Bernard Edwards, Jr., better known as Focus..., is an Atlanta-based record producer who first rose to fame when signed to Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment. Since then he has produced tracks for Dr. Dre, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, Lil Wayne, Jadakiss, Christina Aguilera, Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé Knowles, 50 Cent, Busta Rhymes, Bishop Lamont, Tony Yayo, Stat Quo, Outlawz, The Game, Jay Rock, Schoolboy Q, Mac Dre, Ice Cube, Anderson Paak, Jon Connor, Joe, Marsha Ambrosius , Slum Village amongst many others.

Biography

Focus... is the son of the late Bernard Edwards, co-founder of disco and R&B band Chic. He was born in Manhattan, New York, and raised in the Tri-State Region. Edwards, Jr credits his father with his love for the production side of music, which he developed from an early age, attending numerous studio sessions with his father.

Focus...'s production talents were first recognized by Dr. Dre when an artist Edwards, Jr had produced, Daks, greatly impressed the Aftermath label head. signed Focus... so that the two could then continue working together.

Focus is a Polish scientific monthly magazine published in Warsaw, Poland.

History and profile

Focus was first published in September 1995 by Gruner and Jahr Polska. Some popular articles are "Zgłoś Miejsce", "Biologia Dla Zwykłego Człowieka", and "Criminal Chemia." The magazine has its headquarters in Warsaw.

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External links

FOCUS is a computer programming language and development environment. It is a language used to build database queries, and is regarded as a fourth-generation programming language (4GL). Produced by Information Builders Inc., it was originally developed for data handling and analysis on the IBM mainframe. As newer systems were developed and smaller computers became more powerful, the available platforms for FOCUS were extended to personal computers and in 1997, to the World Wide Web in the WebFOCUS product.

Relation to other 4GLs

RAMIS, the first 4GL, was the direct ancestor of FOCUS, having been principally developed by Gerald D. Cohen and Peter Mittelman while working at Mathematica Products Group in 1970. The product was sold by Mathematica to a number of in-house clients (including Nabisco and AT&T), and was also offered by the National CSS timesharing company for use on their VP/CSS operating system (a derivation of IBM's CP/CMS which is now called VM/CMS). In 1970, Cohen decided to leave Mathematica and form Information Builders, after which he recreated the product he had built at Mathematica in the form of FOCUS which was released in 1975. The syntax of FOCUS in its simplest elements is almost a direct clone of the syntax of RAMIS bearing a resemblance similar to the differences between various early dialects of SQL). At the same time, NCSS decided to work on its own product, later called NOMAD. All three products flourished during the 1970s and early 1980s, but Mathematica's time ran out in the mid-80s, and NCSS also failed, a victim of the personal computing revolution which obviated commercial timesharing (although it has since been revived in the form of ASPs and shared web servers). RAMIS was sold through to several companies, ultimately landing with Computer Associates. NOMAD suffered a similar fate. FOCUS, under Cohen's direction, continued to flourish by expanding their product.

The label "non-institutional" refers to a distinct fellowship within the Churches of Christ who do not agree with the support of para-church organizations (colleges, orphans' homes, organized mission efforts, etc.) by local congregations. They contend that the New Testament includes no authority for churches' support of such institutions. Instead they feel that it is a responsibility and duty of the individual to assist those in need. These local churches became separated from "mainline" (pro-institutional) churches of Christ because of these viewpoints, developing into a distinct segment of congregations by the 1960s. Whether a congregation supports the "sponsoring church" custom is one way to distinguish between the "non-institutional" and "mainstream" congregations. The congregations that advocate financial support or the pooling of resources for the benefit of other entities or organized external evangelical efforts are sometimes called "sponsoring churches" and identified as "mainstream."

Focus is a 2001 film, starring William H. Macy, Laura Dern, David Paymer, and Meat Loaf based on a 1945 novel by playwright Arthur Miller.

Plot

In the waning months of World War II, a man is mistakenly identified as a Jew by his antisemitic Brooklyn neighbors. Suddenly the victims of religious and racial persecution, he finds himself aligned with a local Jewish immigrant in a struggle for dignity and survival.

Cast

Reception

Critical response

Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a rating of 56% based on 81 reviews, with the site's consensus "Though full of good intentions, Focus somehow feels dated, and pounds away its points with a heavy hand."

Focus is a 2015 American dark-comedy thriller film written and directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, starring Will Smith, Margot Robbie, and Rodrigo Santoro.

Plot

Seasoned con-man Nicky Spurgeon (Will Smith) goes to an upscale restaurant, where an inexperienced grifter, Jess Barrett (Margot Robbie), seduces him, and then pretends they've been caught by her jealous husband. When the deception fails, Nicky advises them never to lose focus when faced with unexpected situations. Jess finds him in another nightclub a few days later and convinces Nicky to become her mentor. Nicky tells her about how his father, a con man named Bucky Spurgeon, was forced to shoot his grandfather when a con went wrong, a maneuver he calls "the Toledo Panic Button".

Jess follows Nick to New Orleans, where she is introduced to Nicky's crew, including the obese and profane Farhad (Adrian Martinez). She picks a few pockets as a test, and soon Nicky and Jess develop a romantic relationship, upsetting Nicky, who was taught by his father to never become emotionally involved with anyone in their line of business. At the 17th Associated Football Franchise of America Championship Game at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, Nicky gets into a round of increasingly extravagant bets with gambler Liyuan Tse (B.D. Wong), eventually losing all of the money the crew has earned. To win it back, Nicky asks Tse to pick any player off the field and says that Jess will guess the number picked. A distraught Jess scans the field and notices Farhad wearing jersey number 55 and realizes it is another con. They take Tse for millions of dollars, but Nicky, wary of his growing emotional involvement, leaves Jess by the side of the road with her cut.