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synth_fc_3179_rep1 | Positive | Sport | Feature search | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Watson_(golfer) | 1 | Thomas Sturges Watson is an American retired professional golfer on the PGA Tour Champions, formerly on the PGA Tour. In the 1970s and 1980s, Watson was one of the leading golfers in the world, winning eight major championships and heading the PGA Tour money list five times. He was the number one player in the world according to McCormack's World Golf Rankings from 1978 until 1982; in both 1983 and 1984, he was ranked second behind Seve Ballesteros. He also spent 32 weeks in the top 10 of the successor Sony Rankings in their debut in 1986. Watson is also notable for his longevity: at nearly sixty years of age, and 26 years after his last major championship victory, he led after the second and third rounds of The Open Championship in 2009, but lost in a four-hole playoff. With a chance to win the tournament with par on the 72nd hole, he missed an 8-foot (2.4 m) putt, then lost to Stewart Cink in the playoff. Several of Watson's major victories came at the expense of Jack Nicklaus, the man he replaced as number one, most notably the 1977 Masters, 1977 Open Championship, and the 1982 U.S. Open. Though his rivalry with Nicklaus was intense, their friendly competitiveness served to increase golf's popularity at the time. In Watson's illustrious career, his eight major championships include five Open Championships, two Masters titles, and one U.S. Open title. In all, Watson's eight majors ranks sixth on the list of total major championship victories, behind only Nicklaus, Woods, Walter Hagen, Hogan, and Player. Watson is also regarded as one of the greatest links players of all time, a claim backed up by his five Open Championship victories, his runner-up finishes at the 1984 Open Championship and 2009 Open Championship, and his three Senior British Open Championship titles in his mid-50s. Watson played on four Ryder Cup teams and captained the American side to victory in 1993 at The Belfry in England. More than twenty years later, Watson again captained the U.S. Team in 2014 in Scotland, this time in a loss. |
synth_fc_2520_rep1 | Positive | Museum | Ranking | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Glass | 18 | Personal life
Glass lives in New York City and in Cape Breton in Nova Scotia. He has described himself as "a Jewish- Taoist - Hindu - Toltec - Buddhist " and is a supporter of the Tibetan independence movement. In 1987, he co-founded the Tibet House US with Columbia University professor Robert Thurman and the actor Richard Gere at the request of the 14th Dalai Lama. He's also chair of the magazine Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. Glass is a vegetarian.
Glass has been married four times; he has four children and one granddaughter.
He was romantically involved with cellist Wendy Sutter for approximately five years. As of December 2018, his partner was Japanese-born dancer Saori Tsukada.
Glass is the first cousin once removed of Ira Glass, host of the radio show This American Life. Ira interviewed Glass onstage at Chicago's Field Museum; this interview was broadcast on NPR 's Fresh Air. Ira interviewed Glass a second time at a fundraiser for St. Ann's Warehouse; this interview was given away to public-radio listeners as a pledge-drive thank-you gift in 2010. Ira and Glass recorded a version of the composition Glass wrote to accompany his friend Allen Ginsberg 's poem " Wichita Vortex Sutra ". In 2014, This American Life broadcast a live performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music that included the world premier of the opera Help, a short monodrama that Philip Glass wrote for the occasion. |
synth_fc_3848_rep26 | Positive | Weather & Air quality | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_dust | 1 | Diamond dust is a ground-level cloud composed of tiny ice crystals. This meteorological phenomenon is also referred to simply as ice crystals and is reported in the METAR code as IC. Diamond dust generally forms under otherwise clear or nearly clear skies, so it is sometimes referred to as clear-sky precipitation. Diamond dust is most commonly observed in Antarctica and the Arctic, but can occur anywhere with a temperature well below freezing. In the polar regions of Earth, diamond dust may persist for several days without interruption. |
synth_fc_1867_rep24 | Positive | History | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin | 28 | Inscriptions
Some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL). Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same: volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance and relevant information. The reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. About 270,000 inscriptions are known. |
synth_fc_31_rep12 | Positive | Acoustics | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Even_and_odd_functions | 16 | Complex-valued functions
The definitions for even and odd symmetry for complex-valued functions of a real argument are similar to the real case. In signal processing, a similar symmetry is sometimes considered, which involves complex conjugation.
Conjugate symmetry:
A complex-valued function of a real argument f: R → C {\displaystyle f:\mathbb {R} \to \mathbb {C} } is called conjugate symmetric if
A complex valued function is conjugate symmetric if and only if its real part is an even function and its imaginary part is an odd function.
A typical example of a conjugate symmetric function is the cis function
Conjugate antisymmetry:
A complex-valued function of a real argument f: R → C {\displaystyle f:\mathbb {R} \to \mathbb {C} } is called conjugate antisymmetric if:
A complex valued function is conjugate antisymmetric if and only if its real part is an odd function and its imaginary part is an even function. |
synth_fc_2626_rep11 | Positive | Music | Proximal search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Sibelius | 8 | First World War years
While travelling back from the United States, Sibelius heard about the events in Sarajevo that led to the beginning of the First World War. Although he was far away from the fighting, his royalties from abroad were interrupted. To make ends meet, he composed smaller works for publication in Finland. In March 1915, he was able to travel to Gothenburg in Sweden, where his work The Oceanides was widely appreciated. While working on his Fifth Symphony in April, he saw 16 swans flying by, inspiring him to write the finale. "One of the great experiences of my life!" he commented. Although there was little progress on the symphony during the summer, he was able to complete it by his 50th birthday on 8 December.
On the evening of his birthday, Sibelius conducted the premiere of the Fifth Symphony in the hall of the Helsinki Stock Exchange. Despite high praise from Kajanus, the composer was not satisfied with his work and soon began to revise it. Around this time, Sibelius was running ever deeper into debt. The grand piano he had received as a present was about to be confiscated by the bailiffs when the singer Ida Ekman paid off a large proportion of his debt after a successful fund-raising campaign.
A year later, on 8 December 1916, Sibelius presented the revised version of his Fifth Symphony in Turku, combining the first two movements and simplifying the finale. When it was performed a week later in Helsinki, Katila was very favourable but Wasenius frowned on the changes, leading the composer to rewrite it once again.
From the beginning of 1917, Sibelius started drinking again, triggering arguments with Aino. Their relationship improved with the excitement resulting from the start of the Russian Revolution. By the end of the year, Sibelius had composed his Jäger March. The piece proved particularly popular after the Finnish parliament accepted the Senate's declaration of independence from Russia in December 1917. The Jäger March, first played on 19 January 1918, delighted the Helsinki elite for a short time until the start of the Finnish Civil War on 27 January. Sibelius naturally supported the Whites, but as a Tolstoyan, Aino Sibelius had some sympathies for the Reds too.
In February, his house (Ainola) was searched twice by the local Red Guard looking for weapons. During the first weeks of the war, some of his acquaintances were killed in the violence, and his brother, the psychiatrist Christian Sibelius, was arrested because he refused to reserve beds for the Red soldiers who had suffered shell shock at the front. Sibelius's friends in Helsinki were now worried about his safety. The composer Robert Kajanus negotiated with the Red Guard commander-in-chief Eero Haapalainen, who guaranteed Sibelius a safe journey from Ainola to the capital. On 20 February, a group of Red Guard fighters escorted the family to Helsinki. Finally, from 12 to 13 April, the German troops occupied the city and the Red period was over. A week later, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra gave a concert in homage to the German commander Rüdiger von der Goltz. Sibelius finished off the event by conducting the Jäger March. |
synth_fc_2270_rep10 | Positive | Law | Entity search | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Civil_War | 23 | Second English Civil War (1648–1649)
Charles I took advantage of the deflection of attention away from himself to negotiate on 28 December 1647 a secret treaty with the Scots, again promising church reform. Under the agreement, called the " Engagement ", the Scots undertook to invade England on Charles's behalf and restore him to the throne.
A series of Royalist uprisings throughout England and a Scottish invasion occurred in the summer of 1648. Forces loyal to Parliament put down most of those in England after little more than a skirmish, but uprisings in Kent, Essex and Cumberland, the rebellion in Wales, and the Scottish invasion involved pitched battles and prolonged sieges.
In the spring of 1649, unpaid Parliamentarian troops in Wales changed sides. Colonel Thomas Horton defeated the Royalist rebels at the Battle of St Fagans (8 May) and the rebel leaders surrendered to Cromwell on 11 July after a protracted two-month siege of Pembroke. Sir Thomas Fairfax defeated a Royalist uprising in Kent at the Battle of Maidstone on 1 June. Fairfax, after his success at Maidstone and the pacification of Kent, turned north to reduce Essex, where, under an ardent, experienced and popular leader, Sir Charles Lucas, the Royalists had taken up arms in great numbers. Fairfax soon drove the enemy into Colchester, but his first attack on the town met with a repulse and he had to settle down to a long siege.
In the North of England, Major-General John Lambert fought a successful campaign against several Royalist uprisings, the largest being that of Sir Marmaduke Langdale in Cumberland. Thanks to Lambert's successes, the Scottish commander, the Duke of Hamilton, had to take a western route through Carlisle in his pro-Royalist Scottish invasion of England. The Parliamentarians under Cromwell engaged the Scots at the Battle of Preston (17–19 August). The battle took place largely at Walton-le-Dale near Preston, Lancashire, and resulted in a victory for Cromwell's troops over the Royalists and Scots commanded by Hamilton. This victory marked the end of the Second English Civil War.
Nearly all the Royalists who had fought in the First Civil War had given their word not to bear arms against Parliament, and many, like Lord Astley, were therefore bound by oath not to take any part in the second conflict. So, the victors in the Second Civil War showed little mercy to those who had brought war into the land again. On the evening of the surrender of Colchester, Parliamentarians had Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle shot. Parliamentary authorities sentenced the leaders of the Welsh rebels, Major-General Rowland Laugharne, Colonel John Poyer and Colonel Rice Powel to death, but executed only Poyer (25 April 1649), having selected him by lot. Of five prominent Royalist peers who had fallen into Parliamentary hands, three – the Duke of Hamilton, the Earl of Holland, and Lord Capel, one of the Colchester prisoners and a man of high character – were beheaded at Westminster on 9 March. |
synth_fc_756_rep22 | Positive | DNA sequence | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nereididae | 1 | Nereididae are a family of polychaete worms. It contains about 500 – mostly marine – species grouped into 42 genera. They may be commonly called ragworms or clam worms. |
synth_fc_3348_rep2 | Positive | Store & Facility | Entity search | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditorium | 1 | An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances. For movie theatres, the number of auditoria is expressed as the number of screens. Auditoria can be found in entertainment venues, community halls, and theaters, and may be used for rehearsal, presentation, performing arts productions, or as a learning space. |
synth_fc_2445_rep18 | Negative | Movie | Ranking | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilmos_Zsigmond | 1 | Vilmos Zsigmond was a Hungarian-American cinematographer. His work in cinematography helped shape the look of American movies in the 1970s, making him one of the leading figures in the American New Wave movement. Over his career he became associated with many leading American directors, such as Robert Altman, Steven Spielberg, Brian De Palma, Michael Cimino and Woody Allen. He is best known for his work on the films Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Deer Hunter. He won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on Close Encounters of the Third Kind as well as the BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography for The Deer Hunter. He also won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Cinematography for a Miniseries or a Special for the HBO miniseries Stalin. His work on the films McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Deer Hunter made the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) list of the top 50 best-shot films from 1950–97. The ASC also awarded him with their Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998. In 2003, Zsigmond was voted as one of the ten most influential cinematographers in history by the members of the International Cinematographers Guild. |
synth_fc_2852_rep26 | Positive | Real estate | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Diego | 7 | Real estate
San Diego has high real estate prices. San Diego home prices peaked in 2005, and then declined along with the national trend. As of December 2010, prices were down 36 percent from the peak, median price of homes having declined by more than $200,000 between 2005 and 2010. As of May 2015, the median price of a house was $520,000. In November 2018 the median home price was $558,000. The San Diego metropolitan area had one of the worst housing affordability rankings of all metropolitan areas in the United States in 2009. The San Diego Housing Market experienced a decline in the median sold price of existing single-family homes between December 2022 and January 2023, with a 2.9% decrease from $850,000 to $824,950. As of 2023, the majority of homes (nearly 60%) in San Diego are listed above $1 million, with the city's median home price at $910,000, ranking it fourth highest among the 30 largest U.S. cities.
Consequently, San Diego has experienced negative net migration since 2004. A significant number of people have moved to adjacent Riverside County, commuting daily to jobs in San Diego, while others are leaving the area altogether and moving to more affordable regions. |
synth_fc_2939_rep22 | Positive | Restaurant | Proximal search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filet_mignon | 1 | Filet mignon is a cut of meat taken from the smaller end of the tenderloin, or psoas major of a cow. In French, it mostly refers to cuts of pork tenderloin. The tenderloin runs along both sides of the spine, and is usually butchered as two long snake-shaped cuts of meat. The tenderloin is sometimes sold whole. Filet mignon is usually presented as a round cut taken from the thinner end of a piece of tenderloin. It is often the most tender and lean cut. Filet mignon often has a milder flavour than other cuts of meat and as such is often garnished with a sauce or wrapped with bacon. Due to the small amount of filet mignon able to be butchered from each animal it is generally considered one of the most expensive cuts of beef. |
synth_fc_3607_rep5 | Negative | Travel itinerary | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet | 10 | Mobile communication
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) estimated that, by the end of 2017, 48% of individual users regularly connect to the Internet, up from 34% in 2012. Mobile Internet connectivity has played an important role in expanding access in recent years, especially in Asia and the Pacific and in Africa. The number of unique mobile cellular subscriptions increased from 3.9 billion in 2012 to 4.8 billion in 2016, two-thirds of the world's population, with more than half of subscriptions located in Asia and the Pacific. The number of subscriptions was predicted to rise to 5.7 billion users in 2020. As of 2018, 80% of the world's population were covered by a 4G network. The limits that users face on accessing information via mobile applications coincide with a broader process of fragmentation of the Internet. Fragmentation restricts access to media content and tends to affect the poorest users the most.
Zero-rating, the practice of Internet service providers allowing users free connectivity to access specific content or applications without cost, has offered opportunities to surmount economic hurdles but has also been accused by its critics as creating a two-tiered Internet. To address the issues with zero-rating, an alternative model has emerged in the concept of 'equal rating' and is being tested in experiments by Mozilla and Orange in Africa. Equal rating prevents prioritization of one type of content and zero-rates all content up to a specified data cap. In a study published by Chatham House, 15 out of 19 countries researched in Latin America had some kind of hybrid or zero-rated product offered. Some countries in the region had a handful of plans to choose from (across all mobile network operators) while others, such as Colombia, offered as many as 30 pre-paid and 34 post-paid plans.
A study of eight countries in the Global South found that zero-rated data plans exist in every country, although there is a great range in the frequency with which they are offered and actually used in each. The study looked at the top three to five carriers by market share in Bangladesh, Colombia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Peru and Philippines. Across the 181 plans examined, 13 percent were offering zero-rated services. Another study, covering Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, found Facebook 's Free Basics and Wikipedia Zero to be the most commonly zero-rated content. |
synth_fc_2255_rep20 | No function call | Law | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheetah | 8 | In Asia
In 2001, the Iranian government collaborated with the CCF, the IUCN, Panthera Corporation, UNDP and the Wildlife Conservation Society on the Conservation of Asiatic Cheetah Project (CACP) to protect the natural habitat of the Asiatic cheetah and its prey. In 2004, the Iranian Centre for Sustainable Development (CENESTA) conducted an international workshop to discuss conservation plans with local stakeholders. Iran declared 31 August as National Cheetah Day in 2006. The Iranian Cheetah Strategic Planning meet in 2010 formulated a five-year conservation plan for Asiatic cheetahs. The CACP Phase II was implemented in 2009, and the third phase was drafted in 2018.
During the early 2000s scientists from the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (Hyderabad) proposed a plan to clone Asiatic cheetahs from Iran for reintroduction in India, but Iran denied the proposal. In September 2009, the Minister of Environment and Forests assigned the Wildlife Trust of India and the Wildlife Institute of India with examining the potential of importing African cheetahs to India. Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary and Nauradehi Wildlife Sanctuary were suggested as reintroduction sites for the cheetah because of their high prey density. However, plans for reintroduction were stalled in May 2012 by the Supreme Court of India because of a political dispute and concerns over introducing a non-native species to the country. Opponents stated the plan was "not a case of intentional movement of an organism into a part of its native range". On 28 January 2020, the Supreme Court allowed the central government to introduce cheetahs to a suitable habitat in India on an experimental basis to see if they can adapt to it. In 2020, India signed a memorandum of understanding with Namibia as part of Project Cheetah. In July 2022, it was announced that eight cheetahs would be transferred from Namibia to India in August. The eight cheetahs were released into Kuno on 17 September 2022, by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. |
synth_fc_484_rep16 | Positive | Corporate Management | Database calculation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon | 9 | Release of Red & Green
Nintendo had no high expectations of Pocket Monsters Red and Green, and media largely ignored the game(s). By 1996, the seven-year-old Game Boy console was considered yesterday's news and near the end of its lifecycle. On the other hand, new Game Boys continued to be manufactured and sold. The console was widespread and, due to its age, affordable to children. Also, the Game Boy had experienced a small revival in Japan in 1995 due to the success of Mario's Picross. Coincidentally, this game was directed by Ishihara, and co-developed by Ape. The popularity of Mario's Picross inspired Nintendo to develop the Game Boy Pocket, a slimmer and improved version of the Game Boy, released in Japan on July 21, 1996. Because of the timing, some were under the impression that the Game Boy Pocket was made to promote Pocket Monsters, but this was in fact a coincidence that would end up benefiting both. |
synth_fc_1753_rep4 | Positive | Health | API setting | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_depressive_disorder | 13 | Comorbidity
Major depression frequently co-occurs with other psychiatric problems. The 1990–92 National Comorbidity Survey (US) reported that half of those with major depression also have lifetime anxiety and its associated disorders, such as generalized anxiety disorder. Anxiety symptoms can have a major impact on the course of a depressive illness, with delayed recovery, increased risk of relapse, greater disability and increased suicidal behavior. Depressed people have increased rates of alcohol and substance use, particularly dependence, and around a third of individuals diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) develop comorbid depression. Post-traumatic stress disorder and depression often co-occur. Depression may also coexist with ADHD, complicating the diagnosis and treatment of both. Depression is also frequently comorbid with alcohol use disorder and personality disorders. Depression can also be exacerbated during particular months (usually winter) in those with seasonal affective disorder. While overuse of digital media has been associated with depressive symptoms, using digital media may also improve mood in some situations.
Depression and pain often co-occur. One or more pain symptoms are present in 65% of people who have depression, and anywhere from 5 to 85% of people who are experiencing pain will also have depression, depending on the setting—a lower prevalence in general practice, and higher in specialty clinics. Depression is often underrecognized, and therefore undertreated, in patients presenting with pain. Depression often coexists with physical disorders common among the elderly, such as stroke, other cardiovascular diseases, Parkinson's disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. |
synth_fc_3756_rep5 | No function call | Weather & Air quality | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercomputer | 3 | Development and trends
In the 2010s, China, the United States, the European Union, and others competed to be the first to create a 1 exaFLOP (10 or one quintillion FLOPS) supercomputer. Erik P. DeBenedictis of Sandia National Laboratories has theorized that a zettaFLOPS (10 or one sextillion FLOPS) computer is required to accomplish full weather modeling, which could cover a two-week time span accurately. Such systems might be built around 2030.
Many Monte Carlo simulations use the same algorithm to process a randomly generated data set; particularly, integro-differential equations describing physical transport processes, the random paths, collisions, and energy and momentum depositions of neutrons, photons, ions, electrons, etc. The next step for microprocessors may be into the third dimension; and specializing to Monte Carlo, the many layers could be identical, simplifying the design and manufacture process.
The cost of operating high performance supercomputers has risen, mainly due to increasing power consumption. In the mid-1990s a top 10 supercomputer required in the range of 100 kilowatts, in 2010 the top 10 supercomputers required between 1 and 2 megawatts. A 2010 study commissioned by DARPA identified power consumption as the most pervasive challenge in achieving Exascale computing. At the time a megawatt per year in energy consumption cost about 1 million dollars. Supercomputing facilities were constructed to efficiently remove the increasing amount of heat produced by modern multi-core central processing units. Based on the energy consumption of the Green 500 list of supercomputers between 2007 and 2011, a supercomputer with 1 exaFLOPS in 2011 would have required nearly 500 megawatts. Operating systems were developed for existing hardware to conserve energy whenever possible. CPU cores not in use during the execution of a parallelized application were put into low-power states, producing energy savings for some supercomputing applications.
The increasing cost of operating supercomputers has been a driving factor in a trend toward bundling of resources through a distributed supercomputer infrastructure. National supercomputing centers first emerged in the US, followed by Germany and Japan. The European Union launched the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE) with the aim of creating a persistent pan-European supercomputer infrastructure with services to support scientists across the European Union in porting, scaling and optimizing supercomputing applications. Iceland built the world's first zero-emission supercomputer. Located at the Thor Data Center in Reykjavík, Iceland, this supercomputer relies on completely renewable sources for its power rather than fossil fuels. The colder climate also reduces the need for active cooling, making it one of the greenest facilities in the world of computers.
Funding supercomputer hardware also became increasingly difficult. In the mid-1990s a top 10 supercomputer cost about 10 million euros, while in 2010 the top 10 supercomputers required an investment of between 40 and 50 million euros. In the 2000s national governments put in place different strategies to fund supercomputers. In the UK the national government funded supercomputers entirely and high performance computing was put under the control of a national funding agency. Germany developed a mixed funding model, pooling local state funding and federal funding. |
synth_fc_2179_rep5 | Positive | Law | Entity search | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lung_cancer | 12 | History
Lung cancer was uncommon before the advent of cigarette smoking. Surgeon Alton Ochsner recalled that as a Washington University medical student in 1919, his entire medical school class was summoned to witness an autopsy of a man who had died from lung cancer, and told they may never see such a case again. In Isaac Adler 's 1912 Primary Malignant Growths of the Lungs and Bronchi, he called lung cancer "among the rarest forms of disease"; Adler tabulated the 374 cases of lung cancer that had been published to that time, concluding the disease was increasing in incidence. By the 1920s, several theories had been put forward linking the increase in lung cancer to various chemical exposures that had increased including tobacco smoke, asphalt dust, industrial air pollution, and poisonous gasses from World War I.
Over the following decades, growing scientific evidence linked lung cancer to cigarette consumption. Through the 1940s and early 1950s, several case-control studies showed that those with lung cancer were more likely to have smoked cigarettes compared to those without lung cancer. These were followed by several prospective cohort studies in the 1950s – including the first report of the British Doctors Study in 1954 – all of which showed that those who smoked tobacco were at dramatically increased risk of developing lung cancer.
A 1953 study showing that tar from cigarette smoke could cause tumors in mice attracted attention in the popular press, with features in Life and Time magazines. Facing public concern and falling stock prices, the CEOs of six of the largest American tobacco companies gathered in December 1953. They enlisted the help of public relations firm Hill & Knowlton to craft a multi-pronged strategy aiming to distract from accumulating evidence by funding tobacco-friendly research, declaring the link to lung cancer "controversial", and demanding ever-more research to settle this purported controversy. At the same time, internal research at the major tobacco companies supported the link between tobacco and lung cancer; though these results were kept secret from the public.
As evidence linking tobacco use with lung cancer mounted, various health bodies announced official positions linking the two. In 1962, the United Kingdom's Royal College of Physicians officially concluded that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, prompting the United States Surgeon General to empanel (enroll or enlist) an advisory committee, which deliberated in secret over nine sessions between November 1962 and December 1963. The committee's report, published in January 1964, firmly concluded that cigarette smoking "far outweighs all other factors" in causing lung cancer. The report received substantial coverage in the popular press, and is widely seen as a turning point for public recognition that tobacco smoking causes lung cancer.
The connection with radon gas was first recognized among miners in Germany's Ore Mountains. As early as 1500, miners were noted to develop a deadly disease called "mountain sickness" ("Bergkrankheit"), identified as lung cancer by the late 19th century. By 1938, up to 80% of miners in affected regions died from the disease. In the 1950s radon and its breakdown products became established as causes of lung cancer in miners. Based largely on studies of miners, the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified radon as "carcinogenic to humans" in 1988. In 1956, a study revealed radon in Swedish residences. Over the following decades, high radon concentrations were found in residences across the world; by the 1980s many countries had established national radon programs to catalog and mitigate residential radon.
The first successful pneumonectomy for lung cancer was performed in 1933 by Evarts Graham at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. Over the following decades, surgical development focused on sparing as much healthy lung tissue as possible, with the lobectomy surpassing the pneumectomy in frequency by the 1960s, and the wedge resection appearing in the early 1970s. This trend continued with the development of video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery in the 1980s, now widely performed for many lung cancer surgeries. |
synth_fc_987_rep14 | Positive | Finance | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump | 25 | 2024 presidential campaign
On November 15, 2022, Trump announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election and set up a fundraising account. In March 2023, the campaign began diverting 10 percent of the donations to Trump's leadership PAC. Trump's campaign had paid $100 million towards his legal bills by March 2024.
In December 2023, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled Trump disqualified for the Colorado Republican primary for his role in inciting the January 6, 2021, attack on Congress. In March 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court restored his name to the ballot in a unanimous decision, ruling that Colorado lacks the authority to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bars insurrectionists from holding federal office.
During the campaign, Trump made increasingly violent and authoritarian statements. He also said that he would weaponize the FBI and the Justice Department against his political opponents, and used harsher, more dehumanizing anti-immigrant rhetoric than during his presidency.
On July 13, 2024, Trump's ear was grazed by a bullet in an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Butler Township, Pennsylvania. The campaign declined to disclose medical or hospital records.
Two days later, the 2024 Republican National Convention nominated Trump as their presidential candidate, with U.S. senator JD Vance as his running mate. |
synth_fc_58_rep7 | Negative | Architecture | Recommendation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elevator | 84 | Paternoster
A special type of elevator is the paternoster, a constantly moving chain of boxes. A similar concept, called the manlift or humanlift, moves only a small platform, which the rider mounts while using a handhold seen in multi-story industrial plants. |
synth_fc_623_rep8 | Positive | Currency | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknote | 16 | Other materials
Over the years, a number of materials other than paper have been used to print banknotes. This includes various textiles, including silk, and materials such as leather.
Silk and other fibers have been commonly used in the manufacture of various banknote papers, intended to provide both additional durability and security. Crane and Company patented banknote paper with embedded silk threads in 1844 and has supplied paper to the United States Treasury since 1879. Banknotes printed on pure silk "paper" include "emergency money" Notgeld issues from a number of German towns in 1923 during a period of fiscal crisis and hyperinflation. Most notoriously, Bielefeld produced a number of silk, leather, velvet, linen and wood issues. These issues were produced primarily for collectors, rather than for circulation. They are in demand by collectors. Banknotes printed on cloth include a number of Communist Revolutionary issues in China from areas such as Xinjiang, or Sinkiang, in the United Islamic Republic of East Turkestan in 1933. Emergency money was also printed in 1902 on khaki shirt fabric during the Boer War.
Cotton fibers, together with 25% linen, are the material of the banknotes in the United States. Leather banknotes (or coins) were issued in a number of sieges, as well as in other times of emergency. During the Russian administration of Alaska, banknotes were printed on sealskin. A number of 19th-century issues are known in Germanic and Estonia, including the places of Dorpat, Pernau, Reval, Werro, and Woiseck. In addition to the Bielefeld issues, other German leather Notgeld from 1923 is known from Borna, Osterwieck, Paderborn and Pößneck.
Other issues from 1923 were printed on wood, which was also used in Canada in 1763–1764 during Pontiac's Rebellion, and by the Hudson's Bay Company. In 1848, in Bohemia, wooden checkerboard pieces were used as money.
Even playing cards were used for currency in France in the early 19th century, and in French Canada from 1685 until 1757, the Colony of Louisiana, Dutch Guiana, and in the Isle of Man in the beginning of the 19th century, and again in Germany after World War I.
Most recently, Bisphenol S (BPS), has been frequently used in the production of banknotes worldwide. BPS is an endocrine disruptor that is subject to human dermal absorption through handling banknotes. |
synth_fc_92_rep1 | Positive | Astronomy | Calculation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_constant | 5 | History
The cosmological constant was originally introduced in Einstein's 1917 paper entitled “ The cosmological considerations in the General Theory of Reality ”. Einstein included the cosmological constant as a term in his field equations for general relativity because he was dissatisfied that otherwise his equations did not allow for a static universe: gravity would cause a universe that was initially non-expanding to contract. To counteract this possibility, Einstein added the cosmological constant. However, Einstein was not happy about adding this cosmological term. He later stated that "Since I introduced this term, I had always a bad conscience.... I am unable to believe that such an ugly thing is actually realized in nature". Einstein's static universe is unstable against matter density perturbations. Furthermore, without the cosmological constant Einstein could have found the expansion of the universe before Hubble's observations.
In 1929, not long after Einstein developed his static theory, observations by Edwin Hubble indicated that the universe appears to be expanding; this was consistent with a cosmological solution to the original general relativity equations that had been found by the mathematician Alexander Friedmann, working on the Einstein equations of general relativity. Einstein reportedly referred to his failure to accept the validation of his equations—when they had predicted the expansion of the universe in theory, before it was demonstrated in observation of the cosmological redshift —as his "biggest blunder" (according to George Gamow).
It transpired that adding the cosmological constant to Einstein's equations does not lead to a static universe at equilibrium because the equilibrium is unstable: if the universe expands slightly, then the expansion releases vacuum energy, which causes yet more expansion. Likewise, a universe that contracts slightly will continue contracting.
However, the cosmological constant remained a subject of theoretical and empirical interest. Empirically, the cosmological data of recent decades strongly suggests that our universe has a positive cosmological constant. The explanation of this small but positive value is a remaining theoretical challenge, the so-called cosmological constant problem.
Some early generalizations of Einstein's gravitational theory, known as classical unified field theories, either introduced a cosmological constant on theoretical grounds or found that it arose naturally from the mathematics. For example, Arthur Eddington claimed that the cosmological constant version of the vacuum field equation expressed the " epistemological " property that the universe is "self- gauging ", and Erwin Schrödinger 's pure- affine theory using a simple variational principle produced the field equation with a cosmological term.
In 1990s, Saul Perlmutter at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Brian Schmidt of the Australian National University and Adam Riess of the Space Telescope Science Institute were searching for type Ia supernovas. By that time, they expected to observe the deceleration of the supernovas caused by the gravitation attraction of mass according to Einstein’s gravitational theory. The first reports published in July 1997 from Supernova Cosmology Project used the supernova observation to support such deceleration hypothesis. But soon they found that supernovas were flying away in an accelerating manner. In 1998, both teams announced this surprising result. It implied the universe is under accelerating expansion. The cosmological constant is needed to explain such acceleration. After this discovery, the cosmological constant was put back to the equation of general relativity. |
synth_fc_2356_rep15 | Positive | Law | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbery | 10 | "Steals"
This requires evidence to show a theft as set out in section 1(1) of the Theft Act 1968. In R v Robinson the defendant threatened the victim with a knife in order to recover money which he was actually owed. His conviction for robbery was quashed on the basis that Robinson had an honest, although unreasonable, belief (under Section 2(1)(a) of the Act) in his legal right to the money. See also R v Skivington 1 QB 166, 2 WLR 655, 131 JP 265, 111 SJ 72, 1 All ER 483, 51 Cr App R 167, CA.
In R v Hale (1978) the application of force and the stealing took place in many different locations, and it was not possible to establish the timing; it was held that the appropriation necessary to prove theft was a continuing act, and the jury could correctly convict of robbery. This approach was followed in R v Lockley (1995) when the force was applied to a shopkeeper after property had been taken. It was argued that the theft should be regarded as complete by this time, and R v Gomez (1993), should apply; the court disagreed, preferring to follow R v Hale. |
synth_fc_1049_rep1 | Positive | Finance | Calculation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Games | 9 | Budget
During the first half of the 20th century, the IOC ran on a small budget. As president of the IOC from 1952 to 1972, Avery Brundage rejected all attempts to link the Olympics with commercial interest. He believed that the lobby of corporate interests would unduly impact the IOC's decision-making. His resistance to this revenue stream meant the IOC left organising committees to negotiate their own sponsorship contracts and use the Olympic symbols. When Brundage retired, the IOC had US$2 million in assets; eight years later the IOC coffers had swelled to US$45 million. This was primarily due to a shift in ideology toward expansion of the Games through corporate sponsorship and the sale of television rights. When Juan Antonio Samaranch was elected IOC president in 1980, his desire was to make the IOC financially independent.
The 1984 Summer Olympics became a watershed moment in Olympic history. The Los Angeles-based organising committee, led by Peter Ueberroth, was able to generate a surplus of US$225 million, which was an unprecedented amount at that time. The organising committee had been able to create such a surplus in part by selling exclusive sponsorship rights to select companies. The IOC sought to gain control of these sponsorship rights. Samaranch helped to establish The Olympic Programme (TOP) in 1985, in order to create an Olympic brand. Membership in TOP was, and is, very exclusive and expensive. Fees cost US$50 million for a four-year membership. Members of TOP received exclusive global advertising rights for their product category, and use of the Olympic symbol, the interlocking rings, in their publications and advertisements. |
synth_fc_2205_rep30 | Positive | Law | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingerprint | 35 | Police force databases
Most American law enforcement agencies use Wavelet Scalar Quantization (WSQ), a wavelet -based system for efficient storage of compressed fingerprint images at 500 pixels per inch (ppi). WSQ was developed by the FBI, the Los Alamos National Lab, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). For fingerprints recorded at 1000 ppi spatial resolution, law enforcement (including the FBI) uses JPEG 2000 instead of WSQ. |
synth_fc_2908_rep4 | Positive | Restaurant | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restaurant | 17 | Modern format
The earliest modern-format "restaurants" to use that word in Paris were the establishments which served bouillon, a broth made of meat and egg which was said to restore health and vigour. The first restaurant of this kind was opened in 1765 or 1766 by Mathurin Roze de Chantoiseau on rue des Poulies, now part of the Rue de Louvre. The name of the owner is sometimes given as Boulanger. Unlike earlier eating places, it was elegantly decorated, and besides meat broth offered a menu of several other "restorative" dishes, including macaroni. Chantoiseau and other chefs took the title "traiteurs-restaurateurs". While not the first establishment where one could order food, or even soups, it is thought to be the first to offer a menu of available choices.
In the Western world, the concept of a restaurant as a public venue where waiting staff serve patrons food from a fixed menu is a relatively recent one, dating from the late 18th century.
In June 1786, the Provost of Paris issued a decree giving the new kind of eating establishment official status, authorising restaurateurs to receive clients and to offer them meals until eleven in the evening in winter and midnight in summer. Ambitious cooks from noble households began to open more elaborate eating places. The first luxury restaurant in Paris, the La Grande Taverne de Londres, was opened at the Palais-Royal at the beginning of 1786 by Antoine Beauvilliers, the former chef of the Count of Provence. It had mahogany tables, linen tablecloths, chandeliers, well-dressed and trained waiters, a long wine list and an extensive menu of elaborately prepared and presented dishes. Dishes on its menu included partridge with cabbage, veal chops grilled in buttered paper, and duck with turnips. This is considered to have been the "first real restaurant". According to Brillat-Savarin, the restaurant was "the first to combine the four essentials of an elegant room, smart waiters, a choice cellar, and superior cooking".
The aftermath of the French Revolution saw the number of restaurants skyrocket. Due to the mass emigration of nobles from the country, many cooks from aristocratic households who were left unemployed went on to found new restaurants. One restaurant was started in 1791 by Méot, the former chef of the Duke of Orleans, which offered a wine list with twenty-two choices of red wine and twenty-seven of white wine. By the end of the century there were a collection of luxury restaurants at the Grand-Palais: Huré, the Couvert espagnol; Février; the Grotte flamande; Véry, Masse and the Café de Chartres (still open, now Le Grand Véfour).
In 1802 the term was applied to an establishment where restorative foods, such as bouillon, a meat broth, were served ("établissement de restaurateur"). The closure of culinary guilds and societal changes resulting from the Industrial Revolution contributed significantly to the increased prevalence of restaurants in Europe. |
synth_fc_1172_rep20 | Positive | Finance | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Scott | 7 | Financial problems and death
In 1825, a UK-wide banking crisis resulted in the collapse of the Ballantyne printing business, of which Scott was the only partner with a financial interest. Its debts of £130,000 (equivalent to £13,500,000 in 2023) caused his very public ruin. Rather than declare himself bankrupt or accept any financial support from his many supporters and admirers (including the King himself), he placed his house and income in a trust belonging to his creditors and set out to write his way out of debt. To add to his burdens, his wife Charlotte died in 1826.
Despite these events or because of them, Scott kept up his prodigious output. Between 1826 and 1832 he produced six novels, two short stories and two plays, eleven works or volumes of non-fiction, and a journal, along with several unfinished works. The non-fiction included the Life of Napoleon Buonaparte in 1827, two volumes of the History of Scotland in 1829 and 1830, and four instalments of the series entitled Tales of a Grandfather – Being Stories Taken From Scottish History, written one per year over the period 1828–1831, among several others. Finally, Scott had recently been inspired by the diaries of Samuel Pepys and Lord Byron, and he began keeping a journal over the period, which, however, would not be published until 1890, as The Journal of Sir Walter Scott.
By then Scott's health was failing, and on 29 October 1831, in a vain search for improvement, he set off on a voyage to Malta and Naples on board HMS Barham, a frigate put at his disposal by the Admiralty. He was welcomed and celebrated wherever he went. On his journey home he boarded the steamboat Prins Frederik going from Cologne to Rotterdam. While on board he had a final stroke near Emmerich. After local treatment, a steamboat took him to the steamship Batavier, which left for England on 12 June. By pure coincidence, Mary Martha Sherwood was also on board. She would later write about this encounter. After he was landed in England, Scott was transported back to die at Abbotsford on 21 September 1832. He was 61.
Scott was buried in Dryburgh Abbey, where his wife had earlier been interred. Lady Scott had been buried as an Episcopalian; at Scott's own funeral, three ministers of the Church of Scotland officiated at Abbotsford and the service at Dryburgh was conducted by an Episcopal clergyman.
Although Scott died owing money, his novels continued to sell, and the debts encumbering his estate were discharged shortly after his death. |
synth_fc_1511_rep25 | Positive | Geography | Database search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namur | 1 | Namur is a city and municipality in Wallonia, Belgium. It is the capital both of the province of Namur and of Wallonia, hosting the Parliament of Wallonia, the Government of Wallonia and its administration. Namur stands at the confluence of the rivers Sambre and Meuse and straddles three different regions – Hesbaye to the north, Condroz to the south-east, and Entre-Sambre-et-Meuse to the south-west. The city of Charleroi is located to the west. The language spoken is French. The municipality consists of the following sub-municipalities: Beez, Belgrade, Boninne, Bouge, Champion, Cognelée, Daussoulx, Dave, Erpent, Flawinne, Gelbressée, Jambes, Lives-sur-Meuse, Loyers, Malonne, Marche-les-Dames, Namur proper, Naninne, Saint-Servais, Saint-Marc, Suarlée, Temploux, Vedrin, Wépion, and Wierde. |
synth_fc_2997_rep4 | Positive | School | Database update | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Monteux | 1 | Pierre Benjamin Monteux was a French conductor. After violin and viola studies, and a decade as an orchestral player and occasional conductor, he began to receive regular conducting engagements in 1907. He came to prominence when, for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company between 1911 and 1914, he conducted the world premieres of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and other prominent works including Petrushka, The Nightingale, Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé, and Debussy's Jeux. Thereafter he directed orchestras around the world for more than half a century. From 1917 to 1919 Monteux was the principal conductor of the French repertoire at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra (1919–24), Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra (1924–34), Orchestre Symphonique de Paris (1929–38) and San Francisco Symphony (1936–52). In 1961, aged eighty-six, he accepted the chief conductorship of the London Symphony Orchestra, a post which he held until his death three years later. Although he was known for his performances of the French repertoire, his chief love was the music of German composers, above all Brahms. He disliked recording, finding it incompatible with spontaneity, but he nevertheless made a substantial number of records. Monteux was well known as a teacher. In 1932 he began a conducting class in Paris, which he developed into a summer school that was later moved to his summer home in Les Baux in the south of France. After moving permanently to the US in 1942 and taking American citizenship, he founded a school for conductors and orchestral musicians in Hancock, Maine. Among his students in France and America who went on to international fame were Lorin Maazel, Igor Markevitch, Neville Marriner, Seiji Ozawa, André Previn and David Zinman. The school in Hancock has continued since Monteux's death. |
synth_fc_553_rep29 | Positive | Corporate Management | Database search | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheque | 14 | United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, all cheques must conform to an industry standard detailing layout and font (" Cheque and Credit Clearing Company (C&CCC) Standard 3"), be printed on a specific weight of paper (CBS1), and contain explicitly defined security features.
Since 1995, all cheque printers must be members of the Cheque Printer Accreditation Scheme (CPAS). The scheme is managed by the Cheque and Credit Clearing Company and requires that all cheques for use in the British clearing process are produced by accredited printers who have adopted stringent security standards.
The rules concerning crossed cheques are set out in Section 1 of the Cheques Act 1992 and prevent cheques being cashed by or paid into the accounts of third parties. On a crossed cheque the words "account payee only" (or similar) are printed between two parallel vertical lines in the centre of the cheque. This makes the cheque non-transferable and is to avoid cheques being endorsed and paid into an account other than that of the named payee. Crossing cheques basically ensures that the money is paid into an account of the intended beneficiary of the cheque.
Following concerns about the amount of time it took banks to clear cheques, the United Kingdom Office of Fair Trading set up a working group in 2006 to look at the cheque clearing cycle. They produced a report recommending maximum times for the cheque clearing which were introduced in UK from November 2007. In the report the date the credit appeared on the recipient's account (usually the day of deposit) was designated "T". At "T + 2" (two business days afterwards) the value would count for calculation of credit interest or overdraft interest on the recipient's account. At "T + 4" clients would be able to withdraw funds on current accounts or at "T + 6" on savings accounts (though this will often happen earlier, at the bank's discretion). "T + 6" is the last day that a cheque can bounce without the recipient's permission—this is known as "certainty of fate". Before the introduction of this standard (also known as 2-4-6 for current accounts and 2-6-6 for savings accounts), the only way to know the "fate" of a cheque has been "Special Presentation", which would normally involve a fee, where the drawee bank contacts the payee bank to see if the payee has that money at that time. "Special Presentation" had been stated at the time of deposit.
Cheque volumes peaked in 1990 when four billion cheque payments were made. Of these, 2.5 billion were cleared through the inter-bank clearing managed by the C&CCC, the remaining 1.5 billion being in-house cheques which were either paid into the branch on which they were drawn or processed intra-bank without going through the clearings. As volumes started to fall, the challenges faced by the clearing banks were then of a different nature: how to benefit from technology improvements in a declining business environment.
Although the UK did not adopt the euro as its national currency when other European countries did in 1999, many banks began offering euro denominated accounts with chequebooks, principally to business customers. The cheques can be used to pay for certain goods and services in the UK. The same year, the C&CCC set up the euro cheque clearing system to process euro denominated cheques separately from sterling cheques in Great Britain.
The UK Payments Council from 30 June 2011 withdrew the existing Cheque Guarantee Card Scheme in the UK. This service allowed cheques to be guaranteed at point of sales up to a certain value, normally £50 or £100, when signed in front of the retailer with the additional cheque guarantee card. This was after a long period of decline in their use in favour of debit cards.
In December 2009 the Payments Council announced its intention to phase out the use of cheques completely in the UK by October 2018, so long as adequate alternatives were developed. They intended to perform annual checks on the progress of other payments systems and a final review of the decision would have been held in 2016. However, the decision was reversed in 2011 after vocal public, political, and industrial opposition, and cheques have remained in use.
Since 2001, businesses in the United Kingdom have made more electronic payments than cheque payments. Automated payments rose from 753 million in 1995 to 1.1 billion in 2001 and cheques declined in that same period of time from 1.14 to 1.1 billion payments. Most British utility companies charge lower prices to customers who pay by direct debit than for other payment methods.
The vast majority of British retailers no longer accept cheques as a means of payment. Shell announced in September 2005 that it would no longer accept cheques at their UK petrol stations, a change replicated by other major fuel retailers. Within a year, Asda, Boots, Currys and WH Smith had all phased out the acceptance of cheques.
In 2016, 432 million inter-bank cheques and credit-items worth £472 billion were processed in the United Kingdom. In 2017, 405 million cheques worth £356 billion were used for payments and acquiring cash, an average of 1.2 million cheques per day, with more than 10 million being cleared in Northern Ireland alone. The Cheque and Credit Clearing Company noted that cheques continue to be highly valued for paying tradesmen and utility bills, and play a vital role in business, clubs and societies sectors, with nine in 10 business saying that they received or made payment by cheque on a monthly basis. In 2022, 150 million cheques were used to make payments in the UK, compared to 1.6 billion payments in 2006. UK Finance estimates that only 0.2% of payments (70 million transactions) will be made by cheque in 2031.
In June 2014, following a successful trial in the UK by Barclays, the UK government gave the go-ahead for a cheque truncation system, allowing people to pay in a cheque by taking a photo of it, rather than physically depositing the paper cheque at a bank. Between 2017 and 2019, the Barclays scheme was rolled out nationwide as the Image Clearing System which has sped up the processing of cheques, reducing clearing times, and allowing customers to deposit them at ATMs and through mobile and online banking applications. Mobile banking has modernised the use of cheques; in the first 6 months of 2021, 3.8 million cheques were deposited by Lloyds Bank customers. Nevertheless, in 2020-21, the use of cheques declined by 19% year on year.
Cheques are still held to be a secure and reliable means of payment: cheque fraud in the UK in 2020 totalled just £12.3 million across 185 million transactions. In the same period, online authorised payment scams totalled £479 million across 4.1 billion online payments. As such, cheques have seen a resurgence in popularity in commercial transactions from businesses to avoid the possibility of phishing fraud. |
synth_fc_398_rep4 | Positive | Carbon footprint | Calculation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combustion | 24 | Smoldering
Smoldering is the slow, low-temperature, flameless form of combustion, sustained by the heat evolved when oxygen directly attacks the surface of a condensed-phase fuel. It is a typically incomplete combustion reaction. Solid materials that can sustain a smoldering reaction include coal, cellulose, wood, cotton, tobacco, peat, duff, humus, synthetic foams, charring polymers (including polyurethane foam) and dust. Common examples of smoldering phenomena are the initiation of residential fires on upholstered furniture by weak heat sources (e.g., a cigarette, a short-circuited wire) and the persistent combustion of biomass behind the flaming fronts of wildfires. |
synth_fc_2691_rep19 | Negative | Music | Guide | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt | 20 | Nightlife
Frankfurt offers a variety of restaurants, bars, pubs and clubs. Clubs concentrate in and around downtownand in the Ostend district, mainly close to Hanauer Landstraße. Restaurants, bars and pubs concentrate in Sachsenhausen, Nordend, Bornheim and Bockenheim.
In electronic music, Frankfurt was a pioneering city in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with renowned DJs including Sven Väth, Marc Trauner, Scot Project and Kai Tracid. One of the main venues of the early Trance music sound was the Omen nightclub from 1988 to 1998. Another popular disco club of the 1980s–1990s and a hotspot for Techno/Trance music was the Dorian Gray, which was located within Terminal 1 at Frankfurt Airport from 1978 to 2000. Further popular venues were the U60311 (1998–2012) and the Coocoon Club in Fechenheim (2004–2012). Notable live music venues of the past include the Sinkkasten Arts Club (1971–2011) and the King Kamehameha Club (1999–2013).
Among the most popular active rock and pop concert venues is the Batschkapp in Seckbach, which opened in 1976 as a center for autonomous and left-wing counterculture. Further popular active clubs and music venues include the Velvet Club, The Cave, Cooky's, Nachtleben, Silbergold, Zoom, Tanzhaus West and the Yachtclub. |
synth_fc_2762_rep2 | Negative | Physics & Chemistry | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weierstrass_function | 1 | In mathematics, the Weierstrass function is an example of a real-valued function that is continuous everywhere but differentiable nowhere. It is an example of a fractal curve. It is named after its discoverer Karl Weierstrass.
The Weierstrass function has historically served the role of a pathological function, being the first published example (1872) specifically concocted to challenge the notion that every continuous function is differentiable except on a set of isolated points. Weierstrass's demonstration that continuity did not imply almost-everywhere differentiability upended mathematics, overturning several proofs that relied on geometric intuition and vague definitions of smoothness. These types of functions were denounced by contemporaries: Henri Poincaré famously described them as "monsters" and called Weierstrass' work "an outrage against common sense", while Charles Hermite wrote that they were a "lamentable scourge". The functions were difficult to visualize until the arrival of computers in the next century, and the results did not gain wide acceptance until practical applications such as models of Brownian motion necessitated infinitely jagged functions (nowadays known as fractal curves). |
synth_fc_2216_rep28 | Positive | Law | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustard_(condiment) | 2 | Allergies
A strong mustard can make the eyes water, and sting the tongue, palate, and throat. Home-made mustards may be hotter and more intensely flavored than most commercial preparations.
Any part of the mustard plant can also, rarely, cause allergic reactions in some people, including anaphylaxis. In the European Union labeling the presence of mustard in packaged food is compulsory, either as an ingredient or even as unintended contamination in trace amounts. The Regulation (EC) 1169/2011 on food-labelling lists 14 allergens, including mustard, the presence of which in packaged food must be clearly indicated on the label as part of the list of ingredients, using a distinctive typography (i.e. bold, capitals). |
synth_fc_172_rep2 | Positive | Biology | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroticism | 7 | Mood disorders
Disorders associated with elevated neuroticism include mood disorders, such as depression and bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, dissociative identity disorder, and hypochondriasis. Mood disorders tend to have a much larger association with neuroticism than most other disorders. The five big studies have described children and adolescents with high neuroticism as "anxious, vulnerable, tense, easily frightened, 'falling apart' under stress, guilt-prone, moody, low in frustration tolerance, and insecure in relationships with others", which includes both traits concerning the prevalence of negative emotions as well as the response to these negative emotions. Neuroticism in adults similarly was found to be associated with the frequency of self-reported problems.
These associations can vary with culture: for example, Adams found that among upper-middle-class American teenaged girls, neuroticism was associated with eating disorders and self-harm, but among Ghanaian teenaged girls, higher neuroticism was associated with magical thinking and extreme fear of enemies. |
synth_fc_2325_rep16 | No function call | Law | Document search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_%26_Johnson | 1 | Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is an American multinational pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical technologies corporation headquartered in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Its common stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the company is ranked No. 40 on the 2023 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations. In 2023, the company was ranked 40th in the Forbes Global 2000. Johnson & Johnson has a global workforce of approximately 130,000 employees who are led by the company's current chairman and chief executive officer, Joaquin Duato. Johnson & Johnson was founded in 1886 by three brothers, Robert Wood Johnson, James Wood Johnson, and Edward Mead Johnson, selling ready-to-use sterile surgical dressings. In 2023, the company split off its consumer healthcare business sector into a new publicly traded company, Kenvue. The company is exclusively focused on developing and producing pharmaceutical prescription drugs and medical device technologies. Johnson & Johnson is one of the world's most valuable companies and is one of only two U.S.-based companies that has a prime credit rating of AAA. |
synth_fc_1085_rep11 | Positive | Finance | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonga | 21 | Agriculture
In Tonga, agriculture and forestry (together with fisheries) provide the majority of employment, foreign exchange earnings, and food. Rural Tongans rely on both plantation and subsistence agriculture. Plants grown for both market cash crops and home use include bananas, coconuts, coffee beans, vanilla beans, and root crops such as cassava, sweet potato, and taro. As of 2001, two-thirds of agricultural land was in root crops.
The processing of coconuts into copra and desiccated (dried) coconut was once the only significant industry, and only commercial export. Deteriorating prices on the world market and lack of replanting brought this once vibrant industry, as in most island nations of the South Pacific, to a complete standstill.
Swine and poultry are the major types of livestock. Horses are kept for draft purposes, primarily by farmers working their ʻapi ʻuta (a plot of bushland). More cattle are being raised, and beef imports are declining.
The traditional feudal land ownership system meant that farmers had no incentive to invest in planting long-term tree crops on land they did not own. In the late 20th century, kava and vanilla from larger plantations became the main agricultural exports, together with squash. The export of squash to Japan, beginning in 1987, once brought relief to Tonga's struggling economy, but local farmers became increasingly wary of the Japanese market due to price fluctuations, and the huge financial risks involved. |
synth_fc_1568_rep9 | No function call | Geography | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schist | 4 | Etymology
The word schist is derived ultimately from the Greek word σχίζειν (schízein), meaning "to split", which refers to the ease with which schists can be split along the plane in which the platy minerals lie. |
synth_fc_1865_rep1 | Positive | History | Document search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_warfare | 4 | Airborne forces
Airborne forces are military units, usually light infantry, set up to be moved by aircraft and "dropped" into battle, typically by parachute. Thus, they can be placed behind enemy lines, and have the capability to deploy almost anywhere with little warning. The formations are limited only by the number and size of their aircraft, so given enough capacity a huge force can appear "out of nowhere" in minutes, an action referred to as vertical envelopment.
Conversely, airborne forces typically lack the supplies and equipment for prolonged combat operations, and are therefore more suited for airhead operations than for long-term occupation; furthermore, parachute operations are particularly sensitive to adverse weather conditions. Advances in helicopter technology since World War II have brought increased flexibility to the scope of airborne operations, and air assaults have largely replaced large-scale parachute operations, and (almost) completely replaced combat glider operations. |
synth_fc_476_rep20 | Positive | Corporate Management | Database update | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T | 6 | 2024 outage
On February 22, 2024, cellular service was disrupted across the United States with "millions" unable to connect to the cellular network. Municipalities reported that AT&T customers were unable to place calls to emergency services, even when using their phone's SOS capability. The blackout prompted the FBI and Department of Homeland Security to launch investigations into the possibility of a cyber attack being the cause of the blackout. AT&T however later claimed that the cause was instead a poorly timed server update. Users were later compensated credit as a result of the outage. In March, the FCC opened an investigation into the outage. |
synth_fc_2325_rep1 | No function call | Law | Document search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Rutskoy | 1 | Alexander Vladimirovich Rutskoy is a Russian politician and former Soviet military officer who served as the only vice president of Russia from 1991 to 1993. He was proclaimed acting president following Boris Yeltsin's impeachment during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis, in which he played a key role. Born in Proskuriv, Ukraine, Rutskoy served with great distinction as an air force officer during the Soviet–Afghan War, for which he was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union. In the 1991 Russian presidential election, he was chosen by Boris Yeltsin to be his vice-presidential running mate, but later became increasingly critical of Yeltsin's economic and foreign policies. In late September 1993, Yeltsin ordered the unconstitutional dissolution of the Russian parliament. In response, the parliament immediately annulled his decree, impeached him and proclaimed Rutskoy acting president. After a two-week standoff and popular unrest, Yeltsin ordered the military to storm the parliament building, arrested Rutskoy and formally dismissed him as vice president. He was imprisoned until early 1994 when the State Duma granted him amnesty. In 1996, Rutskoy was elected governor of Kursk Oblast, a post he held until 2000. He was barred from seeking a second term by a regional court over alleged abuse of power. |
synth_fc_2540_rep30 | Positive | Museum | Ranking | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbrella | 28 | Oriental Orthodox Churches
In several Oriental Orthodox Churches, such as the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, umbrellas are used liturgically to show honor to a person (such as a bishop) or a holy object. In the ceremonies of Timkat (Epiphany), priests will carry a model of the Tablets of Stone, called a Tabot, on their heads in procession to a body of water, which will then be blessed. Brightly colored embroidered and fringed liturgical parasols are carried above the Tabota during this procession. Such processions also take place on other major feast days. |
synth_fc_2771_rep17 | Positive | Physics & Chemistry | Database update | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area | 22 | Quadrilateral area
In the 7th century CE, Brahmagupta developed a formula, now known as Brahmagupta's formula, for the area of a cyclic quadrilateral (a quadrilateral inscribed in a circle) in terms of its sides. In 1842, the German mathematicians Carl Anton Bretschneider and Karl Georg Christian von Staudt independently found a formula, known as Bretschneider's formula, for the area of any quadrilateral. |
synth_fc_2924_rep30 | Negative | Restaurant | Recommendation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartender | 1 | A bartender is a person who formulates and serves alcoholic or soft drink beverages behind the bar, usually in a licensed establishment as well as in restaurants and nightclubs, but also occasionally at private parties. Bartenders also usually maintain the supplies and inventory for the bar. As well as serving beer and wine, a bartender can generally also mix classic cocktails such as a Cosmopolitan, Manhattan, Old Fashioned, and Mojito. Bartenders are also responsible for confirming that customers meet the legal drinking age requirements before serving them alcoholic beverages. In certain countries, such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland and Sweden, bartenders are legally required to refuse more alcohol to drunk customers. Mixology is defined as the art or skill of preparing mixed drinks. At its core, the purpose of this practice is to craft cocktails. However, the science and skills required to successfully practice mixology are more intricate than what is seen at face value. The key to mixing drinks is knowing the ideal quantity of each ingredient needed to create the flavor profile required. Mixology aims to both elevate and balance the various flavors found in a cocktail. Mixology is essentially edible chemistry in the form of cocktails. |
synth_fc_953_rep6 | Positive | Finance | Database search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_K._Polk | 17 | Fiscal policy
In his inaugural address, Polk called upon Congress to re-establish the Independent Treasury System under which government funds were held in the Treasury and not in banks or other financial institutions. President Van Buren had previously established a similar system, but it had been abolished during the Tyler administration. Polk made clear his opposition to a national bank in his inaugural address, and in his first annual message to Congress in December 1845, he called for the government to keep its funds itself. Congress was slow to act; the House passed a bill in April 1846 and the Senate in August, both without a single Whig vote. Polk signed the Independent Treasury Act into law on August 6, 1846. The act provided that the public revenues were to be retained in the Treasury building and in sub-treasuries in various cities, separate from private or state banks. The system would remain in place until the passage of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913.
Polk's other major domestic initiative was the lowering of the tariff. Polk directed Secretary of the Treasury Robert Walker to draft a new and lower tariff, which Polk submitted to Congress. After intense lobbying by both sides, the bill passed the House and, in a close vote that required Vice President Dallas to break a tie, the Senate in July 1846. Dallas, although from protectionist Pennsylvania, voted for the bill, having decided his best political prospects lay in supporting the administration. Polk signed the Walker Tariff into law, substantially reducing the rates that had been set by the Tariff of 1842. The reduction of tariffs in the United States and the repeal of the Corn Laws in Great Britain led to a boom in Anglo-American trade. |
synth_fc_1169_rep3 | Positive | Finance | Calculation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hefei | 8 | Investments and state-owned enterprises
Hefei's city government is highly engaged in business, both through state-owned enterprises and investment. This approach has helped drive economic growth and re-structure the cities economic base.
In 2008, the local government spent US$3.5 billion for a controlling ownership stake in BOE Technology (Jingdongfang). BOE Technology subsequently grew to be one of the world's leading manufacturers of semiconductor products for telecommunications. It is also the world's largest manufacturer of liquid crystal displays, organic light-emitting diodes, and flexible displays.
Also in 2008, Hefei invested heavily in iFlytek, a voice-recognition technology firm spun off from USTC.
The local government invested heavily in NIO in order to integrate it with Hefei Changan Automobile, a legacy enterprise from the Third Front construction. NIO was on the brink of bankruptcy in 2020 when Hefei obtained a 25% stake in the company in exchange for RMB 7 billion. NIO moved its headquarters to Hefei, where the government helped it obtain loans from local banks to expand its supply chains. As of 2022, NIO is China's most successful electric vehicle manufacturer. |
synth_fc_2197_rep10 | Positive | Law | Entity search | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Hamer | 1 | Francis Augustus Hamer was an American lawman and Texas Ranger who led the 1934 posse that tracked down and killed criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. Renowned for his toughness, marksmanship, and investigative skill, he acquired status in the Southwest as the archetypal Texas Ranger. He was inducted into the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame. His professional record and reputation are controversial, particularly with regard to his willingness to use extrajudicial killing even in an increasingly modernized society. Hamer has been described by biographer John Boessenecker as "one of the greatest American lawmen of the twentieth century". |
synth_fc_2075_rep18 | Positive | Hotel | Order | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholic_beverage | 48 | Wine tourism
Enotourism, oenotourism, wine tourism, or vinitourism refers to tourism whose purpose is or includes the tasting, consumption or purchase of wine, often at or near the source. Where other types of tourism are often passive in nature, enotourism can consist of visits to wineries, tasting wines, vineyard walks, or even taking an active part in the harvest. |
synth_fc_3503_rep24 | Positive | Travel itinerary | Calculation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Wegener | 6 | Fourth Greenland expedition: Death
Wegener's last Greenland expedition was in 1930. The 14 participants under his leadership were to establish three permanent stations from which the thickness of the Greenland ice sheet could be measured and year-round Arctic weather observations made. They would travel on the ice cap using two innovative, propeller-driven snowmobiles, in addition to ponies and dog sleds.Wegener felt personally responsible for the expedition's success, as the German government had contributed $120,000 ($1.5 million in 2007 dollars). Success depended on enough provisions being transferred from West camp to Eismitte ("mid-ice", also known as Central Station) for two men to winter there, and this was a factor in the decision that led to his death. Owing to a late thaw, the expedition was six weeks behind schedule and, as summer ended, the men at Eismitte sent a message that they had insufficient fuel and so would return on 20 October.
On 24 September, although the route markers were by now largely buried under snow, Wegener set out with thirteen Greenlanders and his meteorologist Fritz Loewe to supply the camp by dog sled. During the journey, the temperature reached −60 °C (−76 °F) and Loewe's toes became so frostbitten they had to be amputated with a penknife without anaesthetic. Twelve of the Greenlanders returned to West camp. On 19 October the remaining three members of the expedition reached Eismitte.
Expedition member Johannes Georgi estimated that there were only enough supplies for three at Eismitte, so Wegener and 27 year-old native Greenlander Rasmus Villumsen took two dog sleds and made for West camp. (Georgi later found that he had underestimated the supplies, and that Wegener and Villumsen could have overwintered at Eismitte.)They took no food for the dogs and killed them one by one to feed the rest until they could run only one sled. While Villumsen rode the sled, Wegener had to use skis, but they never reached the camp. Wegener died in his tent around 90 miles from Eismitte and was hastily buried with his skis stuck upright in the snow. Villumsen resumed his journey, but he was never seen again. Six months later, on 12 May 1931, Wegener's skis were discovered. Expedition members built a pyramid-shaped mausoleum in the ice and snow, and Alfred Wegener's body was laid to rest. Wegener had been 50 years of age and a heavy smoker, and it was believed that he had died of heart failure brought on by overexertion. Kurt Wegener took over the expedition's leadership in July, according to the prearranged plan for such an eventuality. |
synth_fc_2705_rep27 | Positive | Music | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Pushkin | 9 | Musical
Pushkin's works also provided fertile ground for Russian composers. Glinka 's Ruslan and Lyudmila is the earliest important Pushkin-inspired opera, and a landmark in the tradition of Russian music. Tchaikovsky 's operas Eugene Onegin (1879) and The Queen of Spades (Pikovaya Dama, 1890) became perhaps better known outside of Russia than Pushkin's own works of the same name.
Mussorgsky 's monumental Boris Godunov (two versions, 1868–9 and 1871–2) ranks as one of the very finest and most original of Russian operas.Other Russian operas based on Pushkin include Dargomyzhsky 's Rusalka and The Stone Guest; Rimsky-Korsakov 's Mozart and Salieri, Tale of Tsar Saltan, and The Golden Cockerel; Cui 's Prisoner of the Caucasus, Feast in Time of Plague, and The Captain's Daughter; Tchaikovsky 's Mazeppa; Rachmaninoff 's one-act operas Aleko (based on The Gypsies) and The Miserly Knight; Stravinsky 's Mavra, and Nápravník 's Dubrovsky.
Additionally, ballets and cantatas, as well as innumerable songs, have been set to Pushkin's verse (including even his French-language poems, in Isabelle Aboulker 's song cycle " Caprice étrange "). Suppé, Leoncavallo and Malipiero have also based operas on his works. Composers Yudif Grigorevna Rozhavskaya, Galina Konstantinovna Smirnova, Yevgania Yosifovna Yakhina, Maria Semyonovna Zavalishina, Zinaida Petrovna Ziberova composed folk songs using Pushkin's text.
The Desire of Glory, which has been dedicated to Elizaveta Vorontsova, was set to music by David Tukhmanov, as well as Keep Me, Mine Talisman – by Alexander Barykin and later by Tukhmanov. |
synth_fc_3553_rep3 | Positive | Travel itinerary | Order | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dar_es_Salaam | 36 | Boxing
Boxing is a popular sport in Tanzania and Dar es Salaam hosts numerous boxing galas organised throughout the year. Tanzanian professional boxer Francis Checka is the current World Boxing Federation (WBF) Super Middleweight Champion. |
synth_fc_696_rep9 | Positive | Currency | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angola | 10 | Economy
Angola has vast mineral and petroleum reserves. Its economy is among the fastest-growing in the world, especially since the end of the civil war. But economic growth is highly uneven, with most of the nation's wealth concentrated in a disproportionately small part of the population. The largest investment and trade partners are China, the European Union, and the United States.
Most Angolans have a low standard of living; life expectancy is among the lowest in the world, while infant mortality is among the highest. Since 2017, the government of João Lourenço has made fighting corruption its flagship program, so much so that many individuals from the previous administration are either jailed or awaiting trial. Whilst this effort has been recognised by foreign diplomats to be legitimate, some skeptics see the actions as being politically motivated.
Angola is a member of the United Nations, African Union, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, and the Southern African Development Community. As of 2023, the Angolan population is estimated at 37.2 million. Angola is multicultural and multiethnic. Angolan culture reflects centuries of Portuguese influence, namely the predominance of the Portuguese language and of the Catholic Church, intermingled with a variety of indigenous customs and traditions.
Angola has diamonds, oil, gold, copper and rich wildlife (which was dramatically depleted during the civil war), forest and fossil fuels. Since independence, oil and diamonds have been the most important economic resource. Smallholder and plantation agriculture dramatically dropped in the Angolan Civil War, but began to recover after 2002.
Angola's economy has in recent years moved on from the disarray caused by a quarter-century of Angolan civil war to become the fastest-growing economy in Africa and one of the fastest-growing in the world, with an average GDP growth of 20% between 2005 and 2007. In the period 2001–10, Angola had the world's highest annual average GDP growth, at 11.1%.
In 2004, the Exim Bank of China approved a $2 billion line of credit to Angola, to be used for rebuilding Angola's infrastructure, and to limit the influence of the International Monetary Fund there.
China is Angola's biggest trade partner and export destination as well as a significant source of imports. Bilateral trade reached $27.67 billion in 2011, up 11.5% year-on-year. China's imports, mainly crude oil and diamonds, increased 9.1% to $24.89 billion while China's exports to Angola, including mechanical and electrical products, machinery parts and construction materials, surged 38.8%. The oil glut led to a local price for unleaded gasoline of £ 0.37 a gallon.
As of 2021, the biggest import partners were the European Union, followed by China, Togo, the United States, and Brazil. More than half of Angola's exports go to China, followed by a significantly smaller amount to India, the European Union, and the United Arab Emirates.
The Angolan economy grew 18% in 2005, 26% in 2006 and 17.6% in 2007. Due to the global recession, the economy contracted an estimated −0.3% in 2009. The security brought about by the 2002 peace settlement has allowed the resettlement of 4 million displaced persons and a resulting large-scale increase in agriculture production. Angola's economy is expected to grow by 3.9 per cent in 2014 said the International Monetary Fund (IMF), robust growth in the non-oil economy, mainly driven by a very good performance in the agricultural sector, is expected to offset a temporary drop in oil production.
Angola's financial system is maintained by the National Bank of Angola and managed by the governor Jose de Lima Massano. According to a study on the banking sector, carried out by Deloitte, the monetary policy led by Banco Nacional de Angola (BNA), the Angolan national bank, allowed a decrease in the inflation rate put at 7.96% in December 2013, which contributed to the sector's growth trend. Estimates released by Angola's central bank, said the country's economy should grow at an annual average rate of 5 per cent over the next four years, boosted by the increasing participation of the private sector. Angola was ranked 132rd in the Global Innovation Index in 2023.
Although the country's economy has grown significantly since Angola achieved political stability in 2002, mainly due to fast-rising earnings in the oil sector, Angola faces huge social and economic problems. These are in part a result of almost continual armed conflict from 1961 on, although the highest level of destruction and socio-economic damage took place after the 1975 independence, during the long years of civil war. However, high poverty rates and blatant social inequality chiefly stems from persistent authoritarianism, "neo-patrimonial" practices at all levels of the political, administrative, military and economic structures, and of a pervasive corruption. The main beneficiaries are political, administrative, economic and military power holders, who have accumulated (and continue to accumulate) enormous wealth.
"Secondary beneficiaries" are the middle strata that are about to become social classes. However, almost half the population has to be considered poor, with dramatic differences between the countryside and the cities, where slightly more than 50% of the people reside.
A study carried out in 2008 by the Angolan Instituto Nacional de Estatística found that in rural areas roughly 58% must be classified as "poor" according to UN norms but in the urban areas only 19%, and an overall rate of 37%. In cities, a majority of families, well beyond those officially classified as poor, must adopt a variety of survival strategies. In urban areas social inequality is most evident and it is extreme in Luanda. In the Human Development Index Angola constantly ranks in the bottom group.
In January 2020, a leak of government documents known as the Luanda Leaks showed that U.S. consulting companies such as Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey & Company, and PricewaterhouseCoopers had helped members of the family of former President José Eduardo dos Santos (especially his daughter Isabel dos Santos) corruptly run Sonangol for their own personal profit, helping them use the company's revenues to fund vanity projects in France and Switzerland. After further revelations in the Pandora Papers, former generals Dias and do Nascimento and former presidential advisers were also accused of misappropriating significant public funds for personal benefit.
The enormous differences between the regions pose a serious structural problem for the Angolan economy, illustrated by the fact that about one third of economic activities are concentrated in Luanda and neighbouring Bengo province, while several areas of the interior suffer economic stagnation and even regression.
One of the economic consequences of social and regional disparities is a sharp increase in Angolan private investments abroad. The small fringe of Angolan society where most of the asset accumulation takes place seeks to spread its assets, for reasons of security and profit. For the time being, the biggest share of these investments is concentrated in Portugal where the Angolan presence (including the family of the state president) in banks as well as in the domains of energy, telecommunications, and mass media has become notable, as has the acquisition of vineyards and orchards as well as of tourism enterprises.
Angola has upgraded critical infrastructure, an investment made possible by funds from the country's development of oil resources. According to a report, just slightly more than ten years after the end of the civil war Angola's standard of living has overall greatly improved. Life expectancy, which was just 46 years in 2002, reached 51 in 2011. Mortality rates for children fell from 25 per cent in 2001 to 19 per cent in 2010 and the number of students enrolled in primary school has tripled since 2001. However, at the same time the social and economic inequality that has characterised the country for so long has not diminished, but has deepened in all respects.
With a stock of assets corresponding to 70 billion Kz (US$6.8 billion), Angola is now the third-largest financial market in sub-Saharan Africa, surpassed only by Nigeria and South Africa. According to the Angolan Minister of Economy, Abraão Gourgel, the financial market of the country grew modestly since 2002 and now occupies third place in sub-Saharan Africa.
On 19 December 2014, the Capital Market in Angola was launched. BODIVA (Angola Stock Exchange and Derivatives, in English) was allocated the secondary public debt market, and was expected to launch the corporate debt market by 2015, though the stock market itself was only expected to commence trading in 2016. |
synth_fc_2991_rep1 | Positive | School | Database update | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_point_(mathematics) | 10 | Fixed-point logics
In mathematical logic, fixed-point logics are extensions of classical predicate logic that have been introduced to express recursion. Their development has been motivated by descriptive complexity theory and their relationship to database query languages, in particular to Datalog. |
synth_fc_1360_rep24 | Negative | Food | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pear | 7 | Description
The pear is native to coastal, temperate, and mountainous regions of the Old World, from Western Europe and North Africa east across Asia. They are medium-sized trees, reaching up to 20 m tall, often with a tall, narrow crown; a few pear species are shrubby.
The leaves are alternately arranged, simple, 2–12 cm (1– 4 + 1 ⁄ 2 in) long, glossy green on some species, densely silvery-hairy in some others; leaf shape varies from broad oval to narrow lanceolate. Most pears are deciduous, but one or two species in Southeast Asia are evergreen. Some pears are cold-hardy, withstanding temperatures as low as −25 to −40 °C (−13 to −40 °F) in winter, but many grown for agriculture are vulnerable to cold damage. Evergreen species only tolerate temperatures down to about −12 °C (10 °F).
The flowers are white, rarely tinted yellow or pink, 2–4 centimetres (1– 1 + 1 ⁄ 2 in) diameter, and have five petals, five sepals, and numerous stamens. Like that of the related apple, the pear fruit is a pome, in most wild species 1–4 cm (1 ⁄ 2 – 1 + 1 ⁄ 2 in) diameter, but in some cultivated forms up to 18 cm (7 in) long and 9 cm (3 + 1 ⁄ 2 in) broad. The shape varies in most species from oblate or globose, to the classic pyriform " pear shape " of the European pear with an elongated basal portion and a bulbous end.
The fruit is a pseudofruit composed of the receptacle or upper end of the flower stalk (the so-called calyx tube) greatly dilated. Enclosed within its cellular flesh is the true fruit: 2–5 ' cartilaginous ' carpels, known colloquially as the "core".
Pears and apples cannot always be distinguished by the form of the fruit; some pears look very much like some apples, e.g. the nashi pear. |
synth_fc_691_rep23 | Positive | Currency | API setting | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency | 8 | Early currency
Originally, currency was a form of receipt, representing grain stored in temple granaries in Sumer in ancient Mesopotamia and in Ancient Egypt.
In this first stage of currency, metals were used as symbols to represent value stored in the form of commodities. This formed the basis of trade in the Fertile Crescent for over 1500 years. However, the collapse of the Near Eastern trading system pointed to a flaw: in an era where there was no place that was safe to store value, the value of a circulating medium could only be as sound as the forces that defended that store. A trade could only reach as far as the credibility of that military. By the late Bronze Age, however, a series of treaties had established safe passage for merchants around the Eastern Mediterranean, spreading from Minoan Crete and Mycenae in the northwest to Elam and Bahrain in the southeast. It is not known what was used as a currency for these exchanges, but it is thought that oxhide-shaped ingots of copper, produced in Cyprus, may have functioned as a currency.
It is thought that the increase in piracy and raiding associated with the Bronze Age collapse, possibly produced by the Peoples of the Sea, brought the trading system of oxhide ingots to an end. It was only the recovery of Phoenician trade in the 10th and 9th centuries BC that led to a return to prosperity, and the appearance of real coinage, possibly first in Anatolia with Croesus of Lydia and subsequently with the Greeks and Persians. In Africa, many forms of value store have been used, including beads, ingots, ivory, various forms of weapons, livestock, the manilla currency, shell money, and ochre and other earth oxides. The manilla rings of West Africa were one of the currencies used from the 15th century onwards to sell slaves. African currency is still notable for its variety, and in many places, various forms of barter still apply. |
synth_fc_1158_rep9 | Positive | Finance | Calculation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loan | 12 | Unsecured
Unsecured loans are monetary loans that are not secured against the borrower's assets. These may be available from financial institutions under many different guises or marketing packages:
The interest rates applicable to these different forms may vary depending on the lender and the borrower. These may or may not be regulated by law. In the United Kingdom, when applied to individuals, these may come under the Consumer Credit Act 1974.
Interest rates on unsecured loans are nearly always higher than for secured loans because an unsecured lender's options for recourse against the borrower in the event of default are severely limited, subjecting the lender to higher risk compared to that encountered for a secured loan. An unsecured lender must sue the borrower, obtain a money judgment for breach of contract, and then pursue execution of the judgment against the borrower's unencumbered assets (that is, the ones not already pledged to secured lenders). In insolvency proceedings, secured lenders traditionally have priority over unsecured lenders when a court divides up the borrower's assets. Thus, a higher interest rate reflects the additional risk that in the event of insolvency, the debt may be uncollectible. |
synth_fc_1183_rep16 | Negative | Finance | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_clock | 4 | Financial systems
Atomic clocks keep accurate records of transactions between buyers and sellers to the millisecond or better, particularly in high-frequency trading. Accurate timekeeping is needed to prevent illegal trading ahead of time, in addition to ensuring fairness to traders on the other side of the globe. The current system known as NTP is only accurate to a millisecond. |
synth_fc_554_rep25 | Positive | Corporate Management | Database removal | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Royce | 1 | Sir Frederick Henry Royce, 1st Baronet, was an English engineer famous for his designs of car and aeroplane engines with a reputation for reliability and longevity. With Charles Rolls (1877–1910) and Claude Johnson (1864–1926), he founded Rolls-Royce. Rolls-Royce initially focused on large 40–50 horsepower motor cars, the Silver Ghost and its successors. Royce produced his first aero engine shortly after the outbreak of the First World War, and aircraft engines became Rolls-Royce's principal product. Royce's health broke down in 1911, and he was persuaded to leave his factory in the Midlands at Derby and, taking a team of designers, move to the south of England spending winters in the south of France. He died at his home in Sussex in the spring of 1933. |
synth_fc_208_rep17 | Positive | Biology | Database creation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annelid | 12 | Distinguishing features
No single feature distinguishes Annelids from other invertebrate phyla, but they have a distinctive combination of features. Their bodies are long, with segments that are divided externally by shallow ring-like constrictions called annuli and internally by septa ("partitions") at the same points, although in some species the septa are incomplete and in a few cases missing. Most of the segments contain the same sets of organs, although sharing a common gut, circulatory system and nervous system makes them inter-dependent. Their bodies are covered by a cuticle (outer covering) that does not contain cells but is secreted by cells in the skin underneath, is made of tough but flexible collagen and does not molt – on the other hand arthropods ' cuticles are made of the more rigid α- chitin, and molt until the arthropods reach their full size. Most annelids have closed circulatory systems, where the blood makes its entire circuit via blood vessels. |
synth_fc_657_rep15 | Positive | Currency | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro | 20 | Currencies pegged to the euro
Outside the eurozone, two EU member states have currencies that are pegged to the euro, which is a precondition to joining the eurozone. The Danish krone and Bulgarian lev are pegged due to their participation in the ERM II.
Additionally, a total of 21 countries and territories that do not belong to the EU have currencies that are directly pegged to the euro including 14 countries in mainland Africa (CFA franc), two African island countries (Comorian franc and Cape Verdean escudo), three French Pacific territories (CFP franc) and two Balkan countries, Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark) and North Macedonia (Macedonian denar). On 1 January 2010, the dobra of São Tomé and Príncipe was officially linked with the euro. Additionally, the Moroccan dirham is tied to a basket of currencies, including the euro and the US dollar, with the euro given the highest weighting.
These countries generally had previously implemented a currency peg to one of the major European currencies (e.g. the French franc, Deutsche Mark or Portuguese escudo), and when these currencies were replaced by the euro their currencies became pegged to the euro. Pegging a country's currency to a major currency is regarded as a safety measure, especially for currencies of areas with weak economies, as the euro is seen as a stable currency, prevents runaway inflation, and encourages foreign investment due to its stability.
In total, as of 2013, 182 million people in Africa use a currency pegged to the euro, 27 million people outside the eurozone in Europe, and another 545,000 people on Pacific islands.
Since 2005, stamps issued by the Sovereign Military Order of Malta have been denominated in euros, although the Order's official currency remains the Maltese scudo. The Maltese scudo itself is pegged to the euro and is only recognised as legal tender within the Order.
The currency of a number of states is pegged to the euro. These states are:
North America
Europe
Oceania
Africa |
synth_fc_2147_rep19 | Negative | Law | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Republic_of_Ireland | 1 | The Irish state came into being in 1919 as the 32 county Irish Republic. In 1922, having seceded from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, it became the Irish Free State. It comprised 26 counties with 6 counties under the control of Unionists which became Northern Ireland in 1921. Bunreacht na hÉireann 1937 constitution renamed the 26 states 'Ireland'. In 1949, only 26 counties explicitly became a republic under the terms of the Republic of Ireland Act 1948, definitively ending its tenuous membership of the British Commonwealth. In 1973 the Republic of Ireland joined the European Communities (EC) as a member state which would later become the European Union (EU). Upon its foundation, the Irish Free State was embroiled in a civil war between nationalists supporting the Treaty and opponents who supported the existing Republic. The pro-Treaty side, organised as Cumann na nGaedheal, emerged victorious from the conflict and won subsequent elections. They formed the government of the state until 1932, when they peacefully handed over power to the anti-Treaty faction in Fianna Fáil, who defeated them in an election. The Irish state, despite its violent beginnings, has remained a democracy throughout its existence. Changes in the 1930s removed many of the links with Britain established under the Treaty and Ireland's neutrality in the Second World War demonstrated its independence in foreign policy matters from Britain. In the economic sphere, the Irish state has had a mixed performance. On independence, it was one of the wealthier countries in Europe per head of population. However it also inherited from British rule the problems of unemployment, emigration, uneven geographical development and lack of a native industrial base. For much of its history, the state struggled to rectify these problems. Particular peaks of emigration were recorded during the 1930s, 1950s and 1980s, when the Irish economy recorded little growth. In the 1930s, Fianna Fáil governments attempted to create Irish domestic industries using subsidies and protective tariffs. In the late 1950s, these policies were dropped in favour of free trade with selected countries and encouraging of foreign investment with low taxes. This was expanded when Ireland entered the European Economic Community in 1973. In the 1990s and 2000s, Ireland experienced an economic boom known as the Celtic Tiger, in which the country's GDP surpassed many of its European neighbours. Immigration also surpassed emigration, bringing the state's population up to over 4 million. However, since 2008, Ireland has experienced a severe crisis in the banking sector and with sovereign debt. The resultant economic slump has deepened the effect of the world recession on Ireland till 2012. Since 2012 unemployment rates and the economy has grown except around Covid. In the global GDP per capita tables, Ireland ranks 4th of 186 in the IMF table and 4th of 187 in the World Bank ranking. From 1937 to 1998, the Irish constitution included an irredentist claim on Northern Ireland as a part of the national territory. However, the state also opposed and used its security forces against those armed groups – principally the Provisional Irish Republican Army – who tried to unite Ireland by force. This occurred in the 1950s, throughout the 1970s and 1980s and has continued on a reduced scale. Irish governments meanwhile tried to broker an agreement to the conflict known as the Troubles within Northern Ireland from 1968 to the late 1990s. The British government officially recognised the right of the Irish government to be a party to the Northern negotiations in the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985. In 1998, as part of the Good Friday Agreement, the Irish constitution was altered by referendum to remove the territorial claim to Northern Ireland and instead extend the right of Irish citizenship to all the people of the island should they wish to have it. |
synth_fc_2692_rep12 | Positive | Music | Proximal search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Horowitz | 9 | Life and early career
Horowitz was born on October 1, 1903, in Kiev, then in the Russian Empire (now Ukraine). According to Nicolas Slonimsky, Horowitz was born in Berdichev, a city near Zhitomir in the Volhynian Governorate. However, his birth certificate unequivocally states that Kiev was his birthplace.
He was the youngest of four children of Samuil Horowitz and Sophia Bodik, who were assimilated Jews. His father was a well-to-do electrical engineer and a distributor of electric motors for German manufacturers. His grandfather Joachim was a merchant (and an arts-supporter), belonging to the 1st Guild, which exempted him from having to reside in the Pale of Settlement. In order to make him appear too young for military service so as not to risk damaging his hands, Samuil took a year off his son's age by claiming that he was born in 1904. The 1904 date appeared in many reference works during Horowitz's lifetime.
His uncle Alexander was a pupil and close friend of Alexander Scriabin. When Horowitz was 10, it was arranged for him to play for Scriabin, who told his parents that he was extremely talented.
Horowitz received piano instruction from an early age, initially from his mother, who was herself a pianist. In 1912 he entered the Kiev Conservatory, where he was taught by Vladimir Puchalsky, Sergei Tarnowsky, and Felix Blumenfeld. His first solo recital was in Kharkov in 1920.
Horowitz soon began to tour Russia and the Soviet Union, where he was often paid with bread, butter and chocolate rather than money, due to the economic hardship caused by the Russian Civil War. During the 1922–23 season, he performed 23 concerts of eleven different programs in Petrograd alone. Despite his early success as a pianist, he maintained that he wanted to be a composer and undertook a career as a pianist only to help his family, who had lost their possessions in the Russian Revolution.
In December 1925, Horowitz emigrated to Germany, ostensibly to study with Artur Schnabel in Berlin but secretly intending not to return. He stuffed American dollars and British pound notes into his shoes to finance his initial concerts. |
synth_fc_913_rep23 | Positive | Finance | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_threshold | 1 | The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for the average adult. The cost of housing, such as the rent for an apartment, usually makes up the largest proportion of this estimate, so economists track the real estate market and other housing cost indicators as a major influence on the poverty line. Individual factors are often used to account for various circumstances, such as whether one is a parent, elderly, a child, married, etc. The poverty threshold may be adjusted annually. In practice, like the definition of poverty, the official or common understanding of the poverty line is significantly higher in developed countries than in developing countries. In September 2022, the World Bank updated the International Poverty Line (IPL), a global absolute minimum, to $2.15 per day. In addition, as of 2022, $3.65 per day in PPP for lower-middle income countries, and $6.85 per day in PPP for upper-middle income countries. Per the $1.90/day standard, the percentage of the global population living in absolute poverty fell from over 80% in 1800 to 10% by 2015, according to United Nations estimates, which found roughly 734 million people remained in absolute poverty. |
synth_fc_720_rep20 | Positive | DNA sequence | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA | 23 | Artificial bases
Several artificial nucleobases have been synthesized, and successfully incorporated in the eight-base DNA analogue named Hachimoji DNA. Dubbed S, B, P, and Z, these artificial bases are capable of bonding with each other in a predictable way (S–B and P–Z), maintain the double helix structure of DNA, and be transcribed to RNA. Their existence could be seen as an indication that there is nothing special about the four natural nucleobases that evolved on Earth. On the other hand, DNA is tightly related to RNA which does not only act as a transcript of DNA but also performs as molecular machines many tasks in cells. For this purpose it has to fold into a structure. It has been shown that to allow to create all possible structures at least four bases are required for the corresponding RNA, while a higher number is also possible but this would be against the natural principle of least effort. |
synth_fc_2826_rep16 | Positive | Physics & Chemistry | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium | 12 | Organic and polymer chemistry
Organolithium compounds are widely used in the production of polymer and fine-chemicals. In the polymer industry, which is the dominant consumer of these reagents, alkyl lithium compounds are catalysts / initiators in anionic polymerization of unfunctionalized olefins. For the production of fine chemicals, organolithium compounds function as strong bases and as reagents for the formation of carbon-carbon bonds. Organolithium compounds are prepared from lithium metal and alkyl halides.
Many other lithium compounds are used as reagents to prepare organic compounds. Some popular compounds include lithium aluminium hydride (LiAlH), lithium triethylborohydride, n -butyllithium and tert -butyllithium. |
synth_fc_3482_rep4 | Positive | Time | Database search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_VIII_Palaiologos | 1 | Michael VIII Palaiologos or Palaeologus reigned as Byzantine emperor from 1261 until his death in 1282, and previously as the co-emperor of the Empire of Nicaea from 1259 to 1261. Michael VIII was the founder of the Palaiologan dynasty that would rule the Byzantine Empire until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. He recovered Constantinople from the Latin Empire in 1261 and transformed the Empire of Nicaea into a restored Byzantine Empire. His reign saw considerable recovery of Byzantine power, including the enlargement of the Byzantine army and navy. It also included the reconstruction of the city of Constantinople, and the increase of its population. His re-establishment of the University of Constantinople contributed to the Palaeologan Renaissance, a cultural flowering between the 13th and 15th centuries. It was also at this time that the focus of the Byzantine military shifted to the Balkans, against the Bulgarians, leaving the Anatolian frontier neglected. His successors could not compensate for this change of focus, and both the Arsenite schism and two civil wars which occurred from 1321–1328 and 1341–1347 undermined further efforts toward territorial consolidation and recovery, draining the empire's strength, economy, and resources. Regular conflict between Byzantine successor states such as Trebizond, Epirus, Bulgaria and Serbia resulted in permanent fragmentation of former Byzantine territory and opportunity for increasingly successful conquests of expansive territories by post-Seljuk Anatolian beyliks, most notably that of Osman, later called the Ottoman Empire. |
synth_fc_193_rep12 | Positive | Biology | Database creation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_proof | 24 | Statistical proof using data
"Statistical proof" from data refers to the application of statistics, data analysis, or Bayesian analysis to infer propositions regarding the probability of data. While using mathematical proof to establish theorems in statistics, it is usually not a mathematical proof in that the assumptions from which probability statements are derived require empirical evidence from outside mathematics to verify. In physics, in addition to statistical methods, "statistical proof" can refer to the specialized mathematical methods of physics applied to analyze data in a particle physics experiment or observational study in physical cosmology. "Statistical proof" may also refer to raw data or a convincing diagram involving data, such as scatter plots, when the data or diagram is adequately convincing without further analysis. |
synth_fc_2202_rep18 | Positive | Law | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire | 10 | End of empire
By 1981, aside from a scattering of islands and outposts, the process of decolonisation that had begun after the Second World War was largely complete. In 1982, Britain's resolve in defending its remaining overseas territories was tested when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, acting on a long-standing claim that dated back to the Spanish Empire. Britain's successful military response to retake the Falkland Islands during the ensuing Falklands War contributed to reversing the downward trend in Britain's status as a world power.
The 1980s saw Canada, Australia, and New Zealand sever their final constitutional links with Britain. Although granted legislative independence by the Statute of Westminster 1931, vestigial constitutional links had remained in place. The British Parliament retained the power to amend key Canadian constitutional statutes, meaning that effectively an act of the British Parliament was required to make certain changes to the Canadian Constitution. The British Parliament had the power to pass laws extending to Canada at Canadian request. Although no longer able to pass any laws that would apply to Australian Commonwealth law, the British Parliament retained the power to legislate for the individual Australian states. With regard to New Zealand, the British Parliament retained the power to pass legislation applying to New Zealand with the New Zealand Parliament 's consent. In 1982, the last legal link between Canada and Britain was severed by the Canada Act 1982, which was passed by the British parliament, formally patriating the Canadian Constitution. The act ended the need for British involvement in changes to the Canadian constitution. Similarly, the Australia Act 1986 (effective 3 March 1986) severed the constitutional link between Britain and the Australian states, while New Zealand's Constitution Act 1986 (effective 1 January 1987) reformed the constitution of New Zealand to sever its constitutional link with Britain.
On 1 January 1984, Brunei, Britain's last remaining Asian protectorate, was granted independence. Independence had been delayed due to the opposition of the Sultan, who had preferred British protection.
In September 1982 the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, travelled to Beijing to negotiate with the Chinese Communist government, on the future of Britain's last major and most populous overseas territory, Hong Kong. Under the terms of the 1842 Treaty of Nanking and 1860 Convention of Peking, Hong Kong Island and Kowloon Peninsula had been respectively ceded to Britain in perpetuity, but the majority of the colony consisted of the New Territories, which had been acquired under a 99-year lease in 1898, due to expire in 1997. Thatcher, seeing parallels with the Falkland Islands, initially wished to hold Hong Kong and proposed British administration with Chinese sovereignty, though this was rejected by China. A deal was reached in 1984—under the terms of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, Hong Kong would become a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China. The handover ceremony in 1997 marked for many, including King Charles III, then Prince of Wales, who was in attendance, "the end of Empire", though many British territories that are remnants of the empire still remain. |
synth_fc_2366_rep19 | Positive | Linguistics | API setting | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_synthesis | 26 | Domain-specific synthesis
Domain-specific synthesis concatenates prerecorded words and phrases to create complete utterances. It is used in applications where the variety of texts the system will output is limited to a particular domain, like transit schedule announcements or weather reports. The technology is very simple to implement, and has been in commercial use for a long time, in devices like talking clocks and calculators. The level of naturalness of these systems can be very high because the variety of sentence types is limited, and they closely match the prosody and intonation of the original recordings.
Because these systems are limited by the words and phrases in their databases, they are not general-purpose and can only synthesize the combinations of words and phrases with which they have been preprogrammed. The blending of words within naturally spoken language however can still cause problems unless the many variations are taken into account. For example, in non-rhotic dialects of English the "r" in words like "clear" /ˈklɪə/ is usually only pronounced when the following word has a vowel as its first letter (e.g. "clear out" is realized as /ˌklɪəɹˈʌʊt/). Likewise in French, many final consonants become no longer silent if followed by a word that begins with a vowel, an effect called liaison. This alternation cannot be reproduced by a simple word-concatenation system, which would require additional complexity to be context-sensitive. |
synth_fc_1534_rep7 | No function call | Geography | Ranking | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper | 38 | Production
Most copper is mined or extracted as copper sulfides from large open pit mines in porphyry copper deposits that contain 0.4 to 1.0% copper. Sites include Chuquicamata, in Chile, Bingham Canyon Mine, in Utah, United States, and El Chino Mine, in New Mexico, United States. According to the British Geological Survey, in 2005, Chile was the top producer of copper with at least one-third of the world share followed by the United States, Indonesia and Peru. Copper can also be recovered through the in-situ leach process. Several sites in the state of Arizona are considered prime candidates for this method. The amount of copper in use is increasing and the quantity available is barely sufficient to allow all countries to reach developed world levels of usage. An alternative source of copper for collection currently being researched are polymetallic nodules, which are located at the depths of the Pacific Ocean approximately 3000–6500 meters below sea level. These nodules contain other valuable metals such as cobalt and nickel. |
synth_fc_2271_rep5 | Positive | Law | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stun_grenade | 1 | A stun grenade, also known as a flash grenade, flashbang, thunderflash, or sound bomb, is a non-lethal explosive device used to temporarily disorient an enemy's senses. Upon detonation, a stun grenade produces a blinding flash of light and an extremely loud "bang". They are often used in close-quarters combat, door breaching, and riot control, typically to stun enemies or distract them. Stun grenades were first used by the British Army Special Air Service's counterterrorist wing in the late 1970s, and have been used by police and military forces worldwide since. Despite their less-lethal nature, stun grenades are still capable of causing harm, and can injure or kill when detonating in close proximity. They are also capable of sparking fires. |
synth_fc_1769_rep5 | Positive | Health | Calculation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_error | 3 | Assumptions and usage
An example of how SE {\displaystyle \operatorname {SE} } is used is to make confidence intervals of the unknown population mean. If the sampling distribution is normally distributed, the sample mean, the standard error, and the quantiles of the normal distribution can be used to calculate confidence intervals for the true population mean. The following expressions can be used to calculate the upper and lower 95% confidence limits, where x ¯ {\displaystyle {\bar {x}}} is equal to the sample mean, SE {\displaystyle \operatorname {SE} } is equal to the standard error for the sample mean, and 1.96 is the approximate value of the 97.5 percentile point of the normal distribution:
In particular, the standard error of a sample statistic (such as sample mean) is the actual or estimated standard deviation of the sample mean in the process by which it was generated. In other words, it is the actual or estimated standard deviation of the sampling distribution of the sample statistic. The notation for standard error can be any one of SE, SEM (for standard error of measurement or mean), or S.
Standard errors provide simple measures of uncertainty in a value and are often used because: |
synth_fc_1530_rep1 | Positive | Geography | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andean_civilizations | 8 | Tiwanaku
Tiwanaku (Spanish: Tiahuanaco and Tiahuanacu) is an important Pre-Columbian archaeological site in western Bolivia, South America. Tiwanaku is recognized by Andean scholars as one of the most important precursors to the Inca Empire, flourishing as the ritual and administrative capital of a major state power for approximately five hundred years. The ruins of the ancient city state are near the south-eastern shore of Lake Titicaca in the La Paz Department, Ingavi Province, Tiwanaku Municipality, about 72 km (45 mi) west of La Paz. The site was first recorded in written history by Spanish conquistador and self-acclaimed "first chronicler of the Indies" Pedro Cieza de León. Leon stumbled upon the remains of Tiwanaku in 1549 while searching for the Inca capital Qullasuyu. Some have hypothesized that Tiwanaku's modern name is related to the Aymara term taypiqala, meaning "stone in the center", alluding to the belief that it lay at the center of the world. However, the name by which Tiwanaku was known to its inhabitants may have been lost, as the people of Tiwanaku had no written language. |
synth_fc_2580_rep20 | Positive | Music | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sissy_Spacek | 1 | Mary Elizabeth "Sissy" Spacek is an American actress. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, three Golden Globe Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and nominations for four BAFTA Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Grammy Award. Spacek was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2011. After attending Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute she had her breakout role in Terrence Malick's crime film Badlands (1973), which earned her a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer. Spacek went on to earn the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of country singer Loretta Lynn in the biographical musical Coal Miner's Daughter (1980). Her other Oscar-nominated roles were in Carrie (1976), Missing (1982), The River (1984), Crimes of the Heart (1986), and In the Bedroom (2001). Her other prominent films include 3 Women (1977), Raggedy Man (1981), 'night, Mother (1986), JFK (1991), Affliction (1997), The Straight Story (1999), Tuck Everlasting (2002), Nine Lives (2005), North Country (2005), Four Christmases (2008), Get Low (2010), The Help (2011), and The Old Man & the Gun (2018). Spacek is also known for her television roles, receiving Primetime Emmy Award nominations for The Good Old Boys (1995), Last Call (2002), and Big Love (2011). She portrayed matriarch Sally Rayburn on the Netflix drama thriller series Bloodline (2015–2017), Ruth Deaver on the Hulu series Castle Rock (2018), and Ellen Bergman on the Amazon Prime Video series Homecoming (2018). Spacek has also ventured into music, and recorded vocals for the soundtrack album of Coal Miner's Daughter, which peaked at number two on the Billboard Top Country Albums Chart and garnered her a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. She also released a studio album, Hangin' Up My Heart (1983), which peaked at number 17 on Billboard Top Country Albums chart. |
synth_fc_2796_rep21 | Positive | Physics & Chemistry | Calculation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amorphous_solid | 7 | X-ray and neutron diffraction
Unlike crystalline materials which exhibit strong Bragg diffraction, the diffraction patterns of amorphous materials are characterized by broad and diffuse peaks. As a result, detailed analysis and complementary techniques are required to extract real space structural information from the diffraction patterns of amorphous materials. It is useful to obtain diffraction data from both X-ray and neutron sources as they have different scattering properties and provide complementary data. Pair distribution function analysis can be performed on diffraction data to determine the probability of finding a pair of atoms separated by a certain distance. Another type of analysis that is done with diffraction data of amorphous materials is radial distribution function analysis, which measures the number of atoms found at varying radial distances away from an arbitrary reference atom. From these techniques, the local order of an amorphous material can be elucidated. |
synth_fc_3160_rep5 | Positive | Sport | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usain_Bolt | 1 | Usain St. Leo Bolt OJ CD (/ ˈ juː s eɪ n /; born 21 August 1986) is a Jamaican retired sprinter who is widely considered to be the greatest sprinter of all time. He is an eight-time Olympic gold medalist and the world record holder in the 100 metres, 200 metres, and 4 × 100 metres relay.
Bolt is the only sprinter to win Olympic 100 m and 200 m titles at three consecutive Olympics (2008, 2012, and 2016). He also won two 4 × 100 relay gold medals. He gained worldwide fame for his double sprint victory in world record times at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which made him the first person to hold both records since fully automatic time became mandatory.
An eleven-time World Champion, he won consecutive World Championship 100 m, 200 m and 4 × 100 metres relay gold medals from 2009 to 2015, with the exception of a 100 m false start in 2011. He is the most successful male athlete of the World Championships. Bolt is the first athlete to win four World Championship titles in the 200 m and is one of the most successful in the 100 m with three titles, being the first person to run sub-9.7s and sub-9.6s.
Bolt improved upon his second 100 m world record of 9.69 with 9.58 seconds in 2009 – the biggest improvement since the start of electronic timing. He has twice broken the 200 metres world record, setting 19.30 in 2008 and 19.19 in 2009. He has helped Jamaica to three 4 × 100 metres relay world records, with the current record being 36.84 seconds set in 2012. Bolt's most successful event is the 200 m, with three Olympic and four World titles. The 2008 Olympics was his international debut over 100 m; he had earlier won numerous 200 m medals (including 2007 World Championship silver) and held the world under-20 and world under-18 records for the event until being surpassed by Erriyon Knighton in 2021.
His achievements as a sprinter have earned him the media nickname "Lightning Bolt", and his awards include the IAAF World Athlete of the Year, Track & Field Athlete of the Year, BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year (three times), and Laureus World Sportsman of the Year (four times). Bolt was included in Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2016. Bolt retired after the 2017 World Championships, when he finished third in his last solo 100 m race, opted out of the 200 m, and pulled up injured in the 4×100 m relay final. |
synth_fc_23_rep25 | Positive | Acoustics | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave | 28 | Reflection
When a wave strikes a reflective surface, it changes direction, such that the angle made by the incident wave and line normal to the surface equals the angle made by the reflected wave and the same normal line. |
synth_fc_2054_rep8 | Positive | Hotel | Order | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_ship | 4 | Cruise ships vs. ocean liners
Although some ships have characteristics of both types, the design priorities of the two forms are different: ocean liners value speed and traditional luxury while cruise ships value amenities (swimming pools, theaters, ball rooms, casinos, sports facilities, etc.) rather than speed. These priorities produce different designs. In addition, ocean liners typically were built to cross the Atlantic Ocean between Europe and the United States or travel even further to South America or Asia while cruise ships typically serve shorter routes with more stops along coastlines or among various islands.
Both the Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) (1969) and her successor as Cunard's flagship RMS Queen Mary 2 (QM2), which entered service in 2004, are of hybrid construction. Like transatlantic ocean liners, they are fast ships and strongly built to withstand the rigors of the North Atlantic in line voyage service, but both ships are also designed to operate as cruise ships, with the amenities expected in that trade. QM2 was superseded by the Freedom of the Seas of the Royal Caribbean line as the largest passenger ship ever built; however, QM2 still hold the record for the largest ocean liner. The Freedom of the Seas was superseded by the Oasis of the Seas in October 2009. |
synth_fc_2997_rep24 | Positive | School | Database update | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greatest_common_divisor | 11 | Using prime factorizations
Greatest common divisors can be computed by determining the prime factorizations of the two numbers and comparing factors. For example, to compute gcd(48, 180), we find the prime factorizations 48 = 2 · 3 and 180 = 2 · 3 · 5; the GCD is then 2 · 3 · 5 = 2 · 3 · 5 = 12 The corresponding LCM is then2 · 3 · 5 = 2 · 3 · 5 = 720.
In practice, this method is only feasible for small numbers, as computing prime factorizations takes too long. |
synth_fc_171_rep25 | Positive | Biology | Database search | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_bromide | 1 | Hydrogen bromide is the inorganic compound with the formula HBr. It is a hydrogen halide consisting of hydrogen and bromine. A colorless gas, it dissolves in water, forming hydrobromic acid, which is saturated at 68.85% HBr by weight at room temperature. Aqueous solutions that are 47.6% HBr by mass form a constant-boiling azeotrope mixture that boils at 124.3 °C (255.7 °F). Boiling less concentrated solutions releases H2O until the constant-boiling mixture composition is reached. Hydrogen bromide, and its aqueous solution, hydrobromic acid, are commonly used reagents in the preparation of bromide compounds. |
synth_fc_396_rep10 | Positive | Carbon footprint | Calculation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium | 26 | Hall–Héroult process
The conversion of alumina to aluminium is achieved by the Hall–Héroult process. In this energy-intensive process, a solution of alumina in a molten (950 and 980 °C (1,740 and 1,800 °F)) mixture of cryolite (Na AlF) with calcium fluoride is electrolyzed to produce metallic aluminium. The liquid aluminium sinks to the bottom of the solution and is tapped off, and usually cast into large blocks called aluminium billets for further processing.
Anodes of the electrolysis cell are made of carbon—the most resistant material against fluoride corrosion—and either bake at the process or are prebaked. The former, also called Söderberg anodes, are less power-efficient and fumes released during baking are costly to collect, which is why they are being replaced by prebaked anodes even though they save the power, energy, and labor to prebake the cathodes. Carbon for anodes should be preferably pure so that neither aluminium nor the electrolyte is contaminated with ash. Despite carbon's resistivity against corrosion, it is still consumed at a rate of 0.4–0.5 kg per each kilogram of produced aluminium. Cathodes are made of anthracite; high purity for them is not required because impurities leach only very slowly. The cathode is consumed at a rate of 0.02–0.04 kg per each kilogram of produced aluminium. A cell is usually terminated after 2–6 years following a failure of the cathode.
The Hall–Heroult process produces aluminium with a purity of above 99%. Further purification can be done by the Hoopes process. This process involves the electrolysis of molten aluminium with a sodium, barium, and aluminium fluoride electrolyte. The resulting aluminium has a purity of 99.99%.
Electric power represents about 20 to 40% of the cost of producing aluminium, depending on the location of the smelter. Aluminium production consumes roughly 5% of electricity generated in the United States. Because of this, alternatives to the Hall–Héroult process have been researched, but none has turned out to be economically feasible. |
synth_fc_550_rep4 | Positive | Corporate Management | Database removal | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays | 13 | Green Ball
In 1934, Bernays was asked to deal with women's apparent reluctance to buy Lucky Strikes because their green and red package clashed with standard female fashions. When Bernays suggested changing the package to a neutral color, Hill refused, saying that he had already spent millions advertising the package. Bernays then worked to make green a fashionable color.
The centerpiece of his efforts was the Green Ball, a social event at the Waldorf Astoria, hosted by Narcissa Cox Vanderlip. The pretext for the ball and its unnamed underwriter was that proceeds would go to charity. Famous society women would attend wearing green dresses. Manufacturers and retailers of clothing and accessories were advised of the excitement growing around the color green. Intellectuals were enlisted to give highbrow talks on the theme of green. Before the ball had taken place, newspapers and magazines (encouraged in various ways by Bernays's office) had latched on to the idea that green was all the rage. |
synth_fc_804_rep4 | Positive | Evolution modeling | Calculation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handball | 28 | Summary
Two teams of seven players (six court players plus one goalkeeper) take the court and attempt to score points by putting the game ball into the opposing team's goal. In handling the ball, players are subject to the following restrictions:
Notable scoring opportunities can occur when attacking players jump into the goal area. For example, an attacking player may catch a pass while launching toward the inside of the goal area, and then shoot or pass before touching the floor. Doubling occurs when a diving attacking player passes to another diving teammate. |
synth_fc_1845_rep3 | Positive | History | Document search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsardom_of_Russia | 3 | Byzantine heritage
By the 16th century, the Russian ruler had emerged as a powerful, autocratic figure, a Tsar. By assuming that title, the sovereign of Moscow tried to emphasize that he was a major ruler or emperor (tsar (царь) represents the Slavic adaptation of the Roman Imperial title/name Caesar) on a par with the Byzantine emperor. Indeed, after Ivan III married Sophia Palaiologina, the niece of the late Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos, in 1472, the Moscow court adopted Byzantine terms, rituals, titles, and emblems such as the double-headed eagle, which survives in the coat of arms of Russia.
At first, the Byzantine term autokrator expressed only the literal meaning of an independent ruler, but in the reign of Ivan IV (1533–1584) it came to imply unlimited (autocratic) rule. In 1547 the Grand Duke Ivan IV was crowned Tsar and thus was recognized – at least by the Russian Orthodox Church – as Emperor. Notably, the hegumen Philotheus of Pskov claimed in 1510 that after Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Empire in 1453, the Russian tsar remained the only legitimate Orthodox ruler, and that Moscow was the Third Rome, becoming the final lineal successor to Rome and Constantinople; these were the two centers of Christianity and of the Roman empires (Western and Eastern) of earlier periods. The "Third Rome" concept would resonate in the self-image of the Russian people in future centuries. |
synth_fc_3466_rep28 | Negative | Time | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary,_Queen_of_Hungary | 1 | Mary, also known as Maria of Anjou, reigned as Queen of Hungary and Croatia between 1382 and 1385, and from 1386 until her death. She was the daughter of Louis the Great, King of Hungary and Poland, and his wife, Elizabeth of Bosnia. Mary's marriage to Sigismund of Luxembourg, a member of the imperial Luxembourg dynasty, was already decided before her first birthday. A delegation of Polish prelates and lords confirmed her right to succeed her father in Poland in 1379. Having no male siblings, Mary was crowned "king" of Hungary on 17 September 1382, seven days after Louis the Great's death. Her mother, who had assumed the regency, absolved the Polish noblemen from their oath of loyalty to Mary in favor of Mary's younger sister, Jadwiga, in early 1383. The idea of a female monarch remained unpopular among the Hungarian noblemen, the majority of whom regarded Mary's distant cousin, Charles III of Naples, as the lawful heir. To strengthen Mary's position, the queen mother wanted her to marry Louis, the younger brother of Charles VI of France. Their engagement was announced in May 1385. Charles III of Naples landed in Dalmatia in September 1385. Sigismund of Luxembourg invaded Upper Hungary, forcing the queen mother to give 14-year-old Mary in marriage to him in October. However, they could not prevent Charles from entering Buda. After Mary renounced the throne, Charles was crowned king on 31 December 1385, but he was murdered at the instigation of Mary's mother in February 1386. Mary was restored, but the dead king's supporters captured her and her mother on 25 July. Queen Elizabeth was murdered in January 1387, but Mary was released on 4 June 1387. Mary officially remained co-ruler with Sigismund, who had meanwhile been crowned king, but her influence on the government was minimal. She and her premature son died after falling from a horse when the queen went on a hunting trip while she was pregnant. |
synth_fc_3275_rep2 | Positive | Sport | Ranking | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavus_Adolphus | 9 | Reputation
Historian Ronald S. Love wrote that in 1560–1660 there were "a few innovators, notably Maurice of Nassau and Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, whom many scholars credit with revolutionary developments in warfare and with having laid the foundations of military practice for the next two centuries." Scholars consider him an extremely able military commander. His integration of infantry, cavalry, logistics, and particularly his use of artillery, earned him the title of the "Father of Modern Warfare".
Future commanders who studied and admired Gustavus Adolphus include Napoleon I of France and Carl von Clausewitz. His advancements in warfare helped make Sweden the dominant Baltic power for the next hundred years (see Swedish Empire). He is also the only Swedish monarch to be styled " the Great ". This decision was made by the Swedish Riksdag of the Estates in 1634, making him officially called Gustavus Adolphus the Great (Gustavus Adolphus Magnus).
Gustavus Adolphus was the main figure responsible for the success of Swedish arms during the Thirty Years' War and led his nation to great prestige. As a general, Gustavus Adolphus employed mobile artillery on the battlefield, as well as very aggressive tactics, where attack was stressed over defense, and mobility and cavalry initiative were emphasized.
Among other innovations, he installed an early form of combined arms in his formations, where the cavalry could attack from the safety of an infantry line reinforced by cannon, and retire again within to regroup after their foray. Inspired by the reform of Maurice of Nassau, he adopted much shallower infantry formations than were common in the pike and shot armies of the era, with formations typically fighting in 5 or 6 ranks, occasionally supported at some distance by another such formation—the gaps being the provinces of the artillery and cavalry as noted above.
His artillery were themselves different—in addition to the usual complements of heavy cannon, he introduced light mobile guns for the first time into the Renaissance battlefield. These were grouped in batteries supporting his more linearly deployed formations, replacing the cumbersome and unmaneuverable traditional deep squares (such as the Spanish tercios that were up to 50 ranks deep) used in other pike and shot armies of the day. In consequence, his forces could redeploy and reconfigure very rapidly, confounding his enemies. He created the modern Swedish Navy, which transported troops and supplies to the Continental battlefront.
Carl von Clausewitz and Napoleon Bonaparte considered him one of the greatest generals of all time, an evaluation agreed with by George S. Patton and others. He was also renowned for his constancy of purpose and the equality of his troops—no one part of his armies was considered better or received preferred treatment, as was common in other armies where the cavalry were the elite, followed by the artillery, and both disdained the lowly infantry. In Gustavus Adolphus's' army the units were extensively cross-trained. Both cavalry and infantry could service the artillery, as his heavy cavalry did when turning captured artillery on the opposing Catholic tercios at First Breitenfeld.
Pikemen could shoot—if not as accurately as those designated musketeers—so a valuable firearm could be kept in the firing line. His infantrymen and gunners were taught to ride, if needed. Napoleon thought highly of the achievement and copied the tactics. However, recent historians have challenged his reputation. B. H. Liddell Hart says it is an exaggeration to credit him with a uniquely disciplined conscript army, or call his the first military state to fight a protracted war on the continent. He argues that he improved existing techniques and used them brilliantly. Richard Brzezinski says his legendary status was based on inaccurate myths created by later historians. Many of his innovations were developed by his senior staff. |
synth_fc_243_rep26 | Negative | Biomass | Proximal search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpolation | 14 | Via Gaussian processes
Gaussian process is a powerful non-linear interpolation tool. Many popular interpolation tools are actually equivalent to particular Gaussian processes. Gaussian processes can be used not only for fitting an interpolant that passes exactly through the given data points but also for regression; that is, for fitting a curve through noisy data. In the geostatistics community Gaussian process regression is also known as Kriging. |
synth_fc_727_rep6 | Positive | DNA sequence | Analysis | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_interference | 1 | RNA interference (RNAi) is a biological process in which RNA molecules are involved in sequence-specific suppression of gene expression by double-stranded RNA, through translational or transcriptional repression. Historically, RNAi was known by other names, including co-suppression, post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS), and quelling. The detailed study of each of these seemingly different processes elucidated that the identity of these phenomena were all actually RNAi. Andrew Fire and Craig C. Mello shared the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work on RNAi in the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans, which they published in 1998. Since the discovery of RNAi and its regulatory potentials, it has become evident that RNAi has immense potential in suppression of desired genes. RNAi is now known as precise, efficient, stable and better than antisense therapy for gene suppression. Antisense RNA produced intracellularly by an expression vector may be developed and find utility as novel therapeutic agents. Two types of small ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules, microRNA (miRNA) and small interfering RNA (siRNA), are central to components to the RNAi pathway. Once mRNA is degraded, post-transcriptional silencing occurs as protein translation is prevented. Transcription can be inhibited via the pre-transcriptional silencing mechanism of RNAi, through which an enzyme complex catalyzes DNA methylation at genomic positions complementary to complexed siRNA or miRNA. RNAi has an important role in defending cells against parasitic nucleotide sequences and also influences development of organisms. The RNAi pathway is a naturally occurring process found in many eukaryotes and animal cells. It is initiated by the enzyme Dicer, which cleaves long double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) molecules into short double-stranded fragments of approximately 21 to 23 nucleotide siRNAs. Each siRNA is unwound into two single-stranded RNAs (ssRNAs), the passenger (sense) strand and the guide (antisense) strand. The passenger strand is then cleaved by the protein Argonaute 2 (Ago2). The passenger strand is degraded and the guide strand is incorporated into the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC). The RISC assembly then binds and degrades the target mRNA. Specifically, this is accomplished when the guide strand pairs with a complementary sequence in a mRNA molecule and induces cleavage by Ago2, a catalytic component of the RISC. In some organisms, this process spreads systemically, despite the initially limited molar concentrations of siRNA. RNAi is a valuable research tool, both in cell culture and in living organisms, because synthetic dsRNA introduced into cells can selectively and robustly induce suppression of specific genes of interest. RNAi may be used for large-scale screens that systematically shut down each gene in the cell, which can help to identify the components necessary for a particular cellular process or an event such as cell division. The pathway is also used as a practical tool for food, medicine and insecticides. |
synth_fc_97_rep4 | No function call | Biology | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neogene | 6 | Flora and fauna
Marine and continental flora and fauna have a modern appearance. The reptile group Choristodera went extinct in the early part of the period, while the amphibians known as Allocaudata disappeared at the end of it. Neogene also marked the end of the reptilian genera Langstonia and Barinasuchus, terrestrial predators that were the last surviving members of Sebecosuchia, a group related to crocodiles. The oceans were dominated by large carnivores like megalodons and livyatans, and 19 million years ago about 70% of all pelagic shark species disappeared. Mammals and birds continued to be the dominant terrestrial vertebrates, and took many forms as they adapted to various habitats. An explosive radiation of ursids took place at the Miocene-Pliocene boundary. The first hominins, the ancestors of humans, may have appeared in southern Europe and migrated into Africa. The first humans (belonging to the species Homo habilis) appeared in Africa near the end of the period.
About 20 million years ago gymnosperms in the form of some conifer and cycad groups started to diversify and produce more species due to the changing conditions. In response to the cooler, seasonal climate, tropical plant species gave way to deciduous ones and grasslands replaced many forests. Grasses therefore greatly diversified, and herbivorous mammals evolved alongside it, creating the many grazing animals of today such as horses, antelope, and bison. Ice age mammals like the mammoths and woolly rhinoceros were common in Pliocene. With lower levels of CO in the atmosphere, C plants expanded and reached ecological dominance in grasslands during the last 10 million years. Also Asteraceae (daisies) went through a significant adaptive radiation. Eucalyptus fossil leaves occur in the Miocene of New Zealand, where the genus is not native today, but have been introduced from Australia. |
synth_fc_2577_rep20 | Positive | Museum | Calculation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Palladio | 7 | Last work
The final work of Palladio was the Teatro Olimpico in the Piazza Matteotti in Vicenza, built for the theatrical productions of the Olympic Society of Vicenza, of which Palladio was a member. He was asked to produce a design and model, and construction began in February 1580. The back wall of the stage was in the form of an enormous triumphal arch divided into three levels, and three portals through which actors could appear and disappear. This wall was lavishly decorated with columns and niches filled with statuary. The view through the arches gave the illusion of looking down classical streets. The painted ceiling was designed to give the illusion of sitting under an open sky. Behind the hemicycle of seats, Palladio placed a row of Corinthian columns.
Palladio died on 19 August 1580, not long after the work was begun. It was completed, with a number of modifications, by Vincenzo Scamozzi and inaugurated in 1584 with a performance of the tragedy Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. |
synth_fc_106_rep2 | Positive | Biology | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_life | 1 | Marine life, sea life, or ocean life is the plants, animals, and other organisms that live in the salt water of seas or oceans, or the brackish water of coastal estuaries. At a fundamental level, marine life affects the nature of the planet. Marine organisms, mostly microorganisms, produce oxygen and sequester carbon. Marine life, in part, shape and protect shorelines, and some marine organisms even help create new land. Most life forms evolved initially in marine habitats. By volume, oceans provide about 90% of the living space on the planet. The earliest vertebrates appeared in the form of fish, which live exclusively in water. Some of these evolved into amphibians, which spend portions of their lives in water and portions on land. One group of amphibians evolved into reptiles and mammals and a few subsets of each returned to the ocean as sea snakes, sea turtles, seals, manatees, and whales. Plant forms such as kelp and other algae grow in the water and are the basis for some underwater ecosystems. Plankton forms the general foundation of the ocean food chain, particularly phytoplankton which are key primary producers. Marine invertebrates exhibit a wide range of modifications to survive in poorly oxygenated waters, including breathing tubes as in mollusc siphons. Fish have gills instead of lungs, although some species of fish, such as the lungfish, have both. Marine mammals need to surface periodically to breathe air. As of 2023, more than 242,000 marine species have been documented, and perhaps two million marine species are yet to be documented. An average of 2,332 new species per year are being described. Marine species range in size from the microscopic like phytoplankton, which can be as small as 0.02 micrometres, to huge cetaceans like the blue whale – the largest known animal, reaching 33 m (108 ft) in length. Marine microorganisms, including protists and bacteria and their associated viruses, have been variously estimated as constituting about 70% or about 90% of the total marine biomass. Marine life is studied scientifically in both marine biology and in biological oceanography. The term marine comes from the Latin mare, meaning "sea" or "ocean". |
synth_fc_3782_rep9 | Positive | Weather & Air quality | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airport | 15 | Safety management
Aviation safety is an important concern in the operation of an airport, and almost every airfield includes equipment and procedures for handling emergency situations. Airport crash tender crews are equipped for dealing with airfield accidents, crew and passenger extractions, and the hazards of highly flammable aviation fuel. The crews are also trained to deal with situations such as bomb threats, hijacking, and terrorist activities.
Hazards to aircraft include debris, nesting birds, and reduced friction levels due to environmental conditions such as ice, snow, or rain. Part of runway maintenance is airfield rubber removal which helps maintain friction levels. The fields must be kept clear of debris using cleaning equipment so that loose material does not become a projectile and enter an engine duct (see foreign object damage). In adverse weather conditions, ice and snow clearing equipment can be used to improve traction on the landing strip. For waiting aircraft, equipment is used to spray special deicing fluids on the wings.
Many airports are built near open fields or wetlands. These tend to attract bird populations, which can pose a hazard to aircraft in the form of bird strikes. Airport crews often need to discourage birds from taking up residence.
Some airports are located next to parks, golf courses, or other low-density uses of land. Other airports are located near densely populated urban or suburban areas.
An airport can have areas where collisions between aircraft on the ground tend to occur. Records are kept of any incursions where aircraft or vehicles are in an inappropriate location, allowing these "hot spots" to be identified. These locations then undergo special attention by transportation authorities (such as the FAA in the US) and airport administrators.
During the 1980s, a phenomenon known as microburst became a growing concern due to aircraft accidents caused by microburst wind shear, such as Delta Air Lines Flight 191. Microburst radar was developed as an aid to safety during landing, giving two to five minutes' warning to aircraft in the vicinity of the field of a microburst event.
Some airfields now have a special surface known as soft concrete at the end of the runway (stopway or blastpad) that behaves somewhat like styrofoam, bringing the plane to a relatively rapid halt as the material disintegrates. These surfaces are useful when the runway is located next to a body of water or other hazard, and prevent the planes from overrunning the end of the field.
Airports often have on-site firefighters to respond to emergencies. These use specialized vehicles, known as airport crash tenders. Most civil aviation authorities have required levels of on-site emergency response capabilities based on an airport's traffic. At airports where civil and military operations share a common set of runways and infrastructure, emergency response is often managed by the relevant military unit as part of their base's operations. |
synth_fc_2558_rep30 | Positive | Museum | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoo | 24 | United States
In the United States, any public animal exhibit must be licensed and inspected by the Department of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Depending on the animals they exhibit, the activities of zoos are regulated by laws including the Endangered Species Act, the Animal Welfare Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 and others.
Additionally, zoos in several countries may choose to pursue accreditation by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), which originated in the U.S. To achieve accreditation, a zoo must pass an application and inspection process and meet or exceed the AZA's standards for animal health and welfare, fundraising, zoo staffing, and involvement in global conservation efforts. Inspection is performed by three experts (typically one veterinarian, one expert in animal care, and one expert in zoo management and operations) and then reviewed by a panel of twelve experts before accreditation is awarded. This accreditation process is repeated once every five years. The AZA estimates that there are approximately 2,400 animal exhibits operating under USDA license as of February 2007; fewer than 10% are accredited. |
synth_fc_2944_rep13 | Positive | Restaurant | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglerfish | 9 | Human consumption
One family, the Lophiidae, is of commercial interest with fisheries found in western Europe, eastern North America, Africa, and East Asia. In Europe and North America, the tail meat of fish of the genus Lophius, known as monkfish or goosefish (North America), is widely used in cooking, and is often compared to lobster tail in taste and texture.
In Africa, the countries of Namibia and the Republic of South Africa record the highest catches. In Asia, especially Japan, monkfish liver, known as ankimo, is considered a delicacy. Anglerfish is especially heavily consumed in South Korea, where it is featured as the main ingredient in dishes such as Agujjim. |
synth_fc_575_rep24 | Positive | Corporate Management | Database search | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooking_oil | 14 | Recycling
Cooking oil can be recycled. It can be used in animal feed, soap, make-up, clothes, rubber, detergents, directly as fuel, and to produce biodiesel.
In the recycling industry, used cooking oil recovered from restaurants and food-processing industries (typically from deep fryers or griddles) is called yellow grease, recycled vegetable oil (RVO), used vegetable oil (UVO), or waste vegetable oil (WVO).
Grease traps or interceptors collect fats and oils from kitchen sinks and floor drains. The result is called brown grease, and unlike yellow grease its severe contaminants make it much harder to recycle. |
synth_fc_3281_rep3 | Positive | Sport | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_the_United_Kingdom | 1 | The culture of the United Kingdom is influenced by its combined nations' history; its historically Christian religious life, its interaction with the cultures of Europe, the individual cultures of England, Wales and Scotland and the impact of the British Empire. The culture of the United Kingdom may also colloquially be referred to as British culture; Northern Ireland, though not geographically part of Great Britain, may still be considered as having a place within British culture. Although British culture is a distinct entity, the individual cultures of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are diverse. There have been varying degrees of overlap and distinctiveness between these four cultures. British literature is particularly esteemed. The modern novel was developed in Britain, and playwrights, poets, and authors are among its most prominent cultural figures. Britain has also made notable contributions to music, cinema, art, architecture and television. The UK is also the home of the Church of England, the state church and mother church of the Anglican Communion, the third-largest Christian denomination. Britain contains some of the world's oldest universities, has made many contributions to philosophy, science, technology and medicine, and is the birthplace of many prominent scientists and inventions. The Industrial Revolution began in the UK and had a profound effect on socio-economic and cultural conditions around the world. British culture has been influenced by historical and modern migration, the historical invasions of Great Britain, and the British Empire. As a result of the British Empire, significant British influence can be observed in the language, law, culture and institutions of its former colonies, most of which are members of the Commonwealth of Nations. A subset of these states form the Anglosphere, and are among Britain's closest allies. British colonies and dominions influenced British culture in turn, particularly British cuisine. Sport is an important part of British culture, and numerous sports originated in the country including cricket, football, tennis and rugby. The UK has been described as a "cultural superpower", and London has been described as a world cultural capital. A global opinion poll for the BBC saw the UK ranked the third most positively viewed nation in the world in 2013 and 2014. |
synth_fc_503_rep25 | Positive | Corporate Management | Database update | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burn | 10 | Size
The size of a burn is measured as a percentage of total body surface area (TBSA) affected by partial thickness or full thickness burns. First-degree burns that are only red in color and are not blistering are not included in this estimation. Most burns (70%) involve less than 10% of the TBSA.
There are a number of methods to determine the TBSA, including the Wallace rule of nines, Lund and Browder chart, and estimations based on a person's palm size. The rule of nines is easy to remember but only accurate in people over 16 years of age. More accurate estimates can be made using Lund and Browder charts, which take into account the different proportions of body parts in adults and children. The size of a person's handprint (including the palm and fingers) is approximately 1% of their TBSA. |
synth_fc_3390_rep15 | Positive | Store & Facility | Proximal search | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahjong | 55 | Tables
Mahjong playing surfaces are typically square and small enough to be within arm's length of all equipment. The edges are raised to prevent tiles from sliding off and the surface is covered in felt to limit wear on the tiles. Automatic dealing tables, often used for high stakes playing and tournaments, are able to shuffle tiles, build walls, and randomize dice. It is an elaborate device built into a table which uses two alternating sets of tiles. It shuffles one set of tiles while the players play on the other set. After the round is finished the tiles are dropped into the table and the standby wall raises upwards. |
synth_fc_3852_rep1 | Positive | Weather & Air quality | Calculation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almaty | 20 | Climate
Almaty has a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification: Dfa) with hot summers and cold winters. It is characterized by the influence of mountain – valley circulation. This is especially evident in the northern part of the city, located directly in the transition zone of the mountain slopes to the plains.
Annual average air temperature is equal to 10 °C (50 °F), the coldest month is January, −4.7 °C (24 °F) (on average), the warmest month (July) 23.8 °C (75 °F) (on average). In average years frost starts on about 14 October and ends on about 18 April, with sustained extreme cold from about 19 December to about 23 February, a period of about 67 days. Weather with temperature above 30 °C (86 °F) is average for about 36 days a year. In the center of Almaty, like any large city, there is a heat island. Therefore, frost in the city center starts about 7 days later and finishes 3 days earlier than in the northern suburbs. Annual precipitation is about 650 to 700 mm (25.6 to 27.6 in). April and May are the wettest months, during which about a third of the city's annual precipitation is received.
It is not uncommon to see snow or a cold snap hitting Almaty as late as the end of May. For example, in the last quarter century, such snowfalls were recorded on 13 May 1985, 1 May 1989, 5 May 1993 and 18 May 1998. The record latest snowfall in Almaty was on 17 June 1987.
Almaty sometimes experiences winter rain, despite heavy preceding snowfall and low temperatures. The most memorable winter rain took place on 16 December 1996 during a military parade to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the Independence of the Republic.
Almaty Weather Station's GM mostly records south-easterly wind (30%), its resistance increases during the summer (37%) and falls in winter (19%). Wind speeds exceed 15 m/s on about 15 days a year, on average. |
synth_fc_1685_rep14 | Positive | Health | Database search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lymantria_dispar_dispar | 17 | Rash
The caterpillar has been reported to produce a poison ivy –like rash when some people come into contact with the hairs of the larvae (caterpillar) stage. The contact can be direct or even if the small hairs are carried by the wind and onto the skin or clothing of a person. Such rashes were documented in the early 1980s, during a major infestation in the Northeastern United States. In coastal Maine and Cape Cod, Massachusetts, caterpillar-triggered rash is much more likely due to exposure to brown-tail moth (Euproctis chrysorrhoea). |
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