Taken

Taken may refer to:

Film and television

Literature

Music

Up All Night (One Direction album)

Up All Night is the debut studio album by English-Irish group One Direction, released by Syco Records in November 2011 in Ireland and the United Kingdom, followed by a worldwide release during 2012. Four months after finishing third in the seventh series of British reality singing contest The X Factor in December 2010, One Direction began recording the album in Sweden, UK and the United States, working with a variety of writers and producers. The album is predominantly a pop music album which orientates into pop rock, dance-pop, teen pop and power pop. The album's lyrical content regards being young, relationships, heartbreak and empowerment. Staged in support of the album, One Direction performed the album's songs live on televised shows, at awards ceremonies, and during their worldwide Up All Night Tour.

The album received generally favourable reviews from contemporary music critics, many of whom appreciated the album's combination of melodic song craft and catchy, pop-oriented material that, while slickly produced, avoided the commercial cynicism and adult contemporary posturing of some of their '80s and '90s forebears. An international success, the album topped the charts in sixteen countries and, by December 2012, has sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide. The album bowed at number two on the UK Albums Chart and ultimately became the UK's fastest-selling debut album of 2011. Up All Night debuted to number one on the United States Billboard 200, selling 176,000 copies in its first week. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), Up All Night was the third global best-selling album of 2012 with sales of 4.5 million copies.

Taken (film series)

The Taken film series is a series of English-language French action films beginning with Taken in 2008. All three films feature Liam Neeson as Bryan Mills.

Films

Taken (2008)

A retired CIA operative named Bryan Mills crosses the globe to rescue his 17-year-old daughter after she is kidnapped by human traffickers and sold into sexual slavery while traveling in France.

Taken 2 (2012)

Murad, the mob boss of the gang of human traffickers and father of Marko, whom Bryan had killed by electrocution, plans to capture Bryan, who is vacationing with his family in Turkey, and avenge his son's death.

Taken 3 (2015)

Bryan has been framed for the murder of his ex-wife, Lenore. He then sets out to clear his name by going after the real killers, while also eluding capture from U.S. authorities that he formerly worked for.

TV series

In September 2015, NBC ordered a prequel based on the series depicting a young Bryan Mills.

Characters and cast

Crew and other

Reception

Box office performance

Critical and public response

Apex

Apex may refer to:

Astronomy

Biology

Places

Organizations

Apex (headdress)

The apex was a cap worn by the flamines and Salii at Rome. The essential part of the apex, to which alone the name properly belonged, was a pointed piece of olive-wood, the base of which was surrounded with a lock of wool. This was worn on the top of the head, and was held there either by fillets only, or, as was more commonly the case, was also fastened by means of two strings or bands, which were called apicula (Festus, s.v.), or offendices (Festus, s.v.), though the latter word is also interpreted to mean a kind of button, by which the strings were fastened under the chin (cf. Serv. ad Virg. Aen. ii.683, viii.664, x.270).

The flamines were forbidden by law to go into public, or even into the open air without the apex (Gellius x.15), and hence we find the expression of alicui apicem dialem imponere used as equivalent to the appointment of a Flamen Dialis (Livy vi.41). Sulpicius was deprived of the priesthood, only because the apex fell from his head whilst he was sacrificing (Valerius Maximus i.1 §5).

Apex (radio band)

Apex was an experimental radio broadcasting system introduced in the United States in 1934 that used high frequencies between roughly 25 and 42 MHz and wideband AM modulation (as opposed to traditional AM broadcasting's narrowband modulation) to achieve high fidelity sound with less static and distortion than medium wave AM stations in the so-called standard broadcast band (then, 545-1505 kHz) experience. They were called "apex", "skyscraper" or "pinnacle" stations because of the height of the broadcast antennas used.

The Federal Communications Commission thought initially that very high frequency (VHF) radio waves would have a small, discrete range, and would allow two or more stations to broadcast on duplicate frequencies without interfering with each other. But later it was realized that during peaks in the 11-year sunspot cycle even VHF radio waves could reflect from the ionosphere, and Apex station signals could sometimes be heard on the other side of the planet. In October 1937, the FCC made public its allocation plan for VHF radio broadcasting: 75 channels with 40 kHz separation on 41.02 to 43.98 MHz for Apex stations and 16 channels in 30-40 MHz for relay stations. Twenty-five of the 75 channels were reallocated for educational use in 1938.