document_title: Pay Commission

question_text: who is the chairman of 7th pay commission

text: Pay Commission

text: First Pay Commission[edit]

text: The first pay commission was established on January, 1946 and it submitted its report in May, 1947 to the interim government of India.[1] It was under the chairmanship of Srinivasa Varadachariar.[2] The mandate of 1st (nine members) was to examining and recommending emolument structure of Civilian employees.

text: Armed forces emoluments structure was determined not by the 1st Central Pay Commission(CPC) but by a Departmental Committee which had service members.[3] The task of this committee was to make recommendations "in the structure of emoluments and benefits of service personnel in the light of the recommendations made by the pay commission for civilian employees".[3]:para 5, Chapter 48[4]:p 95–96 The First Pay Committee, set up after the 1st pay Commission, was called "The Post War Pay Committee for the armed Forces". The New Pay Code effective from 1 July 1947 was based on the recommendations of this Committee. The pensionary benefits were examined by separate committee called " Armed Forces Pension Revision Committee (1949–50)".

text: Second Pay Commission[edit]

text: The second pay commission was set up in August 1957, 10 years after independence[5] and it gave its report after two years. The recommendations of the second pay commission had a financial impact of ₹ 39.6 crore. The chairman of the second pay commission was Jagannath Das.The second pay commission reiterated the principle on which the salaries have to be determined. It stated that the pay structure and the working conditions of the government employee should be crafted in a way so as to ensure efficient functioning of the system by recruiting persons with a minimum qualification.

text: Raghuramiah Committee

text: The Departmental Pay Committee, set up after the 2nd pay Commission, was called, the Raghuramiah Committee(1960), which had service representatives. It examined armed forces emoluments and made recommendations .[3]:para 5, Chapter 48

text: Third Pay Commission[edit]

text: The third pay commission set up in April 1970 gave its report in March 1973 i.e. it took almost 3 years to submit the report, and created proposals that cost the government ₹ 144 crore. The chairman was Raghubir Dayal. The third pay commission (3CPC) added three very important concepts of inclusiveness, comprehensibility, and adequacy for pay structure to be sound in nature. The third pay commission went beyond the idea of minimum subsistence that was adopted by the first pay commission. The commission report say that the true test which the government should adopt is to know whether the services are attractive and it retains the people it needs and if these persons are satisfied by that they are getting paid.

text: Third Pay Commission and the Armed forces[edit]

text: The 3CPC was the first Pay Commission without military member.[6] Its "Terms of Reference" however included "examination of the structure of emoluments, the retirement benefits and terms and conditions of the Defence Forces personnel".[7]:para 2.3.5 The Commission, established 'relativity' of Defence Forces officers and Indian Police Service(IPS) officers, whose wages till for similar years of service were less than that of Armed Forces officers with similar years of service, noted that "the relativity" with IPS was "only a working method of devising scales of pay for the service officers which did not mean that the functional role of the two services were similar". The Commission, ambiguously "qualified this statement by mentioning that the job profile of IPS officers was the closest civilian analogue vis-à-vis infantry officers and that a working relationship did exist between the two organizations. While establishing some sort of parity, and relativity with IPS, the Commission, without an explanation, noted "that the pay structure of the Indian Administrative Service with its long pay scales was particularly unsuitable for service officers", even though the pay structures of armed forces and Indian Civil Service had been, as a matter of established practice, at par.[7]:para 2.3.5

text: It controversially recommended that military pension be de-linked from military service conditions to conform to civil pensions. On the basis of the 3 CPC recommendations Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister in the Indian National Congress(INC) government, took an "ex-parte" decision and terminated One Rank, One Pension (OROP), the basis of military pensions till then.[6]:para 2 and 10.2[8]:p 1

text: In 1973, the Government, implemented the following changes in pension and service conditions of the Armed Forces: [1] Increased the pension of civilians, who retired at 58, by 20 percent, from 30 to 50 percent; [2] reduced the pension of soldier, Non Commissioned Officers (NCOs), and Junior commissioned Officers (JCOs), by 20 percent, from 70 to 50 percent of basic pay, with the caveat that for full pension the minimum service was 33 years; [3] an exception was made for the armed forces, the mandatory service for full pension was reduced to 25 year. But as soldiers in 1973 retired after 15 years service, at the age of 33-36, they got less than 30 percent of the pay as pension; [4] soldiers pension was thus decreased not by 20 percent but 40 percent from 70 to 30 percent. The government in addition to down grading military pensions down graded the status of soldier by equating "infantry soldier with less than three years’ service" with a "semi-skilled/unskilled labour". These decisions were based on the recommendation, and endorsement of K B Lall, Defence Secretary. The decision was announced two months after Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, the victor of the 1971 war, retired from service.[9] The reason for depressing the armed Forces pensions given by the government was to ensure ‘equivalence’ of Armed Forces pensions with civilians.[10][11]

text: The reduction in armed Forces pension, and down grading its status immediately following the decisive Bangladesh war, was, not unexpectedly, unpopular with the armed Forces, and has since become a cause of persistent grievance, and distrust. Conflating civil and military pensions, and reduction of Armed forces Pension, by the Indira Gandhi Government, has been invoked to rally Armed Forces Veterans, most recently during the OROP protests.[6] :para 2 and 10.2 [12]

text: Fourth Pay Commission[edit]

text: Constituted in June 1983, its report was given in three phases within four years and the financial burden to the government was ₹ 1282 crore.[13] This commission has been set up on dated 18.3.1987, Gazette of India (Extra ordinary) Notification No 91 dated 18.3.1987, The chairman of fourth pay commission was P N Singhal.

text: Fourth Pay Commission and the Armed forces[edit]

text: Indian National Congress (I) Government, headed by Rajiv Gandhi, in the wake of the 4th CPC to implemented concept of 'Rank Pay' for armed forces officer. Rank Pay affected all officers ranks from second lieutenant to brigadier in the army, and equivalent ranks in the Indian Air Force and the Indian Navy. The 'rank pay', which varied from 200 to 1200, was not an additional pay, but amount deducted from their pay grade. This ended long established err Military Indian Police service equations. Police Officers, and officers from other AIS officers, with 14 years of service, who were formerly in the same pay grade as majors, with 14 years service, were equated to Brigadiers, on the basis of the new pay grades. Maj General Satbir Singh an expert on Police- military rank structures and pay grades, called rank pay, “rarest of rare fraud, perjury and Injustice to the defence forces”.[12]

text: He explained, "How could it be allowed that the first military rank of Second Lieutenant along with two promotional ranks of Lieutenant and Captain were all clubbed with the first civilian rank?". Similarly at the level of major "rank pay' had the effect of promoting civilian pay grades equal to major till the 3 CPC, to that of Colonels."[12] The rank pay became an issue of considerable resentment in the armed forces, and cause of general distrust of the pay commissions, and the Congress I Government. Eventually, Maj AK Dhanapalan, a retired major, litigates 'rank Pay'. After protracted legal struggle high court, despite many appeals, in a landmark decision declares the 'rank pay' concept illegal. In its judgment the SC notes that the 'rank pay' was wrongly deducted from basic pay and ordered re-fixation of pay "with effect from" and not "as on" 1 January 1986.[14]

text: Fifth Pay Commission[edit]

text: The notification for setting up the Fifth CPC was issued on 9 April 1994, but started functioning only on 2 May 1994, with the assumption of charge by the Member Secretary.[15]:paras 1.63 The chairman of fifth pay commission was Justice S. Ratnavel Pandian. the members were: Suresh Tendulkar, Professor Delhi school of Economics; and M.K Kaw, Indian Administrative Service. In comparison, First CPC had nine members including military members, the second had six members including a military member, the 3 CPC and 4 CPC had five, but no military member. The fifth had three members, but no military member.[15]:para 1.11 The first had no member secretary, just a secretary. After the 1 CPC all pay commissions have had a member secretary, and invariably from the IAS.[15]:para 1.12

text: The 5 CPC report, a massive tome, had nine part in 172 chapters. It took three years with a sanctioned staff 107, which ballooned to 141, to prepare the report.[15]:page13 By way of comparison, 4 CPC took 209 bureaucrat Accounts Service, Indian Revenue Service, Indian Economic Service, Central Secretariat Service, Border Security Force, Geological Survey of India, Central Public Works Department and National Informatics Centre.[15]:paras 1.63It cost ₹ 17,000 crore.

text: Part VI of report dealt with pensions and retirement benefits for civilian; Part VII dealt with pay scales and allowances of Armed Forces personnel. Part IX is the concluding part of the Report.[15]:page13

text: Financial Impact of Fifth pay commission[edit]

text: With the implementation of the Fifth Pay commission a huge burden was taken up by the central government. It declared hike in salary of about 3.3 million central government employees. Further, it also insisted on pay revision at the state government level. The Fifth pay commission disturbed the financial situation of both the Central and the State Governments and led to a hue and cry after its implementation. The Central government's wage bill before the implementation of the commission’s recommendations was 218.85 billion in 1996-1997 which also included pension dues, and by 1999 it shot up by about 99% and the burden on the exchequer was about to ₹ 43,568 crore in 1999-2000. With regard to the state government the bill went up by 74%. The state governments which paid about Rs 515.48 billion in 1997 as salaries, had to pay Rs 898.13 billion in 1999 as salaries. This clearly indicates the burden on the state and the central government. Many economists[who?] say that about 90% of the revenue of the state went in as salaries[verification needed]. 13 states of India were not in a position to pay salaries to its employees due to the hike and hence the central government’s help was sought[citation needed].

text: Other recommendations[edit]

text: One of its recommendations was to slash government workforce by about 30%. It also recommended to reduce the number of pay scale from 51 to 34 and to not recruit to about 3,50,000 vacant position in the government. None of these recommendations were implemented.[16]

text: Criticisms by World Bank[edit]

text: The World Bank criticized the Fifth Pay Commission, stating that the Fifth Pay Commission is the 'single largest adverse shock' to the public finance of the nation. It also said that the number of employees of the government was 'not unduly' large, but there was a 'pronounced imbalance' in the skills. It noted that about 93% of the employees were of 3rd or 4th grade.

text: Fifth Pay Commission and the Armed forces[edit]

text: Terms of Reference[edit]

text: The 4CPC, for unknown reasons, had no separate TORs for the Armed Forces. The 5 CPC, however, for the first time was asked to examine the terms and conditions of the Armed Forces, and make suggestions for what is "considered desirable and feasible".[15]:para 1.2 Thus, the pay commission noted ambiguously that "even their recommendations with regard to changes in the structure of emoluments including death cum gratuity in respect of Armed Forces Personnel had to be made with due regard to the terms and conditions of their service" [15]:para 1.2

text: Lateral Transfer[edit]

text: The 5 CPC, in its report submitted in January 1997, recommended increase in posts for Armed Forces personnel in Group C and D in Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) from 10 to 25percent. For Short Service Commissioned Officers, on completion of their military service, 5 CPC recommended earmarking 25 percent officer's post in the CAPFs. These recommendationsby the pay Commission were intended to reduce the defence pension bill; save on training and recruitment costs; provide trained manpower to government departments; and provide soldiers a second career after their term of military engagement.[17]:p 139, para 2.4.4

text: These recommendations of the Pay Commission were, however, mostly ignored by the Janata Dal (United Front), and BJP Government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee that followed. Mulayam Singh Yadav, Defence Minister (1 June 1996 – 19 March 1998), Indrajit Gupta (Communist Party of India-United Front), Home Minister (29 June 1996 – 19 March 1998), and L K Advani (BJP), Home Minister (19 March 1998 – 22 May 2004) did little to implement these recommendations. The problem festered, and the pension bill ballooned.[17]:p 139, para 2.4.4

text: Sixth Pay Commission[edit]

text: In July 2006, the Cabinet approved setting up of the sixth pay commission. This commission has been set up under Justice B.N.Srikrishna with a timeframe of 18 months. The cost of hikes in salaries is anticipated to be about ₹ 20,000 crore for a total of 5.5 million government employees as per media speculation on the 6th Pay Commission, the report of which is expected to be handed over in late March/early April 2008. The employees had threatened to go on a nationwide strike if the government failed to hike their salaries. Reasons for the demand of hikes include rising inflation and rising pay in the private sector due to the forces of Globalization. The Class 1 officers in India are grossly underpaid with an IAS officer with 25 years of work experience earning just Rs.55,000 as his take home pay. Pay arrears are due from January 2006 till September 2008. Almost all the Government employees received 40% of the pay arrears in 2008 and balance 60% arrears (as promised by Government) has also been credited in Government employees account in 2009. The Sixth Pay Commission mainly focused on removing ambiguity in respect of various pay scales and mainly focused on reducing number of pay scales and bring the idea of pay bands. It recommended for removal of Group-D cadre.

text: Seventh Pay Commission[edit]

text: The Government of India has initiated the process to constitute the 7th Central Pay Commission along with finalisation of its Terms of Reference, the composition and the possible timeframe for submission of its Report.[18] On September 25, 2013 then Finance Minister P Chidambaram announced that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has approved the constitution of the 7th Pay Commission. Its recommendations are likely to be implemented with effect from January 1, 2016. Justice A.K Mathur will be heading the Seventh Pay Commission, announcement of which was done on 4 February 2014.[19] On 29 June 2016, Government accepted the recommendation of 7th Pay Commission Report with meager increase in salary of 14% after six month of intense evaluation and successive discussions. The Finance Minister of India claimed it historical increase of salaries due to little knowledge of Sixth Pay Commission.

text: Composition[edit]

text:
Name
Designation
Role in Commission

Ashok Kumar Mathur[20]
Retired Judge, Supreme Court and Retired Chairman, Armed Forces Tribunal
Chairman

Vivek Rae[21]
Retd. Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas
Member (Full Time)

Dr. Rathin Roy[22]
Director, NIPFP
Member (Part Time)

Meena Agarwal
OSD, Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance
Secretary

text: In May 2014, a group of retired government officials, challenged the inclusion of a senior IAS officer in the three member 7th Pay Commission, in the Delhi High Court. They alleged that this would lead an inherent bias in the commission's recommendations towards IAS officers.[23]

text: SC constitute a new Pay commission for trial court judges[edit]

text: The chief justice and other supreme court and high court judges got a threefold salary hike in the sixth pay commission however the trial court judges were paid low and a bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices P Sathasivam and J M Panchal constituted a new pay commission for the trial court judges headed by retired Madras High Court judge, Justice E Padmanabhan for recommendation of revision of about 14000 trial court judges. This order from the SC came because of a petition filed by All India Judges Association, which stated that the first judicial commission which was headed by Justice Jagannatha Shetty had said that there should be an upward revision of salaries of lower court judges in proportion to the hike to the judges of high court and Supreme Court. It also sought direction from the court to the centre for setting up a committee "forthwith appoint a committee of one or more persons to look into the matter" relating the salary of officers in the lower judiciary.

text: On November 19, 2015, the 7th Central Pay Commission recommended 23.55% hike in pay and allowances which will be implemented from January 1, 2016. The full report is available on the website of Ministry of Finance, Government of India[24]

text: The Union Cabinet approves 7th Pay panel recommendations on 29 June 2016. The recommendations will be effected from 1 January 2016 with arrears to be paid in the financial year 2016-17 itself unlike previously, when arrears were paid in the following financial year. Also this time, employees will had to wait only 6 months for the CPC's recommendations to be implemented as compared to 19 months for the 5th CPC and 32 months for the 6th [25] except for autonomous organizations like CSIR, ICAR, ICMR etc. under various ministries.

text: Seventh Pay Commission and the Armed forces[edit]

text: The recommendation of the 7CPC affecting the armed forces are a cause of profound unease and resentment in the Armed Forces, especially, 7CPC recommendation on separate 'Pay Matrices', and allowance system for the armed forces and defence civilians, and police, and other civil servants. While 7CPC provides for mandated timescale promotions to from Defence civilians from audit and account services, police, and other officers at regular intervals of 4, 9, 13, 14, and 16 years of service; it does not do so armed forces officers. The orders implemented by the government on the basis of 7 CPC recommendation, despite armed forces advise and concerns, make time scale police officers and defence civilians, with lesser service and experience, senior to armed forces officers, and potentially in command of armed forces officers of equal or more seniority. For instance, Wing Commanders of the Air Force, commander of the navy, and Lt colonel of the army, with 13 years of service, according to MOD implementation tables, will be subordinate in 'level', rank, pay scale, and organizational hierarchy than police officers, auditors, accountants, with equal or even lesser service.[2]MOD implementation order has created an invidious situation for armed forces officers when serving alongside defence civilians and police officer. According to the MOD orders a police officer and Defence Accounts officer with 14 years service will be at higher level than the naval officer in command of INS Vikramaditya, India’s Aircraft carrier, a highly selective rank and appointment, with some 20 years of service.[7][8]

text: In March 2016, eighteen former heads of the Armed forces, including General Ved Prakash Malik, former Chief of Army Staff, and Admiral Arun Prakash, former Chief of naval staff, send a joint letter to Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister conveying their distress and alarm on the flawed approach and contentious recommendations of the 7CPC. [4] The representations by former Chiefs, and the Chiefs of Staff, to the MOD, the PM, other bureaucratic bodies reviewing the 7CPC recommendations, are in vain.[5] On 25 July 2016, without addressing or taking into account the key concerns of the armed forces, the Government issued instructions implementing 7CPC's "general recommendations on pay without any material alteration" including separate "Pay Matrices" (for civilians) and the armed forces.[4][6]


question_text: who plays the bully in sharkboy and lavagirl

root

text: Plot[edit]

text: Max is a lonely child in the suburbs of Austin who creates an imaginary dreamworld named Planet Drool, where all of his dreams come to life. He creates two characters; Sharkboy, who was raised by sharks after losing his father at sea, and Lavagirl, who can produce fire and lava, but has trouble touching objects without setting them alight. The two left Max to guard Planet Drool. In reality, Max's parents have little time for him, and their marital relationship is not going well. Max is also bullied by fellow schoolmate Linus. However, he does receive friendship from Marissa, the daughter of his teacher Mr. Electricidad, whose name is Spanish for "electricity". After a chase, Linus steals Max's dream journal (where all of his most precious dreams are kept) and vandalizes it. The next day, as Max attempts to retaliate, twin tornadoes form outside the school. Sharkboy and Lavagirl emerge from the tornadoes and have Max accompany them to Planet Drool, which he learns is turning bad because of Mr. Electric, the dreamworld's now-corrupt electrician.

tag: p

text: They confront Mr. Electric, who drops them in the Dream Graveyard, where some of Max's dreams have been dumped. They find Tobor, a robot toy that Max never finished building in the real world after being discouraged by his father. Tobor gives them a lift to other parts of the planet. The three form a friendship during their journey, but they face hardships, such as Sharkboy's anger for the oceans being frozen over, and Lavagirl's desperation to find her true purpose on Planet Drool. They are pursued by Mr. Electric and his "plughounds" across the planet. They plan to visit the Ice Princess and obtain the Crystal Heart, which can freeze time, giving them enough time to get to the center of Planet Drool and fix the dreamworld using Max's daydreaming. However, they are captured by Mr. Electric, and delivered to Linus's Planet Drool incarnation Minus, who has altered the dreamworld with Max's own dream journal, and traps the three in a cage. Sharkboy gets annoyed by Minus and has a shark frenzy, destroying the cage. After they escape, Max retrieves the dream journal from Minus while he is sleeping. Max informs Sharkboy that his father is alive in his book, but when Lavagirl wishes to learn what it says about her true identity, she burns the book to ash. In rage, Lavagirl asks Max why she was made out of lava, but Sharkboy tells him to let her cool down.

text: After an encounter with the Ice Guardian, Max, Sharkboy, and Lavagirl reach the Ice Princess, the Planet Drool incarnation of Marissa Electricidad. She hands over the Crystal Heart, but they are too late to stop the corruption since the ice princess is the only one who can use the Crystal Heart's power, and she cannot leave her home. Mr. Electric fools Sharkboy into jumping into water filled with electric eels, seemingly killing him. Lavagirl also dies after jumping into the water to retrieve Sharkboy. Tobor appears and convinces Max to dream a better and unselfish dream, which in turn revives Sharkboy, who then races Lavagirl to a volcano to revive her. Max concludes that her purpose is as a light against the dark clouds which have engulfed Planet Drool's skies. Max gains reality warping as the Daydreamer and defeats Minus, then offers to make a better dreamworld between the two of them, to which Minus agrees.

text: Mr. Electric refuses to accept the new dreamworld, and flies to Earth to kill Max while he is dreaming. Max awakens back in his classroom during the tornado storm. Mr. Electric materializes, and Max's parents get sucked into the storm, but are saved by Sharkboy and Lavagirl. Max gives the Crystal Heart to Marissa so she can use the Ice Princess's powers to destroy Mr. Electric. Mr. Electricidad, Linus and Max make peace with one another, and Max reunites with his parents.

text: Max later informs his class that Planet Drool became a proper dreamworld again, Sharkboy became the King of the Ocean, and Lavagirl became Queen of the Volcanoes, and as the film shows Max finally finishing Tobor, he reminds the class to "dream a better dream, and work to make it real."

text: Cast[edit]

text:
Cayden Boyd as Max. An imaginative 10-year-old[4] boy, known as the "day-dreamer" on Planet Drool. "At first he's dreaming all for himself; he wants Shark Boy and Lava Girl to take him away", says Boyd about the role. "I like that he's selfish in the beginning and he's not selfish in the end".[4]
Taylor Lautner as Sharkboy. Lautner said about the character, "He's very self-confident and sometimes his confidence gets him into trouble. He's also kinda jealous of the character, Max, because he has an inside crush on Lava Girl and she's overly motherly to Max."[5] Lautner's martial arts skills helped him to obtain the role of Sharkboy. "When I auditioned for the film, Robert Rodriguez, the director, didn't know that I had my martial arts [background], and while we there in Austin, TX he saw a DVD of me and asked me to choreograph my own fight scenes", said Lautner.[6] Lautner was the first to audition for the film, says Rodriguez, and was chosen immediately.[7]
Taylor Dooley as Lavagirl. The role was cast after the two other main characters, Sharkboy and Max, had already been cast.[4] Her lava bike was computer-generated, like many of the elements in the film; Dooley and Lautner described the on-set versions of the lava bike and Sharkboy's shark-themed jetski as "a green box with handles".[8]
David Arquette and Kristin Davis play Max's parents. Max's father is an unemployed writer. They are on the brink of a divorce. They mean well for Max but are unable to settle his troubles. On Planet Drool, Max's parents appear as a pair of "Cookie Giants," who live happily in the Land of Milk and Cookies.
George Lopez as Mr. Electricidad, Mr. Electric, and the voices of Tobor and the Ice Guardian. Rodriguez states that he kept asking Lopez to play additional characters. Lopez spent a total of two weeks working on the film.[9]
Jacob Davich as Linus / Minus. He is a bully at Max's school and steals his Dream Journal. With it, he enters Max's dreamworld and, using the name "Minus" (a nickname bestowed by Mr. Electricidad for Linus' habit of disliked conduct), alters it to his version before ultimately befriending Max.
Sasha Pieterse as Marissa Electricidad / Ice Princess. Marissa is the daughter of Mr. Electricidad, and at first the only student who befriends Max. On Planet Drool, she appears as the Ice Princess, keeper of the Crystal Heart, which is a necklace she wears which can freeze anything, including time.

tag: ul

text: Robert Rodriguez has an uncredited role voicing a shark. As seen in the credits, two of Robert Rodriguez's children, Rebel and Racer, portray Sharkboy at age five and age seven respectively. Rico Torres plays Sharkboy's father. Marc Musso and Shane Graham play children at Max's school.

text: Production[edit]

text: Parts of the film were shot on location in Texas, where Max resides and goes to school in the film. Much of the film was shot in a studio against green screen. Most of the ships, landscapes and other effects including some creatures and characters, were accomplished digitally. According to Lautner and Dooley, when filming the scene with the dream train, the front part of the train was an actual physical set piece. "The whole inside was there and when they have all the gadgets you can pull on, that was all there but everything else was a green screen," said Dooley.[10] Eleven visual effects companies (Hybride Technologies, CafeFX, The Orphanage, Post Logic, Hydraulx, Industrial Light & Magic, R!ot Pictures, Tippett Studio, Amalgamated Pixels and Intelligent Creatures and Rodriguez's Texas-based Troublemaker Digital) worked on the film in order to accomplish over 1,000 visual effect shots.[11]

text: Robert Rodriguez appears in the credits fourteen times, most notably as director, a producer, a screenwriter (along with Marcel Rodriguez), visual effects supervisor, director of photography, editor, a camera operator, and a composer and performer. The story is credited to Racer Max Rodriguez, with additional story elements by Rebecca Rodriguez, who also wrote the lyrics for the main song, "Sharkboy and Lavagirl". Other members of the Rodriguez family can be seen in the film or were involved in the production.

text: Miley Cyrus had auditioned for the film with Lautner, and said it came down to her and another girl who was also auditioning; however, Cyrus began production on Hannah Montana.[12]

text: Reception[edit]

text: Critical response [edit]

text: The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl received a 20% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and the consensus: "The decision to turn this kiddie fantasy into a 3-D film was a miscalculation."[13] Roger Ebert gave the film 2 out of 4 stars and agreed with the other criticisms in which the 3-D process used was distracting and muted the colors, thus, he believes, "spoiling" much of the film and that the film would look more visually appealing when released in the home media market.[14]

text: Box office[edit]

text: For its opening weekend, the film earned $12.6 million in 2,655 theaters. It also was placed #5 at the box office, being overshadowed by Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Madagascar, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, and The Longest Yard.[15] The film was not very successful in the US, taking in $39,177,541 and was a box office bomb. However, it did manage to gross $30,248,282 overseas, for a total of $69,425,966 worldwide.[3]

text: Lawsuit[edit]

text: The Total Nonstop Action professional wrestler Dean Roll, who trademarked the name "Shark Boy" in 1999, sued Miramax on June 8, 2005, claiming that his trademark had been infringed and demanding "[any] money, profits and advantages wrongfully gained". In April 2007, the suit was settled for a disclosed amount of $200,000.[16]

text: Soundtrack[edit]

text:
Original Motion Picture Soundtrack: The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D

Soundtrack album by various artists

Released
June 28, 2005

Genre
Soundtrack, rock, pop

Length
43:26

Label
Varèse Sarabande

Robert Rodriguez film soundtrack chronology

Sin City
(2005)Sin City2005
The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D
(2005)
Planet Terror
(2007)Planet Terror2007

tag: table

text:
Professional ratings

Review scores

Source
Rating

Filmtracks
[17]

Music from the Movies
[18]

SoundtrackNet
[19]

text: Director Robert Rodriguez composed parts of the score himself, with contributions by composers John Debney and Graeme Revell. Green Day were reportedly set to contribute "Wake Me Up When September Ends" to the soundtrack, but Robert Rodriguez declined it.[citation needed]

text:
No.
Title
Writer(s)
Performer(s)
Length

1.
"The Shark Boy"
Robert Rodriguez, John Debney

3:47

2.
"The Lava Girl"
Rodriguez

1:28

3.
"Max's Dream"
Rodriguez

1:37

4.
"Sharkboy and Lavagirl Return"
Rodriguez

1:44

5.
"Planet Drool"
Rodriguez

2:12

6.
"Mount Never Rest"
Graeme Revell

2:35

7.
"Passage of Time"
Rodriguez, Carl Thiel

1:30

8.
"Mr. Electric"
Revell

1:09

9.
"Train of Thought"
Debney

2:01

10.
"Dream Dream Dream Dream (Dream Dream)"
Rodriguez
Shark Boy and the Lava Girls
1:54

11.
"Stream of Consciousness"
Debney

1:33

12.
"Sea of Confusion"
Debney

3:04

13.
"The LaLa's"
Nicole Weinstein

1:09

14.
"The Ice Princess"
Rodriguez, Debney

2:51

15.
"Sharkboy vs. Mr. Electric"
Revell

0:55

16.
"Lavagirl's Sacrifice"
Rodriguez

2:10

17.
"The Light"
Rodriguez

2:21

18.
"Battle of the Dreamers"
Rodriguez

1:21

19.
"Mr. Electric on Earth"
Revell

1:15

20.
"Unplugged"
Rodriguez, Debney

1:12

21.
"The Day Dreamer"
Rodriguez, Debney

1:29

22.
"Sharkboy and Lavagirl"
Rodriguez, Rebecca Rodriguez
Ariel Abshire & The Lava Girls
4:09

Total length:
43:26

text: Books[edit]

text: Around the time of the film's debut Rodriguez co-wrote a series of children's novels entitled Sharkboy and Lavagirl Adventures with acclaimed science fiction writer Chris Roberson. They include Book 1, The Day Dreamer, and Book 2, Return to Planet Drool, which announces that it will be continued in a third volume, Deep Sleep, which has yet to appear. They are illustrated throughout by Alex Toader, who designed characters and environments for the film and the previous Spy Kids franchise.[20]

text: In the first book, the story of the film is told from Lavagirl's and Sharkboy's perspective, with at least one new event. In Return to Planet Drool, Sharkboy, remembering his encounter with the Imagineer in the first book, continues the search for his father by seeking to return to the Dream World. He meets a very bored Lavagirl in the underwater city of Vent, where she now reigns as queen, and together they embark on a subterranean journey. They encounter piranhas, a gargantuan red bear, and a city of inhabited by the dreams of bygone eras, where they are held captive by superheroes, pirates, and cowboys. By the end, after learning the city's secrets, Sharkboy still hopes to find his father, and Lavagirl the secrets of her origin.

text: Jeff Jensen of Entertainment Weekly praised another book appearing around the time of the film, The Adventures of SharkBoy and LavaGirl: The Movie Storybook (by Racer Max Rodriguez and Robert Rodriguez), as a far cry from the usual movie storybook tie-in, and also praised Alex Toader's "cartoony yet detailed" illustrations.[21]


document_title: Robot

question_text: when was the first robot invented and by whom

question_tokens: when was the first robot invented and by whom

text: Robot

text: Summary

text: The word robot can refer to both physical robots and virtual software agents, but the latter are usually referred to as bots.[12] There is no consensus on which machines qualify as robots but there is general agreement among experts, and the public, that robots tend to possess some or all of the following abilities and functions: accept electronic programming, process data or physical perceptions electronically, operate autonomously to some degree, move around, operate physical parts of itself or physical processes, sense and manipulate their environment, and exhibit intelligent behavior, especially behavior which mimics humans or other animals.[13][14] Closely related to the concept of a robot is the field of Synthetic Biology, which studies entities whose nature is more comparable to beings than to machines.

text: History

text: The idea of automata originates in the mythologies of many cultures around the world. Engineers and inventors from ancient civilizations, including Ancient China,[15] Ancient Greece, and Ptolemaic Egypt,[16] attempted to build self-operating machines, some resembling animals and humans. Early descriptions of automata include the artificial doves of Archytas,[17] the artificial birds of Mozi and Lu Ban,[18] a "speaking" automaton by Hero of Alexandria, a washstand automaton by Philo of Byzantium, and a human automaton described in the Lie Zi.[15]

text: Early beginnings

text: Many ancient mythologies, and most modern religions include artificial people, such as the mechanical servants built by the Greek god Hephaestus[19] (Vulcan to the Romans), the clay golems of Jewish legend and clay giants of Norse legend, and Galatea, the mythical statue of Pygmalion that came to life. Since circa 400 BC, myths of Crete include Talos, a man of bronze who guarded the island from pirates.

text: In ancient Greece, the Greek engineer Ctesibius (c. 270 BC) "applied a knowledge of pneumatics and hydraulics to produce the first organ and water clocks with moving figures."[20][21] In the 4th century BC, the Greek mathematician Archytas of Tarentum postulated a mechanical steam-operated bird he called "The Pigeon". Hero of Alexandria (10–70 AD), a Greek mathematician and inventor, created numerous user-configurable automated devices, and described machines powered by air pressure, steam and water.[22]

text: The 11th century Lokapannatti tells of how the Buddha's relics were protected by mechanical robots (bhuta vahana yanta), from the kingdom of Roma visaya (Rome); until they were disarmed by King Ashoka. [23] [24]

text: In ancient China, the 3rd-century text of the Lie Zi describes an account of humanoid automata, involving a much earlier encounter between Chinese emperor King Mu of Zhou and a mechanical engineer known as Yan Shi, an 'artificer'. Yan Shi proudly presented the king with a life-size, human-shaped figure of his mechanical 'handiwork' made of leather, wood, and artificial organs.[15] There are also accounts of flying automata in the Han Fei Zi and other texts, which attributes the 5th century BC Mohist philosopher Mozi and his contemporary Lu Ban with the invention of artificial wooden birds (ma yuan) that could successfully fly.[18] In 1066, the Chinese inventor Su Song built a water clock in the form of a tower which featured mechanical figurines which chimed the hours.

text: The beginning of automata is associated with the invention of early Su Song's astronomical clock tower featured mechanical figurines that chimed the hours.[25][26][27] His mechanism had a programmable drum machine with pegs (cams) that bumped into little levers that operated percussion instruments. The drummer could be made to play different rhythms and different drum patterns by moving the pegs to different locations.[27]

text: Samarangana Sutradhara, a Sanskrit treatise by Bhoja (11th century), includes a chapter about the construction of mechanical contrivances (automata), including mechanical bees and birds, fountains shaped like humans and animals, and male and female dolls that refilled oil lamps, danced, played instruments, and re-enacted scenes from Hindu mythology.[28][29][30]

text: In Renaissance Italy, Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) sketched plans for a humanoid robot around 1495. Da Vinci's notebooks, rediscovered in the 1950s, contained detailed drawings of a mechanical knight now known as Leonardo's robot, able to sit up, wave its arms and move its head and jaw.[32] The design was probably based on anatomical research recorded in his Vitruvian Man. It is not known whether he attempted to build it.

text: In Japan, complex animal and human automata were built between the 17th to 19th centuries, with many described in the 18th century Karakuri zui (Illustrated Machinery, 1796). One such automaton was the karakuri ningyō, a mechanized puppet.[33] Different variations of the karakuri existed: the Butai karakuri, which were used in theatre, the Zashiki karakuri, which were small and used in homes, and the Dashi karakuri which were used in religious festivals, where the puppets were used to perform reenactments of traditional myths and legends.

text: In France, between 1738 and 1739, Jacques de Vaucanson exhibited several life-sized automatons: a flute player, a pipe player and a duck. The mechanical duck could flap its wings, crane its neck, and swallow food from the exhibitor's hand, and it gave the illusion of digesting its food by excreting matter stored in a hidden compartment.[34]

text: Remote-controlled systems

text: Remotely operated vehicles were demonstrated in the late 19th century in the form of several types of remotely controlled torpedoes. The early 1870s saw remotely controlled torpedoes by John Ericsson (pneumatic), John Louis Lay (electric wire guided), and Victor von Scheliha (electric wire guided).[35]

text: The Brennan torpedo, invented by Louis Brennan in 1877, was powered by two contra-rotating propellors that were spun by rapidly pulling out wires from drums wound inside the torpedo. Differential speed on the wires connected to the shore station allowed the torpedo to be guided to its target, making it "the world's first practical guided missile".[36] In 1897 the British inventor Ernest Wilson was granted a patent for a torpedo remotely controlled by "Hertzian" (radio) waves[37][38] and in 1898 Nikola Tesla publicly demonstrated a wireless-controlled torpedo that he hoped to sell to the US Navy.[39][40]

text: Archibald Low, known as the "father of radio guidance systems" for his pioneering work on guided rockets and planes during the First World War. In 1917, he demonstrated a remote controlled aircraft to the Royal Flying Corps and in the same year built the first wire-guided rocket.

text: Origin of the term 'robot'

text: 'Robot' was first applied as a term for artificial automata in the 1920 play R.U.R. by the Czech writer, Karel Čapek. However, Josef Čapek was named by his brother Karel as the true inventor of the term robot.[7][8] The word 'robot' itself was not new, having been in the Slavic language as robota (forced laborer), a term which classified those peasants obligated to compulsory service under the feudal system widespread in 19th century Europe (see: Robot Patent).[41][42] Čapek's fictional story postulated the technological creation of artificial human bodies without souls, and the old theme of the feudal robota class eloquently fit the imagination of a new class of manufactured, artificial workers.

text: English pronunciation of the word has evolved relatively quickly since its introduction. In the U.S. during the late '30s to early '40s the second sylable was pronounced with a long "O" like "row-boat."[citation needed] By the late '50s to early '60s, some were pronouncing it with a short "U" like "row-but" while others used a softer "O" like "row-bought." By the '70s, its current pronunciation "row-bot" had become predominant.

text: Early robots

text: In 1928, one of the first humanoid robots, Eric, was exhibited at the annual exhibition of the Model Engineers Society in London, where it delivered a speech. Invented by W. H. Richards, the robot's frame consisted of an aluminium body of armour with eleven electromagnets and one motor powered by a twelve-volt power source. The robot could move its hands and head and could be controlled through remote control or voice control.[43] Both Eric and his "brother" George toured the world.[44]

text: Westinghouse Electric Corporation built Televox in 1926; it was a cardboard cutout connected to various devices which users could turn on and off. In 1939, the humanoid robot known as Elektro was debuted at the 1939 New York World's Fair.[45][46] Seven feet tall (2.1 m) and weighing 265 pounds (120.2 kg), it could walk by voice command, speak about 700 words (using a 78-rpm record player), smoke cigarettes, blow up balloons, and move its head and arms. The body consisted of a steel gear, cam and motor skeleton covered by an aluminum skin. In 1928, Japan's first robot, Gakutensoku, was designed and constructed by biologist Makoto Nishimura.

text: Modern autonomous robots

text: The first electronic autonomous robots with complex behaviour were created by William Grey Walter of the Burden Neurological Institute at Bristol, England in 1948 and 1949. He wanted to prove that rich connections between a small number of brain cells could give rise to very complex behaviors – essentially that the secret of how the brain worked lay in how it was wired up. His first robots, named Elmer and Elsie, were constructed between 1948 and 1949 and were often described as tortoises due to their shape and slow rate of movement. The three-wheeled tortoise robots were capable of phototaxis, by which they could find their way to a recharging station when they ran low on battery power.

text: Walter stressed the importance of using purely analogue electronics to simulate brain processes at a time when his contemporaries such as Alan Turing and John von Neumann were all turning towards a view of mental processes in terms of digital computation. His work inspired subsequent generations of robotics researchers such as Rodney Brooks, Hans Moravec and Mark Tilden. Modern incarnations of Walter's turtles may be found in the form of BEAM robotics.[47]

text: The first digitally operated and programmable robot was invented by George Devol in 1954 and was ultimately called the Unimate. This ultimately laid the foundations of the modern robotics industry.[48] Devol sold the first Unimate to General Motors in 1960, and it was installed in 1961 in a plant in Trenton, New Jersey to lift hot pieces of metal from a die casting machine and stack them.[49] Devol's patent for the first digitally operated programmable robotic arm represents the foundation of the modern robotics industry.[50]

text: The first palletizing robot was introduced in 1963 by the Fuji Yusoki Kogyo Company.[51] In 1973, a robot with six electromechanically driven axes was patented[52][53][54] by KUKA robotics in Germany, and the programmable universal manipulation arm was invented by Victor Scheinman in 1976, and the design was sold to Unimation.

text: Commercial and industrial robots are now in widespread use performing jobs more cheaply or with greater accuracy and reliability than humans. They are also employed for jobs which are too dirty, dangerous or dull to be suitable for humans. Robots are widely used in manufacturing, assembly and packing, transport, earth and space exploration, surgery, weaponry, laboratory research, and mass production of consumer and industrial goods.[55]

text: Future development and trends

text:
External video

 Atlas, The Next Generation

text: Various techniques have emerged to develop the science of robotics and robots. One method is evolutionary robotics, in which a number of differing robots are submitted to tests. Those which perform best are used as a model to create a subsequent "generation" of robots. Another method is developmental robotics, which tracks changes and development within a single robot in the areas of problem-solving and other functions. Another new type of robot is just recently introduced which acts both as a smartphone and robot and is named RoboHon.[56]

text: As robots become more advanced, eventually there may be a standard computer operating system designed mainly for robots. Robot Operating System is an open-source set of programs being developed at Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Technical University of Munich, Germany, among others. ROS provides ways to program a robot's navigation and limbs regardless of the specific hardware involved. It also provides high-level commands for items like image recognition and even opening doors. When ROS boots up on a robot's computer, it would obtain data on attributes such as the length and movement of robots' limbs. It would relay this data to higher-level algorithms. Microsoft is also developing a "Windows for robots" system with its Robotics Developer Studio, which has been available since 2007.[57]

text: Japan hopes to have full-scale commercialization of service robots by 2025. Much technological research in Japan is led by Japanese government agencies, particularly the Trade Ministry.[58]

text: Many future applications of robotics seem obvious to people, even though they are well beyond the capabilities of robots available at the time of the prediction.[59][60] As early as 1982 people were confident that someday robots would:[61] 1. clean parts by removing molding flash 2. spray paint automobiles with absolutely no human presence 3. pack things in boxes—for example, orient and nest chocolate candies in candy boxes 4. make electrical cable harness 5. load trucks with boxes—a packing problem 6. handle soft goods, such as garments and shoes 7. shear sheep 8. prosthesis 9. cook fast food and work in other service industries 10. household robot.

text: Generally such predictions are overly optimistic in timescale.

text: New functionalities and prototypes

text: In 2008, Caterpillar Inc. developed a dump truck which can drive itself without any human operator.[62] Many analysts believe that self-driving trucks may eventually revolutionize logistics.[63] By 2014, Caterpillar had a self-driving dump truck which is expected to greatly change the process of mining. In 2015, these Caterpillar trucks were actively used in mining operations in Australia by the mining company Rio Tinto Coal Australia.[64][65][66][67] Some analysts believe that within the next few decades, most trucks will be self-driving.[68]

text: A literate or 'reading robot' named Marge has intelligence that comes from software. She can read newspapers, find and correct misspelled words, learn about banks like Barclays, and understand that some restaurants are better places to eat than others.[69]

text: Baxter is a new robot introduced in 2012 which learns by guidance. A worker could teach Baxter how to perform a task by moving its hands in the desired motion and having Baxter memorize them. Extra dials, buttons, and controls are available on Baxter's arm for more precision and features. Any regular worker could program Baxter and it only takes a matter of minutes, unlike usual industrial robots that take extensive programs and coding in order to be used. This means Baxter needs no programming in order to operate. No software engineers are needed. This also means Baxter can be taught to perform multiple, more complicated tasks. Sawyer was added in 2015 for smaller, more precise tasks.[70]

text: Etymology

text: The word robot was introduced to the public by the Czech interwar writer Karel Čapek in his play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), published in 1920.[71] The play begins in a factory that uses a chemical substitute for protoplasm to manufacture living, simplified people called robots. The play does not focus in detail on the technology behind the creation of these living creatures, but in their appearance they prefigure modern ideas of androids, creatures who can be mistaken for humans. These mass-produced workers are depicted as efficient but emotionless, incapable of original thinking and indifferent to self-preservation. At issue is whether the robots are being exploited and the consequences of human dependence upon commodified labor (especially after a number of specially-formulated robots achieve self-awareness and incite robots all around the world to rise up against the humans).

text: Karel Čapek himself did not coin the word. He wrote a short letter in reference to an etymology in the Oxford English Dictionary in which he named his brother, the painter and writer Josef Čapek, as its actual originator.[71]

text: In an article in the Czech journal Lidové noviny in 1933, he explained that he had originally wanted to call the creatures laboři ("workers", from Latin labor). However, he did not like the word, and sought advice from his brother Josef, who suggested "roboti". The word robota means literally "corvée", "serf labor", and figuratively "drudgery" or "hard work" in Czech and also (more general) "work", "labor" in many Slavic languages (e.g.: Bulgarian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Polish, Macedonian, Ukrainian, archaic Czech, as well as robot in Hungarian). Traditionally the robota (Hungarian robot) was the work period a serf (corvée) had to give for his lord, typically 6 months of the year. The origin of the word is the Old Church Slavonic (Old Bulgarian) rabota "servitude" ("work" in contemporary Bulgarian and Russian), which in turn comes from the Proto-Indo-European root *orbh-. Robot is cognate with the German root Arbeit (work).[72][73]

text: The word robotics, used to describe this field of study,[5] was coined by the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. Asimov created the "Three Laws of Robotics" which are a recurring theme in his books. These have since been used by many others to define laws used in fiction. (The three laws are pure fiction, and no technology yet created has the ability to understand or follow them, and in fact most robots serve military purposes, which run quite contrary to the first law and often the third law. "People think about Asimov's laws, but they were set up to point out how a simple ethical system doesn't work. If you read the short stories, every single one is about a failure, and they are totally impractical," said Dr. Joanna Bryson of the University of Bath.[74])

text: Modern robots

text: Mobile robot

text: Mobile robots[75] have the capability to move around in their environment and are not fixed to one physical location. An example of a mobile robot that is in common use today is the automated guided vehicle or automatic guided vehicle (AGV). An AGV is a mobile robot that follows markers or wires in the floor, or uses vision or lasers.[citation needed] AGVs are discussed later in this article.

text: Mobile robots are also found in industry, military and security environments.[76] They also appear as consumer products, for entertainment or to perform certain tasks like vacuum cleaning. Mobile robots are the focus of a great deal of current research and almost every major university has one or more labs that focus on mobile robot research.[citation needed]

text: Mobile robots are usually used in tightly controlled environments such as on assembly lines because they have difficulty responding to unexpected interference. Because of this most humans rarely encounter robots. However domestic robots for cleaning and maintenance are increasingly common in and around homes in developed countries. Robots can also be found in military applications.[citation needed]

text: Industrial robots (manipulating)

text: Industrial robots usually consist of a jointed arm (multi-linked manipulator) and an end effector that is attached to a fixed surface. One of the most common type of end effector is a gripper assembly.

text: The International Organization for Standardization gives a definition of a manipulating industrial robot in ISO 8373:

text: "an automatically controlled, reprogrammable, multipurpose, manipulator programmable in three or more axes, which may be either fixed in place or mobile for use in industrial automation applications."[77]

text: This definition is used by the International Federation of Robotics, the European Robotics Research Network (EURON) and many national standards committees.[78]

text: Service robot

text: Most commonly industrial robots are fixed robotic arms and manipulators used primarily for production and distribution of goods. The term "service robot" is less well-defined. The International Federation of Robotics has proposed a tentative definition, "A service robot is a robot which operates semi- or fully autonomously to perform services useful to the well-being of humans and equipment, excluding manufacturing operations."[79]

text: Educational robot

text: Robots are used as educational assistants to teachers. From the 1980s, robots such as turtles were used in schools and programmed using the Logo language.[80][81]

text: There are robot kits like Lego Mindstorms, BIOLOID, OLLO from ROBOTIS, or BotBrain Educational Robots can help children to learn about mathematics, physics, programming, and electronics. Robotics have also been introduced into the lives of elementary and high school students in the form of robot competitions with the company FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). The organization is the foundation for the FIRST Robotics Competition, FIRST LEGO League, Junior FIRST LEGO League, and FIRST Tech Challenge competitions.

text: There have also been devices shaped like robots such as the teaching computer, Leachim (1974), and 2-XL (1976), a robot shaped game / teaching toy based on an 8-track tape player, both invented Michael J. Freeman.

text: Modular robot

text: Modular robots are a new breed of robots that are designed to increase the utilization of robots by modularizing their architecture.[82] The functionality and effectiveness of a modular robot is easier to increase compared to conventional robots. These robots are composed of a single type of identical, several different identical module types, or similarly shaped modules, which vary in size. Their architectural structure allows hyper-redundancy for modular robots, as they can be designed with more than 8 degrees of freedom (DOF). Creating the programming, inverse kinematics and dynamics for modular robots is more complex than with traditional robots. Modular robots may be composed of L-shaped modules, cubic modules, and U and H-shaped modules. ANAT technology, an early modular robotic technology patented by Robotics Design Inc., allows the creation of modular robots from U and H shaped modules that connect in a chain, and are used to form heterogeneous and homogenous modular robot systems. These "ANAT robots" can be designed with "n" DOF as each module is a complete motorized robotic system that folds relatively to the modules connected before and after it in its chain, and therefore a single module allows one degree of freedom. The more modules that are connected to one another, the more degrees of freedom it will have. L-shaped modules can also be designed in a chain, and must become increasingly smaller as the size of the chain increases, as payloads attached to the end of the chain place a greater strain on modules that are further from the base. ANAT H-shaped modules do not suffer from this problem, as their design allows a modular robot to distribute pressure and impacts evenly amongst other attached modules, and therefore payload-carrying capacity does not decrease as the length of the arm increases. Modular robots can be manually or self-reconfigured to form a different robot, that may perform different applications. Because modular robots of the same architecture type are composed of modules that compose different modular robots, a snake-arm robot can combine with another to form a dual or quadra-arm robot, or can split into several mobile robots, and mobile robots can split into multiple smaller ones, or combine with others into a larger or different one. This allows a single modular robot the ability to be fully specialized in a single task, as well as the capacity to be specialized to perform multiple different tasks.

text: Modular robotic technology is currently being applied in hybrid transportation,[83] industrial automation,[84] duct cleaning[85] and handling. Many research centres and universities have also studied this technology, and have developed prototypes.

text: Collaborative robots

text: A collaborative robot or cobot is a robot that can safely and effectively interact with human workers while performing simple industrial tasks. However, end-effectors and other environmental conditions may create hazards, and as such risk assessments should be done before using any industrial motion-control application.[86]

text: The collaborative robots most widely used in industries today are manufactured by Universal Robots in Denmark.[87]

text: Rethink Robotics—founded by Rodney Brooks, previously with iRobot—introduced Baxter in September 2012; as an industrial robot designed to safely interact with neighboring human workers, and be programmable for performing simple tasks.[88] Baxters stop if they detect a human in the way of their robotic arms and have prominent off switches. Intended for sale to small businesses, they are promoted as the robotic analogue of the personal computer.[89] As of May 2014[update], 190 companies in the US have bought Baxters and they are being used commercially in the UK.[11]

text: Robots in society

text: Roughly half of all the robots in the world are in Asia, 32% in Europe, and 16% in North America, 1% in Australasia and 1% in Africa.[92] 40% of all the robots in the world are in Japan,[93] making Japan the country with the highest number of robots.

text: Autonomy and ethical questions

text: As robots have become more advanced and sophisticated, experts and academics have increasingly explored the questions of what ethics might govern robots' behavior,[95] and whether robots might be able to claim any kind of social, cultural, ethical or legal rights.[96] One scientific team has said that it is possible that a robot brain will exist by 2019.[97] Others predict robot intelligence breakthroughs by 2050.[98] Recent advances have made robotic behavior more sophisticated.[99] The social impact of intelligent robots is subject of a 2010 documentary film called Plug & Pray.[100]

text: Vernor Vinge has suggested that a moment may come when computers and robots are smarter than humans. He calls this "the Singularity".[101] He suggests that it may be somewhat or possibly very dangerous for humans.[102] This is discussed by a philosophy called Singularitarianism.

text: In 2009, experts attended a conference hosted by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) to discuss whether computers and robots might be able to acquire any autonomy, and how much these abilities might pose a threat or hazard. They noted that some robots have acquired various forms of semi-autonomy, including being able to find power sources on their own and being able to independently choose targets to attack with weapons. They also noted that some computer viruses can evade elimination and have achieved "cockroach intelligence." They noted that self-awareness as depicted in science-fiction is probably unlikely, but that there were other potential hazards and pitfalls.[101] Various media sources and scientific groups have noted separate trends in differing areas which might together result in greater robotic functionalities and autonomy, and which pose some inherent concerns.[103][104][105] In 2015, the Nao alderen robots were shown to have a capability for a degree of self-awareness. Researchers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute AI and Reasoning Lab in New York conducted an experiment where a robot became aware of itself, and corrected its answer to a question once it had realised this.[106]

text: Military robots

text: Some experts and academics have questioned the use of robots for military combat, especially when such robots are given some degree of autonomous functions.[107] There are also concerns about technology which might allow some armed robots to be controlled mainly by other robots.[108] The US Navy has funded a report which indicates that, as military robots become more complex, there should be greater attention to implications of their ability to make autonomous decisions.[109][110] One researcher states that autonomous robots might be more humane, as they could make decisions more effectively. However, other experts question this.[111]

text: One robot in particular, the EATR, has generated public concerns[112] over its fuel source, as it can continually refuel itself using organic substances.[113] Although the engine for the EATR is designed to run on biomass and vegetation[114] specifically selected by its sensors, which it can find on battlefields or other local environments, the project has stated that chicken fat can also be used.[115]

text: Manuel De Landa has noted that "smart missiles" and autonomous bombs equipped with artificial perception can be considered robots, as they make some of their decisions autonomously. He believes this represents an important and dangerous trend in which humans are handing over important decisions to machines.[116]

text: Relationship to unemployment

text: For centuries, people have predicted that machines would make workers obsolete and increase unemployment, although the causes of unemployment are usually thought to be due to social policy.[117]

text: A recent example of human replacement involves Taiwanese technology company Foxconn who, in July 2011, announced a three-year plan to replace workers with more robots. At present the company uses ten thousand robots but will increase them to a million robots over a three-year period.[118]

text: Lawyers have speculated that an increased prevalence of robots in the workplace could lead to the need to improve redundancy laws.[119]

text: Kevin J. Delaney said "Robots are taking human jobs. But Bill Gates believes that governments should tax companies’ use of them, as a way to at least temporarily slow the spread of automation and to fund other types of employment."[120] The robot tax would also help pay a guaranteed living wage to the displaced workers.

text: Contemporary uses

text: At present, there are two main types of robots, based on their use: general-purpose autonomous robots and dedicated robots.

text: Robots can be classified by their specificity of purpose. A robot might be designed to perform one particular task extremely well, or a range of tasks less well. All robots by their nature can be re-programmed to behave differently, but some are limited by their physical form. For example, a factory robot arm can perform jobs such as cutting, welding, gluing, or acting as a fairground ride, while a pick-and-place robot can only populate printed circuit boards.

text: General-purpose autonomous robots

text: General-purpose autonomous robots can perform a variety of functions independently. General-purpose autonomous robots typically can navigate independently in known spaces, handle their own re-charging needs, interface with electronic doors and elevators and perform other basic tasks. Like computers, general-purpose robots can link with networks, software and accessories that increase their usefulness. They may recognize people or objects, talk, provide companionship, monitor environmental quality, respond to alarms, pick up supplies and perform other useful tasks. General-purpose robots may perform a variety of functions simultaneously or they may take on different roles at different times of day. Some such robots try to mimic human beings and may even resemble people in appearance; this type of robot is called a humanoid robot. Humanoid robots are still in a very limited stage, as no humanoid robot can, as of yet, actually navigate around a room that it has never been in.[citation needed] Thus, humanoid robots are really quite limited, despite their intelligent behaviors in their well-known environments.

text: Factory robots

text: Car production

text: Over the last three decades, automobile factories have become dominated by robots. A typical factory contains hundreds of industrial robots working on fully automated production lines, with one robot for every ten human workers. On an automated production line, a vehicle chassis on a conveyor is welded, glued, painted and finally assembled at a sequence of robot stations.

text: Packaging

text: Industrial robots are also used extensively for palletizing and packaging of manufactured goods, for example for rapidly taking drink cartons from the end of a conveyor belt and placing them into boxes, or for loading and unloading machining centers.

text: Electronics

text: Mass-produced printed circuit boards (PCBs) are almost exclusively manufactured by pick-and-place robots, typically with SCARA manipulators, which remove tiny electronic components from strips or trays, and place them on to PCBs with great accuracy.[121] Such robots can place hundreds of thousands of components per hour, far out-performing a human in speed, accuracy, and reliability.[122]

text: Automated guided vehicles (AGVs)

text: Mobile robots, following markers or wires in the floor, or using vision[123] or lasers, are used to transport goods around large facilities, such as warehouses, container ports, or hospitals.[124]

text: Early AGV-style robots

text: Limited to tasks that could be accurately defined and had to be performed the same way every time. Very little feedback or intelligence was required, and the robots needed only the most basic exteroceptors (sensors). The limitations of these AGVs are that their paths are not easily altered and they cannot alter their paths if obstacles block them. If one AGV breaks down, it may stop the entire operation.

text: Interim AGV technologies

text: Developed to deploy triangulation from beacons or bar code grids for scanning on the floor or ceiling. In most factories, triangulation systems tend to require moderate to high maintenance, such as daily cleaning of all beacons or bar codes. Also, if a tall pallet or large vehicle blocks beacons or a bar code is marred, AGVs may become lost. Often such AGVs are designed to be used in human-free environments.

text: Intelligent AGVs (i-AGVs)

text: Such as SmartLoader,[125] SpeciMinder,[126] ADAM,[127] Tug[128] Eskorta,[129] and MT 400 with Motivity[130] are designed for people-friendly workspaces. They navigate by recognizing natural features. 3D scanners or other means of sensing the environment in two or three dimensions help to eliminate cumulative errors in dead-reckoning calculations of the AGV's current position. Some AGVs can create maps of their environment using scanning lasers with simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) and use those maps to navigate in real time with other path planning and obstacle avoidance algorithms. They are able to operate in complex environments and perform non-repetitive and non-sequential tasks such as transporting photomasks in a semiconductor lab, specimens in hospitals and goods in warehouses. For dynamic areas, such as warehouses full of pallets, AGVs require additional strategies using three-dimensional sensors such as time-of-flight or stereovision cameras.

text: Dirty, dangerous, dull or inaccessible tasks

text: There are many jobs which humans would rather leave to robots. The job may be boring, such as domestic cleaning, or dangerous, such as exploring inside a volcano.[131] Other jobs are physically inaccessible, such as exploring another planet,[132] cleaning the inside of a long pipe, or performing laparoscopic surgery.[133]

text: Space probes

text: Almost every unmanned space probe ever launched was a robot.[134][135] Some were launched in the 1960s with very limited abilities, but their ability to fly and land (in the case of Luna 9) is an indication of their status as a robot. This includes the Voyager probes and the Galileo probes, among others.

text: Telerobots

text: Teleoperated robots, or telerobots, are devices remotely operated from a distance by a human operator rather than following a predetermined sequence of movements, but which has semi-autonomous behaviour. They are used when a human cannot be present on site to perform a job because it is dangerous, far away, or inaccessible. The robot may be in another room or another country, or may be on a very different scale to the operator. For instance, a laparoscopic surgery robot allows the surgeon to work inside a human patient on a relatively small scale compared to open surgery, significantly shortening recovery time.[133] They can also be used to avoid exposing workers to the hazardous and tight spaces such as in duct cleaning. When disabling a bomb, the operator sends a small robot to disable it. Several authors have been using a device called the Longpen to sign books remotely.[136] Teleoperated robot aircraft, like the Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, are increasingly being used by the military. These pilotless drones can search terrain and fire on targets.[137][138] Hundreds of robots such as iRobot's Packbot and the Foster-Miller TALON are being used in Iraq and Afghanistan by the U.S. military to defuse roadside bombs or improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in an activity known as explosive ordnance disposal (EOD).[139]

text: Automated fruit harvesting machines

text: Robots are used to automate picking fruit on orchards at a cost lower than that of human pickers.

text: Domestic robots

text: Domestic robots are simple robots dedicated to a single task work in home use. They are used in simple but often disliked jobs, such as vacuum cleaning, floor washing, and lawn mowing. An example of a domestic robot is a Roomba.

text: Military robots

text: Military robots include the SWORDS robot which is currently used in ground-based combat. It can use a variety of weapons and there is some discussion of giving it some degree of autonomy in battleground situations.[140][141][142]

text: Unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs), which are an upgraded form of UAVs, can do a wide variety of missions, including combat. UCAVs are being designed such as the BAE Systems Mantis which would have the ability to fly themselves, to pick their own course and target, and to make most decisions on their own.[143] The BAE Taranis is a UCAV built by Great Britain which can fly across continents without a pilot and has new means to avoid detection.[144] Flight trials are expected to begin in 2011.[145][146]

text: The AAAI has studied this topic in depth[95] and its president has commissioned a study to look at this issue.[147]

text: Some have suggested a need to build "Friendly AI", meaning that the advances which are already occurring with AI should also include an effort to make AI intrinsically friendly and humane.[148] Several such measures reportedly already exist, with robot-heavy countries such as Japan and South Korea[149] having begun to pass regulations requiring robots to be equipped with safety systems, and possibly sets of 'laws' akin to Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.[150][151] An official report was issued in 2009 by the Japanese government's Robot Industry Policy Committee.[152] Chinese officials and researchers have issued a report suggesting a set of ethical rules, and a set of new legal guidelines referred to as "Robot Legal Studies."[153] Some concern has been expressed over a possible occurrence of robots telling apparent falsehoods.[154]

text: Mining robots

text: Mining robots are designed to solve a number of problems currently facing the mining industry, including skills shortages, improving productivity from declining ore grades, and achieving environmental targets. Due to the hazardous nature of mining, in particular underground mining, the prevalence of autonomous, semi-autonomous, and tele-operated robots has greatly increased in recent times. A number of vehicle manufacturers provide autonomous trains, trucks and loaders that will load material, transport it on the mine site to its destination, and unload without requiring human intervention. One of the world's largest mining corporations, Rio Tinto, has recently expanded its autonomous truck fleet to the world's largest, consisting of 150 autonomous Komatsu trucks, operating in Western Australia.[155] Similarly, BHP has announced the expansion of its autonomous drill fleet to the world's largest, 21 autonomous Atlas Copco drills.[156]

text: Drilling, longwall and rockbreaking machines are now also available as autonomous robots.[157] The Atlas Copco Rig Control System can autonomously execute a drilling plan on a drilling rig, moving the rig into position using GPS, set up the drill rig and drill down to specified depths.[158] Similarly, the Transmin Rocklogic system can automatically plan a path to position a rockbreaker at a selected destination.[159] These systems greatly enhance the safety and efficiency of mining operations.

text: Healthcare

text: Robots in healthcare have two main functions. Those which assist an individual, such as a sufferer of a disease like Multiple Sclerosis, and those which aid in the overall systems such as pharmacies and hospitals.

text: Home automation for the elderly and disabled

text: Robots used in home automation have developed over time from simple basic robotic assistants, such as the Handy 1,[160] through to semi-autonomous robots, such as FRIEND which can assist the elderly and disabled with common tasks.

text: The population is aging in many countries, especially Japan, meaning that there are increasing numbers of elderly people to care for, but relatively fewer young people to care for them.[161][162] Humans make the best carers, but where they are unavailable, robots are gradually being introduced.[163]

text: FRIEND is a semi-autonomous robot designed to support disabled and elderly people in their daily life activities, like preparing and serving a meal. FRIEND make it possible for patients who are paraplegic, have muscle diseases or serious paralysis (due to strokes etc.), to perform tasks without help from other people like therapists or nursing staff.

text: Pharmacies

text: This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

text: Script Pro manufactures a robot designed to help pharmacies fill prescriptions that consist of oral solids or medications in pill form. The pharmacist or pharmacy technician enters the prescription information into its information system. The system, upon determining whether or not the drug is in the robot, will send the information to the robot for filling. The robot has 3 different size vials to fill determined by the size of the pill. The robot technician, user, or pharmacist determines the needed size of the vial based on the tablet when the robot is stocked. Once the vial is filled it is brought up to a conveyor belt that delivers it to a holder that spins the vial and attaches the patient label. Afterwards it is set on another conveyor that delivers the patient's medication vial to a slot labeled with the patient's name on an LED read out. The pharmacist or technician then checks the contents of the vial to ensure it's the correct drug for the correct patient and then seals the vials and sends it out front to be picked up. The robot is a very time efficient device that the pharmacy depends on to fill prescriptions.

text: McKesson's Robot RX is another healthcare robotics product that helps pharmacies dispense thousands of medications daily with little or no errors. The robot can be ten feet wide and thirty feet long and can hold hundreds of different kinds of medications and thousands of doses. The pharmacy saves many resources like staff members that are otherwise unavailable in a resource scarce industry. It uses an electromechanical head coupled with a pneumatic system to capture each dose and deliver it to its either stocked or dispensed location. The head moves along a single axis while it rotates 180 degrees to pull the medications. During this process it uses barcode technology to verify its pulling the correct drug. It then delivers the drug to a patient specific bin on a conveyor belt. Once the bin is filled with all of the drugs that a particular patient needs and that the robot stocks, the bin is then released and returned out on the conveyor belt to a technician waiting to load it into a cart for delivery to the floor.

text: Research robots

text: While most robots today are installed in factories or homes, performing labour or life saving jobs, many new types of robot are being developed in laboratories around the world. Much of the research in robotics focuses not on specific industrial tasks, but on investigations into new types of robot, alternative ways to think about or design robots, and new ways to manufacture them. It is expected that these new types of robot will be able to solve real world problems when they are finally realized.[citation needed]

text: Bionic and biomimetic robots

text: One approach to designing robots is to base them on animals. BionicKangaroo was designed and engineered by studying and applying the physiology and methods of locomotion of a kangaroo.

text: Nanorobots

text: Nanorobotics is the emerging technology field of creating machines or robots whose components are at or close to the microscopic scale of a nanometer (10−9 meters). Also known as "nanobots" or "nanites", they would be constructed from molecular machines. So far, researchers have mostly produced only parts of these complex systems, such as bearings, sensors, and synthetic molecular motors, but functioning robots have also been made such as the entrants to the Nanobot Robocup contest.[165] Researchers also hope to be able to create entire robots as small as viruses or bacteria, which could perform tasks on a tiny scale. Possible applications include micro surgery (on the level of individual cells), utility fog,[166] manufacturing, weaponry and cleaning.[167] Some people have suggested that if there were nanobots which could reproduce, the earth would turn into "grey goo", while others argue that this hypothetical outcome is nonsense.[168][169]

text: Reconfigurable robots

text: A few researchers have investigated the possibility of creating robots which can alter their physical form to suit a particular task,[170] like the fictional T-1000. Real robots are nowhere near that sophisticated however, and mostly consist of a small number of cube shaped units, which can move relative to their neighbours. Algorithms have been designed in case any such robots become a reality.[171]

text: Soft-bodied robots

text: Robots with silicone bodies and flexible actuators (air muscles, electroactive polymers, and ferrofluids) look and feel different from robots with rigid skeletons, and can have different behaviors.[172]

text: Swarm robots

text: Inspired by colonies of insects such as ants and bees, researchers are modeling the behavior of swarms of thousands of tiny robots which together perform a useful task, such as finding something hidden, cleaning, or spying. Each robot is quite simple, but the emergent behavior of the swarm is more complex. The whole set of robots can be considered as one single distributed system, in the same way an ant colony can be considered a superorganism, exhibiting swarm intelligence. The largest swarms so far created include the iRobot swarm, the SRI/MobileRobots CentiBots project[173] and the Open-source Micro-robotic Project swarm, which are being used to research collective behaviors.[174][175] Swarms are also more resistant to failure. Whereas one large robot may fail and ruin a mission, a swarm can continue even if several robots fail. This could make them attractive for space exploration missions, where failure is normally extremely costly.[176]

text: Haptic interface robots

text: Robotics also has application in the design of virtual reality interfaces. Specialized robots are in widespread use in the haptic research community. These robots, called "haptic interfaces", allow touch-enabled user interaction with real and virtual environments. Robotic forces allow simulating the mechanical properties of "virtual" objects, which users can experience through their sense of touch.[177]

text: Robots in popular culture

text: Literature

text: Robotic characters, androids (artificial men/women) or gynoids (artificial women), and cyborgs (also "bionic men/women", or humans with significant mechanical enhancements) have become a staple of science fiction.

text: The first reference in Western literature to mechanical servants appears in Homer's Iliad. In Book XVIII, Hephaestus, god of fire, creates new armor for the hero Achilles, assisted by robots.[178] According to the Rieu translation, "Golden maidservants hastened to help their master. They looked like real women and could not only speak and use their limbs but were endowed with intelligence and trained in handwork by the immortal gods." The words "robot" or "android" are not used to describe them, but they are nevertheless mechanical devices human in appearance. "The first use of the word Robot was in Karel Čapek's play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) (written in 1920)". Writer Karel Čapek was born in Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic).

text: Possibly the most prolific author of the twentieth century was Isaac Asimov (1920–1992)[179] who published over five-hundred books.[180] Asimov is probably best remembered for his science-fiction stories and especially those about robots, where he placed robots and their interaction with society at the center of many of his works.[181][182] Asimov carefully considered the problem of the ideal set of instructions robots might be given in order to lower the risk to humans, and arrived at his Three Laws of Robotics: a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; a robot must obey orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; and a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.[183] These were introduced in his 1942 short story "Runaround", although foreshadowed in a few earlier stories. Later, Asimov added the Zeroth Law: "A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm"; the rest of the laws are modified sequentially to acknowledge this.

text: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first passage in Asimov's short story "Liar!" (1941) that mentions the First Law is the earliest recorded use of the word robotics. Asimov was not initially aware of this; he assumed the word already existed by analogy with mechanics, hydraulics, and other similar terms denoting branches of applied knowledge.[184]

text: Films

text: Robots appear in many films. Most of the robots in cinema are fictional. Two of the most famous are R2-D2 and C-3PO from the Star Wars franchise.

text: Sex robots

text: The concept of humanoid sex robots has elicited both public attention and concern. Opponents of the concept have stated that the development of sex robots would be morally wrong.[185][186][187][188] They argue that the introduction of such devices would be socially harmful, and demeaning to women and children.[186]

text: Problems depicted in popular culture

text: Fears and concerns about robots have been repeatedly expressed in a wide range of books and films. A common theme is the development of a master race of conscious and highly intelligent robots, motivated to take over or destroy the human race. Frankenstein (1818), often called the first science fiction novel, has become synonymous with the theme of a robot or android advancing beyond its creator.

text: Other works with similar themes include The Mechanical Man, The Terminator, Runaway, RoboCop, the Replicators in Stargate, the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica, the Cybermen and Daleks in Doctor Who, The Matrix, Enthiran and I, Robot. Some fictional robots are programmed to kill and destroy; others gain superhuman intelligence and abilities by upgrading their own software and hardware. Examples of popular media where the robot becomes evil are 2001: A Space Odyssey, Red Planet and Enthiran.

text: The 2017 game Horizon Zero Dawn explores themes of robotics in warfare, robot ethics, and the AI control problem, as well as the positive or negative impact such technologies could have on the environment.

text: Another common theme is the reaction, sometimes called the "uncanny valley", of unease and even revulsion at the sight of robots that mimic humans too closely.[94]

text: More recently, fictional representations of artificially intelligent robots in films such as A.I. Artificial Intelligence and Ex Machina and the 2016 TV adaptation of Westworld have engaged audience sympathy for the robots themselves.


document_title: Bone china

question_text: where does the bone ash for bone china come from

text: Bone china

text: History[edit]

text: The first development of what would become known as bone china was made by Thomas Frye at his Bow porcelain factory near Bow in East London in 1748. His factory was located very close to the cattle markets and slaughterhouses of Essex, and hence easy access to animal bones. Frye used up to 45% bone ash in his formulation to create what he called "fine porcelain". Although in quality it rivalled porcelain imported from Europe and China the factory was not a commercial success.[5][7]

text: Later, Josiah Spode in Stoke-on-Trent further developed the concept between 1789 and 1793, introducing his "Stoke China" in 1796, the year before his sudden death; his son Josiah II quickly rechristened the ware "Bone china".[8] Among his developments was to abandon Frye's procedure of calcining the bone together with some of the other body raw materials, instead calcining just the bone. Bone china quickly proved to be highly popular, leading to its production by other English pottery manufacturers.[9] Both Spode's formulation and his business were successful: his formulation of 6 parts bone ash, 4 parts china stone and 3.5 parts china clay, remains the basis for all bone china, and it was only in 2009 that his company, Spode, went into receivership before eventually being purchased by Portmeirion.[5][10]

text: Production[edit]

text: The production of bone china is similar to porcelain, except that more care is needed because of its lower plasticity and a narrower vitrification range. The traditional formulation for bone china is about 25% kaolin, 25% Cornish stone and 50% bone ash.[11] The bone ash that is used in bone china is made from cattle bones that have a lower iron content. These bones are crushed before being degelatinised and then calcined at up to 1250 °C to produce bone ash.[12] The ash is milled to a fine particle size.[13] The kaolin component of the body is needed to give the unfired body plasticity which allows articles to be shaped.[2] This mixture is then fired at around 1200 °C.[13] The raw materials for bone china are comparatively expensive, and the production is labour-intensive, which is why bone china maintains a luxury status and high pricing.[5]

text: Bone china consists of two crystalline phases, anorthite (CaAl2Si2O8) and β-tricalcium phosphate/whitlockite (Ca3(PO4)2) embedded in a substantial amount of glass.[14]

text: Production locations[edit]

text: For almost 200 years from its development bone china was almost exclusively produced in the UK. During the middle part of the 20th century manufacturers in other countries began production, with the first successful ones outside the UK being in Japan: Noritake, Nikko and Narumi. [15][16]

text: In more recent years production in China has expanded considerably, and the country is now the biggest producer of bone china in the world. Other countries producing considerable amounts of bone china are Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Iran[citation needed], Sri Lanka and Thailand.[15][16][17]

text: From the start of the first factory, Bengal Potteries, in 1964, bone china output from Indian factories had risen to 10,000 tonnes per year by 2009. [18] Rajasthan has become a hub for bone china in India, with production in the state totaling 16-17 tonnes per day.[19]

text: Lenox is the only major manufacturer of bone china in the United States, and has supplied presidential services to the White House.

text: Cultural issues[edit]

text: Due to the use of animal bones in the production of certain bone china, some vegetarians and vegans avoid using or purchasing it.[20]