The special administrative regions are one type of provincial-level administrative divisions of China directly under Central People's Government. They possess the highest degree of autonomy; the legal basis for the establishment of SARs, unlike the administrative divisions of Mainland China, is provided for by Article 31, rather than Article 30, of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China of 1982. Article 31 reads: "The state may establish special administrative regions; the systems to be instituted in special administrative regions shall be prescribed by law enacted by the National People's Congress in the light of the specific conditions". At present, there are two SARs established according to the Constitution, namely the Hong Kong SAR and the Macau SAR, former British and Portuguese dependencies transferred to China in 1997 and 1999 pursuant to the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984 and the Sino-Portuguese Joint Declaration of 1987. Pursuant to their Joint Declarations, which are binding inter-state treaties registered with the United Nations, their Basic laws, the Chinese SARs "shall enjoy a high degree of autonomy".

The two SARs are not considered to constitute a part of Mainland China, by both Chinese and SAR authorities. There is additionally the Wolong Special Administrative Region in Sichuan province, however not established according to Article 31 of the Constitution; the provision to establish special administrative regions appeared in the constitution in 1982, in anticipation of the talks with the United Kingdom over the question of the sovereignty over Hong Kong. It was envisioned as the model for the eventual reunification with Taiwan and other islands, where the Republic of China has resided since 1949. Special administrative regions should not be confused with special economic zones, which are areas in which special economic laws apply to promote trade and investments. Under the One country, two systems principle, the two SARs continue to possess their own governments, multi-party legislatures, legal systems, police forces, monetary systems, separate customs territory, immigration policies, national sports teams, official languages, postal systems and educational systems, substantial competence in external relations that are different or independent from the People's Republic of China.

There are two special administrative regions established according to Article 31 of the Chinese Constitution. For the Wolong Special Administrative Region in Sichuan Province, please see the section Wolong below; the two special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau each have a codified constitution called Basic Law. The law provides the regions with a high degree of autonomy, a separate political system, a capitalist economy under the principle of "one country, two systems" proposed by Deng Xiaoping; the two SARs of Hong Kong and Macau are responsible for all affairs except those regarding diplomatic relations and national defense. The National People's Congress authorizes the SAR to exercise a high degree of autonomy and enjoy executive and independent judicial power, each with their own Courts of Final Appeal. Special administrative regions are empowered to contract a wide range of agreements with other countries and territories such as mutual abolition of visa requirement, mutual legal aid, air services, handling of double taxation and others, with no Chinese Government involvement.

However, in some diplomatic talks involving a SAR, the SAR concerned may choose to send officials to be part of the Chinese delegation. For example, when former Director of Health of Hong Kong Margaret Chan became the World Health Organization Director-General, she served as a delegate from the People's Republic of China to the WHO. In sporting events the SARs participate under the respective names of "Hong Kong, China" and "Macau, China", compete as different entities as they had done since they were under foreign rules, but both SARs are allowed to omit the term ", China" for informal use; the Government of Hong Kong has established Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices in few countries as well as Greater China Region. HKETOs serve as a quasi-interests section in favor of Hong Kong. For regions with no HKETOs, Chinese diplomatic missions take charge of protecting Hong Kong-related interests; some countries which have a diplomatic relationship with the central Chinese government maintain Consulate-General offices in Hong Kong.

The People's Liberation Army is garrisoned in both SARs. PRC authorities have said the PLA will not be allowed to interfere with the local affairs of Hong Kong and Macau, must abide by its laws. In 1988, scholar Chen Fang of the Academy of Military Science tried to propose the "One military, two systems" concept to separate the defence function and public functions in the army; the PLA does not participate in the governance of the SAR but the SAR may request them for civil-military participation, in times of emergency such as natural disasters. Defence is the responsibility of the PRC government. A 1996 draft PRC law banned People's Liberation Army–run businesses in Hong Kong, but loopholes allow them to operate while the profits are ploughed back into the military. There are many PLA-run corporations in Hong Kong; the PLA have sizable land holdings in Hong Kong worth billions of dollars. Each of the SARs issues passports on its own to its permanent residents who are concurrently Chinese citizens.

PRC citizens must satisfy one of the following conditions: born in the SAR.

The Flatiron Building is a highrise completed in 1913 at 540 Market Street at Sutter Street in the Financial District of San Francisco, California. The 10-story, 120-foot structure is designated landmark No. 155. Jimdo has offices in the building, as does TextNow, Trim. Boutique Air had its headquarters there; the building was featured in the opening credits of the 1980s detective series Crazy Like a Fox since lead character Harry Fox had his offices in the building. List of San Francisco Designated Landmarks List of tallest buildings in San Francisco The Flat Iron Building San Francisco image at Red Bubble

St. Cadoc's Church is a Church in Wales church in Glynneath, Wales, it is located in the grounds of the now derelict Aberpergwm House. Of late-medieval origin, the church was a 17th-century chapel of ease in the parish of Cadoxton, it was rebuilt in 1808–09 by Rees Williams of Aberpergwm House and remodelled and extended by his son William Williams in 1836–41, when the chancel was added. It was repaired and further modified in 1883; the church was restored in 2001 with further repairs and conservation of the stained glass in 2011. Rectangular in form, the church is built from Pennant sandstone with a slate roof and an octagonal bellcote; the window frames in the north and south walls are of red Cheshire sandstone and date from 1883. Inside are vaulted ceilings and a neo-Norman chancel arch; the east window contains four stained glass panels dating from 1530–1542 which originate from Steinfeld Abbey near Cologne, from which they were removed following the secularisation of the abbey in 1802. A stained glass window in the north wall dates from 1882.

The two medieval effigies in the chancel are said to have been purchased in France to enhance the antique effect. There are several memorials to members of the Williams family, including an elaborate memorial in the graveyard known locally as the Wedding Cake Memorial. There is a memorial tablet to Dafydd Nicolas, bard at Aberpergwm House, among the last of the Welsh household bards

The Pond was a small, secret organization formed by the government of the United States which operated between 1942 and 1955. It engaged in espionage, its existence has only been acknowledged. In the spring of 1942, Brigadier General Hayes Kroner, the head of the War Department's Military Intelligence Service, was given the go-ahead to set up an espionage organization separate from William "Wild Bill" Donovan's Office of Strategic Services, he selected to head it U. S. Army Captain John V. Grombach, a rival and previous employee of Donovan. In 1955, The Pond was disbanded by the American government because of post-war centralization of intelligence gathering and questions about the organization's effectiveness. On April 27, 2008, the Associated Press reported that the Central Intelligence Agency planned to "release a stash of Pond-related papers accidentally discovered in a Virginia barn in 2001" and hand them over to the National Archives at College Park, Maryland. Jean Valentin Grombach lead the Pond in intelligence operations from 1942 to 1955.

Grombach was an anti-Communist who had an obsession with security. Grombach was born in New Orleans in 1901 to a French family, he was an accomplished athlete who had a love for fencing and boxing competing on the United State's Olympic boxing team. He grew to know many important European businessmen from his father's business and shipping involvements, sports promotions, managing the Olympics; these connections would help to shape his future in international intelligence operations. At the age of 18, the son of the French consul, renounced his French citizenship and obtained an American citizenship to attend West Point. Despite having 8 demerits, he graduated with a bachelors of science degree in 1923, he spent five years on active duty where he had his first involvement in intelligence as assistant G-2. In 1928, Grombach joined the New York National Guard. After a successful stint working for a subsidiary of CBS and Paramount Publix, Grombach produced his own radio program production companies.

He returned to the army in 1941 to work for the Office of the Coordinator of Information. Grombach claims that throughout that time he was secretly working on confidential intelligence projects. In the spring of 1942, Brig. Gen. Hayes Kroner selected Grombach to head the Pond. Grombach was a writer who authored an article for Infantry Journal titled "Kill or Get Killed," and an essay for American Mercury; the Pond, lead by Grombach, provided the FBI with information on leftist radicals and external influences on the United States. The covert organization's focus developed into the exploitation of communists in America's intelligence institutions. In order to work, the Pond was small and unknown to most; the team used cryptic nicknames in all of the Pond's internal records. Grombach never shared the identities of his sources, totaling over 2,500 field personnel from 32 countries. Although the Pond was an Army operation, the existence of the super secret intelligence organization was kept from the Office of Naval Intelligence, it is not evident if President Truman was aware of its existence.

After the end of World War II, Truman decided to shut down the OSS due to Grombach's reports. The extreme secrecy and small size of the Pond are the reasons why it survived after the end of the war; the Pond remained a secret. The War Department allocated $150,000 to the Pond per year, this grew to over $300,000 by the end of World War II; the Pond collaborated with foreign businesses to increase their financial resources. The Pond employed personnel and agent observers from large corporations around the world; the Pond started out as a part of the War Department General Staff but became a private company working under government contract. It transferred jurisdictions many times until operations ceased in 1955. Starting in 1942 as the leader of The Pond, John Grombach worked with a defected Soviet intelligence officer, Alexander Barmine to discover a list of OSS Soviet agents; this was left to the wayside by the United States government because the Soviet Union was now an ally of the United States.

As a study of communist subversion, John Grombach began this project as a comprehensive record of reports eliminated by Alfred McCormack along with identifying two communists that worked for McCormack and several others. The list of supposed communists included: Alger Hiss Carl Marzani John StewartThe monographs called for research into McCormack to be investigated by superiors, but was set aside as Grombach was accused of discrediting an officer of the Military Intelligence Service along with inappropriately revealing classified information. Although it seemed the end, this was not so. With the abolishment of the OSS by Harry S. Truman, the branch of Research and Analysis was sent to the State Department along with Alfred McCormack, Secretary of State Byrnes. With McCormack as leader of the Interim Research and Intelligence Service, John Grombach would compile the names of 15 G-2 operatives who had moved to the state department along with McCormack and which were suspected of disloyalty. Grombach sent these names to the House Committee of Military Affairs where an investigation would begin.

Without revealing his name, the Committee made made public Grombach's allegations in March 1946, would stir up controversy between McCormack and the Committees chairman, pushing McCormack to resign in April 1946. As doctor, serial killer, source for The Pond, Petiot used his occupation as a doctor to gain information from his patients' gossip, passed that on to John Grombach. Stationed in Paris, Petiot had German Abwehr officers and east Paris refugees as patien

In chemistry, a molecule experiences strain when its chemical structure undergoes some stress which raises its internal energy in comparison to a strain-free reference compound. The internal energy of a molecule consists of all the energy stored within it. A strained molecule has an additional amount of internal energy which an unstrained molecule does not; this extra internal energy, or strain energy, can be likened to a compressed spring. Much like a compressed spring must be held in place to prevent release of its potential energy, a molecule can be held in an energetically unfavorable conformation by the bonds within that molecule. Without the bonds holding the conformation in place, the strain energy would be released; the equilibrium of two molecular conformations is determined by the difference in Gibbs free energy of the two conformations. From this energy difference, the equilibrium constant for the two conformations can be determined. K e q = exp ⁡ If there is a decrease in Gibbs free energy from one state to another, this transformation is spontaneous and the lower energy state is more stable.

A strained, higher energy molecular conformation will spontaneously convert to the lower energy molecular conformation. Enthalpy and entropy are related to Gibbs free energy through the equation: Δ G ∘ = Δ H ∘ − T Δ S ∘. Enthalpy is the more important thermodynamic function for determining a more stable molecular conformation. While there are different types of strain, the strain energy associated with all of them is due to the weakening of bonds within the molecule. Since enthalpy is more important, entropy can be ignored; this isn't always the case. For example, n-butane has two possible conformations and gauche; the anti conformation is more stable by 0.9 kcal mol−1. We would expect that butane is 82% anti and 18% gauche at room temperature. However, there are only one anti conformation. Therefore, entropy makes a contribution of 0.4 kcal in favor of the gauche conformation. We find that the actual conformational distribution of butane is 70% anti and 30% gauche at room temperature; the standard heat of formation of a compound is described as the enthalpy change when the compound is formed from its separated elements.

When the heat of formation for a compound is different from either a prediction or a reference compound, this difference can be attributed to strain. For example, ΔfH° for cyclohexane is -29.9 kcal mol−1 while ΔfH° for methylcyclopentane is -25.5 kcal mol−1. Despite having the same atoms and number of bonds, methylcyclopentane is higher in energy than cyclohexane; this difference in energy can be attributed to the ring strain of a five-membered ring, absent in cyclohexane. Experimentally, strain energy is determined using heats of combustion, an easy experiment to perform. Determining the strain energy within a molecule requires knowledge of the expected internal energy without the strain. There are two ways. First, one could compare to a similar compound that lacks strain, such as in the previous methylcyclohexane example, it can be difficult to obtain a suitable compound. An alternative is to use Benson group increment theory; as long as suitable group increments are available for the atoms within a compound, a prediction of ΔfH° can be made.

If the experimental ΔfH° differs from the predicted ΔfH°, this difference in energy can be attributed to strain energy. Van der Waals strain, or steric strain, occurs when atoms are forced to get closer than their Van der Waals radii allow. Van der Waals strain is considered a form of strain where the interacting atoms are at least four bonds away from each other; the amount on steric strain in similar molecules is dependent on the size of the interacting groups. The effects of steric strain in the reaction of trialkylamines and trimethylboron were studied by Nobel laureate Herbert C. Brown et al, they found that as the size of the alkyl groups on the amine were increased, the equilibrium constant decreased as well. The shift in equilibrium was attributed to steric strain between the alkyl groups of the amine and the methyl groups on boron. There are situations where identical conformations are not equal in strain energy. Syn-pentane strain is an example of this situation. There are two different ways to put both of the bonds the central in n-pentane into a gauche conformation, one of, 3 kcal mol−1 higher in energy than the other.

When the two methyl-substituted bonds are rotated from anti to gauche in opposite directions, the molecule assumes a cyclopentane-like conformation where the two terminal methyl groups are brought into proximity. If the bonds are rotated in the same direction, this doesn't occur; the steric strain between the two terminal methyl groups accounts for the difference in energy between the two similar, yet different conformations. Allylic strain, or A1,3 strain is associated to syn-pentane strain. An example of allylic strain can be se

International Gender Champions is a network of female and male leaders of member states, international organizations, civil society working for gender equality. It is an initiative of Women@TheTable, was founded in 2015 by Caitlin Kraft-Buchman of Women@TheTable, Ambassador Pam Hamamoto, Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations in Geneva, Michael Møller, the Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and current Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva. Champions pledge to no longer sit on single sex panels, commit to implementing two individual institutional commitments for gender equality in their work. According to co-founder Caitlin Kraft-Buchman, International Gender Champions’ strategy is to help make a wide range of organizations make “huge changes through tiny steps” by committing to realistic, achievable transformations for gender equality. At the IGC launch in 2015, Møller stated, “With the unique concentration of Member States, international organizations, civil society and academic institutions and private sector entities, International Geneva provides an ideal platform to show that leadership in a most practical way.

Together, our actions have a global impact, making a difference for peace and well-being for all people across the planet. We have a special responsibility to capitalize on this potential for greater gender equality.” There are over 200 International Gender Champions in Geneva, New York and Nairobi. Champions include UN Secretary General António Guterres, the heads of UN Offices at Geneva and Nairobi, the ILO, WHO, WTO, WIPO, ITU, UNHCR, OHCHR, IPU, other member states and civil society groups. After joining IGC, Secretary General Guterres stated, “I encourage other senior leaders to be part of this campaign for equality. In a male dominated world, the empowerment of women must be a key priority. Women’s rights are human rights – and attacks on women are attacks on all of us. Our world needs more women leaders, and our world needs more men standing up for gender equality." IGC has organized impact groups, led by Champions which channel sector knowledge in greater detail on Representation, Change Management and Standards.

On the occasion of the World Trade Organization's Ministerial Conference in Buenos Aires in December 2017, the IGC Trade Impact Group was joined by 120 WTO members and observers to issue the historic Joint Declaration on Trade and Women's Economic Empowerment, the first international declaration to explicitly link women's economic empowerment and trade. Susan Malcorra, who presided over the conference, called the Declaration a “great success… Collectively, we were able to recognize the key role women can play in a fair and sustainable international trade system; the fact that so many countries, both members and observers of the WTO, rallied behind women’s empowerment in this field signifies that not everything is lost.” In 2017 and 2018, Geneva's Jet d’Eau was illuminated on International Women's Day with the turquoise of the International Gender Champions logo