title: Sales promotion

text: There are different types of discounts available online versus in the stores. On-shelf couponing: Coupons are present at the shelf where the product is available. On-line couponing: Coupons are available online. Consumers print them out and take them to the store. Although discounts can be found online and in stores, there is a different thought process when shopping in each location. For example, “online shoppers are more price-sensitive because of the readily available low search cost and direct price comparisons”. Consumers can easily go to other websites and find better deals as opposed to physically going to various stores. In addition, buyers tend to refrain from purchasing bonus packs online because of the skepticism (of fraud and scams) that may come with the deal. Since “…bonus packs are more difficult than price discounts to process online, they are more difficult and effortful for the consumer to understand”. For example, a buy-one-get-one-free deal on a website requires more work than the same bonus pack offered in a store. Online, consumers have to deal with payment processing, shipping and handling fees, and days waiting for the products’ arrival, while in a store, the products are available without those additional steps and delays.


title: Sales promotion

text: Trade discounts (also called functional discounts): These are payments to distribution channel members for performing some function.


title: Sales promotion

text: Many discounts are designed to give consumers the perception of saving money when buying products, but not all discounted prices are viewed as favorable to buyers. Therefore, before making a purchase, consumers may weigh their options as either a gain or a loss to avoid the risk of losing money on a purchase. A “gain” view on a purchase results in chance taking For example, if there is a buy-one-get-one-half-off discount that seems profitable, a shopper will buy the product. On the other hand, a “loss” viewpoint results in consumer aversion to taking any chances. For instance, consumers will pass on a buy-three-get-one-half-off discount if they believe they are not benefitting from the deal. Specifically, consumers will consider their options because “…the sensation of loss is 2.5 times greater than the sensation of gain for the same value”.


title: Sales promotion

text: Impulse buying results from consumers’ failure to weigh their options before buying a product. Impulse buying is “any purchase that a shopper makes that has not been planned… [and is] sudden and immediate”. For example, if a consumer has no intention of buying a product before entering a store, but purchases an item without any forethought, that was impulse buying. Product manufactures want to promote and encourage this instant purchase impulse in consumers. Buyers can be very quick to make purchases without thinking about the consequences when a product is perceived to be a good deal. Therefore, sales companies “increasingly implement promotional campaigns that will be effective in triggering consumer impulse buying behavior” to increase sales and profits


title: Sales promotion

text: Many consumers read left-to-right, and therefore, compare prices in the same manner. For example, if the price of a product is $93 and the sales price is $79, people will initially compare the left digits first (9 and 7) and notice the two digit difference. However, because of this habitual behavior, “consumers may perceive the ($14) difference between $93 and $79 as greater than the ($14) difference between $89 and $75”. As a result, consumers often mistakenly believe they are receiving a better deal with the first set of prices based on the left digits solely.


title: Sales promotion

text: The right digit effect focuses on the right digits of prices when the left digits are the same. In other words, prices like $45 and $42 force consumers to pay more attention to the right digits (the 2 and 5) to determine the discount received. This effect also “implies that consumers will perceive larger discounts for prices with small right digit endings, than for large right digit endings. For example, in a $32-to-$31 price reduction, consumers will believe to have received a greater deal than a $39-to-$38 price reduction. As a result, companies may use discounts with smaller right digits to mislead consumers into thinking they are receiving a better deal and increasing profit. However, consumers also are deceived by the infamous 9-ending prices. “The right digit effect [also] relates to consumers’ tendency to identify 9-ending prices as sale (rather than regular) prices or to associate them with a discount.


title: Sales promotion

text: The Framing effect is “the phenomenon that occurs when there is a change in an individual’s preference between two or more alternatives caused by the way the problem is presented”. In other words, the format in which something is presented will affect a person's viewpoint. This theory consists of three subcategories: risky choice framing, attribute framing and goal framing. Risky choice framing references back to the gain-or-loss thought processes of consumers. Consumers will take chances if the circumstance is profitable for them and avoid chance-taking if it is not. Attribute framing deals with one key phrase or feature of a price discount that is emphasized to inspire consumer shopping. For example, the terms “free” and “better” are used commonly to lure in shoppers to buy a product. Goal framing places pressure on buyers to act hastily or face the consequences of missing out on a definite price reduction. A “limited time only” (LTO) deal, for example, attempts to motivate buyers to make a purchase quickly, or buy on impulse, before the time runs out.


title: Sales promotion

text: Although there are aspects that can determine a consumer's shopping behavior, there are many outside factors that can influence the shoppers’ decision in making a purchase. For example, even though a product's price is discounted, the quality of that product may dissuade the consumer from buying the item. If the product has poor customer reviews or has a short “life span,” shoppers will view that purchase as a loss and avoid taking a chance on it. A product can also be viewed negatively because of consumers’ past experiences and expectations. For example, if the size of a product is misleading, buyers will not want to buy it. An item advertised as “huge,” but is only one inch tall, will ward off consumers. Also, “the effects of personal characteristics, such as consumers’ gender, subjective norms, and impulsivity” can also affect a consumer's purchase intentions. For example, a female will, generally, purchase a cosmetic product more often than a male. In addition, “some…shoppers may be unable to buy [a product]…because of financial constraints”.


title: Sales promotion

text: Sales promotions have traditionally been heavily regulated in many advanced industrial nations, with the notable exception of the United States. For example, the United Kingdom formerly operated under a resale price maintenance regime in which manufacturers could legally dictate the minimum resale price for virtually all goods; this practice was abolished in 1964.


title: Sales promotion

text: Most European countries also have controls on the scheduling and permissible types of sales promotions, as they are regarded in those countries as bordering upon unfair business practices. Germany is notorious for having the most strict regulations. Famous examples include the car wash that was barred from giving free car washes to regular customers and a baker who could not give a free cloth bag to customers who bought more than 10 rolls.


title: Next Generation Delivery Vehicle

text: The Next Generation Delivery Vehicle (NGDV) will be a mail truck for the United States Postal Service. The contract award, made to Oshkosh Corporation in February 2021, is valued at $6 billion. Up to 160,000 vehicles will be built in a new facility.


title: Next Generation Delivery Vehicle

text: On January 20, 2015, the USPS released solicitation RFI-NGDV for the Next Generation Delivery Vehicle. On February 13, 2015, it was announced that General Motors was actively pursuing this new contract, which would have them provide the USPS with 180,000 new vehicles at a cost of at least $5 billion. Potential bidders had until March 5, 2015 to submit comments and pre-qualification responses. The USPS then selected 15 prequalified companies that would receive the RFP for prototype development, which was issued on April 14, 2015; General Motors was not on the prequalified list. The prototype RFP, including a preliminary specification for the NGDV, was issued on October 20, 2015, and updated on December 1, providing preliminary vehicle specifications and operating requirements.


title: Next Generation Delivery Vehicle

text: On September 22, 2016, the United States Postal Service awarded the NGDV Prototype Contract to six selected suppliers: AM General, Karsan, Mahindra, Oshkosh, Utilimaster, and a joint-venture bid involving Workhorse and VT Hackney. Half of the prototypes were to feature hybrid and new technologies, including alternative fuel capabilities. The prototypes represented a variety of vehicle sizes and drive configurations, in addition to advanced power trains and a range of hybrid technologies.


title: Next Generation Delivery Vehicle

text: The award to Oshkosh Defense was announced in February 2021. Oshkosh Defense is a wholly owned subsidiary of Oshkosh Corporation and the award is an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract and the competitively awarded contract allows for the delivery of between 50,000 and 165,000 vehicles over a period of 10 years. Under the initial contract USPS has committed to pay Oshkosh Defense $482 million to initiate engineering efforts to finalize the production vehicle design, and for tooling and factory build-out activities that are necessary prior to vehicle production. In June 2021, Oshkosh stated the company will assemble the new mail truck at a dedicated factory in Spartanburg, S.C., and will employ more than 1,000 local people.


title: Next Generation Delivery Vehicle

text: The Workhorse Group, an electric truck builder based in Loveland, Ohio and losing bidder, initially protested the award to Oshkosh, but later dropped the case one day before the case would be heard in court.


title: Next Generation Delivery Vehicle

text: Under the draft design specification issued in January 2015, the NGDV shall be a vehicle with a minimum life of 12 years and a target life of 20 years; the cargo area was required to enclose a minimum volume of with a minimum payload capacity of . Vehicles were required to be able to maintain a speed of on level roads, accelerating to that speed within 35 seconds. In addition, vehicles were required to maintain on a 2.5% grade and be capable of stopping, then ascending slopes of up to 20% grade in both forward and reverse. In the prototype RFP, these were updated to include an operating range of with a minimum of 600 stops and starts and a requirement for the cargo area to accommodate heights ranging up to the 95th percentile male without stooping while setting the maximum exterior height at . The maximum target unit price was US$35,000.


title: Next Generation Delivery Vehicle

text: Described as the 'duck-billed option', Oshkosh's NGDV has been designed to maximize interior volume and outward visibility for drivers who will be required to move against traffic in pedestrian-heavy areas. It is also tall enough for a person to stand inside and work. Current-generation automotive safety features employed by the design include air bags, a 360-degree camera, automatic emergency braking, and collision avoidance systems. The sliding door cab is air-conditioned.


title: Next Generation Delivery Vehicle

text: Around 50% of the first order will be battery-electric, the remainder using a 3.5 Liter 6-cylinder gasoline engine. Either powertrain option can be built for future orders, and ICE configuration models can be converted to battery-electric if required. Ford Component Sales will provide Oshkosh with key parts for both the battery-electric and ICE versions including the engine and transmission, plus suspensions and other components including cabin interiors. An earlier Oshkosh proposal had been based around the Ford Transit van.


title: Next Generation Delivery Vehicle

text: Oshkosh's design would have a fuel efficiency of just 14 miles per gallon, or 8.6 mpg when the air conditioning is on. The combined vehicle weight including payload is 8,501 pounds, just one pound over the EPA's threshold to be considered a heavy-duty truck, allowing it to avoid pollution emissions standards for light trucks. Senators Ed Markey and Martin Heinrich, joined by other members of Congress and environmental organizations, sent a letter criticizing USPS and Oshkosh for the vehicles' inefficiency and the use of incorrect data in their environmental impact statement.


title: Next Generation Delivery Vehicle

text: In February 2022, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the Biden Administration, Zero Emission Transportation Association, Climate Activists, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus of the Democratic Party criticized Oshkosh and the United States Postal Service for ignoring President Joe Biden's climate change executive order mandating that the U.S. government fleet of vehicles must be 100% all-electric vehicles by 2035.


title: Next Generation Delivery Vehicle

text: Despite the USPS and Oshkosh saying that the ICE-powered versions of the NGDV vehicles have been designed to be converted to battery-electric vehicles (100% all electric vehicles) if required, the criticism comes after USPS and Oshkosh announce that only 10% of the upcoming fleet of Oshkosh NGDVs will be manufactured as all-electric vehicles, while the remaining 90% of the NGDV fleet will be manufactured as low-emission internal-combustion engine vehicles.


title: Next Generation Delivery Vehicle

text: In April 2022, 16 states, six non-profit groups, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, the District of Columbia, and the city of New York filed a variety of lawsuits against the USPS demanding a more stringent environmental review or the acquisition of 100% electric vehicles.


title: Next Generation Delivery Vehicle

text: During the 2022 National Post Forum in May 2022, the USPS announced that it will increase the orders of the BEV version for the Oshkosh NGDV vehicles that will be used to replace the fossil fuel-powered Grumman LLVs. This means that at least 10,019 NGDV vehicles will be manufactured as all-electric vehicles, allowing the fleet to be more compliant with Biden's executive order that mandates 100% all-electric vehicles in the US government fleet of vehicles by 2035.


title: Next Generation Delivery Vehicle

text: In July 2022, USPS revised the May 2022 Oshkosh NGDV order to now have at least 50% of the NGDV vehicles to be manufactured as all-electric vehicles making the fleet even more compliant with Biden's climate change executive orders that mandates government fleets to replace their fossil fuel-powered vehicles with 100% all-electric vehicles by 2035.


title: Next Generation Delivery Vehicle

text: The Inflation Reduction Act allocated an additional $3 billion for the electrification of the NGDV fleet.


title: Hooper (film)

text: Hooper is a 1978 American action-comedy film directed by Hal Needham and starring Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, Jan-Michael Vincent, Brian Keith, Robert Klein, James Best and Adam West. The film serves as a tribute to stuntmen and stuntwomen in what was at one time an underrecognized profession. At the time of filming, Field and Reynolds were in a relationship, having met on the set of "Smokey and the Bandit" the previous year.


title: Hooper (film)

text: Sonny Hooper (Burt Reynolds) is the stunt coordinator on the action film "The Spy Who Laughed at Danger", directed by Roger Deal (Robert Klein) and starring Adam West (playing himself). Sonny's antics and wisecracks are a trial for the egotistical director and his officious but cowardly assistant, Tony (Alfie Wise). Years of numerous "gags" and his use of alcohol and painkillers are beginning to take their toll. Sonny lives with his girlfriend Gwen Doyle (Sally Field), whose father Jocko (Brian Keith) is a retired stuntman.


title: Hooper (film)

text: Sonny is coerced by a friend into performing at a charity show, where he meets Delmore "Ski" Shidski (Jan-Michael Vincent), a newcomer who makes a spectacular entrance. They become friends after a barroom brawl, and Sonny invites Ski to work with him on the film. They begin a friendly rivalry in which the dangerous stunts escalate. After a freefall from a record , Sonny quietly consults with his doctor, who warns him that one more bad fall could render him quadriplegic.


title: Hooper (film)

text: Roger decides to change the film's ending, adding a climactic earthquake complete with many explosions, fires and car crashes. Sonny and Ski would race through the carnage to a nearby gorge, where the bridge explodes before they can cross it. Roger suggests they rappel down one side of the gorge and up the other to safety, but Ski proposes jumping a car over the gorge, with Hooper adding that a rocket car can make the jump. Roger loves the idea, ignoring the warnings that Sonny and Ski might not survive the landing even if the car lands on its wheels. Max Berns, the movie's producer and a longtime friend of Sonny's, warns Roger that the film is already over budget and they can't afford the $100,000 Hooper wants to perform the rocket car jump. Roger tells Max he wants the rocket car ending and to make cuts elsewhere. Tony is sent to talk Hooper down from his high price, but fails.


title: Hooper (film)

text: Meanwhile, Jocko suffers a stroke, but denies the gravity of his condition. Seeing Jocko in the hospital motivates Sonny to promise Gwen that he will quit the business after the film wraps. Then, Sonny's assistant and best friend Cully (James Best) reveals the rocket car stunt and Sonny's secret visit to his doctor to a horrified Gwen. Sonny later tells Roger that he is backing out of the gag, but Max convinces him to reconsider, as no qualified stuntman is available, or willing, to replace him and Ski cannot do it alone. Having no other choice, and even after Gwen threatens to leave him, Sonny goes through with the gag.


title: Hooper (film)

text: Sonny and Ski perform the first part of the gag perfectly. As they arrive at the now-demolished bridge, they find that the rocket pressure is below the minimum needed to make the jump, but they attempt it anyway. The rocket car clears the gorge, but overshoots the prepared landing area and lands hard on the far side. Ski emerges from the car on his own, but the impact is more of a shock to Sonny's system. Gwen tearfully pushes her way through the gathering crowd as the chief engineer extracts Sonny from the car. Sonny slowly comes out of his daze and takes Gwen in his arms.


title: Hooper (film)

text: As Sonny, Ski, Gwen, Cully and Jocko view the bridge lying in the river and the gorge the rocket car had jumped, Roger comes up to them and tries to apologize for all the grief he gave him during filming, but he comes off as trying to justify himself. Sonny's response is to knock Roger out with a single punch. He, Gwen, Ski, Cully and Jocko then triumphantly walk off the set.


title: Hooper (film)

text: The film was initially called "The Stuntman" and Reynolds committed to the film early and inexpensively. Lamont Johnson was originally due to direct in 1975 but the project was shelved in 1976. The project was reactivated in 1977 with Hal Needham as director and with Lawrence Gordon joining later as executive producer.


title: Hooper (film)

text: It was rumored that the Roger Deal character in the film was a send-up of Peter Bogdanovich, who had made two films with Reynolds.


title: Hooper (film)

text: The "destruction of Los Angeles" sequence that concludes both "The Spy Who Laughed at Danger" and "Hooper" was filmed in the Tuscaloosa, Alabama area, with all but the final rocket car jump staged at the by-that-time-disused Northington General Hospital, a World War II military hospital near the University of Alabama. The huge stunt sequence was referred to by the crew as "Damnation Alley."


title: Hooper (film)

text: The rocket car jump took place on US Highway 78E between Sumiton, Alabama. and Graysville, Alabama over the Locust Fork River (Lat.33°42'17.84"N Long. 86°59'33.74"W). The bridge was in the process of being demolished due to damage from a traffic accident Involving a fuel truck.


title: Hooper (film)

text: "Hooper" enjoyed success at the box office being one of the top ten films of 1978, but ultimately the film was deemed a letdown in comparison to Reynolds' "Smokey and the Bandit", second only to "Star Wars" in box office gross the year before. "Hooper" opened in 97 theaters and grossed $1,049,831 in its opening week. It expanded to 454 theaters and grossed $4,614,456 the following week before expanding again to 849 theaters and grossing $9,437,484. After 70 days of release, "Hooper" had grossed $55 million. It was withdrawn from release by year end having earned Warners' rentals of $31.5 million. The film was reissued in May 1979 and earned Warners a further $3.4 million bringing its rental to $34.9 million and its gross to $78 million in the United States and Canada, nearly 40% less than the gross of "Smokey" in 1977 ($126 million). The film has a score of 63% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 19 reviews.


title: Hooper (film)

text: Janet Maslin wrote in "The New York Times", "Mr. Reynolds is one of the most effortlessly appealing movie stars around, but consolidating his following has always been a problem: There are fans who like to watch him tearing up the highway, and there are fans who enjoy his delightfully flippant self-mockery, with all the covert thoughtfulness it implies. This time, Mr. Reynolds has made a movie to please fans of all persuasions, and to please them a great deal." "Variety" wrote that the work of the four lead performers was "a delight" that "boosts an otherwise pedestrian story with lots of crashes and daredevil antics into a touching and likeable piece." Gene Siskel of the "Chicago Tribune" gave the film three stars out of four and wrote, "None of this makes very much sense. But sense is not the point in Reynolds-Needham films. Just thrills, spills, and Reynolds' leer. That's proving to be one of the most potent combinations in today's film industry."


title: Hooper (film)

text: Kevin Thomas of the "Los Angeles Times" praised the "excellent" script, "inspired " casting, and direction by Needham that "brings such affection and amiability to the film that its people seem real even when what they're doing is patently fake—not in their awesome stunts but rather in their off-hours shenanigans." David Ansen wrote in "Newsweek", "'Hooper' doesn't dig very deep into its Hollywood subject, but it's a good example of decent, no-frills filmmaking that lets a surprising amount of feeling seep through the cracks of its all-action formula." Gary Arnold of "The Washington Post" called it "a rousing and sweet-tempered sentimental comedy" that "should finally secure Reynolds a preeminent position in the affections of contemporary moviegoers." Penelope Gilliatt of "The New Yorker" was less enthused, calling the film "trite" and containing "frolicsome humor that is not contagious."


title: Hooper (film)

text: The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Sound (Robert Knudson, Robert Glass, Don MacDougall and Jack Solomon).


title: Hooper (film)

text: "Hooper" was also one of the first films to make use of the blooper reel credit roll. The technique showed a smaller screen of outtakes from the film to one side while the film's credits roll slowly up the other side. Needham refined this technique for later films such as "Smokey and the Bandit II", "Stroker Ace" and the "Cannonball Run" films. (In "Hooper" the credit reel was mostly a montage of many of the stunts performed in the film itself, owing to the film's tribute to the stunt industry.) This technique was later used in other films, including the CGI animated "Toy Story 2" and "A Bug's Life", for which the bloopers were intentionally created, and in TV series including "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" and "Home Improvement". Most of Jackie Chan's films also feature blooper reel credit rolls, due to his experience in "The Cannonball Run".


title: Chocolate milk

text: Chocolate milk is a type of flavoured milk made by mixing cocoa solids with milk (either dairy or plant-based). It is a food pairing in which the milk's mouthfeel masks the dietary fibres of the cocoa solids.


title: Chocolate milk

text: The liquid carbohydrates in milks like cow milk, or oat milk, may be sufficient on its own to mask the bitterness from the theobromine. However, most often additional sweeteners are added to make the drink taste sweet.


title: Chocolate milk

text: However, the particles from cocoa solids in homemade chocolate milk will quickly sediment to the bottom. So the solution should be shaken or stirred before consumption to avoid uneven concentration. This is not a problem in some ready to drink chocolate milks.


title: Chocolate milk

text: Sugar used in commercial chocolate milk are used as preservative, and the energy from the sugar also makes it a convenience food. It can also be made at home by blending milk with cocoa powder and a sweetener (such as sugar or a sugar substitute), melted chocolate, chocolate syrup, or a pre-made powdered chocolate milk mix. Other ingredients, such as starch, salt, carrageenan, vanilla, or artificial flavoring are sometimes added.


title: Chocolate milk

text: In New York City, school food officials report that nearly 60 percent of the 100 million cartons served each year contain fat-free chocolate milk.


title: Chocolate milk

text: Some nutritionists have criticized chocolate milk for its high sugar content and its relationship to childhood obesity. Because chocolate milk can contain twice as much sugar as plain low-fat milk from added sugars, some school districts have stopped serving the product altogether.


title: Chocolate milk

text: Dark chocolate milk has more cocoa solids than conventional chocolate milk. However, added sugar can still contribute to health problems.


title: Chocolate milk

text: At or below room temperature, chocolate is a solid, which does not dissolve, but instead remains a powdered solid suspended in milk. The suspension must be stabilized, otherwise, the powder will settle. Separation can be slowed by any of the following:


title: Chocolate milk

text: Carrageenan is used at very low concentrations to form an imperceptible weak gel that prevents the large, dense particles of chocolate from sedimentation.


title: Chocolate milk

text: Ready to drink chocolate milk should be refrigerated like unflavored milk, except some ultra-high temperature (UHT) pasteurized drinks, which can be stored at room temperature. However, it is generally served cold. The nutritional qualities of chocolate milk are the subject of debate: while some studies criticize the high sugar content of chocolate milk, other studies suggest that chocolate milk is nutritionally superior to white.


title: Chocolate milk

text: Ready to drink chocolate milk contains fewer antioxidants, caffeine, etc., due to oxidation from the water in the milk.


title: Chocolate milk

text: A number of studies have been issued in regard to chocolate milk nutrition. A 2005 study by the New York City Department of Education found that by removing whole milk and replacing it with low-fat or fat-free chocolate milk, students were served an estimated 5,960 fewer calories and 619 fewer grams of fat per year. However, more recent studies show that fat-free and low-fat milk may actually increase body fat and contribute to obesity. Whole milk may in fact be healthier for obese children than low-fat or non-fat milk.


title: Chocolate milk

text: An April 2007 study from Loughborough University indicated that chocolate milk can boost recovery when taken after athletic workouts. The study found that milk was an effective rehydration drink.


title: Chocolate milk

text: A November 2009 study conducted by scientists in Barcelona, Spain, suggests that regularly consuming skimmed milk with cocoa rich in flavonoids may reduce inflammation and slow or prevent the development of atherosclerosis. The study notes that its effects are not as pronounced as seen in consumption of red wine. However, in a single serving of cocoa, other researchers found 611 milligrams of gallic acid equivalents (GAE) and 564 milligrams of epicatechin equivalents (ECE), compared with 340 milligrams of GAE and 163 milligrams of ECE in red wine, and 165 milligrams of GAE and 47 milligrams of ECE in green tea.


title: Chocolate milk

text: A study published in 2009 compared chocolate milk to a commercial recovery beverage (matched for carbohydrate and protein content) administered to cyclists after intense workouts. The researchers found no difference in post-workout plasma creatine kinase levels and muscle soreness, nor in cycling time to exhaustion. However, being that chocolate milk is usually less expensive than commercial recovery beverages, the researchers concluded that chocolate milk "serves as a more convenient, cheaper ... recovery beverage option for many athletes".


title: Chocolate milk

text: A May 2010 sports nutrition study concluded that "exercise recovery during short-term periods of heavy soccer training appears to be similar when isocaloric CM (Chocolate Milk) and CHO (Carbohydrate) beverages are consumed post-exercise".


title: Chocolate milk

text: Yet another study in 2011 at Kean University in New Jersey concluded similar results in male soccer players, discovering that there was an increase in time to fatigue when chocolate milk was consumed. The Kean University study also viewed chocolate milk's effects on female soccer players undergoing morning and afternoon practices during preseason. They were either given the carbohydrate-electrolyte beverage or chocolate milk between morning and afternoon preseason practices. Following every afternoon practice, each athlete completed a shuttle run to fatigue. The study concluded that chocolate milk is just as beneficial as the carbohydrate-electrolyte beverage in promoting recovery in women.


title: Chocolate milk

text: Chocolate has oxalic acid, which reacts with the calcium in the milk producing calcium oxalate, thus preventing the calcium from being absorbed in the intestine. However, it is present in small enough amounts that the effect on calcium absorption is negligible (2–3%). As chocolate contains relatively small amounts of oxalate, it is unclear to what extent chocolate consumption affects healthy people with calcium-rich diets.


title: Chocolate milk

text: In a 2008 study, participants who consumed one or more servings of chocolate on a daily basis had lower bone density and strength than those participants who ate a serving of chocolate six times a week or less. Researchers believe this may be due to oxalate inhibiting calcium absorption – but it could also be due to sugar content in chocolate, which may increase calcium excretion. It is clear, however, that consuming foods high in oxalate – and in turn their effect on calcium absorption – is a more significant concern for people with oxalate kidney stones, which occur when there is too much oxalate in the urine. These people especially should reduce their oxalate intake and increase their calcium intake. However, the high magnesium content in chocolate is likely to reduce the risk of stone formation, because like citrate, magnesium is also an inhibitor of urinary crystal formation.


title: Chocolate milk

text: The Natural History Museum lists Irish botanist Hans Sloane as the inventor of drinking chocolate with milk. Sloane found the local Jamaican beverage consisting of cacao and water served to him in Jamaica unpalatable, but by adding milk to it, found it much improved. However, according to historian James Delbourgo, the Jamaicans were brewing "a hot beverage brewed from shavings of freshly harvested cacao, boiled with milk and cinnamon" as far back as 1494.


title: Social ownership

text: Social ownership is the appropriation of the surplus product, produced by the means of production, or the wealth that comes from it, to society as a whole. It is the defining characteristic of a socialist economic system. It can take the form of community ownership, state ownership, common ownership, employee ownership, cooperative ownership, and citizen ownership of equity. Traditionally, social ownership implied that capital and factor markets would cease to exist under the assumption that market exchanges within the production process would be made redundant if capital goods were owned and integrated by a single entity or network of entities representing society; but the articulation of models of market socialism where factor markets are utilized for allocating capital goods between socially owned enterprises broadened the definition to include autonomous entities within a market economy. Social ownership of the means of production is the common defining characteristic of all the various forms of socialism.


title: Social ownership

text: The two major forms of social ownership are society-wide public ownership and cooperative ownership. The distinction between these two forms lies in the distribution of the surplus product. With society-wide public ownership, the surplus is distributed to all members of the public through a social dividend whereas with co-operative ownership the economic surplus of an enterprise is controlled by all the worker-members of that specific enterprise.


title: Social ownership

text: The goal of social ownership is to eliminate the distinction between the class of private owners who are the recipients of passive property income and workers who are the recipients of labor income (wages, salaries and commissions), so that the surplus product (or economic profits in the case of market socialism) belong either to society as a whole or to the members of a given enterprise. Social ownership would enable productivity gains from labor automation to progressively reduce the average length of the working day instead of creating job insecurity and unemployment. Reduction of necessary work time is central to the Marxist concept of human freedom and overcoming alienation, a concept widely shared by Marxist and non-Marxist socialists alike.


title: Social ownership

text: Socialization as a process is the restructuring the economic framework, organizational structure and institutions of an economy on a socialist basis. The comprehensive notion of socialization and the public ownership form of social ownership implies an end to the operation of the laws of capitalism, capital accumulation and the use of money and financial valuation in the production process, along with a restructuring of workplace-level organization.


title: Social ownership

text: Social ownership is variously advocated to end the Marxian concept of exploitation, to ensure that income distribution reflects individual contributions to the social product, to eliminate unemployment arising from technological change, to ensure a more egalitarian distribution of the economy's surplus, or to create the foundations for a non-market socialist economy.


title: Social ownership

text: In Karl Marx's analysis of capitalism, social ownership of the means of production emerges in response to the contradictions between socialized production and private appropriation of surplus value in capitalism. Marx argued that productivity gains arising from the substitution of variable capital (labor inputs) for constant capital (capital inputs) would cause labor displacement to outstrip the demand for labor. This process would lead to stagnant wages and rising unemployment for the working class alongside rising property income for the capitalist class, further leading to an over-accumulation of capital. Marx argued that this dynamic would reach a point where social ownership of the highly automated means of production would be necessitated to resolve this contradiction and resulting social strife. Thus the Marxist case for social ownership and socialism is not based on any moral critique of the distribution of property income (wealth) in capitalism, but rather the Marxist case for socialism is based on a systematic analysis of the development and limits of the dynamic of capital accumulation.


title: Social ownership

text: For Marx, social ownership would lay the foundations for the transcendence of the capitalist law of value and the accumulation of capital, thereby creating the foundation for socialist planning. The ultimate goal of social ownership of productive property for Marx was to expand the "realm of freedom" by shortening average work hours so that individuals would have progressively larger portion of their time to pursue their genuine and creative interests. Thus the end goal of social ownership is the transcendence of the Marxist concept of alienation.


title: Social ownership

text: The economist David McMullen identifies five major benefits of social ownership, where he defines it as society-wide ownership of productive property: first, workers would be more productive and have greater motivation since they would directly benefit from increased productivity, secondly this ownership stake would enable greater accountability on the part of individuals and organizations, thirdly social ownership would eliminate unemployment, fourth it would enable the better flow of information within the economy, and finally it would eliminate wasteful activities associated with "wheeling and dealing" and wasteful government activities intended to curb such behavior and deal with unemployment.


title: Social ownership

text: From a non-Marxist, market socialist perspective, the clearest benefit of social ownership is an equalization of the distribution of property income, eliminating the vast disparities in wealth that arise from private ownership under capitalism. Property income (profit, interest and rent) is distinguished from labor income (wages and salaries) which in a socialist system would continue to be unequal based on one's marginal product of laborsocial ownership would only equalize passive property income.


title: Social ownership

text: Notable non-Marxist and Marxist socialist theorists alike have argued that the most significant argument for social ownership of the means of production is to enable productivity gains to ease the work burden for all individuals in society, resulting in progressively shorter hours of work with increasing automation and thus a greater amount of free time for individuals to engage in creative pursuits and leisure.


title: Social ownership

text: Social ownership is contrasted with the concept of private ownership and is promoted as a solution to what its proponents see as being inherent issues to private ownership. Market socialists and non-market socialists therefore have slightly different conceptions of social ownership. The former believe that private ownership and private appropriation of property income is the fundamental issue with capitalism, and thus believe that the process of capital accumulation and profit-maximizing enterprise can be retained, with their profits being used to benefit society in the form of a social dividend. By contrast, non-market socialists argue that the major problems with capitalism arise from its contradictory economic laws that make it unsustainable and historically limited. Therefore, social ownership is seen as a component of the establishment of non-market coordination and alternative "socialist laws of motion" that overcome the systemic issues of capital accumulation.


title: Social ownership

text: The socialist critique of private ownership is heavily influenced by the Marxian analysis of capitalist property forms as part of its broader critique of alienation and exploitation in capitalism. Although there is considerable disagreement among socialists about the validity of certain aspects of Marxian analysis, the majority of socialists are sympathetic to Marx's views on exploitation and alienation. Socialists critique the private appropriation of property income on the grounds that because such income does not correspond to a return on any productive activity and is generated by the working class, it represents exploitation. The property-owning (capitalist) class lives off passive property income produced by the working population by virtue of their claim to ownership in the form of stock, bonds or private equity. This exploitative arrangement is perpetuated due to the structure of capitalist society. From this perspective, capitalism is regarded as class system akin to historical class systems like slavery and feudalism.


title: Social ownership

text: Private ownership has also been criticized on ethical grounds by the economist James Yunker. Yunker argues that because passive property income requires no mental or physical exertion on the part of the recipient and because its appropriation by a small group of private owners is the source of the vast inequalities in contemporary capitalism, this establishes the ethical case for social ownership and socialist transformation.


title: Social ownership

text: Socialization is conceived as a process that transforms the economic processes and, by extension, the social relations within an economy. As such, it is distinct from the process of "nationalization" which does not necessarily imply a transformation of the organizational structure of organizations or the transformation of the economic framework under which economic organizations operate.


title: Social ownership

text: Marxists envision socialization as a restructuring of social relations to overcome alienation, replacing hierarchical social relations within the workplace with an association of members.


title: Social ownership

text: During the 1920s, socialists in Austria and Germany were engaged in a comprehensive dialogue about the nature of socialization and how a program of socialization could be effectively carried out. Austrian scientific thinkers whose ideas were based on Ernst Mach's empiricist notion of energy and technological optimism, including Josef Popper-Lynkeus and Carl Ballod, proposed plans for rational allocation of exhaustible energy and materials through statistical empirical methods. This conception of non-capitalist calculation involved the use of energy and time units, the latter being viewed as the standard cardinal unity of measurement for socialist calculation. These thinkers belonged to a technical school of thought called "scientific utopianism", which is an approach to social engineering that explores possible forms of social organization.


title: Social ownership

text: The most notable thinker belonging to this school of thought was the Viennese philosopher and economist Otto Neurath, whose conception of socialism as a natural, non-monetary economic system became widespread within the socialist movement following the end of World War I. Neurath's position was held in contrast to other socialists in this period, including the revisionist perspective stemming from Eduard Bernstein, the orthodox social democratic perspective of Karl Kautsky, the Austro-Marxism models of labor-time calculation from Otto Bauer and the emerging school of neoclassical market socialism. Neurath's position opposed all models of market socialism because it rejected the use of money, but was also held in contrast with the more orthodox Marxist conception of socialism held by Karl Kautsky, where socialism only entails the elimination of money as capital along with super-session of the process of capital accumulation.


title: Social ownership

text: Otto Neurath conceptualized a comprehensive view of socialization during the socialization debates. "Total socialization" involved not only a form of ownership but also the establishment of economic planning based on calculation in kind, and was contrasted with "partial socialization". "Partial socialization" involved the use of in-kind calculation and planning within a single organization, which externally operated within the framework of a monetary market economy. Neurath's conception of socialism was the initial point of criticism of Ludwig von Mises in the socialist calculation debate.


title: Social ownership

text: In the subsequent socialist calculation debates, a dichotomy between socialists emerged between those who argued that socialization entailed the end of monetary valuation and capital markets, and those who argued that monetary prices could be used within a socialized economy. A further distinction arose between market socialists who argued that social ownership can be achieved within the context of a market economy, where worker-owned or publicly owned enterprises maximized profit and those who argued that socially owned enterprises operate according to other criteria, like marginal cost pricing.


title: Social ownership

text: Social ownership and socialization is categorically distinct from the process of nationalization. In most cases, "socialization" is understood to be a deeper process of transforming the social relations of production within economic organizations as opposed to simply changing titles of ownership. In this sense, "socialization" often involves both a change in ownership and a change in organizational management, including self-management or some form of workplace democracy in place of a strict hierarchical form of control. More fundamentally, social ownership implies that the surplus product (or economic profits) generated by publicly owned enterprise accrues to all of societystate ownership does not necessarily imply this.


title: Social ownership

text: Additionally, there are two major forms of management or "social control" for socially owned organizations, both of which can exist alongside the two major modes of social ownership. The first variant of control is public management, where enterprises are run by management held accountable to an agency representing the public either at the level of national, regional or local government. The second form of social control is worker self-management, where managers are elected by the member-workers of each individual enterprise or enterprises are run according to self-directed work processes.


title: Social ownership

text: The exact forms of social ownership vary depending on whether or not they are conceptualized as part of a market economy or as part of a non-market planned economy.


title: Social ownership

text: Public ownership can exist both within the framework of a market economy and within the framework of a non-market planned economy.


title: Social ownership

text: In market socialist proposals, public ownership takes the form of state-owned enterprises that acquire capital goods in capital markets and operate to maximize profits, which are then distributed among the entire population in the form of a social dividend.


title: Social ownership

text: In non-market models of socialism, public ownership takes the form of a single entity or a network of public entities coordinated by economic planning. A contemporary approach to socialism involves linking together production and distribution units by modern computers to achieve rapid feedback in the allocation of capital inputs to achieve efficient economic planning.


title: Social ownership

text: The economist Alec Nove defines social ownership as a form of autonomous public ownership, drawing a distinction between state-owned and directed enterprises. Nove advocates for the existence of both forms of enterprise in his model of feasible socialism.


title: Social ownership

text: Public ownership was advocated by neoclassical socialist economists during the interwar socialist calculation debate, most notable Oskar Lange, Fred M. Taylor, Abba P. Lerner and Maurice Dobb. Neoclassical market socialist economists in the latter half of the 20th century who advocated public ownership highlighted the distinction between "control" and "ownership". John Roemer and Pranab Bardhan argued that public ownership, meaning a relatively egalitarian distribution of enterprise profits, does not require state control as publicly owned enterprises can be controlled by agents who do not represent the state.


title: Social ownership

text: David McMullen's concept of decentralized non-market socialism advocates social ownership of the means of production, believing it to be far more efficient than private ownership. In his proposal, property titles would be replaced by "usership" rights and the exchange of capital goods would no longer be possible. Market exchange in capital goods would be replaced by internal transfers of resources, but an internal and decentralized price system would be fundamental to this systems' operation.


title: Social ownership

text: However, by itself public ownership is not socialist as it can exist under a wide variety of different political and economic systems. State ownership by itself does not imply social ownership where income rights belong to society as a whole. As such, state ownership is only one possible expression of public ownership, which itself is one variation of the broader concept of social ownership.


title: Social ownership

text: The social ownership of capital and corporate stock has been proposed in the context of a market socialist system, where social ownership is achieved either by having a public body or employee-owned pension funds that own corporate stock.


title: Social ownership

text: The American economist John Roemer developed a model of market socialism that features a form of public ownership where individuals receive a non-transferable coupon entitling them to a share of the profits generated by autonomous non-governmental publicly owned enterprises. In this model, "social ownership" refers to citizen ownership of equity in a market economy.


title: Social ownership

text: James Yunker argues that public ownership of the means of production can be achieved in the same way private ownership is achieved in modern capitalism, using the shareholder system that effectively separates management from ownership. Yunker posits that social ownership can be achieved by having a public body, designated the Bureau of Public Ownership (BPO), own the shares of publicly listed firms without affecting market-based allocation of capital inputs. Yunker termed this model "Pragmatic market socialism" and argued that it would be at least as efficient as modern-day capitalism while providing superior social outcomes as public ownership would enable profits to be distributed among the entire population rather than going largely to a class of inheriting rentiers.


title: Social ownership

text: An alternative form of social ownership of equity is ownership of corporate stock through wage earner funds and pension funds. The underlying concept was first expounded upon in 1976 by the management theorist Peter Drucker, who argued that pension funds could reconcile employees' need for financial security with capital's need to be mobile and diversified, referring to this development as "pension fund socialism".


title: Social ownership

text: In Sweden during the late 1970s, the Meidner program was advanced by the Swedish Social Democratic Party as a way to socialize enterprises through employee wage earners' funds, which would be used to purchase corporate stock. Rudolf Meidner's original plan was to require Swedish companies over a certain size to issue shares equal to 20 percent of profits, which would be owned by wage-earner funds controlled by employees through their trade unions. This plan was rejected and a watered-down proposal was adopted in 1984, which left corporate decision making just as it was and limited the scope of employee ownership to less than 3.5% of listed company shares in 1990.


title: Social ownership

text: In his 2020 United States Presidential campaign, Bernie Sanders proposed that 20% of stocks in corporations with over $100 million in annual revenue be owned by the corporation's workers.


title: Social ownership

text: Cooperative ownership is the organization of economic units into enterprises owned by their workforce (workers cooperative) or by customers who use the products of the enterprise (this latter concept is called a consumer cooperative). Cooperatives are often organized around some form of self-management, either in the form of elected managers held accountable to the workforce, or in the form of direct management of work processes by the workers themselves. Cooperatives are often proposed by proponents of market socialism, most notably by the economists Branko Horvat, Jaroslav Vanek and Richard Wolff.


title: Social ownership

text: Cooperative ownership comes in various forms, ranging from direct workers' ownership, employee stock ownership plans through pension funds, to the weakest version involving profit sharing. Profit-sharing and varying degrees of self-management or "Holacracy" is practiced in many of the high-technology companies of Silicon Valley.


title: Social ownership

text: The earliest model of cooperative socialism is mutualism, proposed by the French anarchist philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. In this system, the state would be abolished and economic enterprises would be owned and operated as producer cooperatives, with worker-members compensated in labor vouchers.


title: Social ownership

text: The model of market socialism promoted in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was based on what was officially called "social ownership", involving an arrangement where workers of each firm each became members and joint-owners and managed their own affairs in a system of workers' self-management.


title: Social ownership

text: Contemporary proponents of cooperative ownership cite higher motivation and performance in existing cooperatives. Critics argue that cooperative ownership by itself does not resolve the structural issues of capitalism like economic crises and the business cycle, and that cooperatives have an incentive to limit employment in order to boost the income of existing members.


title: Social ownership

text: In the context of non-market proposals, social ownership can include holding the means of producing wealth in common (common ownership), with the concept of "usership" replacing the concept of ownership. Commons-based peer production involves the distribution of a critical mass of inputs and all outputs through information networks as free goods rather than commodities to be sold for profit by capitalist firms.


title: Social ownership

text: The economist Pat Devine defines social ownership as "ownership by those who are affected bywho have an interest inthe use of the assets involved", distinguishing it from other forms of ownership. Devine argues that this variant of social ownership will be more efficient than the other types of ownership because "it enables the tacit knowledge of all those affected to be drawn upon in the process of negotiating what should be done to further the social interest in any particular context".


title: Social ownership

text: The phrases "social production" and "social peer-to-peer" production have been used to classify the type of workplace relationships and ownership structures found in the open-source software movement and Commons-based peer production processes, which operate, value and allocate value without private property and market exchange.


title: Social ownership

text: In Soviet-type economies, the means of production and natural resources were almost entirely owned by the state and collective enterprises. State enterprises were integrated into a national planning system, where factor inputs were allocated to them by the Ministry for Technical Supply (Gossnab).


title: Social ownership

text: According to "The Great Soviet Encyclopedia", "socialist ownership" is a form of social ownership that forms the basis for the socialist system, involving the collective appropriation of material wealth by working people. Social ownership arises out of the course of capitalist development, creating the objective conditions for further socialist transformation and for the emergence of a planned economy with the aim of raising the living standards for everyone in society.


title: Social ownership

text: Particularly in the United States, the term "socialization" has been mistakenly used to refer to any state or government-operated industry or service (the proper term for such being either nationalization or municipalization). It has also been incorrectly used to mean any tax-funded programs, whether privately run or government run, like in socialized medicine.


title: Big in Japan (phrase)

text: Big in Japan is an expression that can be used to describe Western (especially North American or European) musical groups who achieve success in Japan but not necessarily in other parts of the world. However, the expression is commonly used ironically to mean successful in a limited, potentially comical, oddly specific, or possibly unverifiable way.


title: Big in Japan (phrase)

text: The phrase began to appear in several major Japanese foreign-rock magazines, especially "Music Life" magazine, in the late 1970s, and in most cases, the "big in Japan" artists became popular in Japan due to being featured by "Music Life". The concept predated the phrase; Neil Sedaka made it big in Japan with "One Way Ticket" before breaking through in his native United States. Sedaka noted that Elvis Presley, the biggest rock star in America in the late 1950s, never left North America/Hawaii (in part because his agent Colonel Tom Parker was an illegal immigrant), and this opened opportunities in foreign markets such as Japan for more obscure artists such as Sedaka to gain a foothold there. Jimmy Osmond, typically a side show to his older brothers The Osmonds in North America and Europe, cut several tracks in Japanese and received several gold records for his recordings. The Human Beinz, one-hit wonders in their native United States, scored two number one hit singles in Japan. In the summer of 1977, The Runaways, who struggled to make a mark in America, were the fourth most popular imported musical act in Japan, just behind The Beatles and Led Zeppelin.


title: Big in Japan (phrase)

text: Irish musical group The Nolans, who were virtually unknown in North America, sold over 12 million records in Japan, outselling The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Adele, and Ed Sheeran combined. They also became the first international act to have all of their releases hit No. 1 in the country, as well as the first to hit No. 1 on both the Japanese domestic and international charts.


title: Big in Japan (phrase)

text: American singer-songwriter Billie Hughes recorded the 1991 song "Welcome to the Edge" for the soap opera "Santa Barbara", but in Japan, the single became a No. 1 hit, selling over 500,000 copies and receiving Quadruple Platinum certification by the RIAJ.


title: Big in Japan (phrase)

text: In the late 20th century, notable "big in Japan" artists included several stadium rock bands from the United States, metal artists from Northern European countries such as Norway, Denmark, and especially Sweden and Finland (e.g. the rock band Hanoi Rocks), eurobeat artists from Austria, Germany and especially Italy, and UK rock artists.


title: Big in Japan (phrase)

text: Some bands have used their popularity in Japan as a springboard to break into other markets. Notably, the power pop group Cheap Trick, which had been known as the "American Beatles" in Japan for their appeal, achieved widespread success with their multi-platinum live album "Cheap Trick at Budokan". The band had previously struggled to break into the mainstream American market with their earlier albums. Furthermore, like Cheap Trick, some bands have lost their "big in Japan" reputations after gaining popularity in their respective homelands. The most notable example is Bon Jovi.


title: Big in Japan (phrase)

text: For example, Scorpions initially had only limited success in Europe and the United States, yet were "Big in Japan", as evidenced by their 1978 tour of the country and the double live album "Tokyo Tapes". Another example is The Ventures, a band formed in 1959 and touring Japan each year since 1965, having logged over 2,000 concerts there by 2006. "Being 'Big in Japan' turned into a positive sign of their closeness to the hearts of Japanese people, with the band embedded in national and local rock cultures."


title: Big in Japan (phrase)

text: Swedish band The Spotnicks toured Japan in 1966 after their song "Karelia" topped the Japanese charts the year prior, with hardly any promotion by the band. Around this time, the band's popularity in Europe had been waning due to changing musical tastes, particularly in their home country where they had relatively few hits, none of them topping the charts. They went on a few more tours there in the late '60s and occasionally toured there in the '70s, '80s and for the last time in 1998. While their popularity in Japan is small compared to The Ventures, "Karelia" is considered a classic song.


title: Big in Japan (phrase)

text: The phrase was used as the name of a UK punk band active from 1977 to 1982 (whose name inspired the title of a 1984 hit single by new wave band Alphaville) and was the name of the lead track on the Grammy-winning 1999 album "Mule Variations" by Tom Waits. The mockumentary "This is Spinal Tap" parodies this phenomenon when the band schedules a Japanese tour after discovering that their single "Sex Farm" is inexplicably selling very well there.


title: Big in Japan (phrase)

text: American band Mountain reformed for a successful tour of Japan in 1973. A live album titled "Twin Peaks" was released in 1974. Mountain bass player and vocalist Felix Pappalardi then worked with the Japanese band Creation in 1976.


title: Big in Japan (phrase)

text: After leaving Megadeth, guitarist Marty Friedman moved to Japan in 2003. There, he became a household name, with more than 600 TV appearances in 11 years and becoming a highly sought-after live and studio guitarist.


title: Big in Japan (phrase)

text: "Big in Japan" has also been used in sports, for instance, to describe Major League Baseball players who join Japanese clubs at the end of their careers, such as Daryl Spencer. Professional wrestler Stan Hansen, who had a modest career in North America, became one of the nation’s most notorious "gaijins" in the Japanese professional wrestling scene, having become the first foreigner to defeat Antonio Inoki and Giant Baba.


title: Big in Japan (phrase)

text: The derivative phrase "small in Japan", originally used for AC/DC, has been used since the early 1980s. In general, a small-in-Japan artist holds significant popularity in the Western world (in most cases the United States), and visits Japan many times for self-promotion, yet is almost unknown and unsuccessful in Japan despite being heavily featured by Japanese music media. An example of an internationally famous artist who is not well known in Japan is Adele.


title: Big in Japan (phrase)

text: In Japanese culture, the phrase "small in Japan" is also used to describe Japanese celebrities who are unknown, unsuccessful or "forgotten" in Japan but making their ways outside Japan. The phrase has been used to refer to musicians such as Dir En Grey, fashion models such as Ai Tominaga and Tao Okamoto, and Miss Universe contestants from Japan, most of whom are former unsuccessful fashion models, including Kurara Chibana and Riyo Mori.


title: Big in Japan (phrase)

text: In one exceptional case, "Digital Arts" magazine has used the phrase to describe the Xbox, a video game console that was a success all over the world except in Japan.


title: Hydrochoerus

text: The genus Hydrochoerus contains two living and two extinct species of rodents from South America, the Caribbean island of Grenada, California and Panama. Capybaras are the largest living rodents in the world. The genus name is derived from the Greek ὕδωρ ("hýdor", water) plus χοίρος ("choíros", pig).


title: Hydrochoerus

text: Capybaras are semiaquatic, found in and near lakes, rivers, swamps, and flooded savanna. Their diets are dominated by grasses. Adults weigh up to . The gestation period is 130–150 days, with two to eight (most commonly four) young born to females.


title: Hydrochoerus

text: Capybaras are highly social, living in groups of up to 100 and communicating through a variety of vocalizations. Breeding is polygynous, with males forming harems.


title: Hydrochoerus

text: Molecular results have consistently suggested "Hydrochoerus" is most closely related to "Kerodon" (the rock cavies), and the two evolved from within the Caviidae. This led Woods and Kilpatrick to unite the two into the subfamily Hydrochoerinae within the Caviidae. Based on use of a molecular clock approach, "Hydrochoerus" appears to have diverged from "Kerodon" in the late Middle Miocene (about 12 million years ago).


title: Hydrochoerus

text: The extinct North American species formerly recognized as "Hydrochoerus holmesi" is now assigned to "Neochoerus".


title: Hydrochoerus

text: Presently, capybaras live in northern South America and adjacent southern Central America (lesser capybara) and in the tropical to subtropical regions of South America (capybara). The fossil species inhabited Buenos Aires Province in Argentina ("H. ballesterensis") and the Caribbean island of Grenada ("H. gaylordi"). One species, "H. hesperotiganites" even ranged as far north as California. Fossils of unspecified "Hydrochoerus" have been found in Late Pleistocene to Holocene sediments of Curití, Santander, at an altitude of in the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes. Fauna found at the same site included the South American tapir ("Tapirus terrestris"), "Cryptotis" sp., collared peccary ("Tayassu tajacu"), white-lipped peccary ("Tayassu pecari"), and "Mazama" sp.


title: Miss Universe 2012

text: Miss Universe 2012 was the 61st Miss Universe pageant, held at the PH Live at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States on December 19, 2012.


title: Miss Universe 2012

text: At the end of the event, Leila Lopes of Angola crowned Olivia Culpo of the United States as Miss Universe 2012. It is the United States' first victory in 15 years, and the eighth victory of the country— the most in the pageant's history.


title: Miss Universe 2012

text: Contestants from 89 countries and territories competed in this year's pageant, surpassing the previous record of 86 contestants in 2006. The pageant was hosted by Andy Cohen and Giuliana Rancic, with Jeannie Mai as backstage correspondent. American rock band Train and Australian musician Tim Omaji performed in this year's pageant.


title: Miss Universe 2012

text: In March 2012, the Miss Universe Organization announced that the pageant was postponed to mid-December since the broadcaster, NBC, is unable to broadcast the pageant at the same time as the 2012 Summer Olympics and the United States presidential election. In April 2012, it was announced that Bangladesh would host the pageant on December 13, 2012. However, in July, the Bangladeshi president announced that they will not host the pageant because of financial constraints.


title: Miss Universe 2012

text: It was rumored that Guadalajara, Isla Margarita, Sun City, and Jakarta were to host the competition. However, in August 2012, the Dominican government received a proposal from the Miss Universe Organization to host the competition on December 11, 2012. The Dominican Republic had once hosted the Miss Universe pageant in 1977 in Santo Domingo. The Miss Universe Organization was considering hosting the final night at the Hard Rock Resort and Casino in Punta Cana. However, The Dominican government said that the country was not able to provide any kind of financial assistance to the pageant. Therefore, the Dominican Republic was not granted the hosting rights due to the country not being able to fulfill the requirements asked by the Miss Universe Organization.


title: Miss Universe 2012

text: The backing out of the Dominican Republic caused the Miss Universe Organization to host the pageant in Las Vegas, Nevada in December deviating from the customary mid-year scheduling of the pageant. On September 27, 2012, the Miss Universe Organization confirmed that the 2012 edition of the pageant will be at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, on December 19, 2012.


title: Miss Universe 2012

text: Contestants from 89 countries and territories were selected to compete in the competition. Seven of these delegates were appointees to their positions after being a runner-up of their national pageant or being selected through a casting process, while nine were selected to replace the original dethroned winner.


title: Miss Universe 2012

text: Adwoa Yamoah, the first runner-up of Miss Universe Canada 2012, was appointed to represent Canada after Sahar Biniaz, Miss Universe Canada 2012, withdrew due to personal reasons. Ioánna Yiannakoú, the runner-up of Star Cyprus 2012, was appointed to represent Cyprus after Ntaniella Kefala, Star Cyprus 2012, withdrew due to undisclosed reasons. Carola Durán, Miss Dominican Republic 2012, originally was supposed to compete in Miss Universe. However, Durán was dethroned after it was discovered that she was previously married and is divorced. Due to this, Dulcita Lieggi, the first runner-up of Miss Dominican Republic 2012, replaced Durán as the representative of the Dominican Republic in Miss Universe. Natalie Korneitsik, the first runner-up of Miss Estonia 2012, was appointed to represent Estonia after Kätlin Valdmets, Miss Estonia 2012, withdrew due to lack of sponsorship. Marie Payet, the first runner-up of Miss France 2012, was appointed to represent France due to a potential date conflict between Miss Universe 2012 and Miss France 2013, at which Delphine Wespiser, Miss France 2012, was contractually obligated to be present.


title: Miss Universe 2012

text: Channa Divouvi, the first runner-up of Miss Gabon 2012, was appointed to represent Gabon due to a potential date conflict between Miss Universe 2012 and Miss Gabon 2013, at which Marie-Noëlle Ada, Miss Gabon 2012, was contractually obligated to be present. Shilpa Singh, the first runner-up of I Am She 2012, was appointed to represent India after Urvashi Rautela, Miss Universe India 2012, withdrew due to being underage as well as being the reigning Miss Tourism Queen of the Year International at that time. Avianca Böhm, Miss Universe New Zealand 2012, was replaced by her first runner-up, Talia Bennett, due to citizenship issues. Isabella Ayuk, Most Beautigul Girl in Nigeria 2012, switched pageants with Damiete Charles Granville, Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria Universe 2012, due to being overage at Miss World.


title: Miss Universe 2012

text: Andrea Huisgen, Miss Spain 2011, originally was scheduled to participate in this edition. However, the Miss Spain organization fell into bankruptcy and the license to participate in Miss Universe went to a new organization called Miss Universe Spain. Although the rights to participate at Miss Universe was given to the Miss Universe Spain organization, the organization still allowed Huisgen to compete at Miss Universe after giving up her contract with Miss Spain.


title: Miss Universe 2012

text: The 2012 edition saw the debuts of Gabon and Lithuania, and the returns of Bulgaria, Ethiopia, Namibia, and Norway. Bulgaria, Ethiopia, and Namibia last competed in 2009, while Norway last competed in 2010. Egypt, Kazakhstan, Portugal, Slovenia, Turks and Caicos Islands, and the United States Virgin Islands withdrew. Aĭnur Tolyeuova of Kazakhstan withdrew due to being underage. Egypt, Portugal, Slovenia, Turks and Caicos, and the U.S. Virgin Islands withdrew after their respective organizations failed to hold a national competition or appoint a delegate.


title: Miss Universe 2012

text: Beginning in 2013, the Miss Universe Organization allows transgender women to compete in the competition following the consultations with the GLAAD Organization. The changes in the rules came after Jenna Talackova, a transgender woman competing at Miss Universe Canada 2012, was reinstated back into the Miss Universe Canada 2012 pageant. Talackova was initially removed from the competition by the organization because she "did not meet the requirements to compete". However, a month after the disqualification of Talackova, the Miss Universe Organization allowed Talackova to compete provided that "she meets the legal gender recognition requirements of Canada, and the standards established by other international competitions." Talackova eventually placed in the Top 12 of Miss Universe Canada 2012, and is also one of the four contestants to win the Miss Congeniality award.


title: Miss Universe 2012

text: Six years after the pageant rules were changed, Ángela Ponce of Spain made history in 2018 as the first transgender contestant competing at Miss Universe.


title: Miss Universe 2012

text: Same with 2011, 15 semifinalists were chosen through the preliminary competition— composed of the swimsuit and evening gown competitions and closed-door interviews. The internet voting is still being implemented, with fans being able to vote for another delegate to advance into the semifinals, making the number of semifinalists 16. However, the winner of the Fan Vote was not revealed during the final telecast. The top 16 competed in the swimsuit competition and were narrowed down to the top 10 afterward. The top 10 competed in the evening gown competition and were narrowed down to the top 5 afterward. The top 5 competed in the question and answer round and the final look.


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: The Manila Metro Rail Transit System (MRTS), commonly known as the MRT, is a rapid transit system that primarily serves Metro Manila, Philippines. Along with the Manila Light Rail Transit System and the Metro Commuter Line of the Philippine National Railways, the system makes up Metro Manila's rail infrastructure.


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: The MRT's 16.9-kilometer-route consists of 1 line and 13 stations (in operation). The first and the only line currently in operation, MRT Line 3 is jointly operated between the Metro Rail Transit Corporation, a privately owned company, and the Department of Transportation (DOTr) through a Build-Lease-Transfer agreement. Line 3 was opened in December 1999 and completed in July 2000.


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: Since then, most of the newly proposed rapid rail lines within Metro Manila that are not under the jurisdiction of the Light Rail Transit Authority is associated with the "MRT" brand. This includes the Metro Manila Subway (Line 9) and the elevated Line 7 which are being built as of .


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: There is currently only one light metro/light rail line in operation but there are three heavy rail lines under construction. In recent years, there are proposals to extend the system. The system is intended to have seven lines as of 2019, with at least 49 stations across of track. Until 2019, almost all proposed lines were given odd numbers.


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: Not included is MRT Line 7's proposed circumferential–radial network, as well as Lines 8, 10, and 11. These are still awaiting approval as of .


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: The system is open from 4:40 a.m. PHT (UTC+8) until 10:10 p.m. on a daily basis. During Holy Week, a public holiday in the Philippines, the rail system is closed for annual maintenance, owing to fewer commuters and traffic around the metro. Normal operation resumes after Easter Sunday. During the Christmas and year-end holidays, the operating hours of the line are shortened due to the low ridership of the line during the holidays.


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: During the construction of the first line of the Manila Light Rail Transit System in the early 1980s, Electrowatt Engineering Services of Zürich designed a comprehensive plan for a metro service in Metro Manila. The plan—still used as the basis for planning new metro lines—consisted of a network of rapid transit lines spanning all major corridors within 20 years. The study integrated two studies in the 1970s which recommended the construction of five heavy rail lines in Metro Manila, and another study in 1977 which was used as the basis for the LRT Line 1.


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: The first line, the MRT Line 3, began construction in October 1996 after the Metro Rail Transit Corporation, a consortium of local companies, was awarded a build-lease-transfer contract. In 1997, MRTC entered into a turnkey contract with Sumitomo Corporation and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for the line's construction. Sumitomo and Mitsubishi subcontracted EEI Corporation for the civil works, while a separate agreement was signed with ČKD Tatra for the rolling stock. Funding for the project was sourced from loans from various banks in Japan and the Czech Republic, with the help of JP Morgan. The Department of Transportation and Communications (later the Department of Transportation) hired SYSTRA for the consultancy services, while the MRTC hired ICF Kaiser Engineers and Constructors to provide program management and technical oversight of the services for the design, construction management, and commissioning.


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: The line partially opened on December 15, 1999, and became fully operational on July 20, 2000. The line remains the only operational line in the system.


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: Most stations of the system are elevated, with some at-grade and underground stations. The stations have a standard layout, with a concourse level and a platform level. Most stations of the MRT Line 3 have side platforms. Line 3 stations have a standard platform length of , enough to accommodate four-car train operations, although the line is currently operating with three-car trains. Future lines will have platform lengths ranging from , with the former being implemented in the Makati Intra-city Subway for six-car trains and the latter in the Metro Manila Subway for eight-car trains.


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: The platform and concourse areas are separated by fare gates. Concourse areas have ticket booths, customer service areas, and at least one stall serving food or drinks.


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: As of February 1, 2012, folding bicycles are allowed to be brought into Line 3 trains provided that the wheels do not exceed more than in diameter.


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: Presently, only light rail vehicles are operating in the system. Electric multiple units will be introduced when Line 7 and the Metro Manila Subway opens.


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: Line 3's rolling stock has a three-car length of , with each car having a length of and a width of . The first-generation cars (numbered from either 000 or 3000), built by ČKD Tatra in Prague, Czech Republic, are currently being used in the system. The first-generation trains were refurbished from 2008 to 2009, 2017, and since 2019 as part of the MRT Line 3 rehabilitation project. The second-generation trains (numbered from 3100), built by CRRC Dalian in Dalian, China, were procured in 2014 and delivered from 2015 to 2017 to expand the capacity of the line. However, the second-generation trains were met with controversy, causing it to not be regularly deployed in revenue service. The issues with the second-generation trains include its incompatibility with the signalling system, and the trains' tare weight weighing more than the required weight in the bidding documents. Nevertheless, the trains underwent trial runs in 2018 and 2019, and were seen in regular operations from 2020 to 2021.


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: Each car has a capacity of 394 passengers. A three-car train set can carry 1,182 passengers, while a four-car train can carry 1,576 passengers.


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: Trains on the MRT Line 4 will use monorail trains. The manufacturer of the Line 4 trains are yet to be determined.


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: Six-car electric multiple unit trains will be operated on the Makati Subway. The leading cars would have a length of , while the intermediate cars would have a length of . A six-car trainset is long and wide. The trains would be semi-automatically operated (ATO 2).


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: Hyundai Rotem was awarded the contract in January 2016 to supply 108 electric multiple unit train cars, configurable to 36 three-car train sets. Originally slated to be delivered by 2018, deliveries would only begin by September 2021 due to the absence of a depot, in which construction could not commence due to right-of-way and expropriation issues. A three-car train set is long. The trains are capable of operating at a six-car formation.


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: Like the trains on Lines 5 and 7, trains on the Metro Manila Subway will consist of electric multiple units. In December 2020, the DOTr entered into a contract with the Japan Transport Engineering Company and Sumitomo Corporation to supply thirty eight-car train sets, comprising 240 train vehicles. The trains will have a length of , with each car having a length of and a width of . The trains will also be equipped with automatic train operation, allowing automated driving. The trains are scheduled to be fully delivered by March 2027. It would be powered from overhead lines with a voltage of 1,500 volts, similar to the Makati Subway.


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: Various signalling systems are being implemented in the system. Fixed block systems are present in all lines except for some lines which use a moving block system.


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: The signalling systems across all lines have different suppliers. Line 3's signalling system was supplied by Bombardier Transportation. Line 7's signalling system, on the other hand, will be supplied by Hyundai Rotem, along with the communications system. The Metro Manila Subway will employ a signalling system based on communications-based train control provided by .


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: One of the key components of the signalling system is the automatic train protection system, intended to maintain a safe speed and operation on trains. Line 9 trains would have a minimal functionality of automatic train operation. Some lines would have other components that works with the signalling system, like automatic train supervision, which directs train operations.


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: Like the Manila Light Rail Transit System, the Manila Metro Rail Transit System uses a distance-based fare structure for all of its lines. Based on publicly available information however, the fares for the Makati Subway will be 20% to 25% higher than the fares of Line 3 and Line 1.


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: Two types of tickets consist: a single-journey ticket and stored value cards. Since the system's opening in 1999, magnetic tickets were used. The single-journey tickets are valid on the day of purchase, while stored value cards are valid for three months. The magnetic tickets have since been replaced with the Beep, a contactless smart card which is being used since 2015 in all Manila LRT and MRT lines. The Beep stored value cards are valid for four years from the date of purchase.


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: Since then, numerous proposals were planned to expand the system. As of , there are three lines under construction.


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: The MRT Line 7 is a , 14-station heavy rail line running in a northeast–southwest direction, starting from the San Jose del Monte station in Bulacan to the North Triangle Common Station in Quezon City. First proposed in 2001 and approved in 2004, the project was repeatedly delayed due to right-of-way issues. It was re-approved in 2013 and construction on the line began in 2017.


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: The MRT Line 4 is a monorail line linking Metro Manila and the province of Rizal. It was first approved in 2015. The project, at its current form, was approved in 2019 and is under the design stage. Construction on the line is slated to begin by 2022, and full operations are slated by 2028.


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: The Makati Intra-city Subway is a , 10-station fully underground line running in the center of Makati. It is built under a public-private partnership program between the Makati City Government and a private consortium led by Philippine Infradev Holdings. Construction began in 2018 and will be operational by 2025 or 2026.


title: Manila Metro Rail Transit System

text: The Metro Manila Subway is a underground heavy rail line. It was first planned in 2000, and again in 2014. Funded by a loan from Japan, construction began in 2019 and is slated to partially operate by 2025.


title: Copper(I) oxide

text: Copper(I) oxide or cuprous oxide is the inorganic compound with the formula CuO. It is one of the principal oxides of copper, the other being or copper(II) oxide or cupric oxide (CuO). This red-coloured solid is a component of some antifouling paints. The compound can appear either yellow or red, depending on the size of the particles. Copper(I) oxide is found as the reddish mineral cuprite.


title: Copper(I) oxide

text: Copper(I) oxide may be produced by several methods. Most straightforwardly, it arises via the oxidation of copper metal:


title: Copper(I) oxide

text: Additives such as water and acids affect the rate of this process as well as the further oxidation to copper(II) oxides. It is also produced commercially by reduction of copper(II) solutions with sulfur dioxide.


title: Copper(I) oxide

text: Aqueous cuprous chloride solutions react with base to give the same material. In all cases, the color is highly sensitive to the procedural details.


title: Copper(I) oxide

text: Formation of copper(I) oxide is the basis of the Fehling's test and Benedict's test for reducing sugars. These sugars reduce an alkaline solution of a copper(II) salt, giving a bright red precipitate of CuO.


title: Copper(I) oxide

text: It forms on silver-plated copper parts exposed to moisture when the silver layer is porous or damaged. This kind of corrosion is known as red plague.


title: Copper(I) oxide

text: Little evidence exists for copper(I) hydroxide CuOH, which is expected to rapidly undergo dehydration. A similar situation applies to the hydroxides of gold(I) and silver(I).


title: Copper(I) oxide

text: The solid is diamagnetic. In terms of their coordination spheres, copper centres are 2-coordinated and the oxides are tetrahedral. The structure thus resembles in some sense the main polymorphs of SiO, and both structures feature interpenetrated lattices.


title: Copper(I) oxide

text: Copper(I) oxide dissolves in concentrated ammonia solution to form the colourless complex [Cu(NH)], which is easily oxidized in air to the blue [Cu(NH)(HO)]. It dissolves in hydrochloric acid to give solutions of . Dilute sulfuric acid and nitric acid produce copper(II) sulfate and copper(II) nitrate, respectively.


title: Copper(I) oxide

text: CuO crystallizes in a cubic structure with a lattice constant "a" = 4.2696 Å. The copper atoms arrange in a fcc sublattice, the oxygen atoms in a bcc sublattice. One sublattice is shifted by a quarter of the body diagonal. The space group is Pnm, which includes the point group with full octahedral symmetry.


title: Copper(I) oxide

text: In the history of semiconductor physics, CuO is one of the most studied materials, and many experimental semiconductor applications have been demonstrated first in this material:


title: Copper(I) oxide

text: The lowest excitons in CuO are extremely long lived; absorption lineshapes have been demonstrated with neV linewidths, which is the narrowest bulk exciton resonance ever observed. The associated quadrupole polaritons have low group velocity approaching the speed of sound. Thus, light moves almost as slowly as sound in this medium, which results in high polariton densities.


title: Copper(I) oxide

text: Another unusual feature of the ground state excitons is that all primary scattering mechanisms are known quantitatively. CuO was the first substance where an entirely parameter-free model of absorption linewidth broadening by temperature could be established, allowing the corresponding absorption coefficient to be deduced. It can be shown using CuO that the Kramers–Kronig relations do not apply to polaritons.


title: Copper(I) oxide

text: Cuprous oxide is commonly used as a pigment, a fungicide, and an antifouling agent for marine paints. Rectifier diodes based on this material have been used industrially as early as 1924, long before silicon became the standard. Copper(I) oxide is also responsible for the pink color in a positive Benedict's test.


title: Copper(I) oxide

text: In December 2021, Toshiba announced the creation of a transparent cuprous oxide (CuO) thin-film solar cell. The cell achieved an 8.4% energy conversion efficiency, the highest efficiency ever reported for any cell of this type as of 2021. The cells could be used for high-altitude platform station applications and electric vehicles.


title: Welsh orthography

text: Welsh orthography uses 29 letters (including eight digraphs) of the Latin script to write native Welsh words as well as established loanwords.


title: Welsh orthography

text: The acute accent (), the grave accent (), the circumflex (, , or ) and the diaeresis mark () are also used on vowels, but accented letters are not regarded as part of the alphabet.


title: Welsh orthography

text: The letter "j" has been accepted into Welsh orthography only relatively recently: for use in those words borrowed from English in which the sound is retained in Welsh, even where that sound is not represented by "j" in English spelling, as in ("garage") and ("fridge"). Older borrowings of English words containing resulted in the sound being pronounced and spelt in various other ways, resulting in occasional doublets such as and ("Japan").


title: Welsh orthography

text: The letters "k", "q", "v", "x" and "z" are sometimes used in technical terms, like "kilogram", "volt" and "zero", but in all cases can be, and often are, replaced by Welsh letters: , and .


title: Welsh orthography

text: The earliest samples of written Welsh date from the 6th century and are in the Latin alphabet (see Old Welsh). The orthography differs from that of modern Welsh, particularly in the use of "p", "t" and "c" to represent the voiced plosives in the middle and at the end of words. Similarly, the voiced fricatives were written with "b" and "d".


title: Welsh orthography

text: By the Middle Welsh period, this had given way to much variability: although "b", "d" and "g" were now used to represent , these sounds were also often written as in Old Welsh, while could be denoted by "u", "v", "f" or "w". In earlier manuscripts, moreover, fricatives were often not distinguished from plosives (e.g. "t" for , the sound now written with "th"). The grapheme "k" was also used, unlike in the modern alphabet, particularly before front vowels. The disuse of this letter is at least partly due to the publication of William Salesbury's Welsh New Testament and William Morgan's Welsh Bible, whose English printers, with type letter frequencies set for English and Latin, did not have enough "k" letters in their type cases to spell every sound as "k", so the order went "C for K, because the printers have not so many as the Welsh requireth"; this was not liked at the time, but has become standard usage.


title: Welsh orthography

text: In this period, "ð" (capitalised as "Ð") was also used as a letter, interchangeable with "dd", such as the passage in the 1567 New Testament: , which contains both "ð" and "dd". Elsewhere, the same word is spelt in different ways, e.g. and .


title: Welsh orthography

text: The printer and publisher Lewis Jones, one of the co-founders of , the Welsh-speaking settlement in Patagonia, favoured a limited spelling reform which replaced Welsh "f" and "ff" – standing for and – with the letters "v" and "f" (as in English), and from "circa" 1866 to 1886 Jones employed this innovation in a number of newspapers and periodicals he published and/or edited in the colony. However, the only real relic of this practice today is the Patagonian placename Trevelin ("mill town"), which in standard Welsh orthography would be .


title: Welsh orthography

text: In 1987, a committee chaired by Professor Stephen J. Williams made further small changes, introducing a " j". The conventions established by these committees are not adhered to by all modern writers.


title: Welsh orthography

text: "N" and "S" indicate variants specific to the northern and southern dialects of Welsh. Throughout Wales an alternative system is also in use in which all consonant letters are named using the corresponding consonant sound plus a schwa (e.g. for ). In this system the vowels are named as below.


title: Welsh orthography

text: The circumflex (ˆ) is mostly used to mark long vowels, so "â, ê, î, ô, û, ŵ, ŷ" are always long. However, not all long vowels are marked with a circumflex, so the letters "a, e, i, o, u, w, y" with no circumflex do not necessarily represent short vowels; see .


title: Welsh orthography

text: The grave accent (`) is sometimes used, usually in words borrowed from another language, to mark vowels that are short when a long vowel would normally be expected, e.g. (a cough), (a pass/permit or a lift in a car); (smoke), (a mug).


title: Welsh orthography

text: The acute accent (´) is sometimes used to mark a stressed final syllable in a polysyllabic word. Thus the words (to empty) and (decline) have final stress. However, not all polysyllabic words with final stress are marked with the acute accent ( "Welsh" and "forward/onward", for example, are written with none). The acute may also be used to indicate that a letter "w" represents a vowel where a glide might otherwise be expected, e.g. (two syllables) "manly", as opposed to (one syllable) "root".


title: Welsh orthography

text: Similarly, the diaeresis (¨) is used to indicate that two adjoining vowels are to be pronounced separately (not as a diphthong). However, it is also used to show that the letter "i" is used to represent the cluster which is always followed by another vowel, e.g. (to copy) pronounced , not .


title: Welsh orthography

text: The grave and acute accents in particular are very often omitted in casual writing, and the same is true to a lesser extent of the diaeresis. The circumflex, however, is usually included. Accented vowels are not considered distinct letters for the purpose of collation.


title: Welsh orthography

text: As mentioned above, vowels marked with the circumflex are always long, and those marked with the grave accent are always short. If a vowel is not marked with a diacritic, its length must be determined by its environment; the rules vary a bit according to dialect.


title: Welsh orthography

text: The vowel "y", when it is pronounced , is always short even when it appears in an environment where other vowels would be long: (whole) . When pronounced as a close or near-close vowel ( or in the North, or in the South), "y" follows the same rules as other vowels: (day) (North) ~ (South), (wind) (North) ~ (South).


title: Welsh orthography

text: In Northern dialects, long vowels are stressed and appear in the final syllable of the word. Vowels in non-final syllables are always short. In addition to the rules above, a vowel is long in the North before a consonant cluster beginning with "s": (witness). Before "ll", a vowel is short when no consonant follows the "ll": (better) It is long when another consonant does follow the "ll": (hair).


title: Welsh orthography

text: In Southern dialects, long vowels may appear in a stressed penultimate syllable as well as in a stressed word-final syllable. Before "ll", a stressed vowel in the last syllable can be either long (e.g. "better" ) or short (e.g. "hole" ). However, a stressed vowel in the penult before "ll" is always short: (clothes).


title: Welsh orthography

text: Before "s", a stressed vowel in the last syllable is long, as mentioned above, but a stressed vowel in the penult is short: (measure) . Vowels are always short before consonant clusters: (saint), (hair), (witness).


title: Welsh orthography

text: While the digraphs "ch, dd, ff, ng, ll, ph, rh, th" are each written with two symbols, they are all considered to be single letters. This means, for example that (a town in South Wales) is considered to have only six letters in Welsh, compared to eight letters in English. Consequently, they each take up only a single space in Welsh crosswords. "Ll" itself had actually been written as a ligature in Middle Welsh.


title: Welsh orthography

text: Sorting is done in correspondence with the alphabet. For example, comes before , which comes before , which comes before . Automated sorting may occasionally be complicated by the fact that additional information may be needed to distinguish a genuine digraph from a juxtaposition of letters; for example comes after (in which the stands for ) but before (in which "n" and "g" are pronounced separately as ).


title: Welsh orthography

text: Although the digraphs above are considered to be single letters, only their first component letter is capitalised when a word in lower case requires an initial capital letter. Thus:


title: Welsh orthography

text: The status of the digraphs as single letters is reflected in the stylised forms used in the logos of the National Library of Wales (logo) and Cardiff University


title: Trocar

text: A trocar (or trochar) is a medical or veterinary device that is made up of an awl (which may be a metal or plastic sharpened or non-bladed tip), a cannula (essentially a hollow tube), and a seal. Trocars are placed through the abdomen during laparoscopic surgery. The trocar functions as a portal for the subsequent placement of other instruments, such as graspers, scissors, staplers, etc. Trocars also allow the escape of gas or fluid from organs within the body.