synth_record_id stringlengths 15 19 | outcome_type stringclasses 3
values | category stringclasses 39
values | type stringclasses 17
values | function_structure stringclasses 2
values | seed_url stringlengths 31 120 | seed_section_id int32 1 120 | seed_text stringlengths 13 28k |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
synth_fc_1689_rep24 | Positive | Health | Database search | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking | 3 | Physiology
Inhaling the vaporized gas form of substances into the lungs is a quick and very effective way of delivering drugs into the bloodstream (as the gas diffuses directly into the pulmonary vein, then into the heart and from there to the brain) and affects the user within less than a second of the first inhalation. The lungs consist of several million tiny bulbs called alveoli that altogether have an area of over 70 m (about the area of a tennis court). This can be used to administer useful medical as well as recreational drugs such as aerosols, consisting of tiny droplets of a medication, or as gas produced by burning plant material with a psychoactive substance or pure forms of the substance itself. Not all drugs can be smoked, for example the sulphate derivative that is most commonly inhaled through the nose, though purer free base forms of substances can, but often require considerable skill in administering the drug properly. The method is also somewhat inefficient since not all of the smoke will be inhaled. The inhaled substances trigger chemical reactions in nerve endings in the brain due to being similar to naturally occurring substances such as endorphins and dopamine, which are associated with sensations of pleasure. The result is what is usually referred to as a "high" that ranges between the mild stimulus caused by nicotine to the intense euphoria caused by heroin, cocaine and methamphetamines.
Inhaling smoke into the lungs, no matter the substance, has adverse effects on one's health. The incomplete combustion produced by burning plant material, like tobacco or cannabis, produces carbon monoxide, which impairs the ability of blood to carry oxygen when inhaled into the lungs. There are several other toxic compounds in tobacco that constitute serious health hazards to long-term smokers from a whole range of causes; vascular abnormalities such as stenosis, lung cancer, heart attacks, strokes, impotence, low birth weight of infants born by smoking mothers. 8% of long-term smokers develop the characteristic set of facial changes known to doctors as smoker's face.
Tobacco smoke is a complex mixture of over 5,000 identified chemicals, of which 98 are known to have specific toxicological properties. The most important chemicals causing cancer are those that produce DNA damage since such damage appears to be the primary underlying cause of cancer. Cunningham et al. combined the microgram weight of the compound in the smoke of one cigarette with the known genotoxic effect per microgram to identify the most carcinogenic compounds in cigarette smoke. The seven most important carcinogens in tobacco smoke are shown in the table, along with DNA alterations they cause. |
synth_fc_2341_rep10 | No function call | Law | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Monetary_Fund | 3 | Conditionality of loans
IMF conditionality is a set of policies or conditions that the IMF requires in exchange for financial resources. The IMF does require collateral from countries for loans but also requires the government seeking assistance to correct its macroeconomic imbalances in the form of policy reform. If the conditions are not met, the funds are withheld. The concept of conditionality was introduced in a 1952 executive board decision and later incorporated into the Articles of Agreement.
Conditionality is associated with economic theory as well as an enforcement mechanism for repayment. Stemming primarily from the work of Jacques Polak, the theoretical underpinning of conditionality was the "monetary approach to the balance of payments". |
synth_fc_197_rep30 | Positive | Biology | Feature search | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_likelihood_estimation | 12 | Davidon–Fletcher–Powell formula
DFP formula finds a solution that is symmetric, positive-definite and closest to the current approximate value of second-order derivative:
where |
synth_fc_458_rep29 | Positive | Corporate Management | Database search | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glamour_(magazine) | 1 | Glamour is a multinational online women's magazine published by Condé Nast Publications and based in New York City. It was originally called Glamour of Hollywood. From 1939 to 2019, Glamour was a print magazine. Due to decreasing numbers of subscribers, Glamour's last print edition was in January 2019. |
synth_fc_1729_rep8 | Positive | Health | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maze | 7 | Psychology experiments
Mazes are often used in psychology experiments to study spatial navigation and learning. Such experiments typically use rats or mice. Examples are: |
synth_fc_55_rep27 | Negative | Architecture | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucknow | 5 | Architecture
Lucknow's buildings show different styles of architecture with the many iconic buildings built during the British and Mughal era. More than half of these buildings lie in the old part of the city. The Uttar Pradesh Tourism Department organises a "Heritage Walk" for tourists covering the popular monuments. Among the extant architecture, there are religious buildings such as Imambaras, mosques, and other Islamic shrines as well as secular structures such as enclosed gardens, baradaris, and palace complexes.
Bara Imambara in Hussainabad is a colossal edifice built in 1784 by the then Nawab of Lucknow, Asaf-ud-Daula. It was originally built to provide assistance to people affected by the deadly famine, which struck the whole of Uttar Pradesh in the same year. It is the largest hall in Asia without any external support from wood, iron or stone beams. The monument required approximately 22,000 labourers during construction.
The 18 m (60 feet) tall Rumi Darwaza, built by Nawab Asaf-ud-daula (r. 1775–1797) in 1784, served as the entrance to the city of Lucknow. It is also known as the Turkish Gateway, as it was erroneously thought to be identical to the gateway at Constantinople. The edifice provides the west entrance to the Great Imambara and is embellished with lavish decorations.
Various architectural styles can be seen in the historical areas of Lucknow. The University of Lucknow shows a huge inspiration from the European style while Indo-Saracenic Revival architecture is prominently present in the Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Sabha building and Charbagh Railway station. Dilkusha Kothi is the remains of a palace constructed by the British resident Major Gore Ouseley around 1800 and showcases English Baroque architecture. It served as a hunting lodge for the Nawab of Awadhs and as a summer resort.
The Chattar Manzil, which served as the palace for the rulers of Awadh and their wives is topped by an umbrella-like dome and so named on account of Chattar being the Hindi word for "umbrella".Opposite Chattar Manzil stands the 'Lal Baradari' built by Nawab Saadat Ali Khan I between 1789 and 1814. It functioned as a throne room at coronations for the royal courts. The building is now used as a museum and contains delicately executed portraits of men who played major roles in the administration of the kingdom of Oudh.
Another example of mixed architectural styles is La Martiniere College, which shows a fusion of Indian and European ideas. It was built by Major-General Claude Martin who was born in Lyon and died in Lucknow on 13 September 1800. Originally named "Constantia", the ceilings of the building are domed with no wooden beams used for construction. Glimpses of Gothic architecture can also be seen in the college building.
Lucknow's Asafi Imambara exhibits vaulted halls as its architectural speciality.The Bara Imambara, Chhota Imambara and Rumi Darwaza stand in testament to the city's Nawabi mixture of Mughlai and Turkish styles of architecture while La Martiniere college bears witness to the Indo-European style. Even the new buildings are fashioned using characteristic domes and pillars, and at night these illuminated monuments become the city's main attractions.
Around Hazratganj, the city's central shopping area, there is a fusion of old and modern architecture. It has a multi-level parking lot in place of an old and dilapidated police station making way for extending the corridors into pebbled pathways, adorned with piazzas, green areas and wrought-iron and cast-iron lamp-posts, reminiscent of the Victorian era, flank both sides of the street. |
synth_fc_1632_rep28 | Negative | Geography | Ranking | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament | 41 | Germany
Except for the city-states of Berlin, Bremen and Hamburg, where the city council is also the state parliament, all state parliaments are called Landtag: |
synth_fc_1579_rep8 | Positive | Geography | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_(Genesis) | 8 | Joseph's burial
Joseph lived to the age of 110, living to see his great-grandchildren. Before he died, he made the children of Israel swear that when they left the land of Egypt they would take his bones with them, and on his death his body was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt. (Genesis 50:22–26)
The children of Israel remembered their oath, and when they left Egypt during the Exodus, Moses took Joseph's bones with him. (Exodus 13:19) The bones were buried at Shechem, in the parcel of ground which Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor (Joshua 24:32), which has traditionally been identified with site of Joseph's Tomb, before Jacob and all his family moved to Egypt. Shechem was in the land which was allocated by Joshua to the Tribe of Ephraim, one of the tribes of the House of Joseph, after the conquest of Canaan. |
synth_fc_365_rep22 | Positive | Book | Entity search | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_(novel) | 36 | Episode 4, "Calypso"
The narrative shifts abruptly. The time is again 8 a.m., but the action has moved across the city and to the second protagonist of the book, Leopold Bloom, a part-Jewish advertising canvasser. The episode opens with the line "Mr. Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls." After starting to prepare breakfast, Bloom decides to walk to a butcher to buy a pork kidney. Returning home, he prepares breakfast and brings it with the mail to his wife Molly as she lounges in bed. One of the letters is from her concert manager Blazes Boylan, with whom she is having an affair. Bloom reads a letter from their daughter Milly Bloom, who tells him about her progress in the photography business in Mullingar. The episode closes with Bloom reading a magazine story titled "Matcham's Masterstroke", by Mr. Philip Beaufoy, while defecating in the outhouse. |
synth_fc_2502_rep21 | Negative | Movie | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Fellini | 16 | Influence and legacy
Personal and highly idiosyncratic visions of society, Fellini's films are a unique combination of memory, dreams, fantasy and desire. The adjectives "Fellinian" and "Felliniesque" are "synonymous with any kind of extravagant, fanciful, even baroque image in the cinema and in art in general". La Dolce Vita contributed the term paparazzi to the English language, derived from Paparazzo, the photographer friend of journalist Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni).
Contemporary filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Pedro Almodóvar, Roy Andersson, Darren Aronofsky, Greta Gerwig, Ari Aster, Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, Emir Kusturica, Peter Greenaway, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Luca Guadagnino, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Yorgos Lanthimos, George Lucas, David Lynch, Paolo Sorrentino, and Giuseppe Tornatore have cited Fellini's influence on their work.
Polish director Wojciech Has, whose two best-received films, The Saragossa Manuscript (1965) and The Hour-Glass Sanatorium (1973), are examples of modernist fantasies, has been compared to Fellini for the sheer "luxuriance of his images".
Roman Polanski considered Fellini to be among the three film-makers he favored most, along with Akira Kurosawa and Orson Welles.
I Vitelloni inspired European directors Juan Antonio Bardem, Marco Ferreri, and Lina Wertmüller and influenced Martin Scorsese 's Mean Streets (1973), George Lucas 's American Graffiti (1974), Joel Schumacher 's St. Elmo's Fire (1985), and Barry Levinson 's Diner (1982), among many others. When the American magazine Cinema asked Stanley Kubrick in 1963 to name his ten favorite films, he ranked I Vitelloni number one.
International film directors who have named La Strada as one of their favorite films include Stanley Kwan, Anton Corbijn, Gillies MacKinnon, Andreas Dresen, Jiří Menzel, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Mike Newell, Rajko Grlić, Spike Lee, Laila Pakalniņa, Ann Hui, Akira Kurosawa, Kazuhiro Soda, Julian Jarrold, Krzysztof Zanussi, and Andrey Konchalovsky. David Cronenberg credits La Strada for opening his eyes to the possibilities of cinema when, as a child, he saw adults leave a showing of the film openly weeping.
Nights of Cabiria was adapted as the Broadway musical Sweet Charity and the movie Sweet Charity (1969) by Bob Fosse starring Shirley MacLaine. City of Women was adapted for the Berlin stage by Frank Castorf in 1992.
8 + 1 ⁄ 2 inspired, among others, Mickey One (Arthur Penn, 1965), Alex in Wonderland (Paul Mazursky, 1970), Beware of a Holy Whore (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1971), Day for Night (François Truffaut, 1973), All That Jazz (Bob Fosse, 1979), Stardust Memories (Woody Allen, 1980), Sogni d'oro (Nanni Moretti, 1981), Parad Planet (Vadim Abdrashitov, 1984), La Película del rey (Carlos Sorin, 1986), Living in Oblivion (Tom DiCillo, 1995), 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 Women (Peter Greenaway, 1999), Falling Down (Joel Schumacher, 1993), and the Broadway musical Nine (Maury Yeston and Arthur Kopit, 1982). Yo-Yo Boing! (1998), a Spanish novel by Puerto Rican writer Giannina Braschi, features a dream sequence with Fellini inspired by 8 + 1 ⁄ 2.
Alice by Woody Allen is a loose reworking of Fellini's 1965 film Juliet of the Spirits.
Fellini's work is referenced on the albums Fellini Days (2001) by Fish, Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964) by Bob Dylan with Motorpsycho Nitemare, Funplex (2008) by the B-52's with the song Juliet of the Spirits, and in the opening traffic jam of the music video Everybody Hurts by R.E.M. American singer Lana Del Rey has cited Fellini as an influence. His work influenced the American TV shows Northern Exposure and Third Rock from the Sun. Wes Anderson 's short film Castello Cavalcanti (2013) is in many places a direct homage to Fellini. In 1996, Entertainment Weekly ranked Fellini tenth on its "50 Greatest Directors" list. In 2002 MovieMaker magazine ranked Fellini No. 9 on their list of The 25 Most Influential Directors of All Time. In 2007, Total Film magazine ranked Fellini at No. 67 on its "100 Greatest Film Directors Ever" list.
Various film-related material and personal papers of Fellini are in the Wesleyan University Cinema Archives, to which scholars and media experts have full access. In October 2009, the Jeu de Paume in Paris opened an exhibit devoted to Fellini that included ephemera, television interviews, behind-the-scenes photographs, The Book of Dreams (based on 30 years of the director's illustrated dreams and notes), along with excerpts from La dolce vita and 8 + 1 ⁄ 2.
In 2014 the weekly entertainment- trade magazine Variety announced that French director Sylvain Chomet was moving forward with The Thousand Miles, a project based on various Fellini works, including his unpublished drawings and writings. |
synth_fc_1685_rep27 | Positive | Health | Database search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_acid | 27 | Unsaturated fatty acids
Unsaturated fatty acids have one or more C=C double bonds. The C=C double bonds can give either cis or trans isomers.
In most naturally occurring unsaturated fatty acids, each double bond has three (n-3), six (n-6), or nine (n-9) carbon atoms after it, and all double bonds have a cis configuration. Most fatty acids in the trans configuration (trans fats) are not found in nature and are the result of human processing (e.g., hydrogenation). Some trans fatty acids also occur naturally in the milk and meat of ruminants (such as cattle and sheep). They are produced, by fermentation, in the rumen of these animals. They are also found in dairy products from milk of ruminants, and may be also found in breast milk of women who obtained them from their diet.
The geometric differences between the various types of unsaturated fatty acids, as well as between saturated and unsaturated fatty acids, play an important role in biological processes, and in the construction of biological structures (such as cell membranes). |
synth_fc_2555_rep10 | Positive | Museum | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teresa_of_%C3%81vila | 4 | Holy relics
She was buried at the Convento de la Anunciación in Alba de Tormes. Nine months after her death the coffin was opened and her body was found to be intact but the clothing had rotted. Before the body was re-interred one of her hands was cut off, wrapped in a scarf and sent to Ávila. Gracián cut the little finger off the hand and – according to his own account – kept it with him until it was taken by the occupying Ottoman Turks, from whom he had to redeem it with a few rings and 20 reales. The body was exhumed again on 25 November 1585 to be moved to Ávila and found to be incorrupt. An arm was removed and left in Alba de Tormes at the nuns' request, to compensate for losing the main relic of Teresa, but the rest of the body was reburied in the Discalced Carmelite chapter house in Ávila. The removal was done without the approval of the Duke of Alba de Tormes and he brought the body back in 1586, with Pope Sixtus V ordering that it remain in Alba de Tormes on pain of excommunication. A grander tomb on the original site was raised in 1598 and the body was moved to a new chapel in 1616.
The body still remains there, except for the following parts:
On August 28, 2024, it was made the canonical recognition of Teresa's body. The postulator general of the Order of Discalced Carmelites, Father Marco Chiesa, announced that those present at the scene were able to see that "it is in the same condition as when it was last opened in 1914." |
synth_fc_2096_rep26 | No function call | Law | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_profiling | 3 | Considerations in evaluating DNA evidence
When using RFLP, the theoretical risk of a coincidental match is 1 in 100 billion (100,000,000,000) although the practical risk is actually 1 in 1,000 because monozygotic twins are 0.2% of the human population. Moreover, the rate of laboratory error is almost certainly higher than that and actual laboratory procedures often do not reflect the theory under which the coincidence probabilities were computed. For example, coincidence probabilities may be calculated based on the probabilities that markers in two samples have bands in precisely the same location, but a laboratory worker may conclude that similar but not precisely-identical band patterns result from identical genetic samples with some imperfection in the agarose gel. However, in that case, the laboratory worker increases the coincidence risk by expanding the criteria for declaring a match. Studies conducted in the 2000s quoted relatively-high error rates, which may be cause for concern. In the early days of genetic fingerprinting, the necessary population data to compute a match probability accurately was sometimes unavailable. Between 1992 and 1996, arbitrary-low ceilings were controversially put on match probabilities used in RFLP analysis, rather than the higher theoretically computed ones. |
synth_fc_339_rep12 | Negative | Board game | Generation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_Flute | 8 | Finale. Scene 3: A grove in front of a temple
The three boys lead Tamino to Sarastro's temple, promising that if he remains patient, wise and steadfast, he will succeed in rescuing Pamina (Quartet: " Zum Ziele führt dich diese Bahn " / This path leads you to your goal). Tamino approaches the right-hand entrance (the Temple of Reason) and is denied access by voices from within. The same happens when he goes to the entrance on the left (the Temple of Nature). But from the entrance in the middle (the Temple of Wisdom), a senior priest appears. (The priest is referred to as "The Speaker" in the libretto, but his role is sung.) He tells Tamino that Sarastro is benevolent, not evil, and that he should not trust the Queen of the Night. With a hidden male chorus, he promises that Tamino's confusion will be lifted when he approaches the temple in a spirit of friendship, and that Pamina is alive. Tamino plays his magic flute. Animals appear and dance, enraptured, to his music. Tamino hears Papageno's pipes sounding offstage, and hurries off to find him (aria: " Wie stark ist nicht dein Zauberton " / How strong is thy magic tone).
Papageno and Pamina enter, searching for Tamino (trio: " Schnelle Füße, rascher Mut " / Swift steps, ready courage). They are recaptured by Monostatos and his slaves. Papageno plays his magic bells, causing Monostatos and his slaves to dance off the stage, mesmerised by the beauty of the music (chorus: " Das klinget so herrlich " / That sounds so splendid). Papageno and Pamina hear the sound of Sarastro's retinue approaching. Papageno is frightened and asks Pamina what they should say. She answers that they must tell the truth. Sarastro enters, with a crowd of followers. (chorus: " Es lebe Sarastro! " / Long live Sarastro!) Pamina falls at Sarastro's feet and confesses that she tried to escape because Monostatos had forced his attentions on her. Sarastro receives her kindly and assures her that he wishes only for her happiness, but he refuses to return her to her mother, whom he describes as a proud, headstrong woman, and a bad influence on those around her. Pamina, he says, must be guided by a man.
Monostatos brings in Tamino. The two lovers see one another for the first time and embrace, causing indignation among Sarastro's followers. Monostatos tells Sarastro that he caught Papageno and Pamina trying to escape, and demands a reward. Sarastro ironically "rewards" Monostatos with a beating and sends him away. He announces that Tamino and Pamina must both undergo trials to be purified. The priests declare that virtue and righteousness will sanctify life and make mortals like gods (" Wenn Tugend und Gerechtigkeit " / If virtue and justice). |
synth_fc_2152_rep9 | No function call | Law | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon | 27 | Reaction to Pokémania (1999–2000)
In 1999 and 2000, Pokémon was an unprecedented, ubiquitous fad in the Western world. Time magazine described it as "a multimedia and interactive barrage like no other before it". The franchise, primarily aimed at children, elicited mixed responses from parents and teachers, some of them critical. Yano (2004) even claimed that the reactions at one point constituted a moral panic.
The bulk of the criticism on Pokémon was directed at the trading cards, in particular the booster packs, sealed packages of 11 randomly inserted cards that were sold separately from the main sets. The cards are of varying scarcity, the most valuable being the "holofoil cards" (also called "holographic" or "foil cards"), in which the illustrations of the Pokémon have a shiny overlay effect. The rare cards can only be found in booster packs, and the rarest ones are very infrequently included. Tobin (2004) notes that rarity in this case is "artificially created", and "effectively a form of gambling " in which children need to repeatedly purchase booster packs to get more rare cards. Brougère (2004) described a cynicism among adults that corporations could apparently, "out of thin air", ascribe value to cards which they saw as valueless, thereby "deceiving vulnerable young consumers and garnering excessive profits".
As the franchise's popularity grew, children began taking their Pokémon cards to school for trading and playing. Soon, the cards were alleged to be "disrupting learning, poisoning playground friendships and causing such distraction that some children forget their homework, tune out in class and even miss school buses as they scramble to acquire one more card". The cards were "turning the playground into a black market", with card swaps sometimes inciting conflicts. Certain children engaged in "aggressive trading", tricking other (often younger) kids into unfair deals, forcing teachers to arbitrate. Some parents expressed their concerns about the craze, but feared that their children would be ostracized if they were to deny them Pokémon products. In the US, the Pokémon cards ended up "almost universally banned" from school grounds. Similar bans occurred in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and European countries. In September 1999, US-based law firm Milberg filed a class-action lawsuit against Nintendo of America, Wizards of the Coast, and 4Kids. The suit claimed that the booster packs constitute a form of lottery and promote gambling in kids. Susan Estrich noted that similar lawsuits had been filed against trading-card makers in the US, without success. The Pokémon card suit is not known to have gone to court, and is believed to have been settled.
The Pokémon anime series was criticized by some as "cheap Japanese animation" that is "violent" and has "little educational value". Michelle Orecklin of Time dismissed the TV series as "less a cartoon than a half-hour exercise in Pokémon product placement". Allison (2006) wrote that even those within Pokémon's US marketing team agreed that the anime's visuals were "not especially sophisticated" compared to Disney cartoons. Pokémon: The First Movie premiered in the United States on November 12, 1999, and in European countries in February 2000. While a huge box-office success, the film was received negatively by several Western film critics. The Guardian decried it as a "contemptuously cheap animated cash-in on the monster kids' craze". The American adult animated series South Park satirized Pokémon in the episode " Chinpokomon ", aired on November 3, 1999. In the episode, the titular media franchise is portrayed as a low-quality line of products that is part of an evil plan by the Japanese government to invade the US. South Park co-creator Matt Stone commented that, at the time, Pokémon was "scary huge".
Kohler (2004) wrote that Pokémon was considered "ruthlessly commercial", and that it "program children to be consumers of anything and everything Pokémon". CNN quoted child psychiatrist John Lochridge as worrying that "Pokémon's creators and marketers deliberately set out to create a fantasy world so compelling that children would quickly become obsessed". He believed that kids were being "brainwashed", and said: "I have had parents tell me that they cannot get their kids to do anything except Pokémon, so this stuff seems to really capture their minds, in a way". These concerns were countered by psychologist William Damon, who told Newsweek that obsessing is in fact a normal part of a child's neurological development. It should concern parents only when the obsession gets dangerous or excessive. An op-ed in the New Zealander newspaper The Dominion Post claimed that the anti-Pokémon sentiment was particularly American: "The backlash, which seems largely confined to the United States, may be no more than the sound of the world's leading cultural imperialist gagging on a taste of its own medicine".
As Pokémania built, Western media started reporting on several crimes associated with Pokémon. These included violence (including two reported stabbings), burglaries, robberies (some at knifepoint), and shoplifting. Almost all these incidents were connected to the Pokémon cards, and the individuals involved were almost always underage. In the US, the incidents peaked in November 1999. In England, Pokémon-related delinquency reached a head in April 2000. High prices on the grey market were a motive behind some of the crimes, "posing a great temptation for older kids and bullies to take advantage of weaker children". At specialty shops and online auctions, a rare Pokémon card could be bought and sold for $50 or more (c. $ 91 in 2023).
Aside from the negative reactions, many media also cited alleged beneficial effects of Pokémon. It was noted that the video games and the cards require children to read, memorize, calculate, and plan out a strategy. Both encourage socialization, and trading Pokémon requires negotiating skills. Stephanie Strom wrote in The New York Times that the Pokémon anime taught children "traditional Japanese values -- responsibility, empathy, cooperation, obedience, respect for elders, humility". Anne Allison interviewed various American parents during Pokémania. She found that while most of them were "utterly mystified" about Pokémon, few were overly worried about it, instead meeting the craze with "befuddled acceptance". Allison also notes that the Columbine High School massacre occurred during Pokémania, causing violent television, music, and games to be scrutinized. Compared to these media, she notes, Pokémon is in fact rather tame.
In contrast, Pokémon received far less criticism in its native country of Japan. Yano (2004) attributes this to cultural differences, which includes: 1) greater acceptance of exuberant consumerism – to buy is to be a good citizen; 2) less focus on media influence – instead, Japan's educational system, bullying, and dysfunctional families are more often the target of attention; 3) less separation between child- and adulthood – what is suitable for adults is not necessarily considered unsuitable for kids; 4) Pokémon being permeated with kawaisa (cuteness), a hallmark of Japanese culture; 5) Japan's core religions, Buddhism and Shinto, are less moralizing in nature. However, Oliver Burkeman wrote in The Guardian that the Pokémon cards were also banned from some Japanese schools. |
synth_fc_1064_rep27 | Positive | Finance | Calculation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War | 12 | Sweden invades Germany (1630–1635)
From 1626 to 1629, Gustavus was engaged in a war with Poland–Lithuania, ruled by his Catholic cousin Sigismund, who also claimed the Swedish throne and had Imperial support. Once this conflict ended, and with only a few minor states like Hesse-Kassel still openly opposing the Emperor, Gustavus became an obvious ally for Richelieu. In September 1629, the latter helped negotiate the Truce of Altmark between Sweden and Poland, freeing Gustavus to enter the war. Partly a genuine desire to support his Protestant co-religionists, like Christian he also wanted to maximise his share of the Baltic trade that provided much of Sweden's income.
Following failed negotiations with the Emperor, Gustavus landed in Pomerania in June 1630 with nearly 18,000 Swedish troops. Using Stralsund as a bridgehead, he marched south along the Oder towards Stettin and coerced Bogislaw XIV, Duke of Pomerania, into agreeing an alliance which secured his interests in Pomerania against his rival Sigismund. As a result, the Poles turned their attention to Russia, initiating the 1632 to 1634 Smolensk War.
However, Swedish expectations of widespread German support proved unrealistic. By the end of 1630, their only new ally was the Administrator of Magdeburg, Christian William whose capital was under siege by Tilly. Despite the devastation inflicted by Imperial soldiers, Saxony and Brandenburg had their own ambitions in Pomerania, which clashed with those of Gustavus; previous experience also showed inviting external powers into the Empire was easier than getting them to leave.
Gustavus put pressure on Brandenburg by sacking Küstrin and Frankfurt an der Oder, while the Sack of Magdeburg in May 1631 provided a powerful warning of the consequences of Imperial victory. Once again, Richelieu used French financial power to bridge differences between the Swedes and the German princes; the 1631 Treaty of Bärwalde provided funds for the Swedes and their Protestant allies, including Saxony and Brandenburg. These amounted to 400,000 Reichstaler per year, or one million livres, plus an additional 120,000 for 1630. While less than 2% of total French income, these payments boosted that of Sweden by more than 25%, and allowed Gustavus to maintain 36,000 troops.
Gustavus used this army to win victories at Breitenfeld in September 1631, then Rain in April 1632, where Tilly was killed. Ferdinand turned once again to Wallenstein, who realised Gustavus was overextended and established himself at Fürth, from where he could threaten his supply lines. This led to the Battle of the Alte Veste in late August, one of the largest battles of the war. An assault on the Imperial camp outside the town was bloodily repulsed, arguably the greatest blunder committed by Gustavus during his German campaign.
Two months later, the Swedes and Imperials met at Lützen, where both sides suffered heavy casualties; Gustavus himself was killed, while some Swedish units incurred losses of over 60%. Fighting continued until dusk when Wallenstein retreated, abandoning his artillery and wounded. Despite their losses, this allowed the Swedes to claim victory, although the result continues to be disputed.
After his death, Gustavus' policies were continued by his Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna, and with French backing, Sweden and their German allies formed the Heilbronn League in April 1633. In July, their combined forces defeated an Imperial army under Bronckhorst-Gronsfeld at Oldendorf. Critics claimed this defeat was caused by Wallenstein's failure to support the Bavarians, while rumours spread that he was preparing to switch sides. As a result, Emperor Ferdinand ordered his arrest in February 1634, and on 25th, he was assassinated by his own officers in Cheb.
The loss of Wallenstein and his organisation left Emperor Ferdinand reliant on Spain for military support. Since their main concern was to re-open the Spanish Road for their campaign against the Dutch, the focus of the war now shifted from the north to the Rhineland and Bavaria. Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Austria, new Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, raised an army of 18,000 in Italy, which met up with an Imperial force of 15,000 at Donauwörth on 2 September 1634. Four days later, they won a decisive victory at Nördlingen which destroyed Swedish power in Southern Germany and led to the defection of their German allies, who now sought to make peace with the Emperor. |
synth_fc_378_rep1 | Positive | Book | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh%C5%ABsaku_End%C5%8D | 1 | Shūsaku Endō Shūsaku Endō was a Japanese author who wrote from the perspective of a Japanese Catholic. Internationally, he is known for his 1966 historical fiction novel Silence, which was adapted into a 2016 film of the same name by director Martin Scorsese. He was the laureate of several prestigious literary accolades, including the Akutagawa Prize and the Order of Culture, and was inducted into the Roman Catholic Order of St. Sylvester by Pope Paul VI. Together with Junnosuke Yoshiyuki, Shōtarō Yasuoka, Junzo Shono, Hiroyuki Agawa, Ayako Sono, and Shumon Miura, Endō is categorized as part of the "Third Generation". |
synth_fc_185_rep7 | Positive | Biology | Database search | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger | 5 | Brain representation
Each finger has an orderly somatotopic representation on the cerebral cortex in the somatosensory cortex area 3b, part of area 1 and a distributed, overlapping representations in the supplementary motor area and primary motor area.
The somatosensory cortex representation of the hand is a dynamic reflection of the fingers on the external hand: in syndactyly people have a clubhand of webbed, shortened fingers. However, not only are the fingers of their hands fused, but the cortical maps of their individual fingers also form a club hand. The fingers can be surgically divided to make a more useful hand. Surgeons did this at the Institute of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery in New York to a 32-year-old man with the initials O. G.. They touched O. G.'s fingers before and after surgery while using MRI brain scans. Before the surgery, the fingers mapped onto his brain were fused close together; afterward, the maps of his individual fingers did indeed separate and take the layout corresponding to a normal hand. |
synth_fc_1503_rep28 | Positive | Geography | Database search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_War | 1 | The Sino–Indian War, also known as the China–India War or the Indo–China War, was an armed conflict between China and India that took place from October to November 1962. It was a military escalation of the Sino–Indian border dispute. Fighting occurred along India's border with China, in India's North-East Frontier Agency east of Bhutan, and in Aksai Chin west of Nepal. There had been a series of violent border skirmishes between the two countries after the 1959 Tibetan uprising, when India granted asylum to the Dalai Lama. Chinese military action grew increasingly aggressive after India rejected proposed Chinese diplomatic settlements throughout 1960–1962, with China resuming previously banned "forward patrols" in Ladakh after 30 April 1962. Amidst the Cuban Missile Crisis, China abandoned all attempts towards a peaceful resolution on 20 October 1962, invading disputed territory along the 3,225-kilometre (2,004 mi) border in Ladakh and across the McMahon Line in the northeastern frontier. Chinese troops pushed Indian forces back in both theatres, capturing all of their claimed territory in the western theatre and the Tawang Tract in the eastern theatre. The conflict ended when China unilaterally declared a ceasefire on 20 November 1962, and simultaneously announced its withdrawal to its pre-war position, the effective China–India border. Much of the fighting comprised mountain warfare, entailing large-scale combat at altitudes of over 4,000 metres. Notably, the war took place entirely on land, without the use of naval or air assets by either side. As the Sino-Soviet split deepened, the Soviet Union made a major effort to support India, especially with the sale of advanced MiG fighter aircraft. Simultaneously, the United States and the United Kingdom refused to sell advanced weaponry to India, further compelling it to turn to the Soviets for military aid. |
synth_fc_22_rep14 | Positive | Acoustics | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound | 8 | Loudness
Loudness is perceived as how "loud" or "soft" a sound is and relates to the totalled number of auditory nerve stimulations over short cyclic time periods, most likely over the duration of theta wave cycles. This means that at short durations, a very short sound can sound softer than a longer sound even though they are presented at the same intensity level. Past around 200 ms this is no longer the case and the duration of the sound no longer affects the apparent loudness of the sound. |
synth_fc_1418_rep12 | Negative | Food | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greece | 21 | Agriculture
Greece is the European Union's largest producer of cotton and pistachios (7,200 tons in 2021), second in olives (3m tons in 2021), third in figs (8,400 tons in 2022) and watermelons (440,000 tons in 2022) and fourth in almonds (40,000 tons in 2022). Agriculture contributes 3.8% of GDP and employs 12% of the labor force.
Greece is a major beneficiary of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy. As a result of entry to the European Community, much of its agricultural infrastructure has been upgraded and output increased. |
synth_fc_2715_rep7 | Negative | Music | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagpipes | 10 | Spread and development in Europe
In the early part of the second millennium, representation of bagpipes began to appear with frequency in Western European art and iconography. The Cantigas de Santa Maria, written in Galician-Portuguese and compiled in Castile in the mid-13th century, depicts several types of bagpipes. Several illustrations of bagpipes also appear in the Chronique dite de Baudoin d’Avesnes, a 13th-century manuscript of northern French origin. Although evidence of bagpipes in the British Isles prior to the 14th century is contested, they are explicitly mentioned in The Canterbury Tales (written around 1380):
A baggepype wel coude he blowe and sowne, /And ther-with-al he broghte us out of towne.
Bagpipes were also frequent subjects for carvers of wooden choir stalls in the late 15th and early 16th century throughout Europe, sometimes with animal musicians.
Actual specimens of bagpipes from before the 18th century are extremely rare; however, a substantial number of paintings, carvings, engravings, and manuscript illuminations survive. These artefacts are clear evidence that bagpipes varied widely throughout Europe, and even within individual regions. Many examples of early folk bagpipes in continental Europe can be found in the paintings of Brueghel, Teniers, Jordaens, and Durer.
The earliest known artefact identified as a part of a bagpipe is a chanter found in 1985 at Rostock, Germany, that has been dated to the late 14th century or the first quarter of the 15th century.
The first clear reference to the use of the Scottish Highland bagpipes is from a French history that mentions their use at the Battle of Pinkie in 1547. George Buchanan (1506–82) claimed that bagpipes had replaced the trumpet on the battlefield. This period saw the creation of the ceòl mór (great music) of the bagpipe, which reflected its martial origins, with battle tunes, marches, gatherings, salutes and laments. The Highlands of the early 17th century saw the development of piping families including the MacCrimmonds, MacArthurs, MacGregors, and the Mackays of Gairloch.
The earliest Irish mention of the bagpipe is in 1206, approximately thirty years after the Anglo-Norman invasion; another mention attributes their use to Irish troops in Henry VIII's siege of Boulogne. Illustrations in the 1581 book The Image of Irelande by John Derricke clearly depict a bagpiper. Derricke's illustrations are considered to be reasonably faithful depictions of the attire and equipment of the English and Irish population of the 16th century.
The "Battell" sequence from My Ladye Nevells Booke (1591) by William Byrd, which probably alludes to the Irish wars of 1578, contains a piece entitled The bagpipe: & the drone. In 1760, the first serious study of the Scottish Highland bagpipe and its music was attempted in Joseph MacDonald's Compleat Theory. A manuscript from the 1730s by a William Dixon of Northumberland contains music that fits the border pipes, a nine-note bellows-blown bagpipe with a chanter similar to that of the modern Great Highland bagpipe. However, the music in Dixon's manuscript varied greatly from modern Highland bagpipe tunes, consisting mostly of extended variation sets of common dance tunes. Some of the tunes in the Dixon manuscript correspond to those found in the early 19th century manuscript sources of Northumbrian smallpipe tunes, notably the rare book of 50 tunes, many with variations, by John Peacock.
As Western classical music developed, both in terms of musical sophistication and instrumental technology, bagpipes in many regions fell out of favour because of their limited range and function. This triggered a long, slow decline that continued, in most cases, into the 20th century.
Extensive and documented collections of traditional bagpipes may be found at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the International Bagpipe Museum in Gijón, Spain, the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, England and the Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum in Northumberland, and the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Arizona.
The International Bagpipe Festival is held every two years in Strakonice, Czech Republic. |
synth_fc_2947_rep19 | Positive | School | Database removal | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commutative_ring | 15 | Artinian rings
A ring is called Artinian (after Emil Artin), if every descending chain of ideals
becomes stationary eventually. Despite the two conditions appearing symmetric, Noetherian rings are much more general than Artinian rings. For example, Z {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} } is Noetherian, since every ideal can be generated by one element, but is not Artinian, as the chain
shows. In fact, by the Hopkins–Levitzki theorem, every Artinian ring is Noetherian. More precisely, Artinian rings can be characterized as the Noetherian rings whose Krull dimension is zero. |
synth_fc_1075_rep23 | Positive | Finance | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Shackleton | 12 | Preparations
In December 1913, Shackleton published details of his new expedition, grandly titled the "Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition". There is a legend that Shackleton posted an advertisement emphasising the hardship and danger of the planned voyage, so that he could better narrow down the selection of candidates for his expedition, but no record of any such advertisement has survived and its existence is considered doubtful. Two ships were to be employed: Endurance would carry the main party into the Weddell Sea, aiming for Vahsel Bay from where a team of six, led by Shackleton, would begin the crossing of the continent; meanwhile, a second ship, the Aurora, would take a supporting party under Captain Aeneas Mackintosh to McMurdo Sound on the far side of the continent. This party would be tasked with laying supply depots across the Great Ice Barrier as far as the Beardmore Glacier, the depots holding the food and fuel required to enable Shackleton's party to complete their journey of 1,800 miles (2,900 km) across the continent.
Shackleton employed his considerable fund-raising skills to support the expedition, which was financed largely by private donations, although the British government gave £10,000 (equivalent to £ 1,212,201 in 2023). Scottish jute magnate Sir James Caird donated £24,000, Midlands industrialist Frank Dudley Docker gave £10,000, and tobacco heiress Janet Stancomb-Wills gave an undisclosed but reportedly "generous" sum. There was considerable public interest; Shackleton received more than 5,000 applications to join his expedition.
At times, his interviewing and selection methods seemed eccentric; believing that character and temperament were as important as technical ability, his questions were unconventional. Physicist Reginald James was asked if he could sing; others were accepted on sight because Shackleton liked the look of them, or after the briefest of interrogations. He loosened some of the traditional hierarchies to promote camaraderie, such as distributing the ship's chores equally among officers, scientists and able seamen. He made a point of socialising with his crew members every evening after dinner, leading sing-alongs, jokes and games. He finally selected a crew of fifty-six; shared equally, twenty-eight men on each ship.
Despite the outbreak of the First World War on 3 August 1914, Endurance was directed by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, to "proceed", and left British waters on 8 August. Shackleton delayed his own departure until 27 September, meeting the ship in Buenos Aires. On setting sail for South Georgia at the end of October, he sent a cablegram to the Daily Chronicle, conveying the patriotic message: "We hope in our small way to add victories in science and discovery to that certain victory which our nation will achieve in the cause of honor and liberty." |
synth_fc_1444_rep7 | Positive | Geography | Database search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhejiang | 20 | Republican era
During the Second Sino-Japanese War, which led into World War II, much of Zhejiang was occupied by Japan and placed under the control of the Japanese puppet state known as the Reorganized National Government of China. Following the Doolittle Raid, most of the B-25 American crews that came down in China eventually made it to safety with the help of Chinese civilians and soldiers. The Chinese people who helped them, however, paid dearly for sheltering the Americans. The Imperial Japanese Army began the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Campaign to intimidate the Chinese out of helping downed American airmen. Imperial Japanese forces killed an estimated 250,000 Chinese civilians from the area of Hangzhou to Nanchang and also Zhuzhou while searching for Doolittle's men. |
synth_fc_1092_rep4 | Positive | Finance | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debit_card | 2 | Consumer protection
Consumer protections vary depending on the network used. Visa and MasterCard, for instance, prohibit minimum and maximum purchase sizes, surcharges, and arbitrary security procedures on the part of merchants. Merchants are usually charged higher transaction fees for credit transactions since debit network transactions are less likely to be fraudulent. This may lead them to "steer" customers toward debit transactions. Consumers disputing charges may find it easier to do so with a credit card since the money will not immediately leave their control. Fraudulent charges on a debit card can also cause problems with a checking account because the money is withdrawn immediately and may thus result in an overdraft or bounced checks. In some cases, debit card-issuing banks will promptly refund any disputed charges until the matter can be settled, and in some jurisdictions, the consumer's liability for unauthorized charges is the same for both debit and credit cards.
In 2010, Bank of America announced that "it was doing away with overdraft fees for debit card purchases."
In some countries, such as India and Sweden, consumer protection is the same regardless of the network used. Some banks set minimum and maximum purchase sizes, mostly for online-only cards. However, this has nothing to do with the card networks but rather with the bank's judgment of the person's age and credit records. Any fees that the customers have to pay to the bank are the same regardless of whether the transaction is conducted as a credit or debit transaction, so there is no advantage for the customers to choose one transaction mode over another. Shops may add surcharges to the price of goods or services in accordance with laws allowing them to do so. Banks consider the purchases to have been made at the moment when the card was swiped, regardless of when the purchase settlement was made. Regardless of which transaction type was used, the purchase may result in an overdraft because the money is considered to have left the account at the moment of the card swipe.
According to Singapore's local financial and banking laws and regulations, all Singapore-issued credit and debit cards with Visa or MasterCard swipe magnet strips are disabled by default if used outside of Singapore. The whole idea is to prevent fraudulent activities and protect the card holder. If customers want to use card swipe magnet strips aboard and internationally, they will have to activate and enable international card usage. |
synth_fc_1708_rep3 | Positive | Health | Database search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_safety_and_health | 54 | United Kingdom
Health and safety legislation in the UK is drawn up and enforced by the Health and Safety Executive and local authorities under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 (HASAWA or HSWA). HASAWA introduced (section 2) a general duty on an employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees, with the intention of giving a legal framework supporting codes of practice not in themselves having legal force but establishing a strong presumption as to what was reasonably practicable (deviations from them could be justified by appropriate risk assessment). The previous reliance on detailed prescriptive rule-setting was seen as having failed to respond rapidly enough to technological change, leaving new technologies potentially unregulated or inappropriately regulated. HSE has continued to make some regulations giving absolute duties (where something must be done with no "reasonable practicability" test) but in the UK the regulatory trend is away from prescriptive rules, and toward goal setting and risk assessment. Recent major changes to the laws governing asbestos and fire safety management embrace the concept of risk assessment. The other key aspect of the UK legislation is a statutory mechanism for worker involvement through elected health and safety representatives and health and safety committees. This followed a similar approach in Scandinavia, and that approach has since been adopted in countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Malaysia.
The Health and Safety Executive service dealing with occupational medicine has been the Employment Medical Advisory Service. In 2014 a new occupational health organization, the Health and Work Service, was created to provide advice and assistance to employers in order to get back to work employees on long-term sick-leave. The service, funded by the government, offers medical assessments and treatment plans, on a voluntary basis, to people on long-term absence from their employer; in return, the government no longer foots the bill for statutory sick pay provided by the employer to the individual. |
synth_fc_855_rep28 | Positive | Finance | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_IV_of_France | 18 | Spain and Italy
During Henry's struggle for the crown, Spain had been the principal backer of the Catholic League, and it tried to thwart Henry. Under the Duke of Parma, an army from the Spanish Netherlands intervened in 1590 against Henry and foiled his siege of Paris. Another Spanish army helped the Catholic League nobles opposing Henry to win the Battle of Craon in 1592.
The Spanish war was not ended with Henry's coronation, but after his victory at the Siege of Amiens in September 1597, the Peace of Vervins was signed in 1598. This freed his armies to settle the dispute with the Duchy of Savoy, ending with the Treaty of Lyon of 1601, which arranged territorial exchanges.
One of Henry's major problems was the Spanish Road which traversed Spanish territory through Savoy to the Low Countries. His first opportunity to cut the Spanish Road was a dispute over the ownership of the Marquisate of Saluzzo. The last marquis left Saluzzo to the French crown in 1548 (when Savoy was occupied by France), but the territory became disputed during the chaos of the Wars of Religion. The pope was asked to arbitrate between the claims of France and the Duke of Savoy. The Duke offered to cede Bresse to France if he could retain Saluzzo. Henri IV accepted this, but Spain objected that Bresse was a vital part of the Spanish Road, and persuaded the Duke to reject the decision. Henry IV was already at Lyon and had soldiers ready, and four days later he marched fifty thousand men against the duchy, occupying almost all of its area west of the Alps. In January 1601, Henry accepted another offer of papal arbitration and gained not only Bresse, but Bugey and Gex. Savoy retained a narrow corridor through the Val de Chézery. This still allowed Spanish troops to cross from Lombardy to Franche Comté without going through France, but it created a choke point where the Spanish Road was a single bridge across the Rhône River.
The Saluzzo conflict was Henry IV's last major military operation, but he continued to finance Spain's enemies. He generously assisted the Dutch Republic with over 12 million livres between 1598 and 1610. In some years, the payment was 10% of France's total annual budget. France also sent subsidies to Geneva after the Duke of Savoy attempted to capture the city in 1602. |
synth_fc_3577_rep23 | Positive | Travel itinerary | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalonia | 32 | Topography
Catalonia has a marked geographical diversity, considering the relatively small size of its territory. The geography is conditioned by the Mediterranean coast, with 580 kilometres (360 miles) of coastline, and the towering Pyrenees along the long northern border. Catalonia is divided into three main geomorphological units:
The Catalan Pyrenees represent almost half in length of the Pyrenees, as it extends more than 200 kilometres (120 miles). Traditionally differentiated the Axial Pyrenees (the main part) and the Pre-Pyrenees (southern from the Axial) which are mountainous formations parallel to the main mountain ranges but with lower altitudes, less steep and a different geological formation. The highest mountain of Catalonia, located north of the comarca of Pallars Sobirà is the Pica d'Estats (3,143 m), followed by the Puigpedrós (2,914 m). The Serra del Cadí comprises the highest peaks in the Pre-Pyrenees and forms the southern boundary of the Cerdanya valley.
The Central Catalan Depression is a plain located between the Pyrenees and Pre-Coastal Mountains. Elevation ranges from 200 to 600 metres (660 to 1,970 feet). The plains and the water that descend from the Pyrenees have made it fertile territory for agriculture and numerous irrigation canals have been built. Another major plain is the Empordà, located in the northeast.
The Catalan Mediterranean system is based on two ranges running roughly parallel to the coast (southwest–northeast), called the Coastal and the Pre-Coastal Ranges. The Coastal Range is both the shorter and the lower of the two, while the Pre-Coastal is greater in both length and elevation. Areas within the Pre-Coastal Range include Montserrat, Montseny and the Ports de Tortosa-Beseit. Lowlands alternate with the Coastal and Pre-Coastal Ranges. The Coastal Lowland is located to the East of the Coastal Range between it and the coast, while the Pre-Coastal Lowlands are located inland, between the Coastal and Pre-Coastal Ranges, and includes the Vallès and Penedès plains. |
synth_fc_78_rep30 | Positive | Astronomy | Calculation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon | 1 | The horizon is the apparent curve that separates the surface of a celestial body from its sky when viewed from the perspective of an observer on or near the surface of the relevant body. This curve divides all viewing directions based on whether it intersects the relevant body's surface or not.
The true horizon is a theoretical line, which can only be observed to any degree of accuracy when it lies along a relatively smooth surface such as that of Earth's oceans. At many locations, this line is obscured by terrain, and on Earth it can also be obscured by life forms such as trees and/or human constructs such as buildings. The resulting intersection of such obstructions with the sky is called the visible horizon. On Earth, when looking at a sea from a shore, the part of the sea closest to the horizon is called the offing.
The true horizon surrounds the observer and it is typically assumed to be a circle, drawn on the surface of a perfectly spherical model of the relevant celestial body, i.e., a small circle of the local osculating sphere. With respect to Earth, the center of the true horizon is below the observer and below sea level. Its radius or horizontal distance from the observer varies slightly from day to day due to atmospheric refraction, which is greatly affected by weather conditions. Also, the higher the observer's eyes are from sea level, the farther away the horizon is from the observer. For instance, in standard atmospheric conditions, for an observer with eye level above sea level by 1.8 metres (6 ft), the horizon is at a distance of about 4.8 kilometres (3 mi). When observed from very high standpoints, such as a space station, the horizon is much farther away and it encompasses a much larger area of Earth's surface. In this case, the horizon would no longer be a perfect circle, not even a plane curve such as an ellipse, especially when the observer is above the equator, as the Earth's surface can be better modeled as an oblate ellipsoid than as a sphere. |
synth_fc_3298_rep29 | Negative | Sport | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilt_Chamberlain | 18 | Rule changes
Part of Chamberlain's impact on basketball is his direct responsibility for several rule changes in the NBA, including a widening of the lane to try to keep big men more distant from the basket, the instituting of offensive goaltending, a ban on dunking to convert free throws, and a revision of rules governing inbounding the ball, such as making it illegal to inbound the ball over the backboard. In basketball history, pundits have stated the only other player who forced such a massive change of rules is 6 ft 10 in (2.08 m) Minneapolis Lakers center George Mikan, who played a decade before Chamberlain and also caused many rule changes designed to thwart dominant centers, such as a widening the lane and defensive goaltending. |
synth_fc_1182_rep26 | Positive | Finance | Calculation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_advertisement | 1 | A television advertisement is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization. It conveys a message promoting, and aiming to market, a product, service or idea. Advertisers and marketers may refer to television commercials as TVCs. Advertising revenue provides a significant portion of the funding for most privately owned television networks. During the 2010s, the number of commercials has grown steadily, though the length of each commercial has diminished. Advertisements of this type have promoted a wide variety of goods, services, and ideas ever since the early days of the history of television.
The viewership of television programming, as measured by companies such as Nielsen Media Research in the United States, or BARB in the UK, is often used as a metric for television advertisement placement, and consequently, for the rates which broadcasters charge to advertisers to air within a given network, television program, or time of day. In many countries, including the United States, television campaign advertisements are commonplace in a political campaign. In other countries, such as France, political advertising on television is heavily restricted, while some countries, such as Norway, completely ban political advertisements. The first official paid television advertisement came out in the United States on July 1, 1941, at 2:30 p.m., over New York station WNBT before a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies. The announcement for Bulova watches, for which the company paid anywhere from $4.00 to $9.00, displayed a WNBT test pattern modified to look like a clock with the hands showing the time. The Bulova logo, with the phrase "Bulova Watch Time", appeared in the lower right-hand quadrant of the test pattern while the second hand swept around the dial for one minute. The first TV ad broadcast in the UK went on air on ITV on September 22, 1955, advertising Gibbs SR toothpaste. In Asia, the first TV ad broadcast appeared on Nippon Television in Tokyo on August 28, 1953, advertising Seikosha; it also displayed a clock with the current time. The television market has grown to such an extent that it was estimated to reach $69.87 billion for TV ad spending in the United States for 2018. |
synth_fc_309_rep11 | Positive | Board game | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_programming | 2 | A type of balanced 0–1 matrix
Consider the problem of assigning values, either zero or one, to the positions of an n × n matrix, with n even, so that each row and each column contains exactly n / 2 zeros and n / 2 ones. We ask how many different assignments there are for a given n {\displaystyle n}. For example, when n = 4, five possible solutions are
There are at least three possible approaches: brute force, backtracking, and dynamic programming.
Brute force consists of checking all assignments of zeros and ones and counting those that have balanced rows and columns (n / 2 zeros and n / 2 ones). As there are 2 n 2 {\displaystyle 2^{n^{2}}} possible assignments and (n n / 2) n {\displaystyle {\tbinom {n}{n/2}}^{n}} sensible assignments, this strategy is not practical except maybe up to n = 6 {\displaystyle n=6}.
Backtracking for this problem consists of choosing some order of the matrix elements and recursively placing ones or zeros, while checking that in every row and column the number of elements that have not been assigned plus the number of ones or zeros are both at least n / 2. While more sophisticated than brute force, this approach will visit every solution once, making it impractical for n larger than six, since the number of solutions is already 116,963,796,250 for n = 8, as we shall see.
Dynamic programming makes it possible to count the number of solutions without visiting them all. Imagine backtracking values for the first row – what information would we require about the remaining rows, in order to be able to accurately count the solutions obtained for each first row value? We consider k × n boards, where 1 ≤ k ≤ n, whose k {\displaystyle k} rows contain n / 2 {\displaystyle n/2} zeros and n / 2 {\displaystyle n/2} ones. The function f to which memoization is applied maps vectors of n pairs of integers to the number of admissible boards (solutions). There is one pair for each column, and its two components indicate respectively the number of zeros and ones that have yet to be placed in that column. We seek the value of f ((n / 2, n / 2), (n / 2, n / 2), … (n / 2, n / 2)) {\displaystyle f((n/2,n/2),(n/2,n/2),\ldots (n/2,n/2))} (n {\displaystyle n} arguments or one vector of n {\displaystyle n} elements). The process of subproblem creation involves iterating over every one of (n n / 2) {\displaystyle {\tbinom {n}{n/2}}} possible assignments for the top row of the board, and going through every column, subtracting one from the appropriate element of the pair for that column, depending on whether the assignment for the top row contained a zero or a one at that position. If any one of the results is negative, then the assignment is invalid and does not contribute to the set of solutions (recursion stops). Otherwise, we have an assignment for the top row of the k × n board and recursively compute the number of solutions to the remaining (k − 1) × n board, adding the numbers of solutions for every admissible assignment of the top row and returning the sum, which is being memoized. The base case is the trivial subproblem, which occurs for a 1 × n board. The number of solutions for this board is either zero or one, depending on whether the vector is a permutation of n / 2 (0, 1) {\displaystyle (0,1)} and n / 2 (1, 0) {\displaystyle (1,0)} pairs or not.
For example, in the first two boards shown above the sequences of vectors would be
The number of solutions (sequence A058527 in the OEIS) is
Links to the MAPLE implementation of the dynamic programming approach may be found among the external links. |
synth_fc_2139_rep22 | No function call | Law | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone | 6 | Early history
Before the development of the electric telephone, the term telephone was applied to other inventions, and not all early researchers of the electrical device used the term. Perhaps the earliest use of the word for a communications system was the telephon created by Gottfried Huth in 1796. Huth proposed an alternative to the optical telegraph of Claude Chappe in which the operators in the signaling towers would shout to each other by means of what he called "speaking tubes", but would now be called giant megaphones. A communication device for sailing vessels, called telephone, was invented by Captain John Taylor in 1844. This instrument used four air horns to communicate with vessels in foggy weather.
Johann Philipp Reis used the term in reference to his invention, commonly known as the Reis telephone, in c. 1860. His device appears to be the first device based on the conversion of sound into electrical impulses.
The term telephone was adopted into the vocabulary of many languages. It is derived from the Greek: τῆλε, tēle, "far" and φωνή, phōnē, "voice", together meaning "distant voice".
Credit for the invention of the electric telephone is frequently disputed. As with other influential inventions such as radio, television, the light bulb, and the computer, several inventors pioneered experimental work on voice transmission over a wire and improved on each other's ideas. New controversies over the issue still arise from time to time. Charles Bourseul, Antonio Meucci, Johann Philipp Reis, Alexander Graham Bell, and Elisha Gray, amongst others, have all been credited with the invention of the telephone.
Alexander Graham Bell was the first to be awarded a patent for the electric telephone by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in March 1876. Before Bell's patent, the telephone transmitted sound in a way that was similar to the telegraph. This method used vibrations and circuits to send electrical pulses, but was missing key features. Bell found that this method produced a sound through intermittent currents, but in order for the telephone to work a fluctuating current reproduced sounds the best. The fluctuating currents became the basis for the working telephone, creating Bell's patent. That first patent by Bell was the master patent of the telephone, from which other patents for electric telephone devices and features flowed.
In 1876, shortly after Bell's patent application, Hungarian engineer Tivadar Puskás proposed the telephone switch, which allowed for the formation of telephone exchanges, and eventually networks.
In the United Kingdom, the blower is used as a slang term for a telephone. The term came from navy slang for a speaking tube. In the U.S., a somewhat dated slang term refers to the telephone as "the horn," as in "I couldn't get him on the horn," or "I'll be off the horn in a moment." |
synth_fc_1824_rep18 | Positive | History | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide | 5 | Genocide Convention
On 9 December 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG); it came into effect on 12 January 1951 after 20 countries ratified it without reservations. The convention's definition of genocide was adopted verbatim by the ad hoc international criminal tribunals and by the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). Genocide is defined as:
... any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
In addition, attempted genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, incitement to genocide, and complicity in genocide are criminalized. The convention does not allow the retroactive prosecution of events that took place prior to 1951. Many countries have incorporated genocide into their municipal law, varying to a lesser or greater extent from the convention.
A specific " intent to destroy " is the mens rea requirement of genocide. The issue of what it means to destroy a group "as such" and how to prove the required intent has been difficult for courts to resolve. The legal system has also struggled with how much of a group can be targeted before triggering the Genocide Convention. The two main approaches to intent are the purposive approach, where the perpetrator specifically intends to commit genocide, and the knowledge-based approach, where the perpetrator understands that genocidal outcomes will result from his actions. Perpetrators do not always make their intentions clear in public statements, although courts sometimes ascribe intent based on other factors. Perpetrators often take advantage of the legal special intent requirement to claim that they merely sought the removal of the group from a given territory, instead of destruction as such, or that the genocidal actions were collateral damage of military activity. |
synth_fc_3457_rep19 | Positive | Time | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemasonry | 21 | Jamaican Freemasonry
Freemasonry was imported to Jamaica by British immigrants who colonized the island for over 300 years. In 1908, there were eleven recorded Masonic lodges, which included three Grand Lodges, two Craft lodges, and two Rose Croix chapters. During slavery, the lodges were open to all "freeborn" men. According to the Jamaican 1834 census, that potentially included 5,000 free black men and 40,000 free people of colour (mixed race). After the full abolition of slavery in 1838, the Lodges were open to all Jamaican men of any race. Jamaica also kept close relationships with Masons from other countries. Jamaican Freemasonry historian Jackie Ranston, noted that:
Jamaica served as an arms depot for the revolutionary forces when two Kingston Freemasons, Wellwood and Maxwell Hyslop, financed the campaigns of Simón Bolívar, the Liberator, to whom six Latin American Republics owe their independence". Bolívar himself was a Mason, enjoying contacts with Brethren in Spain, England, France, and Venezuela until after gaining power in Venezuela, he prohibited all secret societies in 1828 and included the Freemasons.
On 25 May 2017, Masons around the world celebrated the 300th anniversary of the fraternity. Jamaica hosted one of the regional gatherings for this celebration. |
synth_fc_2492_rep29 | No function call | Movie | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Baxter | 1 | Anne Baxter was an American actress, star of Hollywood films, Broadway productions, and television series. She won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe, and was nominated for an Emmy. A granddaughter of Frank Lloyd Wright, Baxter studied acting with Maria Ouspenskaya and had some stage experience before making her film debut in 20 Mule Team (1940). She became a contract player of 20th Century Fox and was loaned to RKO Pictures for the role of Lucy Morgan in Orson Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), one of her earlier films. In 1947, she won both the Academy Award and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Sophie MacDonald in The Razor's Edge (1946). In 1951, she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for the title role in All About Eve (1950). She worked with several of Hollywood's greatest directors, including Billy Wilder in Five Graves to Cairo (1943), Alfred Hitchcock in I Confess (1953), Fritz Lang in The Blue Gardenia (1953), and Cecil B. DeMille in The Ten Commandments (1956), for which she won a Laurel Award for Topliner Female Dramatic Performance. |
synth_fc_204_rep11 | Positive | Biology | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral | 10 | Contour integrals
In complex analysis, the integrand is a complex-valued function of a complex variable z instead of a real function of a real variable x. When a complex function is integrated along a curve γ {\displaystyle \gamma } in the complex plane, the integral is denoted as follows
This is known as a contour integral. |
synth_fc_719_rep1 | Positive | DNA sequence | Feature search | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amino_acid | 30 | Peptide bond formation
As both the amine and carboxylic acid groups of amino acids can react to form amide bonds, one amino acid molecule can react with another and become joined through an amide linkage. This polymerization of amino acids is what creates proteins. This condensation reaction yields the newly formed peptide bond and a molecule of water. In cells, this reaction does not occur directly; instead, the amino acid is first activated by attachment to a transfer RNA molecule through an ester bond. This aminoacyl-tRNA is produced in an ATP -dependent reaction carried out by an aminoacyl tRNA synthetase. This aminoacyl-tRNA is then a substrate for the ribosome, which catalyzes the attack of the amino group of the elongating protein chain on the ester bond. As a result of this mechanism, all proteins made by ribosomes are synthesized starting at their N -terminus and moving toward their C -terminus.
However, not all peptide bonds are formed in this way. In a few cases, peptides are synthesized by specific enzymes. For example, the tripeptide glutathione is an essential part of the defenses of cells against oxidative stress. This peptide is synthesized in two steps from free amino acids. In the first step, gamma-glutamylcysteine synthetase condenses cysteine and glutamate through a peptide bond formed between the side chain carboxyl of the glutamate (the gamma carbon of this side chain) and the amino group of the cysteine. This dipeptide is then condensed with glycine by glutathione synthetase to form glutathione.
In chemistry, peptides are synthesized by a variety of reactions. One of the most-used in solid-phase peptide synthesis uses the aromatic oxime derivatives of amino acids as activated units. These are added in sequence onto the growing peptide chain, which is attached to a solid resin support. Libraries of peptides are used in drug discovery through high-throughput screening.
The combination of functional groups allow amino acids to be effective polydentate ligands for metal–amino acid chelates. The multiple side chains of amino acids can also undergo chemical reactions. |
synth_fc_2887_rep4 | Positive | Restaurant | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baozi | 1 | Baozi, or simply bao, is a type of yeast-leavened filled bun in various Chinese cuisines. There are many variations in fillings and preparations, though the buns are most often steamed. They are a variation of mantou from Northern China. Two types are found in most parts of China: Dàbāo, measuring about ten centimetres across, served individually, and usually purchased for take-away. The other type, Xiǎobāo, measures approximately five centimetres wide, and are most commonly eaten in restaurants, but may also be purchased for take-away. Each order consists of a steamer containing between three and ten pieces. A small ceramic dish for dipping the baozi is provided for vinegar or soy sauce, both of which are available in bottles at the table, along with various types of chili and garlic pastes, oils or infusions, fresh coriander and leeks, sesame oil, and other flavorings. Baozi are popular throughout China and have made their way into the cuisines of many other countries through the Chinese diaspora. |
synth_fc_2666_rep6 | Positive | Music | Order | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Def_Leppard | 1 | Def Leppard are an English rock band formed in Sheffield in 1976. Since 1992, the band has consisted of Rick Savage, Joe Elliott, Rick Allen (drums), Phil Collen, and Vivian Campbell. They established themselves as part of the new wave of British heavy metal of the early 1980s. Their greatest commercial success came between the early 1980s and mid–1990s. With a line-up of Savage, Elliott, Allen and guitarists Steve Clark and Pete Willis, the band's first album, 1980's On Through the Night, reached the Top 15 in the UK but received little notice elsewhere. Their second album, 1981's High 'n' Dry, was produced by Mutt Lange, who helped them to define their melodic hard rock style. The album's most popular track "Bringin' On the Heartbreak" became one of the first rock videos played on MTV in 1982, but the album reached only the Top 30 and 40 in the UK and US. Willis was replaced by Collen in 1982. Their next studio album, Pyromania, was released in January 1983, with "Photograph" and "Rock of Ages" both topping the US Rock Tracks chart and reaching the top 20 of the Hot 100. Reaching No. 2 on the US album chart, Pyromania was certified Diamond in the US. It reached the top 20 in the UK but did not sell much elsewhere. The band's fourth album, the more pop-oriented Hysteria (1987), topped the UK, US, Canadian and Australian charts, and remained on the charts for over two years, from 1987 to 1989. It has been certified 12× platinum for sales in the US, selling over 30 million copies worldwide to date, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time, and the highest selling glam rock album to date. It spawned six Top 20 US singles, including the US Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 "Love Bites", alongside "Pour Some Sugar on Me", "Hysteria", "Armageddon It", "Animal", and "Rocket". Clark died in 1991, with the band recording their next studio album, Adrenalize, as a four-piece. The album reached No. 1 on the UK, US and Australian charts in 1992. It contained several hits, including the Billboard chart-topper "Let's Get Rocked", which became their biggest hit in several countries, including No. 2 in the UK. The third single, "Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad", was a Top 10 song in the US, UK and Canada. Adrenalize went on to sell over eight million copies worldwide. Campbell joined the band soon after the album's completion. Their 1993 album, Retro Active, contained the acoustic Top 5 hit "Two Steps Behind". Their greatest-hits album Vault, released in 1995, featured the UK No. 2 hit "When Love & Hate Collide" and reached the Top 10 in several countries, going 5× platinum in the US. Beginning with Slang, Def Leppard released five albums between 1996-2008, with most usually reaching the Top 15 in several countries, including the UK, US and Canada. Their self-titled album, released in 2015, reached the Top 10 in several countries. Their newest studio album, Diamond Star Halos, was released in May 2022 and reached the Top 10 in the US, UK and Australia, and soon became the band's highest rated and best selling album since Adrenalize in 1992. As one of the world's best-selling music artists, Def Leppard have sold more than 100 million records worldwide, and have two albums with RIAA diamond certification: Pyromania and Hysteria, making them one of only five rock bands with two original studio albums selling more than 10 million copies in the US. The band were ranked No. 31 in VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock" and No. 70 in "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019. |
synth_fc_178_rep21 | No function call | Biology | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_badger | 11 | Badger-baiting
Badger-baiting was once a popular blood sport, in which badgers were captured alive, placed in boxes, and attacked with dogs. In the UK, this was outlawed by the Cruelty to Animals Act of 1835 and again by the Protection of Animals Act of 1911. Moreover, the cruelty towards and killing of the badger constitute offences under the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, and further offences under this act are inevitably committed to facilitate badger-baiting (such as interfering with a sett, or the taking or the very possession of a badger for purposes other than nursing an injured animal to health). If convicted, badger-baiters may face a sentence of up to six months in jail, a fine of up to £5,000, and other punitive measures, such as community service or a ban from owning dogs. |
synth_fc_1597_rep18 | Positive | Geography | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatham_Island | 1 | Chatham Island is the largest island of the Chatham Islands group, in the south Pacific Ocean off the eastern coast of New Zealand's South Island. It is said to be "halfway between the equator and the pole, and right on the International Date Line", although that point is 173 miles WSW of the island's westernmost point. The island is called Rekohu in Moriori, and Wharekauri in Māori. The island was named after the survey ship HMS Chatham which was the first European ship to locate the island in 1791. It covers an area of 920 km (355 sq mi).
Chatham Island lies 650 km (404 mi) south-east of Cape Turnagain, the nearest point of mainland New Zealand to the island. |
synth_fc_124_rep24 | Positive | Biology | Database creation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedimentary_rock | 13 | Other sedimentary rocks
This fourth miscellaneous category includes volcanic tuff and volcanic breccias formed by deposition and later cementation of lava fragments erupted by volcanoes, and impact breccias formed after impact events. |
synth_fc_289_rep13 | No function call | Biomass | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limnology | 13 | Tropical limnology
Tropical limnology is a unique and important subfield of limnology that focuses on the distinct physical, chemical, biological, and cultural aspects of freshwater systems in tropical regions. The physical and chemical properties of tropical aquatic environments are different from those in temperate regions, with warmer and more stable temperatures, higher nutrient levels, and more complex ecological interactions. Moreover, the biodiversity of tropical freshwater systems is typically higher, human impacts are often more severe, and there are important cultural and socioeconomic factors that influence the use and management of these systems. |
synth_fc_1798_rep16 | Positive | Health | API setting | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheese | 14 | Cardiovascular disease
National health organizations, such as the American Heart Association, Association of UK Dietitians, British National Health Service, and Mayo Clinic, among others, recommend that cheese consumption be minimized, replaced in snacks and meals by plant foods, or restricted to low-fat cheeses to reduce caloric intake and blood levels of LDL fat, which is a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. |
synth_fc_2228_rep8 | No function call | Law | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg | 17 | Nuremberg trials
Between 1945 and 1946, German officials involved in war crimes and crimes against humanity were brought before an international tribunal in the Nuremberg trials. The Soviet Union had wanted these trials to take place in Berlin. However, Nuremberg was chosen as the site for the trials for specific reasons:
Following the trials, in October 1946, many prominent German Nazi politicians and military leaders were executed in Nuremberg.
The same courtroom in Nuremberg was the venue of the Nuremberg Military Tribunals, organized by the United States as occupying power in the area.
In order to come to terms with the role Nuremberg played during the Third Reich, the city established the Nuremberg International Human Rights Award in 1995, awarded every two years to individuals or groups defending human rights worldwide. |
synth_fc_1759_rep8 | Positive | Health | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herpes | 11 | Alternative medicine
Evidence is insufficient to support use of many of these compounds, including echinacea, eleuthero, L-lysine, zinc, monolaurin bee products, and aloe vera. While a number of small studies show possible benefit from monolaurin, L-lysine, aspirin, lemon balm, topical zinc, or licorice root cream in treatment, these preliminary studies have not been confirmed by higher-quality randomized controlled studies. |
synth_fc_971_rep2 | No function call | Finance | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Pillars_of_Islam | 13 | Third Pillar: Zakat (Almsgiving)
The Third Pillar of Islam is Zakāt, or alms giving or charity. Zakat means purification which indicates that a payment makes the rest of one's wealth legally and religiously pure. By following this pillar, Muslims have to deduct certain amount of their wealth to support the Islamic community — usually about 2.5% of their wealth. This practice is not found in the Quran but rather in the hadith. The tax is used to take good care of the holy places and mosques in the individual's specific Muslim community or to give assistance to those in need or who are impoverished. The word zakāt can be defined as purification and growth because it allows an individual to achieve balance and encourages new growth. The principle of knowing that all things belong to God is essential to purification and growth. Zakāt is obligatory for all Muslims who are able to do so. It is the personal responsibility of each Muslim to ease the economic hardship of others and to strive towards eliminating inequality. Zakāt consists of spending a portion of one's wealth for the benefit of the poor or needy, such as debtors or travelers. A Muslim may also donate more as an act of voluntary charity (sadaqah), rather than to achieve additional divine reward. Also, Muslims are required to give back to the poor, specifically through financial support, on the streets in addition to the Zakāt. Zakāt shows how the Islam faith impacts the financial situation of a believer, drawing into all aspects of life.
There are five principles that should be followed when giving the zakāt: |
synth_fc_3729_rep21 | Positive | Weather & Air quality | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_cyclone | 27 | Multiple storm interaction
A third component of motion that occurs relatively infrequently involves the interaction of multiple tropical cyclones. When two cyclones approach one another, their centers will begin orbiting cyclonically about a point between the two systems. Depending on their separation distance and strength, the two vortices may simply orbit around one another, or else may spiral into the center point and merge. When the two vortices are of unequal size, the larger vortex will tend to dominate the interaction, and the smaller vortex will orbit around it. This phenomenon is called the Fujiwhara effect, after Sakuhei Fujiwhara. |
synth_fc_2719_rep30 | Negative | Music | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run-DMC | 6 | Early career
The three members of Run-DMC grew up in Hollis, Queens. As a teenager, Joseph Simmons was recruited into hip hop by his older brother, Russell, who was then an up-and-coming hip hop promoter. Simmons appeared onstage as a DJ for solo rapper Kurtis Blow, who was managed by Russell. Known as "DJ Run, Son of Kurtis Blow", Simmons soon began performing with Blow. Previously, McDaniels had been more focused on athletics than music, but soon began to DJ after purchasing a set of turntables. Simmons convinced McDaniels to start rapping, and though McDaniels would not perform in public, he soon began writing rhymes and was known as "Easy D."
Simmons and McDaniels started hanging around Two-Fifths Park in Hollis in the late 1970s, hoping to rap for the local DJs who performed and competed there; the most popular one known to frequent the park was Jason Mizell, then known as "Jazzy Jase". Mizell was known for his flashy wardrobe and b-boy attitude, which led to minor legal troubles as a teen. Thereafter, he decided to pursue music fame and began entertaining in the park soon after. Eventually, Simmons and McDaniels rapped in front of Mizell at the park, and the three became friends. Following Russell's success managing Kurtis Blow, he helped Run record his first single, a song called "Street Kid". The song went unnoticed, but despite the single's failure, Run's enthusiasm for hip hop was growing. Simmons soon wanted to record again—-this time with McDaniels, but Russell refused, citing a dislike for D's rhyming style. After they graduated from high school and started college in 1982, Simmons and McDaniels finally convinced Russell to let them record as a duo, and they recruited Mizell (who was now known as Jam Master Jay) to be their official DJ. The following year, in 1983, Russell agreed to help them record a new single and land a record deal, but only after he changed McDaniels's stage name to his favorite car company, DeLorean Motor Company 'DMC', and marketed the group as "Run-D.M.C.", a name that the group hated at first. DMC said later, "We wanted to be the Dynamic Two, the Treacherous Two — when we heard that shit we was like, 'We're gonna be ruined!' "
The group's name used Joseph Simmons's DJ name, DJ Run. It was combined with several letters from Darryl McDaniel's name. (DMC can also stand for "Devastating Mic Controller" and in one instance, Darryl rapped in King of Rock “People always ask, "DMC, what does it mean?" D's for never dirty, MC for mostly clean.”)
After signing with Profile Records, Run-DMC released their debut single " It's Like That /Sucker MCs" in late 1983. The single was well received, peaking at No. 15 on the R&B charts. The trio performed the single on the New York Hot Tracks video show in 1983. Emboldened by their success, Run-DMC released their eponymous debut album Run-D.M.C. in 1984. Hit singles such as "Jam-Master Jay" and "Hard Times" proved that the group were more than a one-hit wonder, and the landmark single " Rock Box " was a groundbreaking fusion of raw hip hop and hard rock that would become a cornerstone of the group's sound and paved the way for the rap rock -subgenre movement of the 1990s.
Run-DMC's swift ascension to the forefront of rap with a new sound and style meant that old-school hip hop artists were becoming outdated. Along with pushing rap into a new direction musically, Run-DMC changed the entire aesthetic of hip hop music and culture. Old school rappers like Afrika Bambaataa and Melle Mel of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five tended to dress in the flashy attire that was commonly attributed to glam rock and disco acts of the era: tight leather, chest-baring shirts, gloves and hats with rhinestones and spikes, leather boots, etc. Run-DMC discarded the more glam aspects of early hip hop fashion (which were later readopted in 1990 by more "pop" rappers like MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice) and incorporated a more "street" sense of style such as Kangol hats, Cazal glasses, leather jackets, and unlaced Adidas shoes. The group's look had been heavily influenced by Mizell's own personal style. When Russell Simmons saw Jay's flashy, yet street b-boy style; he insisted the entire group follow suit. Run said later:
There were guys that wore hats like those and sneakers with no shoestrings. It was a very street thing to wear, extremely rough. They couldn't wear shoelaces in jail and we took it as a fashion statement. The reason they couldn't have shoelaces in jail was that they might hang themselves. That's why DMC says 'My Adidas only bring good news and they are not used as felon shoes.'
That embrace of the look and style of the street would define the next 25 years of hip hop fashion. |
synth_fc_2451_rep30 | Positive | Movie | API setting | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film | 11 | 1950s: growing influence of television
In the early 1950s, the proliferation of black-and-white television started seriously depressing North American theater attendance. In an attempt to lure audiences back into theaters, bigger screens were installed, widescreen processes, polarized 3D projection, and stereophonic sound were introduced, and more films were made in color, which soon became the rule rather than the exception. Some important mainstream Hollywood films were still being made in black-and-white as late as the mid-1960s, but they marked the end of an era. Color television receivers had been available in the US since the mid-1950s, but at first, they were very expensive and few broadcasts were in color. During the 1960s, prices gradually came down, color broadcasts became common, and sales boomed. The overwhelming public verdict in favor of color was clear. After the final flurry of black-and-white films had been released in mid-decade, all Hollywood studio productions were filmed in color, with the usual exceptions made only at the insistence of "star" filmmakers such as Peter Bogdanovich and Martin Scorsese. |
synth_fc_3875_rep6 | Negative | Writing, Editing & Translation | Generation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Taylor | 2 | 1941–1949: Early roles and teenage stardom
In California, Taylor's mother was frequently told that her daughter should audition for films. Taylor's eyes in particular, drew attention; they were blue, to the extent of appearing violet, and were rimmed by dark double eyelashes caused by a genetic mutation. Sara was initially opposed to Taylor appearing in films, but after the outbreak of war in Europe made return there unlikely, she began to view the film industry as a way of assimilating to American society. Francis Taylor's Beverly Hills gallery had gained clients from the film industry soon after opening, helped by the endorsement of gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, a friend of the Cazalets. Through a client and a school friend's father, Taylor auditioned for both Universal Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in early 1941. Both studios offered Taylor contracts, and Sara Taylor chose to accept Universal's offer.
Taylor began her contract in April 1941 and was cast in a small role in There's One Born Every Minute (1942). She did not receive other roles, and her contract was terminated after a year. Universal's casting director explained her dislike of Taylor, stating that "the kid has nothing... her eyes are too old, she doesn't have the face of a child." Biographer Alexander Walker agrees that Taylor looked different from the child stars of the era, such as Shirley Temple and Judy Garland. Taylor later said that, "apparently, I used to frighten grown ups, because I was totally direct."
Taylor received another opportunity in late 1942, when her father's acquaintance, MGM producer Samuel Marx, arranged for her to audition for a minor role in Lassie Come Home (1943), which required a child actress with an English accent. After a trial contract of three months, she was given a standard seven-year contract in January 1943. Following Lassie, she appeared in minor uncredited roles in two other films set in England – Jane Eyre (1943) playing Helen Burns, and The White Cliffs of Dover (1944).
Taylor was cast in her first starring role at the age of 12, when she was chosen to play a girl who wants to compete as a jockey in the exclusively male Grand National in National Velvet. She later called it "the most exciting film" of her career. Since 1937, MGM looked for a suitable actress with a British accent and the ability to ride horses. They decided on Taylor at the recommendation of White Cliffs director Clarence Brown, who knew she had the necessary skills. At that time, Taylor was deemed too short for the role, so filming was delayed several months in order for Taylor to grow an inch or two. In the interim, Taylor spent her time practicing her horseback riding.
In MGM's effort developing Taylor into a film star, they required her to wear braces to straighten her teeth, and had two of her baby teeth pulled out. The studio also wanted to dye her hair, change the shape of her eyebrows, and proposed that she use the screen name "Virginia", but Taylor and her parents refused.
National Velvet became a box-office success upon its release on Christmas 1944. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times stated that "her whole manner in this picture is one of refreshing grace", while James Agee of The Nation wrote that she "is rapturously beautiful... I hardly know or care whether she can act or not."
Taylor later stated that her childhood ended when she became a star, as MGM started to control every aspect of her life. She described the studio as a "big extended factory actory", where she was required to adhere to a strict daily schedule. Her days were spent attending school, and filming at the studio lot. In the evenings, Taylor took dancing and singing classes, and practiced the following day's scenes. Following the success of National Velvet, MGM gave Taylor a new seven-year contract with a weekly salary of $750. They cast her in a minor role in the third film of the Lassie series, Courage of Lassie (1946). MGM also published a book of Taylor's writings about her pet chipmunk, Nibbles and Me (1946), and had paper dolls and coloring books made in her likeness.
When Taylor turned 15 in 1947, MGM began to cultivate a more mature public image for her by organizing photo shoots and interviews that portrayed her as a "normal" teenager attending parties and going on dates. Film magazines and gossip columnists also began comparing her to older actresses such as Ava Gardner and Lana Turner. Life called her "Hollywood's most accomplished junior actress" for her two film roles that year. In the critically panned Cynthia (1947), Taylor portrayed a frail girl who defies her over-protective parents to go to the prom; in the period film Life with Father (1947), opposite William Powell and Irene Dunne, she portrayed the love interest of a stockbroker's son.
They were followed by supporting roles as a teenaged "man-stealer" who seduces her peer's date to a high school dance in the musical A Date with Judy (1948), and as a bride in the romantic comedy Julia Misbehaves (1948). This became a commercial success, grossing over $4 million in the box office.
Taylor's last adolescent role was as Amy March in Mervyn LeRoy 's Little Women (1949), a box-office success. The same year, Time featured Taylor on its cover, and called her the leader among Hollywood's next generation of stars, "a jewel of great price, a true sapphire." |
synth_fc_3599_rep1 | Positive | Travel itinerary | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lviv | 58 | Tourism
Due to a comprehensive cultural programme and tourism infrastructure (having more than 8,000 hotel rooms, over 1300 cafes and restaurants, free WI-Fi zones in the city centre, and good connection with many countries of the world), Lviv is considered one of Ukraine's major tourist destinations. The city had a 40% increase in tourist visits in the early 2010s; the highest rate in Europe.
The most popular tourist attractions include the Old Town, and the Market Square (Ukrainian: Ploshcha Rynok) which is an 18,300 m (196,980 sq ft) square in the city centre where the City Hall is situated, as well as the Black House (Ukrainian: Chorna Kamianytsia), Armenian Cathedral, the complex of the Dormition Church which is the main Orthodox church in the city; the St. Peter and Paul Church of the Jesuit Order (one of the largest churches in Lviv); along with the Korniakt Palace, now part of the Lviv History Museum.
Other prominent sites include the Latin Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary; St. George's Cathedral of the Greek-Catholic Church; the Dominican Church of Corpus Christi; Chapel of the Boim family; the Lviv High Castle (Ukrainian: Vysokyi Zamok) on a hill overlooking the centre of the city; the Union of Lublin Mound; the Lychakivskiy Cemetery where the notable people were buried; and the Svobody Prospekt which is Lviv's central street. Other popular places include Lviv Theatre of Opera and Ballet, the Potocki Palace, and the Bernardine Church. |
synth_fc_507_rep28 | No function call | Corporate Management | Database search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_function | 2 | Algebraic properties
If f : X → Y is any function, then f ∘ id = f = id ∘ f, where "∘" denotes function composition. In particular, id is the identity element of the monoid of all functions from X to X (under function composition).
Since the identity element of a monoid is unique, one can alternately define the identity function on M to be this identity element. Such a definition generalizes to the concept of an identity morphism in category theory, where the endomorphisms of M need not be functions. |
synth_fc_15_rep22 | Positive | Acoustics | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_vision | 12 | Wavelength
Isaac Newton discovered that white light after being split into its component colors when passed through a dispersive prism could be recombined to make white light by passing them through a different prism.
The visible light spectrum ranges from about 380 to 740 nanometers. Spectral colors (colors that are produced by a narrow band of wavelengths) such as red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and violet can be found in this range. These spectral colors do not refer to a single wavelength, but rather to a set of wavelengths: red, 625–740 nm; orange, 590–625 nm; yellow, 565–590 nm; green, 500–565 nm; cyan, 485–500 nm; blue, 450–485 nm; violet, 380–450 nm.
Wavelengths longer or shorter than this range are called infrared or ultraviolet, respectively. Humans cannot generally see these wavelengths, but other animals may. |
synth_fc_2907_rep1 | Negative | Restaurant | Recommendation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_cuisine | 8 | Indian Chinese cuisine
Indian Chinese cuisine, also known as Indo-Chinese cuisine originated in the 19th century among the Chinese community of Calcutta, during the immigration of Hakka Chinese from Canton (present-day Guangzhou) seeking to escape the First and Second Opium Wars and political instability in the region. Upon exposure to local Indian cuisine, they incorporated many spices and cooking techniques into their own cuisine, thus creating a unique fusion of Indian and Chinese cuisine.
After 1947, many Cantonese immigrants opened restaurants in Calcutta, serving dishes that combined aspects of Indian cuisine with Cantonese cuisine. In other parts of India, Indian Chinese cuisine is derived from Calcutta - Chinese cuisine, but bears little resemblance to their Chinese counterparts as the dishes tend to be flavoured with cumin, coriander seeds, and turmeric, which with a few regional exceptions, are not traditionally associated with Chinese cuisine. Chilli, ginger, garlic and dahi (yogurt) are also frequently used in dishes.
Popular dishes include Chicken Manchurian, chicken lollipop, chilli chicken, Hakka noodles, Hunan chicken, chow mein, and Szechwan fried rice.
Soups such as Manchow soup and sweet corn soup are very popular, whereas desserts include ice cream on honey-fried noodles and date pancakes.
Chowmein is now known as one of the most favorite Chinese dishes in India. Especially in West Bengal, it is one of the most loved street foods. |
synth_fc_2102_rep19 | No function call | Law | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin,_Texas | 13 | Homelessness
As of 2019, there were 2,255 individuals experiencing homelessness in Travis County. Of those, 1,169 were sheltered and 1,086 were unsheltered. In September 2019, the Austin City Council approved $62.7 million for programs aimed at homelessness, which includes housing displacement prevention, crisis mitigation, and affordable housing; the city council also earmarked $500,000 for crisis services and encampment cleanups.
In June 2019, following Martin v. Boise, a federal court ruling on homelessness sleeping in public, the Austin City Council lifted a 25-year-old ban on camping, sitting, or lying down in public unless doing so causes an obstruction. The resolution also included the approval of a new housing-focused shelter in South Austin. In early October 2019, Texas Governor Greg Abbott sent a letter to Mayor Steve Adler threatening to deploy state resources to combat the camping ban repeal. On October 17, 2019, the City Council revised the camping ordinance, which imposed increased restrictions on sidewalk camping. In November 2019, the State of Texas opened a temporary homeless encampment on a former vehicle storage yard owned by the Texas Department of Transportation.
In May 2021, the camping ban was reinstated after a ballot proposition was approved by 57% of voters. The ban introduces penalties for camping, sitting, or lying down on a public sidewalk or sleeping outdoors in or near Downtown Austin or the area around the University of Texas campus. The ordinance also prohibits solicitation at certain locations. |
synth_fc_2986_rep10 | No function call | School | Database search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiji | 41 | Secondary education
High school education may continue for a total of five years following an entry examination. Students either leave after three years with a Fiji school leaving certificate, or remain on to complete their final two years and qualify for tertiary education. Entry into the secondary school system, which is a total of five years, is determined by a competitive examination. Students passing the exam then follow a three-year course that leads to the Fiji School Leaving Certificate and the opportunity to attend senior secondary school. At the end of this level, they may take the Form VII examination, which covers four or five subjects. Successful completion of this process gains students access to higher education. |
synth_fc_3531_rep8 | Positive | Travel itinerary | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean | 10 | Marginal seas
Marginal seas, gulfs, bays and straits of the Indian Ocean include:
Along the east coast of Africa, the Mozambique Channel separates Madagascar from mainland Africa, while the Sea of Zanj is located north of Madagascar.
On the northern coast of the Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden is connected to the Red Sea by the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb. In the Gulf of Aden, the Gulf of Tadjoura is located in Djibouti and the Guardafui Channel separates Socotra island from the Horn of Africa. The northern end of the Red Sea terminates in the Gulf of Aqaba and Gulf of Suez. The Indian Ocean is artificially connected to the Mediterranean Sea without ship lock through the Suez Canal, which is accessible via the Red Sea. The Arabian Sea is connected to the Persian Gulf by the Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz. In the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Bahrain separates Qatar from the Arabic Peninsula.
Along the west coast of India, the Gulf of Kutch and Gulf of Khambat are located in Gujarat in the northern end while the Laccadive Sea separates the Maldives from the southern tip of India. The Bay of Bengal is off the east coast of India. The Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait separate Sri Lanka from India, while Adam's Bridge separates the two. The Andaman Sea is located between the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Islands.
In Indonesia, the so-called Indonesian Seaway is composed of the Malacca, Sunda and Torres Straits.The Gulf of Carpentaria is located on the Australian north coast while the Great Australian Bight constitutes a large part of its southern coast. |
synth_fc_1412_rep10 | Positive | Food | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinnamon | 16 | Nutrient composition
Ground cinnamon is 11% water, 81% carbohydrates (including 53% dietary fiber), 4% protein and 1% fat. |
synth_fc_1723_rep9 | Positive | Health | Database search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicone | 1 | In organosilicon and polymer chemistry, a silicone or polysiloxane is a polymer composed of repeating units of siloxane (−O−R Si−O−SiR −, where R = organic group). They are typically colorless oils or rubber -like substances. Silicones are used in sealants, adhesives, lubricants, medicine, cooking utensils, thermal insulation, and electrical insulation. Some common forms include silicone oil, grease, rubber, resin, and caulk. |
synth_fc_1985_rep19 | Positive | History | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimetrodon | 33 | Dimetrodon semiradicatus
Described in 1881 on the basis of upper jaw bones, Dimetrodon semiradicatus was the last species named by Cope. In 1907, E. C. Case synonymized D. semiradicatus with D. incisivus based on similarities in the shape of the teeth and skull bones. D. incisivus' and D. semiradicatus are now considered synonyms of D. limbatus. |
synth_fc_715_rep12 | Positive | DNA sequence | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA | 32 | Quadruplex structures
At the ends of the linear chromosomes are specialized regions of DNA called telomeres. The main function of these regions is to allow the cell to replicate chromosome ends using the enzyme telomerase, as the enzymes that normally replicate DNA cannot copy the extreme 3′ ends of chromosomes. These specialized chromosome caps also help protect the DNA ends, and stop the DNA repair systems in the cell from treating them as damage to be corrected. In human cells, telomeres are usually lengths of single-stranded DNA containing several thousand repeats of a simple TTAGGG sequence.
These guanine-rich sequences may stabilize chromosome ends by forming structures of stacked sets of four-base units, rather than the usual base pairs found in other DNA molecules. Here, four guanine bases, known as a guanine tetrad, form a flat plate. These flat four-base units then stack on top of each other to form a stable G-quadruplex structure. These structures are stabilized by hydrogen bonding between the edges of the bases and chelation of a metal ion in the centre of each four-base unit. Other structures can also be formed, with the central set of four bases coming from either a single strand folded around the bases, or several different parallel strands, each contributing one base to the central structure.
In addition to these stacked structures, telomeres also form large loop structures called telomere loops, or T-loops. Here, the single-stranded DNA curls around in a long circle stabilized by telomere-binding proteins. At the very end of the T-loop, the single-stranded telomere DNA is held onto a region of double-stranded DNA by the telomere strand disrupting the double-helical DNA and base pairing to one of the two strands. This triple-stranded structure is called a displacement loop or D-loop. |
synth_fc_3205_rep22 | Positive | Sport | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tour_de_France | 33 | Related events
L'Étape du Tour (French for 'stage of the Tour') is an organised mass participation cyclosportive event that allows amateur cyclists to race over the same route as a Tour de France stage. First held in 1993, and now organised by the ASO, in conjunction with Vélo Magazine, it takes place each July, normally on a Tour rest day.
Several different versions of a Tour de France for women were held between the 1980s and 2000s, however these races failed for a variety of reasons such as high costs, lack of sponsorship and inability to use the Tour de France branding.
Following a campaign by the professional women's peloton, La Course by Le Tour de France was launched by ASO in 2014 as a one-day classic held in conjunction with the men's race. The first edition was held on the Champs-Élysées prior to the final stage of the men's race, with La Course subsequently using other stages of the Tour prior to the men's race – with locations such as Pau, Col de la Colombière and Col d'Izoard. The race was part of the UCI Women's World Tour.
From 2022, Tour de France Femmes – an 8-day stage race in the UCI Women's World Tour – was held following the Tour, replacing La Course. The Tour de France Femmes had its first stage on the Champs-Élysées prior to the final stage of the men's race. The announcement of the race was praised by the professional peloton and campaigners. The first edition was won by Dutch rider Annemiek van Vleuten, completing a Giro – Tour double in the same year.
On the other hand, some events related to Tour de France have been held by ASO, around the world. Tour de France Saitama criterium has been held in Saitama, Japan since 2013. After the success in Japan, Tour de France Singapore criterium has been held in Singapore since 2022. |
synth_fc_1380_rep29 | Positive | Food | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernsey_cattle | 1 | The Guernsey is a breed of dairy cattle from the island of Guernsey in the Channel Islands. It is fawn or red and white in colour, and is hardy and docile. Its milk is rich in flavour, high in fat and protein, and has a golden-yellow tinge due to its high β-carotene content. The Guernsey is one of three Channel Island cattle breeds; the other two are the Alderney, which is now extinct, and the Jersey. |
synth_fc_448_rep1 | Positive | Corporate Management | Database update | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxicity | 9 | Occupational hazards
Workers in various occupations may be at a greater level of risk for several types of toxicity, including neurotoxicity. The expression "Mad as a hatter" and the "Mad Hatter" of the book Alice in Wonderland derive from the known occupational toxicity of hatters who used a toxic chemical for controlling the shape of hats. Exposure to chemicals in the workplace environment may be required for evaluation by industrial hygiene professionals. |
synth_fc_928_rep21 | No function call | Finance | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment | 6 | Post-secondary education
One of the alternatives to work is engaging in post-secondary education at a college, university or professional school. One of the major costs of obtaining a post-secondary education is the opportunity cost of forgone wages due to not working. At times when jobs are hard to find, such as during recessions, unemployed individuals may decide to get post-secondary education, because there is less of an opportunity cost. |
synth_fc_825_rep30 | No function call | Finance | Ranking | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald%27s | 10 | Facts and figures
McDonald's restaurants are in 120 countries and territories and serve 68 million customers daily. There are 37,855 restaurants worldwide, employing more than 210,000 people as of the end of 2018. There are a total of 2,770 company-owned locations and 35,085 franchised locations, which includes 21,685 locations franchised to conventional franchisees, 7,225 locations licensed to developmental licensees, and 6,175 locations licensed to foreign affiliates.
Focusing on its core brand, McDonald's began divesting itself of other chains it had acquired during the 1990s. The company owned a majority stake in Chipotle Mexican Grill until October 2006, when McDonald's fully divested from Chipotle through a stock exchange. Until December 2003, it owned Donatos Pizza, and it owned a small share of Aroma Café, from 1999 to 2001. On August 27, 2007, McDonald's sold Boston Market to Sun Capital Partners.
McDonald's has increased shareholder dividends for 25 consecutive years, making it one of the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats. The company is ranked 131st on the Fortune 500 of the largest United States corporations by revenue. In October 2012, its monthly sales fell for the first time in nine years. In 2014, its quarterly sales fell for the first time in seventeen years, when its sales dropped for the entirety of 1997.
In the United States, it is reported that drive-throughs account for 70 percent of sales. McDonald's closed down 184 restaurants in the United States in 2015, which was 59 more than what they planned to open. This move was the first time McDonald's had a net decrease in the number of locations in the United States since 1970.
The McDonald's on-demand delivery concept, which began in 2017 with a partnership with Uber Eats and added DoorDash in 2019 (with select locations adding Grubhub in 2021), accounts for up to 3% of all business as of 2019.
The $100 billion in sales generated by McDonald's company-owned and franchise restaurants in 2019 accounts for almost 4% of the estimated $2.5 trillion global restaurant industry. |
synth_fc_1223_rep2 | Positive | Finance | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montevideo | 16 | Economy
Main Article: Economy of Uruguay
As the capital of Uruguay, Montevideo is the economic and political center of the country. Most of the largest and wealthiest businesses in Uruguay have their headquarters in the city. Since the 1990s the city has undergone rapid economic development and modernization, including two of Uruguay's most important buildings—the World Trade Center Montevideo (1998), and Telecommunications Tower (2000), the headquarters of Uruguay's government-owned telecommunications company ANTEL, increasing the city's integration into the global marketplace.
The Port of Montevideo, in the northern part of Ciudad Vieja, is one of the major ports of South America and plays a very important role in the city's economy. The port has been growing rapidly and consistently at an average annual rate of 14 percent due to an increase in foreign trade. The city has received a US$20 million loan from the Inter-American Development Bank to modernize the port, increase its size and efficiency, and enable lower maritime and river transportation costs.
The most important state-owned companies headquartered in Montevideo are: AFE (railways), ANCAP (Energy), Administracion Nacional de Puertos (Ports), ANTEL (telecommunications), BHU (savings and loan), BROU (bank), BSE (insurance), OSE (water & sewage), UTE (electricity). These companies operate under public law, using a legal entity defined in the Uruguayan Constitution called Ente Autonomo ("autonomous entity"). The government also owns part of other companies operating under private law, such as those owned wholly or partially by the CND (National Development Corporation).
Banking has traditionally been one of the strongest service export sectors in Uruguay: the country was once dubbed "the Switzerland of America", mainly for its banking sector and stability, although that stability has been threatened in the 21st century by the recent global economic climate. The largest bank in Uruguay is Banco Republica (BROU), based in Montevideo. 9 private banks, most of them branches of international banks, operate in the country (Banco Santander, BBVA, ABN AMRO, Citibank, among others). There are also a myriad of brokers and financial-services bureaus, among them Ficus Capital, Galfin Sociedad de Bolsa, Europa Sociedad de Bolsa, Darío Cukier, GBU, Hordeñana & Asociados Sociedad de Bolsa, etc. |
synth_fc_2311_rep12 | Positive | Law | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andorra | 15 | Police Corps
Andorra maintains a small but modern and well-equipped internal police force, with around 240 police officers supported by civilian assistants. The principal services supplied by the corps are uniformed community policing, criminal detection, border control, and traffic policing. There are also small specialist units including police dogs, mountain rescue, and a bomb disposal team. |
synth_fc_2126_rep13 | Positive | Law | Entity search | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union | 17 | Capital Markets Union and financial institutions
Free movement of capital is intended to permit movement of investments such as property purchases and buying of shares between countries. Until the drive towards economic and monetary union the development of the capital provisions had been slow. Post-Maastricht there has been a rapidly developing corpus of ECJ judgements regarding this initially neglected freedom. The free movement of capital is unique insofar as it is granted equally to non-member states.
The European System of Financial Supervision is an institutional architecture of the EU's framework of financial supervision composed by three authorities: the European Banking Authority, the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority and the European Securities and Markets Authority. To complement this framework, there is also a European Systemic Risk Board under the responsibility of the central bank. The aim of this financial control system is to ensure the economic stability of the EU. |
synth_fc_663_rep8 | Positive | Currency | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbia | 14 | Economy
Serbia has an emerging market economy in upper-middle income range. According to the International Monetary Fund, Serbian nominal GDP in 2024 is officially estimated at $81.873 billion or $12,385 per capita while purchasing power parity GDP stood at $185.014 billion or $27,985 per capita. The economy is dominated by services which accounts for 67.9% of GDP, followed by industry with 26.1% of GDP, and agriculture at 6% of GDP. The official currency is Serbian dinar, and the central bank is National Bank of Serbia. The Belgrade Stock Exchange is the only stock exchange in the country, with market capitalisation of $8.65 billion and BELEX15 as the main index representing the 15 most liquid stocks. The country is ranked 52nd on the Social Progress Index as well as 54th on the Global Peace Index.
The economy has been affected by the global economic crisis. After almost a decade of strong economic growth (average of 4.45% per year), Serbia entered the recession in 2009 with negative growth of −3% and again in 2012 and 2014 with −1% and −1.8%, respectively. As the government was fighting effects of crisis the public debt has more than doubled: from pre-crisis level of just under 30% to about 70% of GDP and trending downwards recently to around 50%. Labour force stands at 3.2 million, with 56% employed in services sector, 28.1% in industry and 15.9% in the agriculture. The average monthly net salary in May 2019 stood at 47,575 dinars or $525. The unemployment remains an acute problem, with rate of 11% as of 2021.
Since 2000, Serbia has attracted over $40 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI). Blue-chip corporations making investments include: Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Siemens, Bosch, Philip Morris, Michelin, Coca-Cola, Carlsberg and others. In the energy sector, Russian energy giants, Gazprom and Lukoil have made large investments. In metallurgy sector, Chinese steel and copper giants, Hesteel and Zijin Mining have acquired key complexes.
Serbia has an unfavourable trade balance: imports exceed exports by 25%. Serbia's exports, however, recorded a steady growth in the 2010s reaching $19.2 billion in 2018. The country has free trade agreements with the EFTA and CEFTA, a preferential trade regime with the European Union, a Generalised System of Preferences with the United States, and individual free trade agreements with Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Turkey. |
synth_fc_3407_rep18 | Positive | Store & Facility | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic-tape_data_storage | 1 | Magnetic-tape data storage is a system for storing digital information on magnetic tape using digital recording. Tape was an important medium for primary data storage in early computers, typically using large open reels of 7-track, later 9-track tape. Modern magnetic tape is most commonly packaged in cartridges and cassettes, such as the widely supported Linear Tape-Open (LTO) and IBM 3592 series. The device that performs the writing or reading of data is called a tape drive. Autoloaders and tape libraries are often used to automate cartridge handling and exchange. Compatibility was important to enable transferring data. Tape data storage is now used more for system backup, data archive and data exchange. The low cost of tape has kept it viable for long-term storage and archive. |
synth_fc_3598_rep21 | Positive | Travel itinerary | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandung | 7 | Tourism
Bandung is a popular weekend destination for residents of Jakarta. The colder climate of the highland plantation area, variety of food, less expensive fashion shops located in factory outlets and distros, golf courses, and the zoo, are some of the attractions of the city. Bandung is also a popular shopping destination due to the cheap textile and fashion products, especially for Malaysian and Singaporean tourists.
In the 1990s, local designers opened denim clothing stores along Jalan Cihampelas, which was transformed into a "jeans street". The city attracts people from other big cities to buy local fashion wares, as they are cheaper than branded items. Beside Jalan Cihampelas, many factory outlets also opened at Jalan Riau, Jalan Braga, Jalan Setiabudi, and Jalan Djuanda (known as Dago). Textile factories on the outskirts of Bandung have opened factory outlets on site selling what is marketed as sisa export (rejected or over-produced export quality items).
Significant tourist sites near Bandung include the Tangkuban Prahu volcano crater to the north, the Kawah Putih volcano lake, and Patenggang Lake, a lake surrounded by tea plantations about 50 kilometres (31 miles) to the south of the city.
To view the Bandung Basin clearly in its mountain surroundings, visitors travel to the Bongkor protected forest area (kawasan hutan lindung), Saung Daweung and Arcamanik; to the slopes of West Manglayang Mountain in an area known as Caringin Tilu, with entry from Padasuka and Cicaheum to the north. The forest is located in 1,500 metres (4,900 feet) above sea level and is covered with pine trees managed by a government corporation Perhutani and can be accessed with 30 minutes drive from downtown. Visitors going to the north of the city also find Taman Hutan Raya Ir. H. Djuanda. The Cicaheum area also hosts Bukit Moko, a tourist spot famous for its views and its steel statue of a giant star called Puncak Bintang. Bandung has several museums that should be visited by tourists, such as the Geological Museum of Bandung, the Indonesia Postal Museum, Sri Baduga Museum, and the Asian-African Conference Museum. The city government operates Bandros, a tourist bus, since 2014. |
synth_fc_982_rep30 | Positive | Finance | API setting | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory | 12 | Stochastic outcomes (and relation to other fields)
Individual decision problems with stochastic outcomes are sometimes considered "one-player games". They may be modeled using similar tools within the related disciplines of decision theory, operations research, and areas of artificial intelligence, particularly AI planning (with uncertainty) and multi-agent system. Although these fields may have different motivators, the mathematics involved are substantially the same, e.g. using Markov decision processes (MDP).
Stochastic outcomes can also be modeled in terms of game theory by adding a randomly acting player who makes "chance moves" (" moves by nature "). This player is not typically considered a third player in what is otherwise a two-player game, but merely serves to provide a roll of the dice where required by the game.
For some problems, different approaches to modeling stochastic outcomes may lead to different solutions. For example, the difference in approach between MDPs and the minimax solution is that the latter considers the worst-case over a set of adversarial moves, rather than reasoning in expectation about these moves given a fixed probability distribution. The minimax approach may be advantageous where stochastic models of uncertainty are not available, but may also be overestimating extremely unlikely (but costly) events, dramatically swaying the strategy in such scenarios if it is assumed that an adversary can force such an event to happen. (See Black swan theory for more discussion on this kind of modeling issue, particularly as it relates to predicting and limiting losses in investment banking.)
General models that include all elements of stochastic outcomes, adversaries, and partial or noisy observability (of moves by other players) have also been studied. The " gold standard " is considered to be partially observable stochastic game (POSG), but few realistic problems are computationally feasible in POSG representation. |
synth_fc_869_rep16 | Positive | Finance | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_farming | 45 | Sri Lanka
As was the case with most countries, Sri Lanka made the transition away from organic farming upon the arrival of the Green Revolution, whereupon it started depending more on chemical fertilizers. This became a highly popularized method when the nation started offering subsidies on the import of artificial fertilizers to increase rice paddy production, and to incentivize farmers to switch from growing traditional varieties into using high yielding varieties (HYVs). This was especially true for young farmers who saw short-term economic profit as more sustainable to their wellbeing, compared to the long term drawbacks to the environment. However, due to the various health concerns with inorganic farming including the possibility of a chronic kidney disease being associated with chemical fertilizers, many middle aged and experienced farmers displayed skepticism towards these new approaches. Some even resorted to organic farming or utilizing insecticide free fertilizers for their crops. In a study conducted by F. Horgan and E. Kudavidanage, the researchers compared crop yields of farmers in Sri Lanka who employed distinct farming techniques including organic farmers who grew traditional varieties, and insecticide-free fertilizer users and pesticide users who grew modern varieties. No significant difference was found among the yield productions and in fact, organic farmers and insecticide-free fertilizer users lamented less about insects such as planthoppers as a challenge to their production. Regardless, many farmers continued to use insecticides to avoid the predicted dangers of pests to their crops, and the cheap sale of agrochemicals provided an easy approach to augment crop growth. Additionally, while organic farming has health benefits, it's a strenuous task which requires more man power. Although that presented a great opportunity for increased employment in Sri Lanka, the economic compensation was not enough to suffice the living expenses of those employed. Thus, most farmers relied on modern methods to run their household, especially after the economic stressors brought on by COVID-19.
However, while Sri Lanka was still facing the new challenges of the pandemic, in the 2019 presidential election campaign, the president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa proposed a 10-year, national transition to organic farming to declare Sri Lanka as the first nation to be known for its organic produce. On April 27, 2021, the country issued an order prohibiting the import of any inorganic pesticides or fertilizers, creating chaos among farmers. While such a change was made over concerns for the nation's ecosystems and the health of citizens where pesticide poisonings prevailed over other health related deaths, the precipitous decision was met with criticism from the agriculture industry. This included fears that the mandate would harm the yields of the country's major crops (despite claims to the contrary), that the country would not be able to produce enough organic fertilizer domestically, and organic farming being more expensive and complex than conventional agriculture. To put this into perspective, 7.4% of Sri Lanka's GDP is reliant on agriculture and 30% of citizens work in this sector. This means that about ⅓ of its population is dependent on this sector for jobs, making its maintenance highly crucial for the prosperity of the nation's social and economic status. Of special concern was rice and tea, which are a staple food and major export respectively.
Despite it being a record crop in the first half of 2021, the tea crop began to decline in July of that year. Rice production fell by 20% over the first six months of the ban, and prices increased by around 50%. Contrary to its past success at self-sustainability, the country had to import US$450 million worth of rice to meet domestic demand. In late August, the government acknowledged the ban had created a critical dependency on supplies of imported organic fertilizers, but by then food prices had already increased twofold in some cases. In September 2021, the government declared an economic emergency, citing the ban's impact on food prices, as well as inflation from the devaluation of Sri Lankan currency due to the crashing tea industry, and a lack of tourism induced by COVID-19 restrictions.
In November 2021, the country partially lifted the ban on inorganic farming for certain key crops such as rubber and tea, and began to offer compensation and subsidies to farmers and rice producers in an attempt to cover losses. The previous subsidies on synthetic fertilizer imports were not reintroduced. |
synth_fc_2362_rep8 | Positive | Linguistics | Entity search | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angling | 25 | Trolling
Rodless trolling is typically used in commercial fishing, with one or more baited lines drawn through the water behind a slow moving fishing boat that is usually equipped with outriggers, downriggers and trolling motors. Trolling is used to catch economic pelagic fish such as mackerel and kingfish.
Pahila (literally meaning "pulled") is a Filipino traditional shoreline trolling, uniquely using baited hooks tied to a laterally flattened float called palyaw, which is shaped like a small outrigger boat, a catamaran or a fish. A longline is attached to the float, and set unto the water's edge and dragged by someone running or walking along the beach. The combination of the water resistance and the diagonal pull forces the float outwards into deeper waters, like a kite. Once the line reaches its maximum line length, it moves rapidly parallel to the person pulling it along the beach, and is pulled back to the shore intermittently to check for catches. It is also called subid-subid, sibid-sibid, paguyod, pahinas, hilada, or saliwsiw, among other names, in other Philippine languages. |
synth_fc_1574_rep21 | No function call | Geography | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cr%C3%BCmqi | 11 | Etymology
The name "Ürümqi" comes from the Mongolic Oirat language and means "beautiful pasture" (Oirat: Үрмч, romanized: Ürmç,). It was originally the name of a small town founded by the Oirat-speaking Dzungars, a Mongolic ethnic group.
The Qing dynasty took Ürümqi by force in 1755, during its conquest of the Dzungar Khanate. Qing forces expanded the town into a walled city from 1763 to 1767. Upon completing the expansion, the Qing renamed the city Dihua (Chinese: 迪化; previously romanized as "Tihwa"), which means "to enlighten and civilize". Believing the name "Dihua" to be belittling and ethnically chauvinist, the Chinese Communist Party restored the name "Ürümqi" on 1 February 1954. |
synth_fc_362_rep7 | Positive | Book | Entity search | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enid_Blyton | 8 | Revisions to later editions
To address criticisms levelled at Blyton's work, some later editions have been altered to reflect more politically progressive attitudes towards issues such as race, gender, violence between young persons, the treatment of children by adults, and legal changes in Britain as to what is allowable for young children to do (e.g. purchasing fireworks) in the years since the stories were originally written; modern reprints of the Noddy series substitute teddy bears or goblins for golliwogs, for instance. The golliwogs who steal Noddy's car and dump him naked in the Dark Wood in Here Comes Noddy Again are replaced in the 1986 revision by goblins, who strip Noddy only of his shoes and hat and return at the end of the story to apologise.
The Faraway Tree ' s Dame Slap, who made regular use of corporal punishment, was changed to Dame Snap, who no longer did so, and the names of Dick and Fanny in the same series (respective slang terms in some dialects for male and female genitals) were changed to Rick and Frannie. Characters in the Malory Towers and St. Clare's series are no longer spanked or threatened with a spanking, but are instead scolded. References to George's short hair making her look like a boy were removed in revisions to Five on a Hike Together, reflecting the idea that girls need not have long hair to be considered feminine or normal, as was Anne's remark in The Famous Five that boys cannot wear pretty dresses or like girls' dolls. In The Adventurous Four, the names of the young twin girls were updated from Jill and Mary to Pippa and Zoe, among changes prompting the Enid Blyton Society’s organiser to argue that they were akin to having “a Virgin Express rushing past the Railway Children because the age of steam is over…. e don't want to ruin the charm of something that was written in a particular setting.”
In 2010 Hodder, the publisher of the Famous Five series, announced its intention to update the language used in the books, of which it sold more than half a million copies a year. The changes, which Hodder described as "subtle", mainly affect the dialogue rather than the narrative. For instance, "school tunic" becomes "uniform", "mother and father" and "mother and daddy" (this latter one used by young female characters and deemed sexist) become "mum and dad", and "bathing" is replaced by "swimming" and "jersey" and "pullover" by "jumper". Some commentators see the changes as necessary to encourage modern readers, whereas others regard them as unnecessary and patronising. In 2016 Hodder's parent company Hachette announced that they would abandon the revisions, as readers' reaction showed they had not been a success. |
synth_fc_2142_rep16 | No function call | Law | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_(country) | 26 | Human rights and freedom
Human rights in Georgia are guaranteed by the country's constitution. There is an independent human rights public defender elected by the Parliament of Georgia to ensure such rights are enforced. Georgia has ratified the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities in 2005. NGO "Tolerance", in its alternative report about its implementation, speaks of a rapid decrease in the number of Azerbaijani schools and cases of appointing headmasters to Azerbaijani schools who do not speak the Azerbaijani language.
The government came under criticism for its alleged use of excessive force on 26 May 2011 when it dispersed protesters led by Nino Burjanadze, among others, with tear gas and rubber bullets after they refused to clear Rustaveli Avenue for an independence day parade despite the expiration of their demonstration permit and despite being offered to choose an alternative venue. While human rights activists maintained that the protests were peaceful, the government pointed out that many protesters were masked and armed with heavy sticks and Molotov cocktails. Georgian opposition leader Nino Burjanadze said the accusations of planning a coup were baseless, and that the protesters' actions were legitimate.
Since independence, Georgia maintained harsh policies against drugs, handing out lengthy sentences even for marijuana use. This came under criticism from human rights activists and led to protests. In response to lawsuits from civil society organizations, in 2018 the Constitutional Court of Georgia ruled that "consumption of marijuana is an action protected by the right to free personality" and that " can only harm the user's health, making that user him/herself responsible for the outcome. The responsibility for such actions does not cause dangerous consequences for the public." With this ruling, Georgia became one of the first countries in the world to legalize cannabis, although using the drug in the presence of children is still illegal and punishable by fines or imprisonment. |
synth_fc_2299_rep14 | Positive | Law | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles | 30 | Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023
On 18 September 2023, the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023, known as the Legacy Act received royal assent.
The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission has raised concerns about the legislation's incompatibility with the Human Rights Act 1998. The legislation exempts conduct related to the Troubles from prosecution and establishes the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery.
The legislation has been criticised by all political parties in Northern Ireland, the Labour Party (UK) and the Irish government - the Irish government announced it was challenging the legislation through the European Court of Human Rights and Labour have pledged to repeal the legislation, but have stated they would keep the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery. |
synth_fc_2073_rep3 | Positive | Hotel | Entity search | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars | 25 | Theme park attractions
In addition to the Disneyland ride Star Tours (1987) and its successor, Star Tours: The Adventures Continue (2011), many live attractions have been held at Disney parks, including the traveling exhibition Where Science Meets Imagination, the Space Mountain spin-off Hyperspace Mountain, a walkthrough Launch Bay, and the night-time A Galactic Spectacular. An immersive themed area called Galaxy's Edge (2019) opened at Disneyland and opened at Walt Disney World in mid-2019. A themed hotel, Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, operated from 2022 to 2023 at Walt Disney World. |
synth_fc_3646_rep9 | Positive | Video game | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who | 20 | Episodes
Doctor Who originally ran for 26 seasons on BBC One, from 23 November 1963 until 6 December 1989. During the original run, each weekly episode formed part of a story (or "serial")—usually of four to six parts in earlier years and three to four in later years. Some notable exceptions were: The Daleks' Master Plan, which aired twelve episodes (plus an earlier one-episode teaser, " Mission to the Unknown ", featuring none of the regular cast); almost an entire season of seven-episode serials (season 7); the ten-episode serial The War Games; and The Trial of a Time Lord, which ran for fourteen episodes (albeit divided into three production codes and four narrative segments) during season 23. Occasionally, serials were loosely connected by a story line, such as season 8 focusing on the Doctor battling a rogue Time Lord called the Master, season 16 's quest for the Key to Time, season 18 's journey through E-Space and the theme of entropy, and season 20 's Black Guardian trilogy.
The programme was intended to be educational and for family viewing on the early Saturday evening schedule. It initially alternated stories set in the past, which taught younger audience members about history, and with those in the future or outer space, focusing on science. This was also reflected in the Doctor's original companions, one of whom was a science teacher and another a history teacher.
However, science fiction stories came to dominate the programme, and the history-oriented episodes, which were not popular with the production team, were dropped after The Highlanders (1967). While the show continued to use historical settings, they were generally used as a backdrop for science fiction tales, with one exception: Black Orchid (1982), set in 1920s England.
The early stories were serialised in nature, with the narrative of one story flowing into the next and each episode having its own title, although produced as distinct stories with their own production codes. Following The Gunfighters (1966), however, each serial was given its own title, and the individual parts were assigned episode numbers.
Of the programme's many writers, Robert Holmes was the most prolific, while Douglas Adams became the best known outside Doctor Who itself, due to the popularity of his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy works.
The serial format changed for the 2005 revival, with what was now called a series usually consisting of thirteen 45-minute, self-contained episodes (60 minutes with adverts, on overseas commercial channels) and an extended 60-minute episode broadcast on Christmas Day. This system was shortened to twelve episodes and one Christmas special following the revival's eighth series, and ten episodes from the eleventh series. Each series includes standalone and multiple episodic stories, often linked with a loose story arc resolved in the series finale. As in the early "classic" era, each episode has its own title, whether stand-alone or part of a larger story. Occasionally, regular-series episodes will exceed the 45-minute run time; notably, the episodes " Journey's End " from 2008 and " The Eleventh Hour " from 2010 were longer than an hour.
883 Doctor Who instalments have been televised since 1963, ranging between 25-minute episodes (the most common format for the classic era), 45/50-minute episodes (for Resurrection of the Daleks in the 1984 series, a single season in 1985, and the most common format for the revival era since 2005), two feature-length productions (1983's " The Five Doctors " and the 1996 television film), twelve Christmas specials (most of approximately 60 minutes' duration, one of 72 minutes), and four additional specials ranging from 60 to 75 minutes in 2009, 2010, and 2013. Four mini-episodes, running about eight minutes each, were also produced for the 1993, 2005, and 2007 Children in Need charity appeals, while another mini-episode was produced in 2008 for a Doctor Who –themed edition of The Proms. The 1993 two-part story, entitled Dimensions in Time, was made in collaboration with the cast of the BBC soap-opera EastEnders and was filmed partly on the EastEnders set. A two-part mini-episode was also produced for the 2011 edition of Comic Relief. Starting with the 2009 special " Planet of the Dead ", the series was filmed in 1080i for HDTV and broadcast simultaneously on BBC One and BBC HD.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the show, a special 3D episode, " The Day of the Doctor ", was broadcast in 2013. In March 2013, it was announced that Tennant and Piper would be returning and that the episode would have a limited cinematic release worldwide.
In June 2017, it was announced that due to the terms of a deal between BBC Worldwide and SMG Pictures in China, the company has first right of refusal on the purchase for the Chinese market of future series of the programme until and including Series 15. |
synth_fc_3313_rep23 | Positive | Sport | Calculation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_union | 7 | North America and Caribbean
In North America, a club formed in Montreal in 1868, Canada's first club. The city of Montreal also played its part in the introduction of the sport in the United States, when students of McGill University played against a team from Harvard University in 1874. The two variants of gridiron football — Canadian football and, to a lesser extent, American football — were once considered forms of rugby football, but the introduction of the legal forward pass severed the conceptual link between the old world rugby codes and new world gridiron codes, and they are seldom now referred to as forms of rugby football. One lasting element of the link, the governing body of Canadian football, Football Canada, was known as the Canadian Rugby Union (CRU) as late as 1967, more than fifty years after the sport parted ways with the established rules of rugby union. The Grey Cup, the trophy awarded to the victorious team playing in the namesake championship of the professional Canadian Football League (CFL), was originally awarded to the champion of the CRU. The two strongest leagues in the CRU, the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union in Eastern Canada and the Western Interprovincial Football Union in Western Canada, evolved into the present day CFL.
Although the exact date of arrival of rugby union in Trinidad and Tobago is unknown, their first club Northern RFC was formed in 1923, a national team was playing by 1927 and due to a cancelled tour to British Guiana in 1933, switched their venue to Barbados; introducing rugby to the island. Other Atlantic countries to play rugby union include Jamaica and Bermuda.
Rugby union is the fastest growing college sport and sport in general in the US.
Major League Rugby is the top professional rugby union competition in the US and Canada. One American professional team, American Raptors, formerly the MLR Glendale and Colorado Raptors, plays in the broadly South American Super Rugby Americas competition. |
synth_fc_3758_rep20 | No function call | Weather & Air quality | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfume | 39 | Pollution
Synthetic musks are pleasant in smell and relatively inexpensive, as such they are often employed in large quantities to cover the unpleasant scent of laundry detergents and many personal cleaning products. Due to their large-scale use, several types of synthetic musks have been found in human fat and milk, as well as in the sediments and waters of the Great Lakes.
These pollutants may pose additional health and environmental problems when they enter human and animal diets. |
synth_fc_2822_rep21 | Positive | Physics & Chemistry | Database update | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrilateral | 12 | Lengths of the diagonals
The lengths of the diagonals in a convex quadrilateral ABCD can be calculated using the law of cosines on each triangle formed by one diagonal and two sides of the quadrilateral. Thus
and
Other, more symmetric formulas for the lengths of the diagonals, are
and |
synth_fc_2593_rep9 | Positive | Music | Generation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Rachmaninoff | 12 | Influences
A major influence on Rachmaninoff as a composer was Tchaikovsky. This influence can be seen throughout Rachmaninoff's early compositions, such as in his Youth Symphony, which is reminiscent of Tchaikovsky's late symphonies, sections of his symphonic poem Prince Rostislav, which emulates The Tempest and Romeo and Juliet, and his youthful Three Nocturnes, the third of which contains a chordal section very similar to the opening of Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto. His first opera, Aleko shows the influence of Tchaikovsky in both its harmonies, and in its allusions and references to Eugene Onegin. Tchaikovsky was also particularly influential on Rachmaninoff's melodic writing, though musicologist Stephen Walsh describes Rachmaninoff's melodies as lacking the range or length of Tchaikovsky's.
The influence of Anton Arensky, who taught Rachmaninoff for five years while he was at the Moscow Conservatory, can be seen in the composer's early compositions. This influence can be seen, for example, in his symphonic poem Prince Rostislav, dedicated to Arensky, and a number of compositions from his student years may have been written as exercises for his teacher. According to biographer Barrie Martyn, the "obviously Russian character" and "Tchaikovskian lyricism" of Arensky's music were elements which were also part of Rachmaninoff's compositional style. Sergei Taneyev, Rachmaninoff's teacher in counterpoint at the Moscow Conservatory, was also an influence on his early compositions, and Rachmaninoff would bring his compositions to Taneyev to gain his approval all the way up to 1915, the year in which Taneyev died. In his later style, the influence of Rimsky-Korsakov can be seen in the increasingly chromatic harmonies and thinner orchestration in Rachmaninoff's compositions from his Third Piano Concerto onwards. |
synth_fc_2641_rep4 | Positive | Music | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladys_Knight_%26_the_Pips | 1 | Gladys Knight & the Pips were an American R&B, soul, and funk family music group from Atlanta, Georgia, that remained active on the music charts and performing circuit for over three decades starting from the early 1950s. Starting out as simply The Pips in 1952, derived from a cousin's nickname, the founding members were Gladys Knight, brother Merald "Bubba" Knight, sister Brenda Knight and cousins Eleanor Guest and William Guest. After a couple of years performing in talent shows, the group signed with Brunswick Records in 1957, recording a couple of singles that failed to chart. Brenda Knight and Eleanor Guest eventually left the group and were replaced by another cousin, Edward Patten, and a non-relative, Langston George in 1959. This lineup produced the group's first hit single, "Every Beat of My Heart". After the single was released on three different labels, they changed their name to Gladys Knight & the Pips in 1961. Langston George left the same year and Gladys Knight left in 1962 to start a family with musician Jimmy Newman. Knight rejoined in 1964 and this lineup continued until the group's disbandment in 1989. The group reached commercial success after signing with Motown Records in 1966. After a year and a half, the group recorded the first hit single version of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" in 1967, which led to several hit singles for Motown's Soul Records label, including "Nitty Gritty", "Friendship Train", "If I Were Your Woman", "I Don't Want to Do Wrong" and the Grammy-winning "Neither One of Us", before leaving the label for Buddah Records in 1973. At Buddah, they recorded the hits "Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me", "I've Got to Use My Imagination", "I Feel a Song" and their Grammy-winning and number-one hit single, "Midnight Train to Georgia". In 1974, they recorded the soundtrack to the successful film Claudine with producer Curtis Mayfield, which included the songs "On and On", "The Makings of You" and "Make Yours a Happy Home". Contractual difficulties with their labels forced the group to record side projects from 1977 until 1980 when they signed with Columbia Records. Later hits included "Landlord", "Save the Overtime" and the Grammy-winning single "Love Overboard". In 1989, the group disbanded with the Pips retiring and Knight embarking on a successful solo career. Gladys Knight & the Pips are multiple Grammy and American Music Award winners and are inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1996 and 2001 respectively. |
synth_fc_674_rep25 | Positive | Currency | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pound_sterling | 31 | Interwar period: gold standard reinstated
To try to resume stability, a version of the gold standard was reintroduced in 1925, under which the currency was fixed to gold at its pre-war peg, but one could only exchange currency for gold bullion, not for coins. On 21 September 1931, this was abandoned during the Great Depression, and sterling suffered an initial devaluation of some 25%.
Since the suspension of the gold standard in 1931, sterling has been a fiat currency, with its value determined by its continued acceptance in the national and international economy. |
synth_fc_2940_rep4 | Negative | Restaurant | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tequila | 21 | Cocktails
A variety of cocktails are made with tequila, including the margarita, a cocktail that helped make tequila popular in the United States. The traditional margarita uses tequila, Cointreau, and lime juice, though many variations exist. A popular cocktail in Mexico is the Paloma. Also, a number of martini variants involve tequila, and a large number of tequila drinks are made by adding fruit juice. These include the Tequila Sunrise and the Matador. Sodas and other carbonated drinks are a common mixer, as in the Tequila Slammer. Other popular cocktails are the Acapulco cocktail, Bloody Aztec Chimayó Cocktail, Mexican martini, Mojito Blanco and Vampiro. |
synth_fc_1210_rep2 | Positive | Finance | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_coefficient | 9 | A correlation coefficient is a numerical measure of some type of linear correlation, meaning a statistical relationship between two variables. The variables may be two columns of a given data set of observations, often called a sample, or two components of a multivariate random variable with a known distribution. Several types of correlation coefficient exist, each with their own definition and own range of usability and characteristics. They all assume values in the range from −1 to +1, where ±1 indicates the strongest possible correlation and 0 indicates no correlation. As tools of analysis, correlation coefficients present certain problems, including the propensity of some types to be distorted by outliers and the possibility of incorrectly being used to infer a causal relationship between the variables. |
synth_fc_487_rep4 | Positive | Corporate Management | Database update | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89leuth%C3%A8re_Ir%C3%A9n%C3%A9e_du_Pont | 1 | Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours was a French-American chemist and industrialist who founded the gunpowder manufacturer E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. His descendants, the du Pont family, have been one of the richest and most prominent American families since the 19th century, with generations of influential businessmen, politicians and philanthropists. In 1807, du Pont was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in his adopted hometown of Philadelphia. |
synth_fc_1052_rep22 | Positive | Finance | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benchmarking | 1 | Benchmarking is the practice of comparing business processes and performance metrics to industry bests and best practices from other companies. Dimensions typically measured are quality, time and cost. Benchmarking is used to measure performance using a specific indicator resulting in a metric of performance that is then compared to others. Also referred to as "best practice benchmarking" or "process benchmarking", this process is used in management in which organizations evaluate various aspects of their processes in relation to best-practice companies' processes, usually within a peer group defined for the purposes of comparison. This then allows organizations to develop plans on how to make improvements or adapt specific best practices, usually with the aim of increasing some aspect of performance. Benchmarking may be a one-off event, but is often treated as a continuous process in which organizations continually seek to improve their practices. In project management benchmarking can also support the selection, planning and delivery of projects. In the process of best practice benchmarking, management identifies the best firms in their industry, or in another industry where similar processes exist, and compares the results and processes of those studied to one's own results and processes. In this way, they learn how well the targets perform and, more importantly, the business processes that explain why these firms are successful. According to National Council on Measurement in Education, benchmark assessments are short assessments used by teachers at various times throughout the school year to monitor student progress in some area of the school curriculum. These also are known as interim government. In 1994, one of the first technical journals named Benchmarking was published. |
synth_fc_320_rep10 | Positive | Board game | Order | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life | 9 | Origins
Stanislaw Ulam, while working at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the 1940s, studied the growth of crystals, using a simple lattice network as his model. At the same time, John von Neumann, Ulam's colleague at Los Alamos, was working on the problem of self-replicating systems. Von Neumann's initial design was founded upon the notion of one robot building another robot. This design is known as the kinematic model. As he developed this design, von Neumann came to realize the great difficulty of building a self-replicating robot, and of the great cost in providing the robot with a "sea of parts" from which to build its replicant. Neumann wrote a paper entitled "The general and logical theory of automata" for the Hixon Symposium in 1948. Ulam was the one who suggested using a discrete system for creating a reductionist model of self-replication. Ulam and von Neumann created a method for calculating liquid motion in the late 1950s. The driving concept of the method was to consider a liquid as a group of discrete units and calculate the motion of each based on its neighbours' behaviours. Thus was born the first system of cellular automata. Like Ulam's lattice network, von Neumann's cellular automata are two-dimensional, with his self-replicator implemented algorithmically. The result was a universal copier and constructor working within a cellular automaton with a small neighbourhood (only those cells that touch are neighbours; for von Neumann's cellular automata, only orthogonal cells), and with 29 states per cell. Von Neumann gave an existence proof that a particular pattern would make endless copies of itself within the given cellular universe by designing a 200,000 cell configuration that could do so. This design is known as the tessellation model, and is called a von Neumann universal constructor.
Motivated by questions in mathematical logic and in part by work on simulation games by Ulam, among others, John Conway began doing experiments in 1968 with a variety of different two-dimensional cellular automaton rules. Conway's initial goal was to define an interesting and unpredictable cellular automaton. According to Martin Gardner, Conway experimented with different rules, aiming for rules that would allow for patterns to "apparently" grow without limit, while keeping it difficult to prove that any given pattern would do so. Moreover, some "simple initial patterns" should "grow and change for a considerable period of time" before settling into a static configuration or a repeating loop. Conway later wrote that the basic motivation for Life was to create a "universal" cellular automaton.
The game made its first public appearance in the October 1970 issue of Scientific American, in Martin Gardner 's " Mathematical Games " column, which was based on personal conversations with Conway. Theoretically, the Game of Life has the power of a universal Turing machine: anything that can be computed algorithmically can be computed within the Game of Life. Gardner wrote, "Because of Life's analogies with the rise, fall, and alterations of a society of living organisms, it belongs to a growing class of what are called 'simulation games' (games that resemble real-life processes)."
Since its publication, the Game of Life has attracted much interest because of the surprising ways in which the patterns can evolve. It provides an example of emergence and self-organization. A version of Life that incorporates random fluctuations has been used in physics to study phase transitions and nonequilibrium dynamics. The game can also serve as a didactic analogy, used to convey the somewhat counter-intuitive notion that design and organization can spontaneously emerge in the absence of a designer. For example, philosopher Daniel Dennett has used the analogy of the Game of Life "universe" extensively to illustrate the possible evolution of complex philosophical constructs, such as consciousness and free will, from the relatively simple set of deterministic physical laws which might govern our universe.
The popularity of the Game of Life was helped by its coming into being at the same time as increasingly inexpensive computer access. The game could be run for hours on these machines, which would otherwise have remained unused at night. In this respect, it foreshadowed the later popularity of computer-generated fractals. For many, the Game of Life was simply a programming challenge: a fun way to use otherwise wasted CPU cycles. For some, however, the Game of Life had more philosophical connotations. It developed a cult following through the 1970s and beyond; current developments have gone so far as to create theoretic emulations of computer systems within the confines of a Game of Life board. |
synth_fc_129_rep22 | Positive | Biology | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_of_Bingen | 15 | Scientific and medicinal writings
Hildegard's medicinal and scientific writings, although thematically complementary to her ideas about nature expressed in her visionary works, are different in focus and scope. Neither claim to be rooted in her visionary experience and its divine authority. Rather, they spring from her experience helping in and then leading the monastery's herbal garden and infirmary, as well as the theoretical information she likely gained through her wide-ranging reading in the monastery's library. As she gained practical skills in diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment, she combined physical treatment of physical diseases with holistic methods centered on "spiritual healing". She became well known for her healing powers involving the practical application of tinctures, herbs, and precious stones. She combined these elements with a theological notion ultimately derived from Genesis: all things put on earth are for the use of humans. In addition to her hands-on experience, she also gained medical knowledge, including elements of her humoral theory, from traditional Latin texts.
Hildegard catalogued both her theory and practice in two works. The first, Physica, contains nine books that describe the scientific and medicinal properties of various plants, stones, fish, reptiles, and animals. This document is also thought to contain the first recorded reference of the use of hops in beer as a preservative. The second, Causae et Curae, is an exploration of the human body, its connections to the rest of the natural world, and the causes and cures of various diseases. Hildegard documented various medical practices in these books, including the use of bleeding and home remedies for many common ailments. She also explains remedies for common agricultural injuries such as burns, fractures, dislocations, and cuts. Hildegard may have used the books to teach assistants at the monastery. These books are historically significant because they show areas of medieval medicine that were not well documented because their practitioners, mainly women, rarely wrote in Latin. Her writings were commentated on by Mélanie Lipinska, a Polish scientist.
In addition to its wealth of practical evidence, Causae et Curae is also noteworthy for its organizational scheme. Its first part sets the work within the context of the creation of the cosmos and then humanity as its summit, and the constant interplay of the human person as microcosm both physically and spiritually with the macrocosm of the universe informs all of Hildegard's approach. Her hallmark is to emphasize the vital connection between the "green" health of the natural world and the holistic health of the human person. Viriditas, or greening power, was thought to sustain human beings and could be manipulated by adjusting the balance of elements within a person. Thus, when she approached medicine as a type of gardening, it was not just as an analogy. Rather, Hildegard understood the plants and elements of the garden as direct counterparts to the humors and elements within the human body, whose imbalance led to illness and disease.
The nearly three hundred chapters of the second book of Causae et Curae "explore the etiology, or causes, of disease as well as human sexuality, psychology, and physiology." In this section, she gives specific instructions for bleeding based on various factors, including gender, the phase of the moon (bleeding is best done when the moon is waning), the place of disease (use veins near diseased organ or body part) or prevention (big veins in arms), and how much blood to take (described in imprecise measurements, like "the amount that a thirsty person can swallow in one gulp"). She even includes bleeding instructions for animals to keep them healthy. In the third and fourth sections, Hildegard describes treatments for malignant and minor problems and diseases according to the humoral theory, again including information on animal health. The fifth section is about diagnosis and prognosis, which includes instructions to check the patient's blood, pulse, urine, and stool. Finally, the sixth section documents a lunar horoscope to provide an additional means of prognosis for both disease and other medical conditions, such as conception and the outcome of pregnancy. For example, she indicates that a waxing moon is good for human conception and is also good for sowing seeds for plants (sowing seeds is the plant equivalent of conception). Elsewhere, Hildegard is even said to have stressed the value of boiling drinking water in an attempt to prevent infection.
As Hildegard elaborates the medical and scientific relationship between the human microcosm and the macrocosm of the universe, she often focuses on interrelated patterns of four: "the four elements (fire, air, water, and earth), the four seasons, the four humors, the four zones of the earth, and the four major winds." Although she inherited the basic framework of humoral theory from ancient medicine, Hildegard's conception of the hierarchical inter-balance of the four humors (blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile) was unique, based on their correspondence to "superior" and "inferior" elements – blood and phlegm corresponding to the "celestial" elements of fire and air, and the two biles corresponding to the "terrestrial" elements of water and earth. Hildegard understood the disease-causing imbalance of these humors to result from the improper dominance of the subordinate humors. This disharmony reflects that introduced by Adam and Eve in the Fall, which for Hildegard marked the indelible entrance of disease and humoral imbalance into humankind. As she writes in Causae et Curae c. 42:
It happens that certain men suffer diverse illnesses. This comes from the phlegm which is superabundant within them. For if man had remained in paradise, he would not have had the flegmata within his body, from which many evils proceed, but his flesh would have been whole and without dark humor. However, because he consented to evil and relinquished good, he was made into a likeness of the earth, which produces good and useful herbs, as well as bad and useless ones, and which has in itself both good and evil moistures. From tasting evil, the blood of the sons of Adam was turned into the poison of semen, out of which the sons of man are begotten. And therefore their flesh is ulcerated and permeable. These sores and openings create a certain storm and smoky moisture in men, from which the flegmata arise and coagulate, which then introduce diverse infirmities to the human body. All this arose from the first evil, which man began at the start, because if Adam had remained in paradise, he would have had the sweetest health, and the best dwelling-place, just as the strongest balsam emits the best odor; but on the contrary, man now has within himself poison and phlegm and diverse illnesses. |
synth_fc_1771_rep10 | Positive | Health | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surgeon | 1 | In medicine, a surgeon is a medical doctor who performs surgery. Even though there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon is a licensed physician and received the same medical training as physicians before specializing in surgery. In some countries and jurisdictions, the title of 'surgeon' is restricted to maintain the integrity of the craft group in the medical profession. A specialist regarded as a legally recognized surgeon includes podiatry, dentistry, and veterinary medicine. It is estimated that surgeons perform over 300 million surgical procedures globally each year. |
synth_fc_3542_rep26 | Positive | Travel itinerary | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtship | 17 | China
Patterns of courtship are changing in China, with increased modernization bumping into traditional ways.
A 2003 report in China Daily suggested that courtship for most Chinese university women was "difficult", required work, stole time away from academic advancement, and placed women in a precarious position of having to balance personal success against traditional Chinese relationships. Many women were reported to have high standards for men they sought, but also worried that their academic credentials could "scare away more traditional Chinese men". It was reportedly difficult finding places to have privacy, since many dormitory rooms had eight or more pupils in one suite, while courtship in restaurants tended to be expensive. One student remarked: "American couples drink and dance together. But in China, we study together."
Romantic love is more difficult during times of financial stress, and economic forces can encourage singles, particularly women, to select a partner primarily on financial considerations. Some men postpone marriage until their financial position is more secure and use wealth to help attract women. One trend is towards exclusive matchmaking events for the 'rich and powerful'; for example, an annual June event in Wuhan with expensive entry-ticket prices for men (99,999 RMB) lets financially secure men choose so-called bikini brides based on their beauty and education, and the financial exclusivity of the event was criticized by the official news outlet China Daily. Surveys though from 2015 to 2018 suggest that the majority of Chinese respondents (especially college students) would place the character and personality of their partners above material assets, with also increasing acceptance towards evenly splitting bills or going Dutch.
There have been conflicting reports on expatriate courtship in China's capital city. One account in 2006 suggested the courtship scene in Beijing to be "sad" with particular difficulties for foreign women hoping to find romance. It was reportedly due to the cold, uninterested, or unappealing attitudes of the male expats and the shyness and cultural differences of the Chinese men, and another account in 2010 documented similar, if slightly improved results. A different report in 2010, though, suggested that some Chinese men preferred Western women, viewing them as less girlish and materialistic, and also more independent and straightforward than Chinese women. A 2016 survey of Chinese students abroad, however, imply there have been significant barriers to foreign courtship, and the intermarriage rate of Chinese women in Shanghai has been decreasing.
A new format of Internet "QQ" chat rooms is gaining ground against so-called "traditional courtship agencies" in Changsha (Hunan Province); the QQ rooms have 20,000 members, and service is much less expensive than courtship agencies which can charge 100 to 200 yuan ($13 to US$26) per introduction. Internet courtship, with computer-assisted matchmaking, is becoming more prevalent; one site supposedly has 23 million registered users. Speed dating has come to Shanghai and other cities. Worldwide online matchmakers have explored entering the Chinese market via partnerships or acquisitions.
Each year, November 11 has become an unofficial holiday known as China's Singles' Day when singles are encouraged to make an extra effort to find a partner. Worried parents of unmarried children often arrange dates for their offspring on this day as well as others. Before the day approaches, thousands of college students and young workers post messages describing their plans for this day. In Arabic numerals, the day looks like "1111", that is, "like four single people standing together", and there was speculation that it originated in the late 1990s when college students celebrated being single with "a little self-mockery" but a differing explanation dates it back to events in the Roman Empire. For many, Singles' Day offers people a way to "demonstrate their stance on love and marriage ". In 2005, a government-sponsored agency called Shanghai Women's Activities Centre (Chinese: Jinguoyuan) organized periodic matchmaking events often attended by parents.
There has been concern that young people's views of marriage have changed because of economic opportunities, with many choosing deliberately not to get married, as well as young marrieds who have decided not to have children, or to postpone having them. Cohabiting relationships are tolerated more often. Communities where people live but do not know each other well are becoming more common in China like elsewhere, leading to fewer opportunities to meet somebody locally without assistance. Divorce rates are rising in cities such as Shanghai, which recorded 27,376 divorces in 2004, an increase of 30% from 2003.
Relationships between students preparing for college are frowned upon by many parents in China. There was a report that sexual relations among middle schoolers in Guangzhou sometimes resulted in abortions. There have been reports of scams involving get-rich-quick schemes; a forty-year-old migrant worker was one of a thousand seduced by an advertisement which read "Rich woman willing to pay 3 million yuan for sperm donor" but the worker was cheated out of his savings of 190,000 yuan (US$27,500).
The game show If You Are the One, titled after Chinese personal ads, featured some provocative contestants making sexual allusions and the show reportedly ran afoul of authorities and had to change its approach. The two-host format involves a panel of 24 single women questioning a man to decide if he will remain on the show; if he survives, he can choose a girl to date; the show gained notoriety for controversial remarks and opinions such as model Ma Nuo saying she prefer to " weep in a BMW than laugh on a bike ", who was later banned from making appearances. |
synth_fc_850_rep4 | Positive | Finance | Calculation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong | 6 | Sport and recreation
Despite its small area, the territory is home to a variety of sports and recreational facilities. The city has hosted numerous major sporting events, including the 2009 East Asian Games, the 2008 Summer Olympics equestrian events, and the 2007 Premier League Asia Trophy. The territory regularly hosts the Hong Kong Sevens, Hong Kong Marathon, Hong Kong Tennis Classic and Lunar New Year Cup, and hosted the inaugural AFC Asian Cup and the 1995 Dynasty Cup.
Hong Kong represents itself separately from mainland China, with its own sports teams in international competitions. The territory has participated in almost every Summer Olympics since 1952 and has earned nine medals. Lee Lai-shan won the territory's first Olympic gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and Cheung Ka Long won the second one in Tokyo 2020. Hong Kong athletes have won 126 medals at the Paralympic Games and 17 at the Commonwealth Games. No longer part of the Commonwealth of Nations, the city's last appearance in the latter was in 1994.
Dragon boat races originated as a religious ceremony conducted during the annual Tuen Ng Festival. The race was revived as a modern sport as part of the Tourism Board 's efforts to promote Hong Kong's image abroad. The first modern competition was organised in 1976, and overseas teams began competing in the first international race in 1993.
The Hong Kong Jockey Club, the territory's largest taxpayer, has a monopoly on gambling and provides over 7% of government revenue. Three forms of gambling are legal in Hong Kong: lotteries, horse racing, and football. |
synth_fc_723_rep1 | Positive | DNA sequence | Analysis | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed%E2%80%93Solomon_error_correction | 28 | Discrete Fourier transform and its inverse
A discrete Fourier transform is essentially the same as the encoding procedure; it uses the generator polynomial p m {\displaystyle p_{m}} to map a set of evaluation points into the message values as shown above: C (m) = {\displaystyle C(m)={\begin{bmatrix}p_{m}(a_{0})\\p_{m}(a_{1})\\\cdots \\p_{m}(a_{n-1})\end{bmatrix}}}
The inverse Fourier transform could be used to convert an error free set of n < q message values back into the encoding polynomial of k coefficients, with the constraint that in order for this to work, the set of evaluation points used to encode the message must be a set of increasing powers of α: a i = α i {\displaystyle a_{i}=\alpha ^{i}} a 0, …, a n − 1 = { 1, α, α 2, …, α n − 1 } {\displaystyle a_{0},\dots,a_{n-1}=\{1,\alpha,\alpha ^{2},\dots,\alpha ^{n-1}\}}
However, Lagrange interpolation performs the same conversion without the constraint on the set of evaluation points or the requirement of an error free set of message values and is used for systematic encoding, and in one of the steps of the Gao decoder. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.