio Mishima (1925–1970) were stolen in 1971 and the ashes of novelist Naoya Shiga were stolen in 1980. The ashes of the wife of the baseball player Sadaharu Oh went missing in December 2002.


title: Japanese funeral

text: Memorial services depend on local customs. Usually, there are a number of memorial services following the death - for example, daily for the first seven days, or a number of services within the first 49 days, or on the 7th, 49th and 100th day, depending on the local custom. Most commonly observed are the Buddhist service on the seventh day after death, , and the 49th day, . In many traditions, the urn containing the ashes is interred in a ceremony called on the 49th day, and the family stays in mourning until this.


title: Japanese funeral

text: After that, there is a memorial service on the Obon festival in honor of the dead. The festival may be held in the 1st year, sometimes in the 3rd and 5th, 7th and 13th years, and a number of times afterwards up to either the 39th or the 50th year. One popular sequence follows the days of the Thirteen Buddhas.


title: Japanese funeral

text: A picture of the deceased is also placed at or near the family altar in the household. Also, in the first year after death, no traditional New Year's Day Postcard is sent or received. The friends and relatives have to be informed of this beforehand so as not to send a card.


title: Japanese funeral

text: The average cost of a Japanese funeral is about 2.31 million yen (USD 25,000) according to a 2008 study by the Japan Consumers Association. This cost includes services such as 401,000 yen for catering to attendants and 549,000 yen for services of the priest. Overall, the industry has a revenue of about 1.5 trillion yen with about 45,000 funeral homes. In 2004, 1.1 million Japanese died (2003: 1.0 million), a number that is expected to rise in the future due to the increase of the average age in Japan; see demographics of Japan. Funeral Business Monthly estimates that there will be 1.7 million deaths by 2035, and revenue of 2 trillion yen in 2040.


title: Japanese funeral

text: Recently there have been some changes in the funeral industry, and some funeral homes offer more competitive and transparent pricing than a standard funeral provider. These offer funerals starting at about 200,000 yen, a fraction of the regular overpriced services, and lists the different options and prices to choose from "a la carte". Many of these new funeral homes are started by non-Japanese nationals. Also, recently hotels with a decreasing income due to a decrease in weddings have started to offer funeral services. Overall, the level of competition is increasing. To stay competitive, the prices of regular funeral homes are also decreasing over time. Another recent introduction are services where a person can choose his or her funeral service before death and pays a monthly fee (e.g. 10,000 yen) to cover all costs of the funeral.


title: Japanese funeral

text: Throughout Japanese history, famous leaders have often been buried in tombs. The oldest known burial chamber was built between 220 and 230 CE in Sakurai, Nara Prefecture, and called the "Hokenoyama tomb". The tomb is 80 m long, and the chamber is 7 m long and 2.7 m wide, and contained a coffin 5 m long and 1 m wide. It is not known exactly who is buried there, but it is presumed to be a powerful local leader.


title: Japanese funeral

text: Around 300, the use of burial mounds for important leaders became more frequent. Japan developed its unique keyhole-shaped burial mounds, which are called "Kofun" (古墳 - the word is used for burial mounds of all shapes), and the period from 250 to 538 is called the Kofun period. Although 50 years ago it was believed that these mounds had initially been influenced by burial mounds in China via the Korean peninsula, Yayoi-period mounds are generally regarded as their predecessors. It is now believed that burial mounds of Korea built in the 5th and 6th centuries may have been influenced by the "kofun" of Japan.


title: Japanese funeral

text: There are numerous burial mounds within the geographical range of ancient Yamato-culture, most of which have keyhole-shaped outlines and which measure up to 400 m. The largest is the tomb of Emperor Nintoku in Sakai near Osaka, with a length of 486 m. and covering an area of 300,000 square meters. They are usually surrounded by moats, unless they are constructed on hills. The round halves of these burial mounds contain burial chambers. In the 6th century, round and square burial mounds came into use. The use of burial mounds is believed to have gradually stopped either with the introduction of Buddhism in Japan in the sixth century AD or with the establishment of the capital in Nara by Empress Genmei in 710. Instead, family tombs were constructed with passages that allow additional burials of relatives. Traditionally, the handling of deceased was considered unclean business and was usually done by Burakumin.


title: Japanese funeral

text: Japanese Buddhist funerals, which make up the vast majority of Japanese funerals today, are generally performed in what was historically the Sōtō Zen style, although today the Sōtō funerary rites have come to define the standard funeral format by most of the other Japanese Buddhist schools. Japanese Zen funeral rites came directly from Chinese Chan funeral rites, which were detailed in the "Chanyuan Qinggui" (禪院清規, “the pure regulations of the Zen monastery”). The major difference between the earlier Chinese Chan funerals and Japanese Sōtō Zen funerals was that early Japanese monks made no distinction between a monastic funeral for an abbot and the funeral service for a layperson. The first Japanese laypeople to receive Zen funerals were among the ruling elite who sponsored the activities of Zen institutions. One early example of this is the Regent Hōjō Tokimune, who received monastic funeral rites in 1284 at the hands of Chinese monk Wuxue Zuyan. Zen historian Martin Collcutt asserts that “one means by which Zen monks extended their influence in society was by the conduct of funeral services for important patrons.” By the medieval Sōtō period, only a small percentage of the funeral sermons recorded were delivered for members of the monastic order.


title: Japanese funeral

text: The progressive changes in Sōtō Zen funeral rites were not enacted by its founder, Dōgen, but came about years later when Zen master Keizan encouraged Zen monks to go out into the countryside and perform funeral services for the laity. Although Dōgen was the first to implement many aspects of Chinese Chan monastic codes in Japan, his "gogoku" doesn’t contain any funeral sermons. At this point in Japanese history, different schools of Zen were in competition for followers, and they were “more conscious than ever before of the necessity of making available to the laity such rites as funeral services and ancestor worship.” Keizan’s inclusive attitudes toward funerals resulted in the building of many temples in rural areas and the gradual expansion of the Sōtō order throughout Japan.


title: Japanese funeral

text: The funeral service that became popular for the Japanese laity in the medieval period was essentially the Chinese Chan service specified for the ordinary monk. The most important phases of this type of Zen funeral were: posthumous ordination, the sermon at the side of the corpse, the circumambulation of the coffin around the cremation ground, and the lighting of the funeral pyre. For a layperson, the posthumous ordination part of the ritual was the most vital, because without ordaining the deceased as a Zen monk, the other funeral rites could not be performed, since Zen funeral rites did not previously exist for laypeople, but only for monks. Once posthumous ordination of the laity was accepted by the Sōtō school, lay funeral practices became possible; today, death rituals mark the central practice at Sōtō Zen parish temples. This practice was one of the first few elements of Sōtō Zen that was standardized by the early Tokugawa period. Since the popularization of Sōtō Zen in medieval Japan, Sōtō Zen funeral practices have been a significant point of contact between the monks and laity, and continue to play an important role in lay religious life today.


title: Japanese funeral

text: Until the early 20th century most bodies were buried and cremation was limited to the wealthy. Cremation became more common after World War II due to its efficiency and cleanliness; in fiscal 2009, 99.9% of Japanese bodies were cremated, and some local governments ban burials.


title: Japanese funeral

text: In a break of tradition from the early Edo period to align with modernity, it has been decided that Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko will be cremated after their death instead of ritual burials.


title: Mayuri Kango

text: Mayuri Kango is a former Indian actress from Aurangabad, Maharashtra. She has acted in a number of films, primarily in Bollywood. In 2019, she joined Google India as the Industry Head.


title: Mayuri Kango

text: While visiting her mother in Mumbai, she came in contact with director Saeed Akhtar Mirza, who offered her the role of the female protagonist in his film "Naseem" (1995), a Bollywood film based on the Babri Masjid demolition. First she declined the offer as she had to appear for her HSC board exams. But later, after some discussion with the director, accepted the role.


title: Mayuri Kango

text: Mahesh Bhatt was impressed by her performance and offered her the lead role in his next film "Papa Kehte Hai" (1996). Though the film was not a critical or commercial success, her acting received generally positive reviews. She was later seen in films like "Betaabi" (1997), "Hogi Pyaar Ki Jeet" (1999) and "Badal" (2000). She moved to television appearing in serials "Dollar Bahu" (2001) and "Karishma - The Miracles of Destiny" (2003) where she played the daughter of Karishma Kapoor.


title: Mayuri Kango

text: Kango completed her schooling from Saint Francis De Sales in Aurangabad and was a student at Deogiri College, Aurangabad. Her mother is a noted stage actress, which sparked her interest in acting.


title: Mayuri Kango

text: She later moved to New York with her husband and got an MBA in marketing and finance from Baruch College Zicklin School of Business. She was formerly the Managing Director for Performics, a leading digital media agency a part of the French group Publicis. Currently, she is working as the Industry Head for Google India.


title: Collocation

text: In corpus linguistics, a collocation is a series of words or terms that co-occur more often than would be expected by chance. In phraseology, a collocation is a type of compositional phraseme, meaning that it can be understood from the words that make it up. This contrasts with an idiom, where the meaning of the whole cannot be inferred from its parts, and may be completely unrelated.


title: Collocation

text: An example of a phraseological collocation is the expression "strong tea". While the same meaning could be conveyed by the roughly equivalent "powerful tea", this adjective does not modify "tea" frequently enough for English speakers to become accustomed to its co-occurrence and regard it as idiomatic or unmarked. (By way of counterexample, "powerful" is idiomatically preferred to "strong" when modifying a "computer" or a "car".)


title: Collocation

text: There are about six main types of collocations: adjective + noun, noun + noun (such as collective nouns), verb + noun, adverb + adjective, verbs + prepositional phrase (phrasal verbs), and verb + adverb.


title: Collocation

text: Collocation extraction is a computational technique that finds collocations in a document or corpus, using various computational linguistics elements resembling data mining.


title: Collocation

text: Collocations are partly or fully fixed expressions that become established through repeated context-dependent use. Such terms as "crystal clear", "middle management", "nuclear family", and "cosmetic surgery" are examples of collocated pairs of words.


title: Collocation

text: Collocations can be in a syntactic relation (such as verb–object: "make" and "decision"), lexical relation (such as antonymy), or they can be in no linguistically defined relation. Knowledge of collocations is vital for the competent use of a language: a grammatically correct sentence will stand out as awkward if collocational preferences are violated. This makes collocation an interesting area for language teaching.


title: Collocation

text: Corpus linguists specify a key word in context (KWIC) and identify the words immediately surrounding them. This gives an idea of the way words are used.


title: Collocation

text: The processing of collocations involves a number of parameters, the most important of which is the "measure of association", which evaluates whether the co-occurrence is purely by chance or statistically significant. Due to the non-random nature of language, most collocations are classed as significant, and the association scores are simply used to rank the results. Commonly used measures of association include mutual information, t scores, and log-likelihood.


title: Collocation

text: Rather than select a single definition, Gledhill proposes that collocation involves at least three different perspectives: co-occurrence, a statistical view, which sees collocation as the recurrent appearance in a text of a node and its collocates; construction, which sees collocation either as a correlation between a lexeme and a lexical-grammatical pattern, or as a relation between a base and its collocative partners; and expression, a pragmatic view of collocation as a conventional unit of expression, regardless of form. These different perspectives contrast with the usual way of presenting collocation in phraseological studies. Traditionally speaking, collocation is explained in terms of all three perspectives at once, in a continuum:


title: Collocation

text: In 1933, Harold Palmer's "Second Interim Report on English Collocations" highlighted the importance of collocation as a key to producing natural-sounding language, for anyone learning a foreign language. Thus from the 1940s onwards, information about recurrent word combinations became a standard feature of monolingual learner's dictionaries. As these dictionaries became "less word-centred and more phrase-centred", more attention was paid to collocation. This trend was supported, from the beginning of the 21st century, by the availability of large text corpora and intelligent corpus-querying software, making it possible to provide a more systematic account of collocation in dictionaries. Using these tools, dictionaries such as the "Macmillan English Dictionary" and the "Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English" included boxes or panels with lists of frequent collocations.


title: Collocation

text: There are also a number of specialized dictionaries devoted to describing the frequent collocations in a language. These include (for Spanish) "Redes: Diccionario combinatorio del español contemporaneo" (2004), (for French) "Le Robert: Dictionnaire des combinaisons de mots" (2007), and (for English) the "LTP Dictionary of Selected Collocations" (1997) and the "Macmillan Collocations Dictionary" (2010).


title: Collocation

text: Student's t-test can be used to determine whether the occurrence of a collocation in a corpus is statistically significant. For a bigram formula_1, let formula_2 be the unconditional probability of occurrence of formula_3 in a corpus with size formula_4, and let formula_5 be the unconditional probability of occurrence of formula_6 in the corpus. The t-score for the bigram formula_1 is calculated as:


title: Collocation

text: where formula_9 is the sample mean of the occurrence of formula_1, formula_11 is the number of occurrences of formula_1, formula_13 is the probability of formula_1 under the null-hypothesis that formula_3 and formula_6 appear independently in the text, and formula_17 is the sample variance. With a large formula_4, the t-test is equivalent to a z-test.


title: Kettlebell

text: In weight training, a kettlebell is a cast-iron or cast-steel ball with a handle attached to the top (resembling a cannonball with a handle). It is used to perform many types of exercises, including ballistic exercises that combine cardiovascular, strength and flexibility training.


title: Kettlebell

text: The Russian "girya" (, plural ) was a type of metal weight, primarily used to weigh crops in the 18th century.


title: Kettlebell

text: The use of such weights by circus strongmen is recorded for the 19th century. They began to be used for recreational and competition strength athletics in Russia and Europe in the late 19th century. The birth of competitive kettlebell lifting or "girevoy sport" (гиревой спорт) is dated to 1885, with the founding of the "Circle for Amateur Athletics" (Кружок любителей атлетики).


title: Kettlebell

text: Similar weights used in Classical Greece were the "haltere", comparable to the modern kettlebell in terms of movements.


title: Kettlebell

text: Unlike traditional dumbbells, a kettlebell's center of mass is extended beyond the hand, similar to Indian clubs or ishi sashi. This facilitates ballistic and swinging movements. Variants of the kettlebell include bags filled with sand, water, or steel shot. The kettlebell allows for swing movements and release moves with added safety and added grip, wrist, arm and core strengthening. The weight of a kettlebell is not distributed evenly. Thus, the unique shape of a kettlebell provides the "unstable force" for handling - key for the effectiveness of the kettlebell exercises.


title: Kettlebell

text: By their nature, typical kettlebell exercises build strength and endurance, particularly in the lower back, legs, and shoulders, and increase grip strength. The basic movements, such as the swing, snatch, and the clean and jerk, engage the entire body at once, and in a way that mimics real world activities such as shoveling or farm work.


title: Kettlebell

text: Unlike the exercises with dumbbells or barbells, kettlebell exercises involve large numbers of repetitions in the sport, and "can" also involve large reps in normal training. Kettlebell exercises are in their nature holistic; therefore they work several muscles simultaneously and may be repeated continuously for several minutes or with short breaks. This combination makes the exercise partially aerobic and more similar to high-intensity interval training rather than to traditional weight lifting. In a 2010 study, kettlebell enthusiasts performing a 20-minute snatch workout were measured to burn, on average, 13.6 calories/minute aerobically and 6.6 calories/minute anaerobically during the entire workout - "equivalent to running a 6-minute mile pace". When training with high repetitions, kettlebell progression should start out slowly to build muscle endurance, support the joints and prevent injury.


title: Kettlebell

text: Like movements performed with any exercise tool, they can be dangerous to those who have back or shoulder problems, or a weak core, when performed without proper education and progression. However, if done properly, they are very beneficial to health. They can offer improved mobility, range of motion, agility, cardio vascular endurance, mental toughness and increased strength.


title: Kettlebell

text: The following is a list of common exercises that are uniquely suited to the kettlebell for one reason or another.


title: Kettlebell

text: For some exercises, multiple kettlebells can be held in the same hand, for trainees lacking sufficiently heavy kettlebells. In any movement involving the rack or overhead position, the kettlebell can be held with the ball in an open palm (sometimes called the waiter hold) for a greater stabilisation challenge, or for even more precise control and added grip challenge, the bottom-up hold, squeezing the kettlebell by the handle upside-down. This is especially useful for training to stay tight while pressing. Holding a single kettlebell in the rack position bottom-up with two hands ("by the horns") makes for goblet exercise variants.


title: Kettlebell

text: The kettlebell swing (also the "Russian swing", "double-arm swing" or "conventional kettlebell swing") is a basic ballistic exercise used to train the posterior chain in a manner similar to broad jumping. The kettlebell is swung from just below the groin to somewhere between the upper abdomen and shoulders, with arms straight or slightly bent, the degree of flexion depends on the trajectory of the kettlebell. The key to a good kettlebell swing is effectively thrusting the hips, not bending too much at the knees, and sending the weight forwards, as opposed to squatting the weight up, or lifting up with the arms. Some knee flexion (a squat) is commonly employed during the swing, although there is some controversy


title: Kettlebell

text: The swing can also be performed with a release and catch of the kettlebell, which helps train the proper swing pattern where the arms aren't pulling up at the top. This can be done with two hands switching to a supinated catch. The one-arm swing presents a significant anti-twisting challenge, and can be used with an alternating catch switching between arms.


title: Kettlebell

text: Further variations include the walking swing taking a step forward at the apex of each swing, the outside swing where the kettlebell swings outside the leg, and the kneeling swing, swinging between the legs in a one-leg half-kneeling position.


title: Kettlebell

text: single-arm swing, one kettlebell double arm swing, two kettlebells double arm swing, suitcase swing, swing squat style, high swing.


title: Kettlebell

text: The kettlebell has more than 25 grips that can be employed, to provide variety, challenge different muscles, increase or decrease complexity, and work on proprioception. Some of the grip categories are, but not limited to:


title: Kettlebell

text: Hardstyle has its roots in powerlifting and Gōjū-ryū karate training, particularly "hojo undō" concepts. With emphasis on the "hard" component and borrowing the concept of "kime", the Hardstyle focuses on strength and power and duality of relaxation and tension.


title: Kettlebell

text: Girevoy, sometimes referred to as the fluid style in comparison to the Hardstyle, represents the training regimen for the competitive sport of kettlebell lifting, focusing on strength endurance.


title: Kettlebell

text: Crossfit kettlebell refers to implementation of kettlebell training as in CrossFit curricula, often with significant modifications to preceding styles (e.g. American Swing vs. conventional swing, placing the kettlebell down between snatches).


title: Kettlebell

text: Juggling is a training style where the practitioner releases and catches the kettlebell with all manner of spins and flips around the body.


title: Kettlebell

text: Kettlebell training is all that is done with a kettlebell outside of the above 4 categories. Kettlebell training is extremely broad and caters to many different goals, some being, but not limited to: mobility, flexibility, cardiovascular endurance, strength, speed and power. If an athlete is training in the gym, on the beach, or in the park, and not performing any of the above disciplines, they are participating in kettlebell training.


title: Kettlebell

text: The kettlebell sport in Russia is where the main popularity of the kettlebell started, from there it was brought to the United States by Pavel Tsatsouline and has developed into much more than just kettlebell lifting competitively. The sport can be compared to what the CrossFit Games is to CrossFit, however, the sport has been much longer in existence, and is only recently gaining more popularity worldwide, with women participating as well.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: Bob's Big Boy is a restaurant chain founded by Bob Wian in Southern California in 1936, originally named Bob's Pantry. It is now part of Big Boy Restaurant Group, the current primary trademark owner and franchisor of the Big Boy system. At its peak in 1989, there were over 240 Bob's locations throughout the United States, most belonging to Marriott. By 2022, only four Bob's Big Boy Restaurants remain in operation, all in Southern California. Those four locations are in Burbank (Toluca Lake), Downey, Norco, and Northridge. Two of these restaurants are now protected historic landmarks: the Burbank location on Riverside Drive and the Downey location, previously known as Johnie's Broiler. In August 2020, plans were announced to open a Bob's Big Boy in Indian Springs, Nevada. The restaurant opened on November 8, 2020 as Big Boy without the Bob's branding, with future expansion planned across Southern Nevada.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: The restaurant is named after Wian and the Big Boy hamburger, which he created six months after opening his original location. Slicing a bun into three slices and adding two hamburger patties, Wian had created the original double-deck hamburger.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: Bob Wian entered Glendale High School as the Great Depression started in 1929. When his father's furniture business went bankrupt, Wian washed dishes in the school cafeteria to pay for lunch. Not being a committed student – he never took homework home – classmates voted Wian most unlikely to succeed. However, his father's business failure and classmates' doubts would lead Wian to success.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: After graduation in 1933, Wian found work as the overnight dishwasher at a Los Angeles White Log Coffee Shop, a West Coast chain similar to White Castle. Suddenly he was interested in how a restaurant worked and how it could be improved; he became determined to own a restaurant or even a chain. And he was intent on proving his classmates wrong.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: Wian was promoted to fry cook and then a manager. He learned the White Log system, its merchandising and pricing of foods, and use of a central commissary; Wian would later apply these concepts to Big Boy. He would also adopt White Log's pancake batter recipe. At White Log he befriended fellow fry cook Bennie Washam, who would later sketch the original Big Boy mascot.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: Wanting wider experience, Wian quit and took a dishwashing job with his favorite Glendale restaurant, Lionel Sternberger's Rite Spot. Again he was promoted to counterman and fry cook. The man who hired Wian and was his boss, Leonard Dunagan, would later be hired by Wian and became vice president of Bob's Big Boy.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: Wian discovered how Rite Spot made its chili, hamburgers, and red hamburger relish – the same relish Wian would use on the Big Boy hamburger. And he learned the importance of consistency in foods served.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: The Rite Spot also offered curb service, as Bob's Big Boy would several years later. (His sister Dottie was a carhop at the Rite Spot before moving to Bob's Big Boy.) However, Wian's first drive-in work was at a Pig Stand. The restaurants used pig-shaped die-cut menus and some had a big pig in front; similarly, Bob's would use Big Boy shaped die-cut menus and later display large Big Boy statues out in front.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: Wian also patronized other restaurants looking for additional menu items, attempting to recreate the favored items at home, and sometimes prodding food suppliers for how they were made. Bob's hot fudge sundae, for example, was adopted from the sundae served at C. C. Brown's Ice Cream Parlor.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: Wian claimed that there was nothing new at Bob's Big Boy – excepting the double-deck "Big Boy hamburger" – and that he was building Big Boy in his mind while at these previous jobs. Confident from his restaurant employment and encouraged by his father, he was already looking for a location when The Pantry was placed for sale.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: In August 1936, Wian quit his job at the Rite Spot and sold his 1933 DeSoto Roadster for $300 to make the down payment on a 10-stool hamburger stand in Glendale called The Pantry. He cleaned the place until it "shine[d] like a brand new penny", borrowed $50 from his father for meat and supplies, and reopened as Bob's Pantry. Six months later, Wian assembled his special double-decker hamburger. Created as a joke for a customer wanting something different, the novel hamburger began drawing business. The "snappy" name given to the popular sandwich provided a new name for his restaurant: Bob's Big Boy.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: Wian opened a second drive-in in Burbank in 1938, launching drive-in curb service at both locations. During World War II, Wian experienced shortages of both meat and manpower, and one of the four Bob's then in operation closed. Soon after the war – in 1946 – Wian formed Robert C. Wian Enterprises to assume his restaurant business.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: In the late 1940s, Wian licensed two operators in the East to sell his Big Boy hamburger, Frisch's Big Boy in Cincinnati and Eat'n Park Big Boy in Pittsburgh; this served Wian's goal to procure and maintain a national trademark. In 1951, the third licensee Alex Schoenbaum of Shoney's Big Boy sold Wian on a formal franchising system, and with the popularity of the drive-in restaurant, a series of franchising and subfranchising Big Boy followed in the 1950s. The franchisees were required to sell the Big Boy hamburger and use their own name with Big Boy, not Bob's.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: By 1951, eight Bob's Big Boys were in operation. The Bob's imprint of the first (1956) edition of "Adventures of the Big Boy" comic book lists ten locations, including one in Arizona, while a legal filing claims twelve locations. The 18th Bob's opened in 1963, and the chain's 1965 menu lists 23 California restaurants (including one opening in late 1965 and another in 1966) and six Arizona restaurants, which represented about 5% of the national Big Boy chain.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: Wian provided his workers health insurance and a profit-sharing plan, which included the option of employees to franchise a Bob's. In 1955 the first such unit opened in Phoenix, another opened in Tucson in 1962 and three more locations by 1968. (By 1974 there were nine Phoenix metropolitan area Bob's, including one under construction, when the units were acquired by JB's Big Boy for $2.7 million.)


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: In 1961, a merger was briefly explored with the John R. Thompson Co., a Chicago-based restaurant operator. Five years later another merger was proposed, and in May 1967, Big Boy was sold to the Marriott Corporation. In addition to the trademark, the sale included Wian's 22 company-owned Bob's Big Boys. (Another 580 franchised Big Boy restaurants operated in 38 states nationwide.)


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: After the merger, Wian remained as president of Marriott's new "Big Boy Restaurants of America" division. Used to dealing with franchisees and store managers on a personal level, he became overwhelmed with the increasing size of the chain, describing it as "this monster I built". Also unhappy with Marriott's new focus on rapid growth and corporate profits, over his approach and practices, Wian became discouraged and resigned as president in May 1968. He accepted membership on Marriott's board but, his guidance never sought, Wian likewise quit that position in the summer of 1969. Although he attended the 1972 annual Big Boy Executive Conference, Wian generally avoided Bob's Big Boys and refused invitations to special events at the restaurants. He remained close friends with longtime associates at Big Boy.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: Marriott began rapid expansion using the Bob's name that it now owned. By 1971 there were 49 California Bob's, and by 1979, 132. It bought the Ken's Big Boy franchise in the Washington, DC-Baltimore metropolitan area in 1969 and JB's Big Boy's franchise in New Jersey in 1975, rebranding them as Bob's. In the mid-1970s Bob's Big Boy expanded into Alaska and Hawaii. Marriott also bought the 39-unit Manners Big Boy chain in 1974 which may have been renamed Bob's Big Boy in 1979. The 26 operating Cleveland-area restaurants were sold to and rebranded Elias Brothers Big Boy in 1985.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: In 1987, Marriott sold the Big Boy trademark to Elias Brothers, the Michigan Big Boy franchisee, but retained the Bob's Big Boy name and restaurants as a franchisee. At the time, Marriott operated 208 Bob's Big Boys, including company-owned Bob's in Maryland, Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Florida, and the District of Columbia. Many of these eastern Bob's were sited at rest stops on interstate toll roads, often conversions of recently purchased Howard Johnson's restaurants, while others were in territory that belonged to previous franchisees. Several Bob's Big Boy restaurants, such as five in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania area and two along the Ohio Turnpike were not owned by Marriott.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: Marriott kept its company-owned Bob's units under franchise after the sale to Elias Brothers, and the number of such Bob's increased to 238 by 1989 when Marriott decided to divest itself of its food service operations. In 1991, already having converted some San Diego stores to Allie's, named after J. Willard Marriott's wife Alice, it sold 104 California Bob's (to a company which outbid Elias Brothers) removing the units from the Bob's chain and the Big Boy system. Toll road Bob's Big Boys remained in service longer due to Marriott's contractual obligations, but are no longer in operation. Privately-owned Eastern U.S. Bob's were also sold.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: When Robert Liggett (i.e., Big Boy Restaurants International) bought Big Boy from the bankrupt Elias Brothers in 2000, ten western Bob's Big Boys were in operation, dropping to eight by 2006. (The last Bob's in Hawaii closed after suffering a fire in 2009.) Now limited to California, Bob's grew to 16 restaurants by 2011, but started to decline again. Although Big Boy Restaurants International expected to open 140 California units by 2018, only five Bob's Big Boy Restaurants remain, all in the Greater Los Angeles Area of Southern California.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: In 2018, Liggett sold the parent company which was renamed Big Boy Restaurant Group. The company franchises both "Bob's" Big Boy and "non–branded" Big Boy restaurants.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: Bob Wian started a food manufacturing company, the "Specialty Products Division" to manufacture and sell Bob's Big Boy branded salad dressings, relish, and seasoning salt. This division was purchased along with the restaurant chain by Marriott Corporation, who sold it to entrepreneur Kathy Taggares in June, 1987. She changed the name to K.T.'s Kitchens and continued manufacturing products for the restaurants and for retail stores. Taggares manufactured 10,000 gallons of salad dressing a day utilizing natural products and French cheeses. She noted that only 20% of her sales came from the 223 Big Boy restaurants open at the time. “I basically bought a $6-million company with $200,000 in cash,” Taggares told the Los Angeles Times in 1989. She sold her "life insurance policy, her condominium and all her jewelry to raise the money." Taggares relocated the plant from Glendale, California to Carson, California, added frozen pizzas, and had over 300 employees as of 2019. In February of 2019, Julie Pantiskas, former owner of the Nut Tree restaurant in Northern California, partnered with Salt Creek Capital to form a new company called The Flavor of California, which acquired the rights to Bob's Big Boy salad dressing and sauces. The company based in Pasadena, CA currently makes Bob's famous Bleu Cheese, Thousand Island, Ranch Country, Roquefort, and Lite Bleu Cheese dressings, as well as tartar sauce and seafood sauce. The product is sold in Target, Costco, Walmart, and supermarkets in 14 Western states. The one pint glass jars are printed with a mid 1950s Bob's logo and modified Big Boy mascot.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: The Bob's Big Boy Restaurant located at 4211 Riverside Drive in Burbank, California, is the oldest remaining Bob's Big Boy in the United States. Built in 1949 by local residents Scott MacDonald and Ward Albert, it was designed by Los Angeles architect Wayne McAllister, "incorporating the 1940s transitional design of Streamline Moderne style, while anticipating the freeform 1950s coffee shop architecture". The style's often referred to as 'Googie architecture', which originated in Southern California.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: The building features a curving windowed facade, expansive roof overhangs with 1950s "free-form" style of cantilevered roofs, and tall display signs. The towering Bob's sign is an integral part of the building design and its most prominent feature." The styling is said to have "made McAllister's reputation," and he is credited with creating the restaurant's circular drive-through design.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: The restaurant was designated a California Point of Historical Interest in 1993. McAllister worked to preserve the structure as a historic landmark (McAllister was also the architect for the original Lawry's restaurant on La Cienega Boulevard in Beverly Hills, amongst other buildings).


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: The Riverside Drive venue was designed as a drive-in, in which car hops brought food to the cars, and now operates a drive-thru window. In 1993, the tower sign was renovated, the dining room updated and an outdoor dining area was added. Carhop service was reintroduced on weekends and a weekly classic car show's hosted in the parking lot.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: Bob Hope and other film personalities including Mickey Rooney, Debbie Reynolds and Jonathan Winters were once regulars at the restaurant. Hope frequented the Burbank drive-in as it afforded him privacy.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: The Beatles dined at the Burbank location during their 1965 U.S. tour. For many years, a plaque has described the event; the plaque has been stolen many times by fans, and replaced each time. Many restaurant regulars call this booth "the Beatles Booth."


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: A Bob's Big Boy restaurant was also located in Calimesa, California, until it was closed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: The original Bob's Big Boy (initially called Bob's Pantry) was the 10-stool hamburger stand in Glendale, California, which founder Bob Wian purchased in 1936 and expanded into a drive-in restaurant. It eventually outgrew itself, and was replaced by a larger Bob's restaurant similar in style to the Burbank location. The larger restaurant opened in 1956 and could accommodate 90 customers inside seated in booths and at the counter, along with a separate area to serve additional take-out patrons, while the drive-in could service 55 cars at a time. The building was designed by architects Wayne McAllister and William C. Wagner, and was one of McAllister's last designs before resigning from architecture in 1956. This location was known as "Bob's #1" and remained as a Bob's until it was closed and demolished in 1989.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: A second Glendale Bob's was located at the corner of West Broadway and Orange Street. It closed and a later Bob's Coffee Shop was opened about two blocks away on the ground floor of a building located at the northwest corner of East Broadway and Maryland Avenue. This location was known as "Bob's #4". Another Bob's Big Boy operated at


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: The first Phoenix, Arizona, Bob's Big Boy, established in 1954, was an exception to the California-based architecture. Located at Central Avenue and Thomas Road, the building employed horizontal overhanging roof lines and native stone at the entrance. Above was a large mural that resembled a Hopi sand painting of kachinas and a covered area to the east of the building for carhop service.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: Bob's Big Boy Broiler in Downey, California, was once known as Johnie's Broiler. Also of Googie styling, the demolished structure was rebuilt based on the initial floor plan, and features carhop service, a drive-thru, and an original neon sign. It re-opened in 2009 as a Bob's Big Boy.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: On November 8, 2020, a franchised Big Boy opened in the Terrible Casino in Indian Springs, Nevada. Initially referred to as a Bob's Big Boy, the restaurant opened as Big Boy without the Bob's branding. Operator Terrible Herbst plans further expansion in Nevada.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: Beginning in the late 1950s, many Bob's Big Boy restaurants were designed by Armet & Davis, an architectural firm noted for its contributions to Googie architecture. The firm was hired in 1958 to produce stock plans for Bob's and various Big Boy franchises nationwide.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: The West Los Angeles location on La Cienega Blvd. was the scene of one of Los Angeles' worst crimes. On December 14, 1980, 11 people were forced into the walk-in freezer, robbed of approximately $1700 and shot, leaving three dead at the scene, another dying five months later, and four others wounded, one of whom is in mental incoherency. Carletha Stewart, a former employee, and her companions, Franklin Freeman and Ricky Sanders, were arrested in 1981, and convicted in 1982, receiving sentences ranging from death, to 25 years to life. The crime motivated Jeffrey Bloom's 1986 TV movie "The Right of the People" which raised issues about the Second Amendment right to bear arms, right-to-carry laws, and defensive gun use.


title: Bob's Big Boy

text: Another murder occurred at the Bob's Big Boy in the Playa del Rey neighborhood of southwestern Los Angeles. On April 30, 1990, the restaurant manager was shot dead in an attempted robbery.


title: Jade Empire

text: Jade Empire is an action role-playing game developed by BioWare, originally published by Microsoft Game Studios in 2005 as an Xbox exclusive. It was later ported to Microsoft Windows personal computers (PC) and published by 2K Games in 2007. Later ports to macOS (2008) and mobile platforms (2016) were handled respectively by TransGaming and Aspyr. Set in a world inspired by Chinese mythology, players control the last surviving Spirit Monk on a quest to save their tutor Master Li and defeat the forces of corrupt emperor Sun Hai. The Spirit Monk is guided through a linear narrative, completing quests and engaging in action-based combat. With morality-based dialogue choices during conversations, the player can impact both story and gameplay progression in various ways.


title: Jade Empire

text: Development of "Jade Empire" began in 2001 as a dream project for company co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, who acted as the game's executive producers. Their first original role-playing intellectual property, the game reused the morality system from "", but switched to a real-time combat system. The game's many elements such as its combat system, the world and script, the constructed language created for the game, and the musical score by Jack Wall drew influence from Chinese history, culture and folklore. Upon release, it received generally positive reviews but sold below expectations. It was followed by a PC version, which provided the basis for future ports and itself met with positive reviews.


title: Jade Empire

text: "Jade Empire" is an action role-playing game (RPG) in which players take control of a character most frequently dubbed the "Spirit Monk"; the Spirit Monk has six available pre-set character archetypes with different statistics: these statistics are split into health, magic energy (chi) and Focus, used to slow down time during combat or use weapons. The characters are divided into three male and three female characters, with a fourth male character being available in later versions. Exploration is carried out from a third-person perspective through mainly linear or hub-based environments, where quests can be accepted from non-playable characters (NPCs). Completing quests grants rewards of experience points, in-game currency and occasionally fighting techniques. In addition to standard gameplay, players can engage in a shoot 'em up mini-game with a flying machine, earning items and additional experience.


title: Jade Empire

text: Combat takes place in real-time, with the protagonist and a chosen Follower fighting enemies either individually or in groups. Enemies range in type from normal humans to monsters and spirits. Attacks are divided into normal; heavy attacks, which take longer to execute while dealing higher damage; and area attacks, which damage multiple surrounding enemies. In addition to blocking, the protagonist and enemies can dodge attacks. The protagonist has access to different techniques, which range from purely offensive or guard-breaking techniques to healing and buffing techniques. Some fighting styles are hand-to-hand, while others are tied to a weapon type. In the console version, techniques are assigned to four face buttons, while the PC version has techniques assigned to number buttons. Magic-based attacks and techniques require Chi to function. Activating Focus during combat slows down time, allowing the protagonist to attack more freely as long as their Focus lasts. Defeated enemies can drop health and Chi.


title: Jade Empire

text: Dialogue choices are tied into the game's moral alignments, called "Open Palm" and "Closed Fist". Neither path is meant to be based around good and evil, with their morality being based on a character's intent. The Open Palm primarily revolves around altruism, while the Closed Fist believes in self-reliance and can consequently be a more violent path. Selecting dialogue choices aligned to either the Open Palm or Close Fist paths alter how party members and NPCs respond to the protagonist, with a major choice during the final part of the game impacting the protagonist's alignment and the story's ending. Related to this is the ability to romance certain party members; out of two female and one male follower, one female and one male can be romanced by either male or female protagonists, while the second female can be romanced by a male. There is also an option to romance both females by a male protagonist, resulting in a love triangle situation.


title: Jade Empire

text: The game is set in the Jade Empire, a fictional far-eastern kingdom based on elements of Ancient Chinese history and Chinese mythology. Humans live side by side in the mortal realm with mystical creatures and monsters, while the heavens are ruled by the August Personage of Jade through a Celestial Bureaucracy. Human sorcerers are able to harness the Five Elements in their magic. There are two languages spoken in the Jade Empire: an unnamed primary language (represented by English) and Tho Fan, the "ancient tongue"; once common, Tho Fan's speakers have become scarcer in the Empire, though most inhabitants are able to understand it. In the Jade Empire's recent past, a devastating drought threatened to destroy everything, but the drought came to an end through the actions of Sun Hai, current ruling emperor of the Sun dynasty, leading to him being worshiped as the Empire's savior. Key locations include the isolated village of Two Rivers, where the story begins; Tien's Landing, a former major port now shunned due to its dark past; the Imperial Capital, seat of Sun Hai and center of the Jade Empire; and Dirge, a ruined temple haunted by the spirits of its inhabitants.


title: Jade Empire

text: The protagonist, whose gender and name can be selected by the player, is a Spirit Monk rescued as a baby when the forces of Sun Li destroyed their order. Raised in the isolated village of Two Rivers, the protagonist has been trained in martial arts by Master Li. During their adventure, the protagonist is accompanied by and gains multiple followers. These include Dawn Star, a Two Rivers student who can communicate with the dead; Sagacious Zu, a hermit with a dark past; the Black Whirlwind, a dim yet quick-witted mercenary; Henpecked Hou, a former arena fighter-turned-bunmaker; Wild Flower, a girl who shares her body with the benevolent spirit Chai Ka and the wicked spirit Ya Zhen; Sky, a former thief seeking revenge against his daughter's killers; Kang the Mad, a genius inventor who is in fact the banished deity Lord Lao; Zin Bu the Magical Abacus, a celestial trader and representative of the Celestial Bureaucracy charged with cataloging the destruction caused by the protagonist; and Princess Sun Lian, the daughter of Sun Hai who goes on covert missions using the alias "Silk Fox".


title: Jade Empire

text: The main antagonists in "Jade Empire" are led by Sun Hai, current ruler of the Jade Empire. He is represented across the Jade Empire by Death's Hand, a black-armoured figure who leads the Lotus Assassins, a formerly monastic group who have turned to terror tactics to maintain order. Other characters include Gao the Greater and his son Gao the Lesser, who serve as the antagonists during the early narrative; Abbot Song, the head of the Spirit Monk order at Dirge; and the Water Dragon, shepherd of the dead and a key guide to the protagonist.


title: Jade Empire

text: Shortly after completing their training at Two Rivers, the Spirit Monk helps fend off an attack by a Lotus Assassin, facing undead opponents in the process. Master Li reveals the Spirit Monk's past, his own identity as Emperor Sun Hai's brother Sun Li and role in the destruction of Dirge, and the increasing threat of the undead that is tied directly to Sun Hai. During a final training session to recover an amulet of their people, the Spirit Monk meets the spirit of the Water Dragon, who reveals that Sun Hai has incapacitated her and left the Spirit Monk as the land's only hope. Master Li's preference for the Spirit Monk pushes the impatient Gao the Lesser over the edge, leading to his expulsion. Gao the Lesser then kidnaps Dawn Star and summons Lotus Assassins allied with his father Gao the Greater. The Spirit Monk rescues Dawn Star and defeats Gao the Lesser with help from Sagacious Zu, but the Lotus Assassins—led by Death's Hand and his second-in-command Grand Inquisitor Jia—destroy Two Rivers and capture Master Li.


title: Jade Empire

text: Using one of Gao the Greater's airships, the Spirit Monk travels to the village of Tien's Landing. During their time there, they fight and defeat Gao the Greater and learn that Master Li was taken to the Imperial Capital. While there, the Spirit Monk finds two missing pieces from their amulet, acquires a map of wind currents that will allow passage to the Imperial Capital, and helps the village by purging the neighbouring Great Southern Forest of a corrupting force and closing a large dam, which allows trading vessels to navigate the river again. They are also joined by Wild Flower, who guarded one of the amulet fragments; Black Whirlwind, who was hired to eliminate the monsters in the Great Southern Forest; Henpecked Hou, on the run from his wife; Sky, who was freeing slaves taken by the Lotus Assassins; and Kang the Mad, who was held captive by Gao the Greater. They are also first attacked and then aided by Silk Fox, who is determined to topple Death's Hand.


title: Jade Empire

text: Using Kang's special airship, the party travels to the Imperial Capital, where Silk Fox meets them in her true role as Princess Sun Lian, Emperor Sun Hai's daughter. While in the Capital, the Spirit Monk gains access to the Lotus Assassins' ranks by competing in a local fighting tournament. Once among the Lotus Assassins, they dismantle them from within before retrieving the final amulet fragment from Grand Inquisitor Jia. Death's Hand then attacks, but Sagacious Zu sacrifices himself to collapse the Lotus Assassin base on Death's Hand. Led by Silk Fox, the group then infiltrate Sun Hai's palace, confronting the Emperor as he interrogates Master Li and finding him withered through using the Water Dragon's stolen power. After the Emperor's defeat, Master Li kills the Spirit Monk and steals both the completed amulet and the Water Dragon's power, setting himself up as the new Emperor.


title: Jade Empire

text: The Spirit Monk is guided back to the living world by the Water Dragon and the ghost of Dirge's abbot, who reveals that Sun Li had conspired with his brother Sun Kin to seize the Water Dragon's power and kill Sun Hai after taking Dirge. The brothers' plot failed as the Water Dragon's power made Hai immortal. Kin was killed, while Li escaped and killed the Spirit Monk's rescuer, taking the child to mold into a weapon against Hai. Death's Hand was created by the Emperor by binding Kin's spirit to Li's armor. Returning to life in Dirge, the Spirit Monk reunites with their companions and holds off a vast assault from Li, who also sensed their return. In their final confrontation with Death's Hand, the Spirit Monk can either free or enslave Sun Kin's spirit. Infiltrating the Imperial Capital, the Spirit Monk's party fights their way through the palace and discovers the Water Dragon's body, torn open and preserved in a state between life and death to provide endless water to the Jade Empire. The Spirit Monk then goes to confront Li.


title: Jade Empire

text: Depending on the player's choices at these points, one of several endings plays out. If the Spirit Monk surrenders to Li, they are remembered as a hero who knew their place, as the Empire becomes an oppressive dystopia. If the Water Dragon's body is further corrupted by the Spirit Monk, then they usurp Li's stolen power and emerge as the next Emperor following his death. If the Spirit Monk destroys the Water Dragon's body, then her spirit is freed, and the dead are able to find their way into the underworld, causing the people to rejoice and hail the Spirit Monk as a hero of the Jade Empire.


title: Jade Empire

text: "Jade Empire" was developed by BioWare, after it earned critical and commercial success with "Baldur's Gate", "Neverwinter Nights" and "", RPGs based on pre-existing "Dungeons & Dragons" and "Star Wars" fictional universes. The game, which began development in May 2001, was the company's first original RPG intellectual property. The concept of "Jade Empire" had existed with company founders co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk since they started BioWare alongside the plan that would lead to "Baldur's Gate"; called a "dream project", their aim was to fulfill player fantasies of becoming a powerful martial arts master. The game was first developed and released for the Xbox. Zeschuk later felt they should have held the game back and developed it for the console's successor the Xbox 360.


title: Jade Empire

text: Art director Matt Goldman took inspiration from multiple eras of China's history when designing various aspects of the world, focusing between the Han and Ming dynasties. The environments were modeled on landscape artwork from the Song dynasty, while the color palette drew from the green-hued art of the Tang dynasty. For ancient artifacts based in an ancient civilization, Goldman drew inspiration from bronze artifacts dating from the Shang and Zhou periods. The wild areas were directly inspired by the Huangshan region. Different regions of the game were designed to reflect the differing social classes present in the Jade Empire. In addition to its Chinese inspiration, Goldman drew styling elements for both clothing and scenery from Japan, Thailand, Tibet, the Khmer Empire, and unspecified areas of South and West Asia. The monsters, while taking inspiration from brief descriptions in Asian literature, were mostly original creations for the game's world. Speaking of his experience on the game years later, Goldman described "fond memories" of the Canada-based development team working to create an Asian epic.


title: Jade Empire

text: Creating the new combat system was the one of the biggest challenges when developing the gameplay systems. Rather than the rule and turn-based combat of their earlier titles, the team wanted combat in "Jade Empire" to be in real-time, as the slower turn-based combat of their earlier works did not fit into its planned setting. The game's martial arts were based on a variety of real-life styles, including karate, aikido and capoeira. Implementing the combat system required creating a number of systems to handle combat without relying on pre-programmed fight choreography. A key element of the design was that managing character statistics was kept low-key so as not to interfere with the player's experience. The Dragonfly mini-game was designed by assistant producer Sheldon Carter. Carter based the mini-game on classic arcade top-down shooters such as "Xevious" and "1942".


title: Jade Empire

text: Based on their experience with "Knights of the Old Republic", the team developed "Jade Empire" using a new graphics engine. As part of the lighting system, the team used rim lighting to pick out the edges of characters and illuminate them using a local light source, creating a dynamic lighting effect to make characters look alive. A form of pixel flare, in which pixels reflect more light in bright conditions, was used to the same effect for areas in bright sunlight or the unrealistic lighting of parts of Heaven. The user interface, map and journal systems were all improved based on those used in "Knights of the Old Republic" to promote player comfort. The game was the first BioWare game to use motion capture for all human elements, contrasting with their work on "Knights of the Old Republic", which was done using hand animation. The use of motion capture was intended to promote a sense of realism. The decision to use motion capture was influenced by the large number of animations required for combat actions. For several enemy characters, the staff used hand animation. When creating the prototype "Deo" fighting style, lead animator Deo Perez drew inspiration from a number of martial arts masters from movies including Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh. Further refinement was done by the motion capture actors. Each style was based on a single real-life martial arts style.


title: Jade Empire

text: While their previous work on other licenses had been described as "fun" experiences, BioWare staff were keen to work on an original world and storyline without any creative restrictions. The team quickly decided not to set the game in historical China, wanting the freedom to include fantasy elements, leading to them creating a world based on Chinese mythology. According to lead writers Luke Kristjanson and Mike Laidlaw, they used its inspiration to create a world that felt alive, with a variety of locals and social norms coexisting. Like BioWare's previous RPGs, its main focus was on telling a story, but a lot of the additional lore and finer detail was made optional so players would feel a degree of freedom in how they explored the story. Dialogue was intended to blend BioWare's established writing style with the game's Eastern influences. The game's morality system was designed to be an evolution and refinement of that used in "Knights of the Old Republic". The menu-based dialogue choice system was carried over directly from "Knights of the Old Republic".


title: Jade Empire

text: The inspirations for the game's plot included the Classic Chinese Novels "Outlaws of the Marsh", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Journey to the West", in addition to "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" and more recent works such as "The Deer and the Cauldron", "Lone Wolf and Cub" and "Bridge of Birds". They also drew inspiration from Wuxia and samurai movies including "Seven Samurai", "Fist of Legend", "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", "Hero", "Shaolin Dolemite" and "The Five Fingers of Death". The character Black Whirlwind was a homage by Laidlaw to Li Kui, a main character from "Outlaws of the Marsh". Henpecked Hou followed a tradition in BioWare titles of including a character for comic relief, in addition to playing on Chinese narrative stereotypes. A notable side character is Sir Roderick Ponce Von Fontlebottom the Magnificent Bastard, a musket-wielding explorer from a foreign land used for comic relief. The character was generally influenced by the explorers of Medieval Europe who had historically been to China.


title: Jade Empire

text: While much of the script is in English, many characters in the game speak Tho Fan, a 2,500-word Asian-style constructed language translated for players using English subtitles. Similar to the development of the Elvish languages for "The Lord of the Rings", Tho Fan was developed to add to the personality, realism and immersion of to the setting of "Jade Empire". The team chose not to use a real-world Asian language as "Jade Empire" was set in a fantasy world despite its Asian influence, with Tho Fan being used to add a level of exoticism for players. To create Tho Fan, BioWare contacted the linguistics department of the nearby University of Alberta; one of those who responded was Wolf Wikeley, then a student at the University with a master's degree in psycholinguistics and a candidate for a PhD in phonology. When Wikeley—a fan of Japanese anime and video games—was interviewed, he spoke several sentences in fluent fictional languages from various films and TV shows, impressing the BioWare staff and earning him the job.


title: Jade Empire

text: The language, according to Wikeley, relies on soft sounds and most closely resembles Mongolian. When planning the new language, Wikeley asked the developers who temperament the people of the Jade Empire had, as it would impact the sound and delivery of the words. After this is worked on creating a basic dictionary based on word substitution, although some words were inside jokes such as "wankaawayi" (director), which referenced Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-wai. Once the dictionary was complete, Wikeley set about creating unique grammar and language rules, such as the verb "to be" not existing, so it would not make the typical mistake of fictional languages of following the rules of a real language. Initially intended to be a lower class language denoting humility, a late change to the plot made Tho Fan a language of the Jade Empire's elite, turning its "deferential softness" into a mark of elegance.