title: Escalation of commitment

text: This is one factor that plays a role in how issues are addressed. When there are a group of individuals involved in communication, decisions, and change, with the lack of consistency in the group, most of the tasks fail to complete. This phenomenon occurs in situations such as policy change, rulings and procedures.


title: Escalation of commitment

text: This issue can also cause havoc for an organization when they are too attached to a policy, thought process or identity because they are not free to change. "On occasion, a project, product, or policy can become so closely tied to the values and purposes of the organization that it becomes almost unthinkable to consider withdrawal." One primary example of this phenomenon is the downfall of the Pan American World Airways company, commonly known as Pan Am. Pan Am was a well known airlines and hotel with hundreds of employees. With the turn of industry, airline policies were deregulated and caused financial downfall for Pan Am. The company over time made cuts to their company to stay afloat. The company believed that their image of being an airline was more important than being a successful company that they removed all of the assets that were in fact making them the largest amount of revenue only to save the image they thought they needed to remain to be Pan Am.


title: Escalation of commitment

text: In groups, it can be more difficult to attribute issues to a single, simpler determinant. While determinants are still applicable, oftentimes there are more complex factors when organizational goals and actions misalign. Groups, especially as they grow larger, can be resistant to changing course.


title: Escalation of commitment

text: Even if the need to change course or cease action is recognized, communication speed, policies, and business politics can be hindrances. A larger organization, especially one with a spread of subgroups, has to communicate the argument and decision to go against previous actions across the appropriate levels. If this communication does not occur in a timely manner or is blocked, the final decision may not be made and acted upon. A decision that goes against existing rules and processes may also reach resistance even with support from those within the organization. Individuals and groups that are directly employed due to a project, have financial stake in it may provide enough opposition to prevent changes from being made as well. They feel personally responsible for the parts they've worked on and can also feel that they too are being replaced or terminated. Escalation of commitment can then occur in any of these situations. External groups can play an even larger part in escalating commitment if their power is greater than that of the group taking action and they use that power to directly lead and influence.


title: Escalation of commitment

text: With a larger number of decision makers included, groups have the opportunity for greater productivity than single individuals, but they also have the opportunity for greater losses and escalation. Members can eliminate some of the escalation potential if they come to a better decision earlier on in the process and avoid the need to change course dramatically. Yet they can also hold onto a larger base of support for their initial actions to the point where escalation potential is increased. In this case, groupthink assists in keeping with the original decision and pressures towards conformity rather than dividing the group with other options. Also, a group whose members are not cohesive can have decreased escalation potential due to conflicts and varying levels of inclusion in the process.


title: Escalation of commitment

text: Organizations that are family businesses are especially prone to escalation of commitment due to the added level of going through the family structure in addition to the business structure, allowing for further conflicts between the two. Business reputation, customer and share loss, and financial loss become risks.


title: Principality of Transylvania (1570–1711)

text: The Principality of Transylvania (; ; ; ; ) was a semi-independent state ruled primarily by Hungarian princes. Its territory, in addition to the traditional Transylvanian lands, also included the other major component called Partium, which was in some periods comparable in size with Transylvania proper. The establishment of the principality was connected to the Treaty of Speyer. However, Stephen Báthory's status as king of Poland also helped to phase in the name "Principality of Transylvania". It was usually under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire, although the principality often had dual vassalage (Ottoman Turkish sultans and Habsburg Hungarian kings) in the 16th and 17th centuries.


text: The principality continued to be a part of the Lands of the Hungarian Crown and was a symbol of the survival of Hungarian statehood. It represented Hungarian interests against Habsburg encroachments in the Habsburg-ruled Kingdom of Hungary. Traditional Hungarian law had to be followed scrupulously in the principality; furthermore, the state was predominantly Protestant. After the unsettled period of Rákóczi's War of Independence, it was subordinated to the Habsburg monarchy.


text: On 29 August 1526, the army of Sultan Suleiman of the Ottoman Empire inflicted a decisive defeat on the Hungarian forces at Mohács. John Zápolya was en route to the battlefield with his sizable army but did not participate in the battle for unknown reasons. The youthful King Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia fell in battle, as did many of his soldiers. As Zápolya was elected king of Hungary, Ferdinand from the House of Habsburg also claimed the throne of Hungary. In the ensuing struggle John Zápolya received the support of Sultan Suleiman I, who after Zápolya's death in 1540, occupied Buda and central Hungary in 1541 under the pretext of protecting Zápolya's son, John II. Hungary was now divided into three sections: Royal Hungary in the west and north, Ottoman Hungary, and the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom under Ottoman suzerainty, which later became the Principality of Transylvania, where Austrian and Turkish influences vied for supremacy for nearly two centuries. The Hungarian magnates of Transylvania resorted to a policy of duplicity in order to preserve independence.


text: Transylvania was administrated by Isabella, John Sigismund's mother, from 1541 to 1551, when it fell for five years under Habsburg rule (1551–1556). The House of Zapolya gained again the control of Transylvania in 1556, when the Diet of Szászsebes elected Sigismund as prince of Transylvania.


text: Transylvania was now beyond the reach of Catholic religious authority, allowing Lutheran and Calvinist preaching to flourish. In 1563, Giorgio Blandrata was appointed as court physician, and his radical religious ideas increasingly influenced both the young king John II and the Calvinist bishop Francis David, eventually converting both to the Anti-Trinitarian (Unitarian) creed. In a formal public disputation, Francis David prevailed over the Calvinist Peter Melius; resulting in 1568 in the formal adoption of individual freedom of religious expression under the Edict of Torda. This was the first such legal guarantee of religious freedom in Christian Europe, but only for Lutherans, Calvinists, Unitarians and of course Catholics, with the Orthodox Christian confession being "tolerated", with no legal guarantees granted.


text: The Principality of Transylvania was established in 1570 when John II renounced his claim as King of Hungary in the Treaty of Speyer (ratified in 1571), however, he became a Transylvanian prince. The treaty also recognized that Principality of Transylvania belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary in the sense of public law. Upon the death of John II in 1571 the Royal House of Báthory came to power and ruled Transylvania as princes under the Ottomans; and briefly under Habsburg suzerainty, until 1602. Their rise to power marked the beginning of the Principality of Transylvania as a semi-independent state.


text: Prince Stephen Báthory was the first powerful prince of independent Transylvania, a Hungarian Catholic who later became king under the name Stephen Báthory of Poland, undertook to maintain the religious liberty granted by the Edict of Torda, but interpreted this obligation in an increasingly restricted sense. The latter period of Báthory rule saw Transylvania under Sigismund Báthory – prince of the Holy Roman Empire – enter the Long War, which started as a Christian alliance against the Turks and became a four-sided conflict involving Transylvania, the Habsburgs, the Ottomans, and the voivode of Wallachia, Michael the Brave.


text: After 1601 the principality for a short time was under the rule of Rudolf I who initiated the Germanization of the population, and in order to reclaim the Principality for Catholicism the Counter Reformation. From 1604 to 1606, the Hungarian nobleman Stephen Bocskay led a successful rebellion against Austrian rule. Bocskay was elected Prince of Transylvania on 5 April 1603 and prince of Hungary two months later. He achieved the Peace of Vienna in 1606. By the Peace of Vienna, Bocskay obtained religious liberty and political autonomy, the restoration of all confiscated estates, the repeal of all "unrighteous" judgments, and a complete retroactive amnesty for all Hungarians in Royal Hungary, as well as his own recognition as independent sovereign prince of an enlarged Principality of Transylvania. By the Treaty of Vienna (1606) was guaranteed the right of Transylvanians to elect their own independent princes, but Georg Keglević, who was the Commander-in-chief, General, Vice-Ban of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia, was since 1602 Baron in Transylvania. It was a very difficult and complicated peace treaty after a long war.


text: Under Bocskay's successors Transylvania had its golden age, especially under the reigns of Gábor Bethlen and George I Rákóczi. Gábor Bethlen, who reigned from 1613 to 1629, perpetually thwarted all efforts of the emperor to oppress or circumvent his subjects, and won reputation abroad by championing the Protestant cause. Three times, he waged war on the emperor, twice he was proclaimed King of Hungary, and by the Peace of Nikolsburg (31 December 1621), he obtained for the Protestants a confirmation of the Treaty of Vienna, and for himself seven additional counties in northern Hungary. Bethlen's successor, George I Rákóczi, was equally successful. His principal achievement was the Peace of Linz (16 September 1645), the last political triumph of Hungarian Protestantism, in which the emperor was forced to confirm again the articles of the Peace of Vienna. Gabriel Bethlen and George I Rákóczi also did much for education and culture, and their era has justly been called the golden era of Transylvania. They lavished money on the embellishment of their capital Alba Iulia, which became the main bulwark of Protestantism in Eastern Europe. During their reign, Transylvania was also one of the few European countries where Roman Catholics, Calvinists, Lutherans, and Unitarians lived in mutual tolerance, all of them belonging to the officially accepted religions – "religiones receptae", while the Orthodox, however, were only tolerated.


text: The fall of Nagyvárad to the expansionist Ottomans on 27 August 1660 marked the decline of the Principality of Transylvania. To counter the Ottoman threat, the Habsburg policy determined to gain influence in and perhaps control of this territory. Under Prince Kemeny, the diet of Transylvania proclaimed the secession of a sovereign Transylvania from the Ottomans (April 1661) and appealed for help to Vienna but a secret Habsburg-Ottoman agreement resulted in further increasing Habsburg influence. After the defeat of the Ottomans at the Battle of Vienna in 1683, the Habsburgs gradually began to impose their rule on the formerly autonomous Transylvania. Following the 1699 Treaty of Karlowitz, Transylvania was formally attached to the Habsburg-controlled Hungary and subjected to the direct rule of the emperor's governors. From 1711 onward, Habsburg control over Transylvania was consolidated, and the princes of Transylvania were replaced with governors.


text: Until 1691 Transylvania was ruled by Unio Trium Nationum, the three state-constituting socio-ethnical entities termed "nations", consisting of the Hungarian nobility, the Saxon urban settlers, and the Székely peasant-soldiers, while a significant part of the general population, consisted of Orthodox Romanians, remained deprived of any civil and political rights.


text: The Unio Trium Nationum (Latin for "Union of the Three Nations") was a pact of mutual aid codified in 1438 by three Estates of Transylvania: the (largely Hungarian) nobility, the Saxon (German) patrician class, and the free military Székelys. The union was directed against the whole of the peasantry, regardless of ethnicity, in response to the Transylvanian peasant revolt.


text: In this feudal estate parliament, the peasants (whether Hungarian, Saxon, Székely or Romanian in origin) were not represented, and they did not benefit from its acts, as the commoners were not considered to be members of these feudal "nations".


text: The coalition of the "Three Nations" retained its legal representative monopoly under the prince as before the split of the medieval Hungarian Kingdom occasioned by the Ottoman invasions. According to Dennis P. Hupchick, though there were occasional clashes between the Hungarian plainsmen and the Székely mountaineers, they were united under the patronymic "Magyars" and, with Saxon support, formed a common front against the predominantly Romanian peasantry.


text: Official censuses with information on Transylvania's population have been conducted since the 18th century, but the ethnic composition was the subject of different modern estimations.


text: Nicolaus Olahus, Primate of Hungary stated in the book "Hungaria et Athila" in 1536 that in Transylvania ""Four nations of different origins live in it: Hungarians, Székelys, Saxons, and Vlachs""


text: Based on a work by Antun Vrančić (1504–1573), "Expeditionis Solymani in Moldaviam et Transsylvaniam libri duo. De situ Transsylvaniae, Moldaviae et Transalpinae liber tertius", more estimations exist as the original text is translated/interpreted in a different way, especially by Romanian and Hungarian scholars. According to Hungarian interpretations, Vrančić wrote about the inhabitants of Transylvania and about the Romanians: ""the country is inhabited by three nations, Székelys, Hungarians, and Saxons; I should also add the Romanians who – even though they easily equal any of the others in number – have no freedom, no aristocracy, no right of their own, besides a small number living in the Haţeg district, where the capital of Decebalus is believed to have stood, and who, during the time of John Hunyadi, a native of those places, were granted aristocratic status because they had always taken part in the struggle against the Turks. The rest of them are all commoners, serfs of the Hungarians, having no places of their own, spread all over the territory, in the whole country"" and ""leading a wretched life"", while in Romanian interpretations, it is noted that the proper translation of the first part of the sentence would be: ""...I would nevertheless add the Romanians, who – even though they easily equal the others in number –..." "


text: According to Károly Kocsis and Eszter Kocsisné Hodosi argue that the Hungarians were the most numerous ethnic group before the second half of the 17th century, when they were exceeded by Romanians. They assert the following structure of the population: in 1595, out of a total population of 670,000, 52.2% were Hungarians, 28.4% Romanians, 18.8% Germans. Around 1650, Moldavian prince Vasile Lupu, in a letter written to the Sultan, affirms that the number of Romanians are one-third of the population. By 1660, according to Miklós Molnár, 955,000 people lived in the principality (Partium included) and the population consisted of 500,000 Hungarians (including 250,000 Székelys), 280,000 Romanians, 90,000 Germans and 85,000 Serbians, Ukrainians and others and reached its end-of-century level.


text: On the other hand, according to Dennis P. Hupchick, Romanians were the majority population in the region during the rule of Stephen Báthory (16th century). In 1600, according to George W. White, Romanians, who were primarily peasants, constituted more than 60 percent of the population. This theory is supported by Ion Ardeleanu, who states that the Romanian population represented "the overwhelming majority" in the age of Michael the Brave. According to Louis Roman, various works from the XVII century claim that Romanians were the most numerous ethnic group in Transylvania during that time, including those of Johannes Tröster, Grigore Ureche, Miron Costin.


text: Historians Ioan Bolovan and Sorina-Paula Bolovan argue that the Romanians were the majority during the life of Antun Vrančić based on their works, in 1690 an absolute Romanian majority, that no significant demographic change happened between the Middle Ages and 1750, when the Austrian administration tracked newcomers, which also explained concerns about Transylvanian Romanians leaving for Wallachia and Moldavia, including Emperor Joseph II.


text: According to official estimates made by the Austrian administrative authority (Verwaltungsgericht) dating from 1712–1713, the ethnic distribution of the population in Transylvania is as follows: 47% Hungarians, 34% Romanians, 19%, Saxons. In 's estimation, there were 250,000 Romanians, 150,000 Hungarians and 100,000 Saxons in Transylvania at the beginning of the 18th century. In 1720, according to Károly Kocsis and Eszter Kocsisné Hodosi, out of a total population of 806,221, 49.6% were Romanians, 37.2% Hungarians, 12.4% Germans.


text: As a result of heavy taxes and hard services demanded, many serfs of the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia migrated into Transylvania where the laws were more favorable. According to modern estimations 350,000–500,000 Romanians migrated to Transylvania in the 18th century.


text: Evliya Çelebi (1611–1682) was an Ottoman explorer who traveled through the territory of the Ottoman Empire and neighboring lands over a period of forty years, recording his commentary in a travelogue called the Seyahatnâme "Book of Travel". His trip to Hungary was between 1660 and 1666. The Transylvanian's state of development in the 17th century was so good, that it was an attraction to strangers longing for its territory. Evliya Çelebi writes this in his book that the Romanian serfs move en masse to Transylvania because of the extreme ruthlessness of the rulers of Romanian lands. The Romanians say there is justice, legal order, and low taxes in Transylvania.


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: The Beverly Hills Hotel, also called the Beverly Hills Hotel and Bungalows, is located on Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills, California. One of the world's best-known hotels, it is closely associated with Hollywood film stars, rock stars, and celebrities. The hotel has 210 guest rooms and suites and 23 bungalows and the exterior bears the hotel's signature pink and green colors.


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: The Beverly Hills Hotel was established in May 1912, before the city itself was incorporated. The original owners were Margaret J. Anderson, a wealthy widow, and her son, Stanley S. Anderson, who had been managing the Hollywood Hotel. The original hotel was designed by Pasadena architect Elmer Grey in the Mediterranean Revival style. From 1928 to 1932, the hotel was owned by the Interstate Company. In 1941, Hernando Courtright, the vice president of the Bank of America, purchased the hotel with friends including Irene Dunne, Loretta Young, and Harry Warner. Courtright established the Polo Lounge, which is considered to be one of the premier dining spots in Los Angeles, hosting entertainers ranging from the Rat Pack to Humphrey Bogart and Marlene Dietrich. The hotel was first painted its famous pink color during a 1948 renovation to match that period's country club style. The following year, architect Paul Williams added the Crescent Wing.


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: The strict resident owner of the Beverly Hills Hotel from 1954 until his death in 1979 was former Detroit real estate magnate Ben L. Silberstein. In 1986, Marvin Davis bought the hotel from Silberstein's sons-in-law Burt Slatkin and Ivan F. Boesky. On December 30, 1992, the hotel closed for a complete restoration, reopening in 1995. Since 1996, it has been run as part of the Dorchester Collection owned by the Sultan of Brunei. In 2012, the hotel was named the first historic landmark in Beverly Hills, and two new Presidential Bungalows were added.


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: The song "Hotel California" by the American rock band the Eagles is slightly based on the folklore behind the hotel. The cover of the band's album of the same name features a photo of the hotel itself.


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: In early 1911, Margaret J. Anderson, a wealthy widow, and her son, Stanley S. Anderson, who had been managing the Hollywood Hotel, ordered the construction of the Beverly Hills Hotel, in close proximity to the Burton Green mansion. Burton Green, an oil tycoon and real estate developer, President of the Rodeo Land and Water Company, had purchased land in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains, which had once been owned by the Mexican government. He had begun building mansions on the land, including his own residence, investing some $500,000, but was having difficulty selling them. He hired Anderson to build a hotel, which he named Beverly Farms, after his home in Massachusetts, believing that it would attract people to the area, billing it as "halfway between Los Angeles and the sea". The Hollywood film industry was taking off at the time, and investors were looking to develop the area.


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: A May 11, 1911, edition of the "Los Angeles Times" announced the news that a "huge Mission-style hotel" was to be built by Anderson, with the motto that "her guests were entitled to the best of everything regardless of cost".


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: The hotel opened May 12, 1912, before the city's existence. Margaret and Stanley took up residence within the hotel grounds. By 1914, Hollywood directors, actors, and actresses such as Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, Gloria Swanson, Buster Keaton, Rudolph Valentino, and Will Rogers had purchased homes in the area, "transforming bean fields surrounding The Beverly Hills Hotel into prime real estate". The city of Beverly Hills was established. The first five bungalows of the hotel were built in 1915. In 1919, Douglas Fairbanks and his wife, Mary Pickford, bought and expanded a lodge above the hotel, which they named Pickfair. According to one publication, a star would know they would have finally "made it" when they received an invitation to dine at Pickfair. Gloria Swanson resided in one of the bungalows of the hotel during her divorce.


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: In 1915, the Andersons donated a portion of the hotel's original grounds to the community of Beverly Hills. It was used to create the community's first public park. Originally known as Sunset Park, it is now Will Rogers Memorial Park. An early tradition was the annual Easter egg hunt, put on for the children of the guests and employees. Silent film star Harold Lloyd was an early hotel patron, and in 1921, he decided to film a scene at the hotel for "A Sailor-Made Man". From 1928 to 1932, the hotel was owned by the Interstate Company. Interstate had to close the hotel during the Great Depression years, although the company leased the bungalows out as rental properties. With Bank of America funding, the hotel reopened in 1932.


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: During the 1930s, the Beverly Hills Hotel became increasingly popular with Hollywood film stars. Fred Astaire took a shine to the hotel and enjoyed reading the "Daily Variety" and the "Hollywood Reporter" by the pool. Cesar Romero and Carole Lombard were pictured together at the hotel in 1937. In 1938, the Sand and Pool Club was established at the hotel. It proved extremely popular, with white sand imported from Arizona, which made the pool area look like a beach. The following year, it began hosting fashion shows sponsored by local department stores such as Bullock's Wilshire. In 1940, one of the hotel's long-time patrons, Marlene Dietrich, was instrumental in bringing about a change in policy in the Polo Lounge, which had made it compulsory for women to don skirts, which she refused to wear.


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: In 1941, Hernando Courtright, the vice president of the Bank of America, purchased the hotel with friends. Irene Dunne, Loretta Young, and Harry Warner also became owners of the hotel as a result of their investment with Courtright. Courtright established the Polo Lounge "in honor of a celebrity band of polo players who toasted victories at the restaurant after matches in the bean fields". In 1942, Howard Hughes bought up half a dozen of the bungalows and lived there on several occasions throughout the decades. The hotel accommodated his eccentricities, including his request for "roast beef sandwiches delivered to a nook in a tree". The Beverly Hills Hotel underwent significant renovation in the late forties when the "porte cochere" was expanded and painted in stripes. In 1947, Courtright opened the Crystal Room and the "Lanai" Restaurant, later called "The Coterie". The building was first painted its famous pink color in 1948 to match the country club style of the period, and it became known as "the Pink Palace". The following year, architect Paul Williams added the Crescent Wing. The Fountain Coffee Shop also opened at this time.


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: In 1954, Detroit real estate magnate Ben L. Silberstein bought the hotel for $5.5 million. Courtright later became hotelier at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. The reputation of the Beverly Hills Hotel, as a leading luxury hotel with glamorous patrons, took off during the 1950s and attracted eminent guests such as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon, King Albert of Belgium, the Crown Prince of Monaco and Grace Kelly, John Wayne, and Henry Fonda. Elizabeth Taylor, one of the hotel's best-known guests, would stay with her numerous husbands in the bungalows and spent six of her eight honeymoons there. Her father owned an art gallery on the ground floor of the hotel. The Polo Lounge became associated with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and the Rat Pack, where they held heavy drinking bouts. In 1956, the pool of the hotel and cabana club was a filming location for "Designing Woman", starring Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall. Marilyn Monroe and Yves Montand stayed at the hotel during the production of George Cukor's "Let's Make Love". Monroe's favorite bungalow was No. 7. George Hamilton and Rex Harrison enjoyed sunbathing at the hotel; Harrison would sunbathe in the nude in Cabana One and answer the door wearing "just a handkerchief over his private parts".


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: In 1963, the comedy picture "Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed?", starring Dean Martin, Elizabeth Montgomery, Jill St. John, and Carol Burnett, was shot at the hotel. In the 1970s, John Lennon and Yoko Ono hid out in one of the bungalows for a week. Richard M. Nixon's chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, and presidential aide John Ehrlichman were eating breakfast in the Polo Lounge when they were informed of the Watergate burglary in 1972. In January 1977, Peter Finch died of a sudden heart attack while sitting in the hotel lobby. Two months later, he was posthumously awarded the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Howard Beale in the film "Network". His costar Faye Dunaway stayed at the hotel after winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for the same film; in one memorable photograph, she was seated by the hotel pool lounging back in a chair surrounded by newspapers and her Oscar trophy. The exterior of the hotel was featured on the album cover art of the Eagles' album "Hotel California" that same year. Two years later, "California Suite" was filmed at the hotel.


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: Owner Ben Silberstein died in 1979 and passed the hotel to his two daughters, Muriel Slatkin and Seema Boesky, wife of stock trader Ivan Boesky. Boesky bought the outstanding 5% of stock for a reported fortune and decided to sell, despite Slatkin's desire to keep the hotel. In 1986, Marvin Davis bought the hotel from Boesky. Less than a year later, Davis sold the hotel to the Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah, for $110 million.


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: On December 30, 1992, the hotel closed for a complete restoration, said to be in the region of $100–125 million. The project lasted two and a half years with the hotel reopening on June 3, 1995, with upgrades to furniture and fittings.


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: The hotel is now managed and owned by the Dorchester Collection, organized in 1996 to manage the hotel interests of the Brunei Investment Agency. In 2011, The west coast regional director for the Dorchester Collection, Edward Mady, became the general manager of the Beverly Hills Hotel as well as the Hotel Bel-Air. Mady was awarded the 2011 Hospitality Professional of the Year Award from the Food and Beverage Association and Hotels Magazine's 2017 Hotelier of the World award. In 2012, the hotel celebrated its 100-year anniversary and began to remodel its lobby, with the Polo Lounge, pool cabanas and Cabana Cafe, and guest-rooms and suites to be renovated by 2014. The hotel was also named the first historic landmark in Beverly Hills in September 2012. In 2022, John Scanlon became the hotel's general manager.


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: A boycott of the hotel began in April 2014, when the Sultan of Brunei, part owner of the hotel, began changing Brunei's complex legal system to include aspects of Sharia law, and in particular codifying the persecution of homosexuals. In protest, a United States national LGBT advocacy organization, the Gill Action Fund, canceled its reservation to hold a conference of major donors at the Beverly Hills Hotel and demanded a refund of its deposit. The hotel management responded by asserting that it does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: Fashion designers Brian Atwood and Peter Som subsequently called for wider protests, urging the fashion industry to boycott all the hotels owned by the Dorchester Collection. Meanwhile, the boycott had attracted support from Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Group, as well as numerous Hollywood executives and stars, including Jay Leno and Ellen DeGeneres. A string of organizations joined the boycott, cancelling reservations to hold conferences and other high-profile events at the establishment; travel industry firms signed on to a boycott of all Dorchester Collection hotels. Others, including Russell Crowe and Kim Kardashian, spoke out against the boycott. Crowe said that despite his disapproval of the new laws in Brunei, it is unfair to punish the hardworking employees of the hotel. Similarly, Kardashian published a blog post voicing her criticism of the boycott and expressing her sympathies for the hotel workers. "HR Magazine" said that the protests are "misguided" and will not affect the government policy of Brunei when the Dorchester Collection's annual revenue is $300 million, while the BIA has over $30 billion in assets from oil and gas.


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: In May 2014, the Beverly Hills City Council passed a resolution urging the Sultan of Brunei to sell the Beverly Hills Hotel. Lili Bosse, the then-mayor of Beverly Hills, welcomed the resolution and added that she had made a "personal decision" not to return to the hotel until the situation had been solved. The decision was lauded by Rabbi Laura Geller of Temple Emanuel, where Bosse is a congregant. By then, the "Jewish Journal" reported that "more than $2 million worth of events have been canceled at the Beverly Hills Hotel by dozens of groups."


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: Dorchester Collection Chief Executive Officer Christopher Cowdray asked the public to consider that many brands are backed by foreign investors. Sharia law exists alongside other normative systems and has been adopted by many other Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia, which has major investments in the American hospitality industry, including the Four Seasons and Fairmont hotel chains.


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: Adweek declared that "the bad press and protests have tarnished the glamorous image of the Beverly Hills Hotel, one of the most famous hotels in the world", and added that "such extreme brand damage will be difficult to repair".


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: The hotel and other Dorchester properties faced renewed calls for boycott in April 2019, when Brunei made gay sex and adultery punishable by death by stoning. The boycott has attracted support from LA City Comptroller Ron Galperin and more celebrities, including George Clooney and Elton John. The LA City Council passed a resolution to bar the city from conducting business at the hotel and urging city residents not to patronize it. The Dorchester Collection responded by saying they "do not tolerate any form of discrimination." In May 2019, the Sultan of Brunei said that his country's "de facto moratorium" on capital punishment would apply to cases under the new laws, and promised to ratify the UN Convention against Torture. Despite this, LA City Councilman Paul Koretz asked the city to continue its boycott of the hotel.


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: Working within the Covid-19 pandemic, the hotel has remained open, but was forced to reschedule the events it had planned for the summer and fall of 2020. The hotel engaged in multiple donation campaigns to various organizations such as the Children's Hospital Los Angeles and the Hollywood Food Coalition. The hotel also fed frontline healthcare workers at L.A. hospitals via the Polo Lounge, an idea stemming from the hotel's general manager, Edward Mady. The hotel also redesigned its sign for the first time in 70 years to honor those same frontline healthcare workers.


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: Judith Kirkwood of "Orange Coast Magazine" has stated that "The Beverly Hills Hotel is such an icon that my friend, Gretchen, and I wondered if it was a mirage when the taxi pulled up in the "porte cochere" and deposited us on a red carpet, but realized that it was "more like a peachy pink dream dusted with gold — and green and white striped accents".


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: The original main building of the Beverly Hills Hotel was designed by Pasadena architect Elmer Grey, in the Mediterranean Revival style. Built on a prominence above the main road below, it resembled a white colonial palatial mansion or mission, with verandas and arches fitted with wicker furniture, and at the time was set in the countryside. High above the main entrance are three domes, two flanking the center, which are smaller and lower in height, with flags hoisted on them. A trolley-stop pavilion was situated on the western side. The iconic signage and the addition were designed by architect Paul Williams.


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: The extensive gardens, covering , were designed by landscape architect Wilbur David Cook. They contain bougainvillea, banana plants, hibiscus, and other tropical flora. Svend Petersen, the Danish-American pool manager at the hotel for forty-two years, became a Hotel Ambassador in 2002. He had notably opened up the pool after hours for the Beatles and taught Faye Dunaway to swim a 1940s freestyle crawl for her appearance in the film "Mommie Dearest".


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: The sunroom of the hotel, containing Californian craftsman furniture, provides vistas of the Pacific Ocean. A room, known as the Crystal Room, was allocated for small private dinner parties. The principal dining room could accommodate up to 500 people. The children's dining room, which became the El Jardin Restaurant, is now the iconic Polo Lounge. The Polo Lounge is seen as the premier power dining spot in all of Los Angeles. The lounge was renovated in 1974 and given a softer design with table lamps and flowers. It is fashioned in peachy pink with dark green booths, each featuring a plug-in phone. The photograph behind the bar depicts Will Rogers and Darryl F. Zanuck, two lounge regulars, playing polo. The menu offers a classic Neil McCarthy salad, named after the polo-playing millionaire. The hotel has its own bakery and herb garden, makes its own vinegar, and smokes meats. The chef in 2003 was Katsuo Sugiura, who cooked "oak-grilled food with an Asian flair". In 2007, one large suite was converted into the "Bar Nineteen12". The fireplace in the hotel's lobby has a fire going every day of the year.


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: A new wing was added to the east side of the main building in the late 1940s. The "Crescent Wing", as it became known, features mature plantings on the balconies.


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: Many of the rooms have their own balcony and are designed in the Beverly Hills Hotel colors of peachy pinks, greens, apricots, and yellows. Several of the more expensive rooms have private patios, Jacuzzis, and their own kitchens.


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: Five bungalows were originally added to the gardens in 1915 to provide for families who could return each year with their own staff. As of 2015, the hotel has 23 bungalows set out across the gardens. Bungalows 14-21 are known as "Bachelor's Row", due to their association with film stars and their affairs, including Warren Beatty and Orson Welles. In 1990, a private pool and Jacuzzi were added to Bungalow No. 5 to accommodate businessman Walter Annenberg. No.5 had been a favorite of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, who had "a standing room service order for two bottles of vodka at breakfast, and two more at lunch". Taylor also liked No. 3, where she stayed during her marriage to Eddie Fisher. Marilyn Monroe favored No. 1 and No. 7. No.1, the most secluded of the bungalows, features an interior described by CNN as "creamy, lush and traditional, decorated in the manner of one's wealthy grandparents". No. 7 has become known as "the "Norma Jean". Dietrich ordered a by bed added to No. 10, the bungalow where John Lennon and Yoko Ono stayed in the 1970s. Bungalow 22 was favored by Frank Sinatra and later, by Donald Trump. In 2011, two Presidential Bungalows were established, replacing the tennis courts, with each containing three bedrooms and a private swimming pool and shower. As of 2018, a one-night stay at a bungalow may cost as much as $10,000.


title: The Beverly Hills Hotel

text: Howard Hughes permanently kept a bungalow at the hotel, but it was a secret whether he was on the premises or not. Often, the only person who knew Hughes was at the Beverly Hills Hotel was the hotel's chef. Hughes would awaken him in the middle of the night to prepare food for him. It has been alleged that several of the bungalows are haunted. Guests have reported hearing what is believed to be Harpo Marx playing the harp and seeing an apparition of Sergei Rachmaninoff.


title: Christian Hosoi

text: Christian Rosha Hosoi ( ; born October 5, 1967) is an American professional skateboarder. He is also known by the nicknames "Christ" and "Holmes".


title: Christian Hosoi

text: Hosoi was born on October 5, 1967 to a father of Japanese descent from Hawaii, and a mother of European and American descent. He grew up in Los Angeles and Hawaii.


title: Christian Hosoi

text: Hosoi started skating at seven or eight years old with veterans such as Shogo Kubo, Tony Alva, Stacy Peralta, and Jay Adams as his idols. His father, Ivan "Pops" Hosoi became the manager of the Marina Del Rey Skatepark, and Christian quit school and spent his time there where he developed his skill.


title: Christian Hosoi

text: In 1979, as an amateur, Hosoi was sponsored by Powell Peralta. He left Powell Peralta a year later when they would not allow him to turn professional and joined Dogtown Skateboards. Shortly thereafter, Dogtown went out of business. Christian turned pro at the age of 14 with Sims Skateboards. After leaving Sims, Hosoi joined Alva Skates with the idea of launching his own company through Alva. Hosoi later claimed that he "almost quit" Alva Skates following an argument over Hosoi's allegation that Alva "cheated [Hosoi] out" of the fish-tail board shape, which Hosoi claimed to have conceptualized and shown to Alva.


title: Christian Hosoi

text: Hosoi invented the Christ Air and Rocket Air. In 1984, he formed his own company, Hosoi Skates, first distributed through Skull Skates, then through NHS-INC.


title: Christian Hosoi

text: When street skating began to emerge in the mid-to-late 1980s, Hosoi showed talent there, winning both the vert and street contests at the Lotte Cup contest in Japan in 1989.


title: Christian Hosoi

text: Hosoi's pro career began to falter as a recession hit the US in the early 1990s and as street skating began to overtake vert in media coverage. Hosoi faced bankruptcy after financial difficulties with a series of failed skateboard companies like Tuff Sk8s, Sk8 Kultur, Milk, and Focus, in addition to a growing addiction to drugs.


title: Christian Hosoi

text: In 1995, Hosoi was arrested on two minor offenses, and a warrant for his arrest was issued for failing to appear in court. To avoid arrest, Hosoi stopped attending competitions and demos, including declining an invitation to the first X Games (then the Extreme Games), which was going to be marketed as a renewed rivalry between Hawk and Hosoi.


title: Christian Hosoi

text: Hosoi was finally captured in January 2000 at the Honolulu airport. He was apprehended while attempting to transport nearly of crystal methamphetamine from Los Angeles to Honolulu.


title: Christian Hosoi

text: He was charged with trafficking with the intent to distribute. He was sentenced to ten years' incarceration, of which he served four and was released from the San Bernardino Central Detention Center in June 2004.


title: Christian Hosoi

text: Hosoi is married to former nightclub dancer Jennifer Lee and has four sons, James Hosoi, Rhythm Hosoi (from a previous relationship), Classic Hosoi and Endless Hosoi.


title: Christian Hosoi

text: Hosoi became a born-again Christian through the urging of his wife and her uncle, Pastor Christopher Swaim. He also earned his high school diploma.


title: Christian Hosoi

text: Hosoi continues to be open about his new-found faith, having become ordained as an associate pastor, and has resumed his skateboarding career.


title: Christian Hosoi

text: Hosoi was the subject of the 2006 documentary film, "Rising Son", that detailed his initial success, drug addiction, and conversion to Christianity.


title: Christian Hosoi

text: Hosoi joined forces with Jay Haizlip, Brian Sumner, and others to create The Uprising, a skate-based ministry. In 2008, The Uprising was documented by Steelroots, a Christian youth television network, and made into a reality television show. The first season comprised eight episodes and followed the ministry around California and England.


title: Christian Hosoi

text: Hosoi also appeared in a testimonial video on I Am Second, in which he shares the story of his faith in Jesus.


title: Christian Hosoi

text: Hosoi along with co-author Chris Ahrens released his autobiography book "Hosoi: My Life as a Skateboarder Junkie Inmate Pastor" in 2012 that chronicles his life story and testimony of finding redemption and purpose after reading the Bible and becoming a pastor.


title: Inglewood Park Cemetery

text: The proposed establishment of "the largest cemetery in the world" was announced in November 1905, to be "on a high strip of ground two miles southwest of Los Angeles".


title: Inglewood Park Cemetery

text: Also in 1907 the management placed an order "with the factory in the East" for a $12,000 funeral car to be used "on the electric line" that ran on a right-of-way off Redondo Boulevard (today's Florence Avenue) in front of the cemetery.


title: Inglewood Park Cemetery

text: Between 1928 and 1948 Inglewood Park advertised itself as the "Largest in California," with a mausoleum, cemetery, and columbarium. From 1948 through 1950 it said it had the "Greatest number of interments in the West".


title: Inglewood Park Cemetery

text: Early backers of the Inglewood Cemetery Association were Senator Robert N. Bulla, Mark G. Jones, Robert H. Raphael, Tom Hughes, P.W. Powers, Byron Oliver, B.J. or V.J. Rowan, F.K. Eckley, C.B. Hopper, Harry M. Jack, John R. Powers, George Letteau, Jennie Wild, and Will G. Nevin. Others were P.W. Powers and D.S. Patterson.


title: Inglewood Park Cemetery

text: In 1907 the directors were Mark G. Jones, F.K. Eckley, Robt. N. Bulls, John C. Rupp, Robt. H. Raphael, Geo. H. Letteau, and Chas. B. Hopper. The officers were Mark G. Jones, president and treasurer; Chas. B. Hopper, vice-president; F.K. Eckley, secretary; V.J. Rowan, engineer, and Captain L.G. Loomis, superintendent.


title: Inglewood Park Cemetery

text: One of the earliest notable burials was that of Webster Street, justice of the Supreme Court of Arizona between


title: Inglewood Park Cemetery

text: Another was the September 12, 1908, funeral of Los Angeles city Police Chief Walter H. Auble, who was shot and killed in the line of duty. Thousands came from Los Angeles on carriages and aboard special Los Angeles Railway streetcars.


title: Inglewood Park Cemetery

text: "References to burials or entombments at this cemetery can be found in the articles if not listed below."


title: Jo Jae-yoon

text: Jo Jae-yoon (born September 15, 1974) is a South Korean actor. He made his acting debut in 2003 and has since starred as a supporting actor in numerous films and television series, including "The Man from Nowhere" (2010), "The Chaser" (2012), "Gu Family Book" (2013), and "The Suspect" (2013). Jo also appeared in the variety-reality show "Animals" (2015).


title: Alfa Romeo V6 engine

text: The Alfa Romeo V6 engine (also called the Busso V6) is a 60° V6 engine made by Alfa Romeo from 1979 to 2005. It was developed in the early 1970s by Giuseppe Busso, and used on the Alfa 6 with a displacement of and a SOHC 12-valve cylinder head. Later versions ranged from and had DOHC 24-valve valvetrains. The original design had short pushrods for the exhaust valves in a design similar to earlier Lancia Fulvia engines. The first DOHC version was in the 1993 Alfa Romeo 164, with an aluminium alloy engine block and head with sodium filled exhaust valves.


title: Alfa Romeo V6 engine

text: The Alfa Romeo V6 has been used in kit cars like the Ultima GTR, Hawk HF Series, and DAX, as well as the Gillet Vertigo sports car and the Lancia Aurelia B20GT Outlaw. In August 2011 EVO magazine wrote that "the original Alfa Romeo V6 was the most glorious-sounding six-cylinder road engine ever," The Alfa Romeo V6 engine has also been used in ice resurfacer made by engo Ltd. in Italy.


title: Alfa Romeo V6 engine

text: Thanks to the wonderful sound of this engine, the Busso V6 is also called the "Violin of Arese" or "Alfa's Violin".


title: Alfa Romeo V6 engine

text: A version was introduced in 1983. Both carburetted and fuel-injected versions were available from the start.


title: Alfa Romeo V6 engine

text: A turbocharged version, derived from the 3.0 L 12v, first with total digital management, was introduced in 1991 in the Alfa Romeo 164 with . The engine has a bore and stroke of .


title: Alfa Romeo V6 engine

text: The original engine displaced and produced . It was a 2-valve-per-cylinder design with a single belt-driven camshaft per cylinder bank and six carburettors. The engine has a bore and stroke of .


title: Alfa Romeo V6 engine

text: The Bosch L-Jetronic fuel injection was added for the 1983 Alfa 6, which produced the same . The 2-valve engine ended its life in the Alfa 155, where there were two series for this engine, the developing . Differences between them were small and only on torque and power delivery producing exactly the same horsepower.


title: Alfa Romeo V6 engine

text: In 1982, the German Alfa Romeo dealer and tuner Gleich offered a 2.8 conversion of the GTV6 2.5 engine. Dieter Gleich was sure that engine displacement enlargement is still the best and, for the life of the engine, the healthiest way of tuning. The engine capacity was increased to nearly 2.8 liters by using new bushings and custom-built forged Mahle pistons while the compression ratio was raised from 9.5 to 10.5:1. The 2.5 liter was rebored to . Total displacement was . Power produced were at 6,300 rpm and torque at 4200 rpm.


title: Alfa Romeo V6 engine

text: "After engaging the first gear and a somewhat careless step on the gas pedal you get a touched feel to the epiphany GTV6 shot, accompanied by the typical Alfa Romeo exhaust sound. It was a pleasure. The fact was the sprint from 0 to is not further under the seven-second limited by a tricky-to-be-shifted five-speed gearbox. The really vehement propulsion waned only when the speedometer mark has left behind. Another eye-opening experience awaits when you realize that the lightning speed to 7000 rpm rotating in any gear pinion even in fifth gear still from 1500 rpm is completely smooth."


title: Alfa Romeo V6 engine

text: The original 2.5 engine as used in the Alfa 6 was bored and stroked by Autodelta, the former Alfa Romeo racing department to match the racing rules for South African and Australian championships. Bore was increased from to and a new crankshaft stroked to . The total displacement was and it's a totally different engine from the later that powered the 75/Milano models. It was, too, a 2-valve-per-cylinder design with a single belt-driven camshaft per cylinder bank and six carburettors. Special camshafts and carbs were used giving a power figure of at 5800 rpm. Torque was at 4300 rpm, while compression ratio was 9:1.


title: Alfa Romeo V6 engine

text: Only 174 complete GTV6 3.0 SA cars were produced in 1984 plus 68 more in 1985. the last ones were fitted with EFI.


title: Alfa Romeo V6 engine

text: The 3.0 GTV6 was sold in South Africa in 1983-1985, predating the release of the 3.0 L displacement to the rest of the world. This engine was an Autodelta hand made conversion based on Alfa Sei 2.5 carburated engines enlarged to bore and stroke of .


title: Alfa Romeo V6 engine

text: Pulled by the racing success of the 3.0 SA engine and looking for more power to boost 75/Milano sales in countries like USA, Alfa Romeo introduced a production version of the 3.0 engine. Bore was , as the 3.0 SA, but stroke was increased to . The total displacement was . As the previous engines, it was a 2-valve-per-cylinder design with a single belt-driven camshaft per cylinder bank. The main difference with the racing 3.0 SA was the use of modern L-Jetronic fuel injection system by Bosch. Power figures vary from to at 5800 rpm, with compression ratio 9:1.


title: Alfa Romeo V6 engine

text: This engine was modified for transverse placement in the 164 and fitted with a high-performance camshaft and low-restriction exhaust, producing in standard form, when a catalyzer was added in 1991, with the Cloverleaf version producing .


title: Alfa Romeo V6 engine

text: The same engine was fitted to the SZ and RZ - ES30 Zagato, but even more finely tuned with wilder cams and high compression pistons to a further .


title: Alfa Romeo V6 engine

text: A four-valve version was introduced in 1997 with the Alfa Romeo 156. The engine now produced . In 2001, the V6 was uprated to . The 166 used a slightly detuned version to make more low rev torque. This engine version was awarded as the International Engine of the Year in 2000. The engine has a bore and stroke of , the same as the two-valve.


title: Alfa Romeo V6 engine

text: The engine was upgraded to dual overhead cams and four valves per cylinder in 1993. Due to this and other refinements, this engine produced for the regular 1993 Alfa Romeo 164, with and in the 164 QV with its engine producing on the Q4 model which in its final production run in 1996, it got reduced to but with increased torque. The final run of 3.0 V6 engines in the GTV, Spider and 166 range, produced in the Euro 3-compliant version. The engine has a bore and stroke of , the same as the two-valve.


title: Alfa Romeo V6 engine

text: In 2002 Alfa Romeo introduced the 156 and 147 GTA with a version of the V6 with and of torque. Later this engine was also used in the Alfa Romeo 166, GTV, Spider and Alfa Romeo GT in a slightly detuned form . The engine has a bore and stroke . In Lancia this engine produced .


title: Alfa Romeo V6 engine

text: In December 2002, at the Bologna Motor Show, Alfa Romeo displayed a 156 GTAm prototype, built by N-Technology, with 3458cc. The power was increased to 300 PS at 6,800rpm. The engine had a bore and stroke of 97 mm x 78 mm. This version never came to production, and it was based on N-Technology's experience racing the 156 GTA SuperTuring.


title: Alfa Romeo V6 engine

text: Alfa Romeo raced, in early 1990s, a 2.5-litre engine based on Busso's 60º V6. The engine was substantially revised and had a difference bore and stroke from the 2.5 standard engine, respectively, 93 mm x 61.3 mm, and making 420 bhp (313 kW) @ 11,800 rpm with a torque of 294 Nm. Alfa Romeo, during the 1993-1996 era of DTM/ITC, racked up an incredible thirty-eight victories of a total of eighty-nine starts. The V6-engined machine also qualified on pole nineteen times and set the fastest lap in forty-two races.


title: Alfa Romeo V6 engine

text: Later, Alfa Romeo also raced a lighter 90º V6 engine, with 490 PS @11,900 rpm, in the DTM Championship.


title: Alfa Romeo V6 engine

text: The V6 production ended in 2005 at Alfa Romeo Arese Plant; a stock of five thousand were built, to be used in Lancia Thesis, Alfa 166 and Alfa GT models. The engine was replaced in the 159 and Brera by a new 3.2 L V6 unit combining a General Motors-designed engine block with Alfa Romeo cylinder heads and induction. British automotive engineering company Cosworth was keen to buy assembly lines of the Alfa Romeo V6 engine, but the Italian company did not want to sell it. The last version of 3.2 L engine was Euro4 compliant, so it would have been possible to produce it a couple of years more. The engine's designer Giuseppe Busso died within a couple of days after the last engine was produced in Arese.


title: Alfa Romeo V6 engine

text: Since 2015, Fiat Powertrain manufactures the all-new, Ferrari-derived 90° V6 Biturbo engine (Ferrari F154 engine) for the Giulia Quadrifoglio, Stelvio Quadrifoglio and Giulia GTA/GTA-m models.


title: Døvydas

text: Dovydas Maščinskas (born September 5, 1992), better known as Døvydas (or DOVYDAS aka; Revelstar Stellonaut, and previously known as David Smash), is a Lithuanian-born musician, composer, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He was born and raised in Lithuania, and moved to the United States in 2012. He has appeared on national television in Lithuania, such as "Lithuania's Got Talent 2009", "Ring of Young Talents 2010", "Lithuania's Pick for Eurovision 2011", and he was also featured in a book about Lithuanian rock music titled "Lietuvos Roko Istorija" – written by the national-award-winning Lithuanian author Mindaugas Paleckis.


title: Døvydas

text: Døvydas has headlined major music festivals in Lithuania and Poland; "Visagino Country 2010", "Bliuzo Naktys 2010", "Wegorzewo 2011", and "Most Rockowy 2010". The Dovydas Band competed at the International Blues Challenge 2016, and made it to the semi-finals, something not achieved before by any Lithuanian-born person. While at the International Blues Challenge he jammed with many musicians including the mountain dulcimer player Bing Futch.


title: Døvydas

text: Dovydas Maščinskas was born in Kaunas, the second-largest city of Lithuania. His father is a painter, and his mother stayed at home to raise him. Døvydas began playing guitar at the age 13, and after taking private lessons from older guitar-playing friends, he enrolled at the Kaunas Children Music School. Later, he studied classical guitar at Naujalis Music Gymnasium, and in 2010, he transferred to Kaunas Juozas Gruodis Music Conservatory.


title: Døvydas

text: Døvydas started playing guitar at the age of thirteen in Lithuania, learning the drums, bass, piano, xylophone and harmonica shortly after. He was heavily inspired by a blues CD that his father bought in Germany, entitled "Blues Giants Vol. 2", a compilation of blues songs from artist such as John Lee Hooker, Lightnin' Hopkins, BB King, Etta James, and Memphis Slim. Døvydas says, "It was magic. That CD with those songs was like having an invitation letter to Hogwarts. Not only the music was captivating and enchanting, they were singing in this amazing language, and they lived in this distant part of the world that I've only seen on television."


title: Døvydas

text: During school he formed his first band, "David Smash and the Smash Band", which was later shortened to simply "David Smash Band". The group began playing local competitions and festivals and after their appearances on national television, they received invitations to headline major music festivals in Lithuania and Poland. He linked up with local blues musician Steve Arvey and moved to Florida at the age of 19. In his first two years in Sarasota, Døvydas expanded his musical repertoire and integrated himself into the local music scene. After signing a contract with the Del Couch Music Education Foundation and Howling Dog Studios, Døvydas has released two CDs in the United States, one of them titled "State Of Sunshine".


title: Døvydas

text: Dovydas is busking around Sarasota, Florida, where he asks people to sing and records them. One of his most popular videos is Tennessee Whiskey by Vere Hill.


title: Døvydas

text: Døvydas was influenced by American music recordings owned by his parents. Among his most notable influences, he lists Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Elvis Presley, James Brown, Jerry Lee Lewis, Nat King Cole and Dean Martin. Døvydas references Steve Vai as one of his favorite guitarists. Døvydas' impromptu rendition of the song "Tender Surrender" by Vai gained him significant success within the YouTube community and viewership has steadily increased since that time.


title: Sørensen–Dice coefficient

text: The Sørensen–Dice coefficient (see below for other names) is a statistic used to gauge the similarity of two samples. It was independently developed by the botanists Thorvald Sørensen and Lee Raymond Dice, who published in 1948 and 1945 respectively.


title: Sørensen–Dice coefficient

text: The index is known by several other names, especially Sørensen–Dice index, Sørensen index and Dice's coefficient. Other variations include the "similarity coefficient" or "index", such as Dice similarity coefficient (DSC). Common alternate spellings for Sørensen are "Sorenson", "Soerenson" and "Sörenson", and all three can also be seen with the "–sen" ending.


title: Sørensen–Dice coefficient

text: Sørensen's original formula was intended to be applied to discrete data. Given two sets, X and Y, it is defined as


title: Sørensen–Dice coefficient

text: where |"X"| and |"Y"| are the cardinalities of the two sets (i.e. the number of elements in each set).


title: Sørensen–Dice coefficient

text: The Sørensen index equals twice the number of elements common to both sets divided by the sum of the number of elements in each set.


title: Sørensen–Dice coefficient

text: When applied to Boolean data, using the definition of true positive (TP), false positive (FP), and false negative (FN), it can be written as


title: Sørensen–Dice coefficient

text: It is different from the Jaccard index which only counts true positives once in both the numerator and denominator. DSC is the quotient of similarity and ranges between 0 and 1. It can be viewed as a similarity measure over sets.


title: Sørensen–Dice coefficient

text: Similarly to the Jaccard index, the set operations can be expressed in terms of vector operations over binary vectors a and b:


title: Sørensen–Dice coefficient

text: This coefficient is not very different in form from the Jaccard index. In fact, both are equivalent in the sense that given a value for the Sørensen–Dice coefficient formula_6, one can calculate the respective Jaccard index value formula_7 and vice versa, using the equations formula_8 and formula_9.


title: Sørensen–Dice coefficient

text: Since the Sørensen–Dice coefficient does not satisfy the triangle inequality, it can be considered a semimetric version of the Jaccard index.


title: Sørensen–Dice coefficient

text: The function ranges between zero and one, like Jaccard. Unlike Jaccard, the corresponding difference function


title: Sørensen–Dice coefficient

text: is not a proper distance metric as it does not satisfy the triangle inequality. The simplest counterexample of this is given by the three sets {a}, {b}, and {a,b}, the distance between the first two being 1, and the difference between the third and each of the others being one-third. To satisfy the triangle inequality, the sum of "any" two of these three sides must be greater than or equal to the remaining side. However, the distance between {a} and {a,b} plus the distance between {b} and {a,b} equals 2/3 and is therefore less than the distance between {a} and {b} which is 1.


title: Sørensen–Dice coefficient

text: The Sørensen–Dice coefficient is useful for ecological community data (e.g. Looman & Campbell, 1960). Justification for its use is primarily empirical rather than theoretical (although it can be justified theoretically as the intersection of two fuzzy sets). As compared to Euclidean distance, the Sørensen distance retains sensitivity in more heterogeneous data sets and gives less weight to outliers. Recently the Dice score (and its variations, e.g. logDice taking a logarithm of it) has become popular in computer lexicography for measuring the lexical association score of two given words.


title: Sørensen–Dice coefficient

text: Finally, Dice is used in image segmentation, in particular for comparing algorithm output against reference masks in medical applications.


title: Sørensen–Dice coefficient

text: The expression is easily extended to abundance instead of presence/absence of species. This quantitative version is known by several names:


title: Signal Protocol

text: The Signal Protocol (formerly known as the TextSecure Protocol) is a non-federated cryptographic protocol that can be used to provide end-to-end encryption for voice calls and instant messaging conversations. The protocol was developed by Open Whisper Systems in 2013 and was first introduced in the open-source TextSecure app, which later became Signal. Several closed-source applications have implemented the protocol, such as WhatsApp, which is said to encrypt the conversations of "more than a billion people worldwide" or Google who provides end-to-end encryption by default to all RCS-based conversations between users of their Messages app for one-to-one conversations. Facebook Messenger also say they offer the protocol for optional Secret Conversations, as does Skype for its Private Conversations.


title: Signal Protocol

text: The protocol combines the Double Ratchet algorithm, prekeys, and a triple Elliptic-curve Diffie–Hellman (3-DH) handshake, and uses Curve25519, AES-256, and HMAC-SHA256 as primitives.


title: Signal Protocol

text: The Signal Protocol's development was started by Trevor Perrin and Moxie Marlinspike (Open Whisper Systems) in 2013. The first version of the protocol, TextSecure v1, was based on Off-the-Record Messaging (OTR).


title: Signal Protocol

text: On 24 February 2014, Open Whisper Systems introduced TextSecure v2, which migrated to the Axolotl Ratchet. The design of the Axolotl Ratchet is based on the ephemeral key exchange that was introduced by OTR and combines it with a symmetric-key ratchet modeled after the Silent Circle Instant Messaging Protocol (SCIMP). It brought about support for asynchronous communication ("offline messages") as its major new feature, as well as better resilience with distorted order of messages and simpler support for conversations with multiple participants. The Axolotl Ratchet was named after the critically endangered aquatic salamander Axolotl, which has extraordinary self-healing capabilities. The developers refer to the algorithm as self-healing because it automatically disables an attacker from accessing the cleartext of later messages after having compromised a session key.


title: Signal Protocol

text: The third version of the protocol, TextSecure v3, made some changes to the cryptographic primitives and the wire protocol. In October 2014, researchers from Ruhr University Bochum published an analysis of TextSecure v3. Among other findings, they presented an unknown key-share attack on the protocol, but in general, they found that it was secure.


title: Signal Protocol

text: In March 2016, the developers renamed the protocol as the Signal Protocol. They also renamed the Axolotl Ratchet as the Double Ratchet algorithm to better differentiate between the ratchet and the full protocol because some had used the name Axolotl when referring to the full protocol.


title: Signal Protocol

text: , the Signal Protocol is based on TextSecure v3, but with additional cryptographic changes. In October 2016, researchers from the UK's University of Oxford, Australia's Queensland University of Technology, and Canada's McMaster University published a formal analysis of the protocol, concluding that the protocol was cryptographically sound.


title: Signal Protocol

text: The protocol provides confidentiality, integrity, authentication, participant consistency, destination validation, forward secrecy, post-compromise security (aka future secrecy), causality preservation, message unlinkability, message repudiation, participation repudiation, and asynchronicity. It does not provide anonymity preservation and requires servers for the relaying of messages and storing of public key material.


title: Signal Protocol

text: The Signal Protocol also supports end-to-end encrypted group chats. The group chat protocol is a combination of a pairwise double ratchet and multicast encryption. In addition to the properties provided by the one-to-one protocol, the group chat protocol provides speaker consistency, out-of-order resilience, dropped message resilience, computational equality, trust equality, subgroup messaging, as well as contractible and expandable membership.


title: Signal Protocol

text: For authentication, users can manually compare public key fingerprints through an outside channel. This makes it possible for users to verify each other's identities and avoid a man-in-the-middle attack. An implementation can also choose to employ a trust on first use mechanism in order to notify users if a correspondent's key changes.


title: Signal Protocol

text: The Signal Protocol does not prevent a company from retaining information about when and with whom users communicate. There can therefore be differences in how messaging service providers choose to handle this information. Signal's privacy policy states that recipients' identifiers are only kept on the Signal servers as long as necessary in order to transmit each message. In June 2016, Moxie Marlinspike told "The Intercept": "the closest piece of information to metadata that the Signal server stores is the last time each user connected to the server, and the precision of this information is reduced to the day, rather than the hour, minute, and second."


title: Signal Protocol

text: In October 2018, Signal Messenger announced that they had implemented a "sealed sender" feature into Signal, which reduces the amount of metadata that the Signal servers have access to by concealing the sender's identifier. The sender's identity is conveyed to the recipient in each message, but is encrypted with a key that the server does not have. This is done automatically if the sender is in the recipient's contacts or has access to their Signal Profile. Users can also enable an option to receive "sealed sender" messages from non-contacts and people who do not have access to their Signal Profile. A contemporaneous wiretap of the user's device and/or the Signal servers may still reveal that the device's IP address accessed a Signal server to send or receive messages at certain times.


title: Signal Protocol

text: Open Whisper Systems first introduced the protocol in their TextSecure app. They later merged an encrypted voice calling application called RedPhone into the TextSecure app and renamed it as Signal.


title: Signal Protocol

text: In November 2014, Open Whisper Systems announced a partnership with WhatsApp to provide end-to-end encryption by incorporating the Signal Protocol into each WhatsApp client platform. Open Whisper Systems said that they had already incorporated the protocol into the latest WhatsApp client for Android and that support for other clients, group/media messages, and key verification would be coming soon after. On April 5, 2016, WhatsApp and Open Whisper Systems announced that they had finished adding end-to-end encryption to "every form of communication" on WhatsApp, and that users could now verify each other's keys. In February 2017, WhatsApp announced a new feature, WhatsApp Status, which uses the Signal Protocol to secure its contents. In October 2016, WhatsApp's parent company Facebook also deployed an optional mode called Secret Conversations in Facebook Messenger which provides end-to-end encryption using an implementation of the Signal Protocol.


title: Signal Protocol

text: In September 2015, G Data Software launched a new messaging app called Secure Chat which used the Signal Protocol. G Data discontinued the service in May 2018.


title: Signal Protocol

text: In September 2016, Google launched a new messaging app called Allo, which featured an optional Incognito Mode that used the Signal Protocol for end-to-end encryption. In March 2019, Google discontinued Allo in favor of their Messages app on Android. In November 2020, Google announced that they would be using the Signal Protocol to provide end-to-end encryption by default to all RCS-based conversations between users of their Messages app, starting with one-to-one conversations.


title: Signal Protocol

text: In January 2018, Open Whisper Systems and Microsoft announced the addition of Signal Protocol support to an optional Skype mode called Private Conversations.


title: Signal Protocol

text: The Signal Protocol has had an influence on other cryptographic protocols. In May 2016, Viber said that their encryption protocol is a custom implementation that "uses the same concepts" as the Signal Protocol. Forsta's developers have said that their app uses a custom implementation of the Signal Protocol.


title: Signal Protocol

text: The Double Ratchet algorithm that was introduced as part of the Signal Protocol has also been adopted by other protocols. OMEMO is an XMPP Extension Protocol (XEP) that was introduced in the Conversations messaging app and approved by the XMPP Standards Foundation (XSF) in December 2016 as XEP-0384. Matrix is an open communications protocol that includes Olm, a library that provides optional end-to-end encryption on a room-by-room basis via a Double Ratchet algorithm implementation. The developers of Wire have said that their app uses a custom implementation of the Double Ratchet algorithm.


title: Signal Protocol

text: Messaging Layer Security, an IETF proposal, uses "Asynchronous ratcheting trees" to efficiently improve upon security guarantees over Signal's "Double Ratchet".


title: Signal Protocol

text: Signal Messenger maintains the following Signal Protocol libraries under the GPLv3 license on GitHub:


title: Signal Protocol

text: There also exist alternative libraries written by third-parties in other languages, such as TypeScript.


title: The Giant Company

text: The Giant Company (formerly known as Giant Food Stores) is an American regional supermarket chain that operates stores in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia and provides online shopping and delivery to New Jersey through Giant Direct. The chain operates full-scale supermarkets under the Giant and Martin's banners along with small-scale urban stores under the Giant Heirloom Market banner.


title: The Giant Company

text: Giant is a subsidiary of Ahold Delhaize, which also owns similarly-named Giant Food of Landover, Maryland, often known as Giant-Landover; to distinguish from that chain, whose stores also operate under the Giant banner (albeit with a different logo), The Giant Company is often referred to as Giant-Carlisle or Giant/Martin's. A significant difference between the two chains is that Giant-Landover (of more urban Central Maryland) is unionized while Giant-Carlisle (of South-Central Pennsylvania) is non-union, with the exception of stores in Lewistown and Burnham, Pennsylvania. As of September 2020, the company operated 190 stores, 133 pharmacies, 105 fuel stations and 175 grocery pickup hubs.


title: The Giant Company

text: Sister companies include Food Lion, Stop & Shop, and Hannaford Supermarkets; which are all subsidiaries of Ahold Delhaize and carry many of the same private-label brands and products, such as "Nature’s Promise".


title: The Giant Company

text: The retail company launched in 1923 when David Javitch opened a small meat market in Carlisle, Pennsylvania called Carlisle Meat Market. In 1936, Javitch purchased a store in Lewistown, Pennsylvania, which he named the Giant Shopping Food Center. It was a major change from the original Carlisle Meat Market in that it was a total grocery store. The new store offered dry goods and perishables under one roof; a new concept at that time. The store was a success, and soon a decision was made to expand the original Carlisle store from a basic meat market into a full-fledged grocery store.


title: The Giant Company

text: The business also experienced a number of setbacks. Prior to purchasing the Lewistown store, Javitch purchased a store in Hagerstown, Maryland, that opened and closed within the same month. In addition, his main store in Carlisle was destroyed by fire, and the Lewistown store was completely flooded on two separate occasions.


title: The Giant Company

text: After each setback, Javitch started over and the stores continued to grow in the 1950s. Shopping malls became a new American experience with the population moving outside of the cities and into the suburbs, and Javitch took advantage of the strip malls dotting the landscape. As a result, the company embarked on a plan of steady growth, opening new stores in suburban areas. Javitch moved his downtown Carlisle store to a newly built structure at 100 North Hanover Street in 1953, renaming it Carlisle Food Market. The Carlisle store was very modern for its time, with features like a parking lot, baggers, and outside lighting. A second Carlisle Food Market location opened in 1964 at the Carlisle Plaza Shopping Center. The company continued to open other stores under the Giant Foods name. In 1968, the ninth store opened in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. David Javitch became chairman of the board, passing the presidency to his son, Lee Javitch. The company's growth accelerated with the purchase of the Martin’s chain (though these stores retain the Martin’s name to this day) in Hagerstown, Maryland. The company purchased the Martin's chain, based in Hagerstown, Maryland, in 1969, and expanded to New Jersey in 1970, opening three stores under the name Clover-Markets. In 1972, Nick Riso joined the company as vice president of sales and operations. A new merchandising effort began with the introduction of "Everyday Low Prices." By 1973, the company's 50th anniversary, the company operated a total of 18 stores. In 1974, David Javitch died, and Lee established the David Javitch Memorial Scholarship Fund to benefit children of Giant/Martin’s employees. As the 1970s closed, 24 stores were in operation. Nick Riso was appointed president, and Lee Javitch assumed the position of chairman. As the 1980s approached, the company had grown to a workforce of 3,400.


title: The Giant Company

text: In 1981, the Javitch family sold the company to Royal Ahold Corporation, a food retailing business based in Zaandam, the Netherlands. At the time of the agreement, Giant was operating 29 supermarkets. Throughout the 1980s, Giant continued to grow. In 1988, Allan Noddle assumed the position of President of Giant Food Stores, as the 50th Giant store opened. Noddle served as a spokesman in Giant's radio and television advertising campaigns.


title: The Giant Company

text: The late 1980s through mid-1990s saw a complete modernization of Giant and Martin's stores as remodels, expansions, and interior upgrades were completed in virtually every store within the chain. In addition, many new customer conveniences were added including in-store banks, pharmacies, Chinese kitchens, coffee shops, photo processing, and dry cleaning services. By the end of 1996, Giant had grown to 75 stores.


title: The Giant Company

text: 1997 brought major changes in the company's history as Giant merged with Edwards Super Food Stores, another Ahold-owned company. Upon completion of the merger, Giant was operating two divisions, with 23,000 employees in six states including Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. Additionally, Tony Schiano became president and CEO of Giant.


title: The Giant Company

text: As 2000 approached, Giant Food Stores underwent many technological changes. In addition, the first new prototype store opened in Hellertown, Pennsylvania and additional new stores opened with shopping conveniences for customers including gas stations, full-service floral departments, smoothie and juice bars, expanded deli and bakery departments, and organic produce. The new millennium brought about additional change within the organization, as Edwards transitioned to another Ahold-owned company, Stop & Shop. The Edwards stores throughout New Jersey and New York were remodeled and reopened under the Stop & Shop banner. With the major change, Giant concentrated on its plans to expand, and opened stores in new market areas such as Altoona, Pennsylvania. In 2001, Giant formed an alliance with another Ahold company, Tops Markets, LLC in Buffalo, New York. The new partnership, called Shared Services, was designed to allow both companies to continue to operate individually as separate and distinct businesses while partnering to support corporate functions. U-Scan self checkout registers were implemented company-wide, and a new marketing campaign, "Quality. Selection. Savings. Every Day" was introduced. Giant Food Stores also began sponsoring the Giant Center arena in Hershey, Pennsylvania, the home of the Hershey Bears hockey team, as well as the Skyview at Hersheypark.


title: The Giant Company

text: Major organizational change occurred in January 2003. Ultimately, Shared Services evolved to the extent that Tops was fully integrated into the Giant organization. On October 12, 2005, Giant opened the doors on a new "Super Giant" in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, in part due to competition from Wegmans supermarkets moving into the area. Another new Super Giant opened in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania on March 5, 2008 with a total area of , making it Giant's largest store in Pennsylvania.


title: The Giant Company

text: On September 6, 2006, Jack Clemens of Clemens Family Markets Inc. and his family sold 14 of their 22 stores to Royal Ahold, and eight to C&S Wholesalers. Thirteen of the Ahold stores were rebranded as Giant and one remained branded FoodSource (which was Clemens' upscale gourmet banner), while C&S immediately sold six of the stores to A&P, which re-branded them SuperFresh stores.


title: The Giant Company

text: On February 1, 2007, Carl Schlicker assumed responsibility as CEO of Giant/Tops, replacing the retiring Schiano. A year later, on July 10, 2008, Royal Ahold announced that Sander van der Laan, at the time the Executive Vice President of Marketing and Merchandising for Albert Heijn (a Dutch supermarket chain owned by Ahold), had been appointed president and CEO of Giant-Carlisle, succeeding Carl Schlicker who had been appointed president and CEO of Stop & Shop/Giant-Landover.


title: The Giant Company

text: On October 11, 2007, Ahold USA announced the sale of Tops Markets, LLC to Morgan Stanley Private Equity, separating Giant-Carlisle from Tops. It was announced on December 17, 2009, that Giant-Carlisle would purchase the Ukrops chain, expanding their market further into Virginia. These stores operated under the Martin's banner.


title: The Giant Company

text: On January 7, 2010, it was announced that Rick Herring would become the new president and CEO of Giant-Carlisle.


title: The Giant Company

text: Giant opened its first grocery store within the limits of the City of Philadelphia in 2011 on Grant Avenue. As of December 14, 2011, Giant and Martin's together have 92 gas stations and they have more than 180 stores in four states.


title: The Giant Company

text: On January 5, 2012, Giant announced it would acquire 16 Genuardi's Family Markets across the Philadelphia area in a $106 million deal.


title: The Giant Company

text: In January 2018, Nicholas Bertram became the new President of Giant/Martin's following Tom Lenkevich’s retirement.


title: The Giant Company

text: In November 2018, Giant-Carlisle announced that it would acquire 5 Shop 'n Save supermarkets from SuperValu, Inc. and operate them under its Martin's Food Markets banner. In 2019, the Giant also acquired one store from Ferguson & Hassler and three stores from Musser’s Markets in Pennsylvania.


title: The Giant Company

text: In 2019, Giant began the rollout of a robotic assistant named "Marty" to all of its locations. "Marty" travels unassisted around the store and checks for hazards. The addition of the robotic assistant to stores allows for employees to spend more time engaging with customers.


title: The Giant Company

text: In 2019, Giant introduced Giant Heirloom Market, a smaller store format designed for urban areas. The first Giant Heirloom Market location opened on January 25, 2019 in the Graduate Hospital neighborhood in Philadelphia. Giant Heirloom Market has also opened locations in the Philadelphia neighborhoods of University City and Northern Liberties. The Northern Liberties location also features an underground taproom.


title: The Giant Company

text: In August 2019, Giant announced it would open a two-story, flagship store in Center City Philadelphia as part of the Riverwalk development along the Schuylkill River. The store, which features dedicated shelf space for local vendors, an outdoor terrace, and a free parking garage, opened on March 19, 2021.


title: The Giant Company

text: In February 2019, the company launched its first e-commerce hub Giant Direct brand for online pickup and delivery orders.


title: The Giant Company

text: In February 2020, Giant Food Stores announced its plans to adopt a new name, The Giant Company, and update logos across its grocery retailer business locations. In August 2020, following the re-branding campaign, the company introduced a new slogan "For Today's Table", with the focus on family values.


title: The Giant Company

text: According to a number of sources, the grocery chain had temporarily to limit some of the vital products in the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic but over time resumed back to normal practice. The company's officials also used public social media channels to discourage hoarding. Among other measures were reserved shopping time for customers age 60 and older, changing store hours and contactless delivery for online grocery orders through Giant/Martin’s Direct.


title: The Giant Company

text: In March 2021, Glennis Harris joined The Giant Company as senior vice president of customer experience.


title: The Giant Company

text: In November 2021, the Giant company opened a new Giant Direct E-commerce Fulfillment Center (EFC) on Island Avenue in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A 124,000-square-foot facility operates as a distribution center for Giant Direct online orders as well as brick and mortar customers in Philadelphia and southern New Jersey with the claimed capacity of about 15,000 home delivery orders per week. The supermarket chain also partnered with robotics provider Swisslog to automate routine processes in its distribution center, which includes the installation of AutoStore’s robotic storage and retrieval system.


title: The Giant Company

text: In November and December, Giant opened three new supermarkets – two in Philadelphia (a 67,000-square-foot store at 2201 Cottman Avenue and a 46,000-square-foot store at 1403 South Christopher Columbus Boulevard) – and the third in Bucks county, a 72,500-square-foot store in the Cross Keys Place shopping center at 4377 West Swamp Road in Doylestown. On December 16, 2021, a Giant Heirloom Market location opened in the ground level of the former Strawbridge & Clothier flagship department store at the Fashion District Philadelphia. The company retrofitted the 32,000-square-foot space of the historical building while preserving its interior design elements.


title: The Giant Company

text: Giant also announced plans to open two more stores in Philadelphia – a 50,000-square-foot supermarket on North Broad Street and a 40,000-square-foot supermarket on South Broad Street at the corner of Washington Avenue.


title: The Giant Company

text: On January 6, 2022, Parag Shah was appointed as the company's VP-omnichannel merchandising center store.


title: The Giant Company

text: Martin's Foods is a chain of supermarkets operating in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and western Pennsylvania. Like Giant stores, they are operated by Giant-Carlisle and are owned by Ahold Delhaize. The stores are generally identical to Giant-Carlisle stores. In 1998, when Ahold purchased Giant-Landover, some Martin's stores were closed and sold to other chains to comply with Federal Trade Commission regulations. These locations included stores in Frederick, Carroll, Harford and Cecil counties in Maryland, where the Giant of Landover name was seen as more dominant. However, two stores in this area, in Eldersburg and in Rising Sun, were not sold and continue to operate as Martin's to this day.


title: The Giant Company

text: The chain, along with Giant-Carlisle, implemented the Bonuscard program in 2000. Around that same time, the chain began selling gasoline in front of its stores.


title: The Giant Company

text: Since August 2020, the chain's new slogan is "For Today's Table". "Quality. Selection. Savings. Everyday" and "We're with You" were previously used slogans. The majority of Martin's stores are open 24 hours, 7 days a week. Martin's is strong in its trade area, usually being first in market share.


title: The Giant Company

text: The Martin's name originates from a small chain based in Hagerstown, Maryland. Giant-Carlisle purchased Martin's while expanding in 1968. The name, once known only in Hagerstown, was expanded into nearby Waynesboro, Pennsylvania; Martinsburg, West Virginia; Frederick, Maryland; and Winchester, Virginia. The chain has since expanded further west into Maryland's Allegany County, into West Virginia's Jefferson and Mineral counties, into Virginia's Culpeper and Warren counties, and as far south as Petersburg, Virginia. The Martin's name was extended into west central Pennsylvania upon the purchase of corporate-owned Jubilee Foods stores; these stores use the Martin's banner instead of Giant to avoid confusion with Pittsburgh-based Giant Eagle, which has stores in many of those same markets. Martin's now operates stores in Altoona, Duncansville, Connellsville, Indiana, and DuBois. Despite these locations being located relatively close to Pittsburgh, the Connellsville location is the only store located within the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, and Martin's currently has no plans to further expand there, mainly due to Giant Eagle's tight grip on the market there.


title: The Giant Company

text: With the purchase of Ukrops Super Markets, Martin's moved even farther into central Virginia, with stores as far south as Petersburg and as far east as Williamsburg. Among the notable differences in the Richmond and Williamsburg stores were that they maintained the Ukrops recipes and brand in the bakery and prepared foods departments, and associates usually carried customers' groceries to their vehicles. These locations offered the Fuelperks branded fuel program instead of that offered at other Martin's stores. Martin's exited the Richmond metropolitan area in 2017, closing some stores and selling the remainder to Publix Super Markets. The latter was due to Ahold's merger with Delhaize Group, the parent company of Food Lion, which has several stores in the Richmond area, some of which were located in close proximity to the Martin's stores.


title: The Giant Company

text: In June 2020, The Giant Company accomplished its first solar project at the company's corporate headquarters in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, which included a 625kw rooftop solar array. Later that summer, the company added a seven-acre pollinator-friendly solar field at its Carlisle, Pennsylvania headquarters.


title: The Giant Company

text: In November 2021, the Giant Company made a long-term agreement with energy provider Constellation to supply its operations in Pennsylvania for select stores, fuel stations, and distribution centers with renewable energy. According to the report, the company is scheduled to receive 155 million kilowatt-hours of energy per year. As of 2022, the company was at the stage of getting permits and installation and planning to sell excess energy to the grid.


title: The Giant Company

text: In 2018, Giant became official grocer of the Philadelphia Phillies and in October 2019 the company became official partner of the Philadelphia 76ers. In 2018, Giant also entered into a multi-year agreement with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture to become the official sponsor of the Exposition Hall at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex & Expo Center in Harrisburg. The Giant Company has been engaged in other charity endeavors such as the Please Touch Museum, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and more.


title: The Giant Company

text: The company also collaborates with the Philadelphia Parks & Recreation Organization to finance sports and recreation projects.


title: The Giant Company

text: In January 2022, Giant donated $1million to Pennsylvania’s Harrisburg University of Science and Technology to fund its 23,000-square-foot Research and Education Center for Advanced Agriculture and Sustainability.


title: The Giant Company

text: The grocery chain has also a long-term philanthropic relationship with the Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) and supports the university's various associated projects, including Penn State Health Children’s Hospital, the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and Children’s Miracle Network (CMN).


title: Billie Jean King Cup

text: The Billie Jean King Cup (or the BJK Cup) is the premier international team competition in women's tennis, launched as the Federation Cup in 1963 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the International Tennis Federation (ITF). The name was changed to the Fed Cup in 1995, and changed again in September 2020 in honor of former World No. 1 Billie Jean King. The Billie Jean King Cup is the world's largest annual women's international team sports competition in terms of the number of nations that compete. The current Chairperson is Katrina Adams.


title: Billie Jean King Cup

text: The Czech Republic dominated the BJK Cup in the 2010s, winning six of ten competitions in the decade. The men's equivalent of the Billie Jean King Cup is the Davis Cup, and the Czech Republic, Australia, Russia and the United States are the only countries to have held both Cups at the same time.


title: Billie Jean King Cup

text: After the 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine, the International Tennis Federation suspended Russia and Belarus from Billie Jean King Cup competitions.


title: Billie Jean King Cup

text: In 1919, Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman had an idea for a women's team tennis competition. This was not adopted but she persisted, presenting a trophy at the 1923 annual contest between the United States and Great Britain, named the Wightman Cup.


title: Billie Jean King Cup

text: Nell Hopman, wife of the legendary Australian Davis Cup Captain Harry Hopman, later took up Mrs Wightman's original idea. In 1962, a British resident of the United States, Mary Hardwick Hare, presented a dossier proving that support for such an event was overwhelming, persuading the ITF that it was a 'good idea' to have a team championship played over one week in a different venue each year. 40 years after Wightman's idea of a women's Davis Cup, it became a reality. In 1963, the ITF launched the Federation Cup to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Open to all nations the competition became a resounding success.


title: Billie Jean King Cup

text: The inaugural event attracted 16 countries. The competition was supported by the top players right from the start. Held at the Queen's Club, in London, the first contest was between Australia and the United States. Grand Slam champions Darlene Hard, Billie Jean King, Margaret Smith and Lesley Turner all proudly representing their country on court. The United States would emerge the champion nation in the opening year. However, it was to be Australia in the early years, winning seven of the next eleven championships. Around 1980 the United States was able to establish some significant mark on the competition setting in future years a very high standard for others to compete against.


title: Billie Jean King Cup

text: The first Federation Cup had attracted 16 entry teams, despite no prize money and teams having to meet their own expenses. When sponsorship became available, the number of teams expanded dramatically, first by the Colgate Group in 1976, and, from 1981 to 1994 by the Japanese communications and computer giant NEC. In 1994, there were 73 nations competing, with the host nation of a Federation Cup week was now being required to build a special tennis complex, giving rise to what became known as the Federation Cup "legacy." The additional costs of each event could be offset with the host nations viewing their involvement as providing an opportunity to boost their national game.


title: Billie Jean King Cup

text: For the 1992, a regional group qualifying format was introduced. In 1995, the tournament's name was shortened to the Fed Cup, and a new home-and-away format was adopted as trialled by the Davis Cup, so that women could play for their country in their own country. There have been a number of smaller changes to the format since 1995. The format change implemented in 2005 incorporates an eight Nation World Group I and eight nation World Group II both playing home-and-away over three weekends throughout the year. Three regional groups compete and there are promotions and relegations based on results.


title: Billie Jean King Cup

text: While many nations enter the BJK Cup each year, only 16 countries qualify for the elite World Group and World Group II each year (eight in World Group and eight in World Group II).


title: Billie Jean King Cup

text: Once in the World Group or World Group II, four nations will be seeded in each. The decision as to which nations will be seeded is made by the BJK Cup Committee, according to the ITF BJK Cup Nations Ranking.


title: Billie Jean King Cup

text: At the levels below the World Group and World Group II, the BJK Cup nations compete in Zonal Competition events, which are split into three zones: The Americas Zone, the Asia/Oceania Zone and the Europe/Africa Zone. In each zone there are two groups, Group I being the higher and Group II the lower, except for the Europe/Africa Zone, which also has a Group III.


title: Billie Jean King Cup

text: Within the Group zonal regions, teams are split into pools and play against each other in a round robin format. The exact format of each Group event, and promotion and relegation between them, varies according to the number of participating teams. Two teams are always promoted from Europe/Africa Group I to that year's World Group II Play-Offs, while one team each go to the World Group II Play-Offs from Americas Group I and Asia/Oceania Zone Group I.


title: Billie Jean King Cup

text: In World Group and World Group II, and World Group and World Group II Play-off ties, each tie is contested in a best of five matches format, and is played across two days. On the first day there are two singles matches, and then the reverse singles matches take place on the following day. The final match is a doubles.


title: Billie Jean King Cup

text: In Zonal Groups I, II and III, ties are played over the best of three matches (two singles and a doubles).


title: Billie Jean King Cup

text: The First Round Ties in the World Group and World Group II are played on a home and away knock-out basis, and take place over a weekend in the early part of the year.


title: Billie Jean King Cup

text: World Group Semi-finals and Final are played over on a home and away knock-out basis, and take place over a weekend in July (Semi-finals) and September (Final).


title: Billie Jean King Cup

text: Play-off ties for World Group and World Group II will also be played on a home and away knock-out basis taking place in July.


title: Billie Jean King Cup

text: The choice of ground for First Round, Semi-finals and Play-off ties is decided by lot or goes automatically to one of the competing nations.


title: Billie Jean King Cup

text: As Groups I, II and III are played in a round robin format in all three zones, each event takes place at a single venue over one week. These are held in the first half of the year (to allow promotion of teams to the World Group II Play-off ties in


title: Billie Jean King Cup

text: The Heart Award is the ITF's annual "MVP" award related to the Billie Jean King Cup, which "aims to recognise players who have represented their country with distinction, shown exceptional courage on court and demonstrated outstanding commitment to the team." The award was inaugurated in 2009.