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synth_fc_1177_rep18 | Positive | Finance | Calculation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla | 1 | AC and the induction motor
In late 1886, Tesla met Alfred S. Brown, a Western Union superintendent, and New York attorney Charles Fletcher Peck. The two men were experienced in setting up companies and promoting inventions and patents for financial gain. Based on Tesla's new ideas for electrical equipment, including a thermo-magnetic motor idea, they agreed to back the inventor financially and handle his patents. Together they formed the Tesla Electric Company in April 1887, with an agreement that profits from generated patents would go 1 ⁄ 3 to Tesla, 1 ⁄ 3 to Peck and Brown, and 1 ⁄ 3 to fund development. They set up a laboratory for Tesla at 89 Liberty Street in Manhattan, where he worked on improving and developing new types of electric motors, generators, and other devices.
In 1887, Tesla developed an induction motor that ran on alternating current (AC), a power system format that was rapidly expanding in Europe and the United States because of its advantages in long-distance, high-voltage transmission. The motor used polyphase current, which generated a rotating magnetic field to turn the motor (a principle that Tesla claimed to have conceived in 1882). This innovative electric motor, patented in May 1888, was a simple self-starting design that did not need a commutator, thus avoiding sparking and the high maintenance of constantly servicing and replacing mechanical brushes.
Along with getting the motor patented, Peck and Brown arranged to get the motor publicized, starting with independent testing to verify it was a functional improvement, followed by press releases sent to technical publications for articles to run concurrently with the issue of the patent. Physicist William Arnold Anthony (who tested the motor) and Electrical World magazine editor Thomas Commerford Martin arranged for Tesla to demonstrate his AC motor on 16 May 1888 at the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. Engineers working for the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company reported to George Westinghouse that Tesla had a viable AC motor and related power system—something Westinghouse needed for the alternating current system he was already marketing. Westinghouse looked into getting a patent on a similar commutator-less, rotating magnetic field-based induction motor developed in 1885 and presented in a paper in March 1888 by Italian physicist Galileo Ferraris, but decided that Tesla's patent would probably control the market.
In July 1888, Brown and Peck negotiated a licensing deal with George Westinghouse for Tesla's polyphase induction motor and transformer designs for $60,000 in cash and stock and a royalty of $2.50 per AC horsepower produced by each motor. Westinghouse also hired Tesla for one year for the large fee of $2,000 ($ 67,800 in today's dollars) per month to be a consultant at the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company's Pittsburgh labs.
During that year, Tesla worked in Pittsburgh, helping to create an alternating current system to power the city's streetcars. He found it a frustrating period because of conflicts with the other Westinghouse engineers over how best to implement AC power. Between them, they settled on a 60-cycle AC system that Tesla proposed (to match the working frequency of Tesla's motor), but they soon found that it would not work for streetcars, since Tesla's induction motor could run only at a constant speed. They ended up using a DC traction motor instead. |
synth_fc_3554_rep12 | Positive | Travel itinerary | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled-access_highway | 66 | Italy
The world's first motorway was the Autostrada dei laghi, inaugurated on 21 September 1924 in Italy. It linked Milan to Varese; it was then extended to Como, near the border with Switzerland, inaugurated on 28 June 1925. Piero Puricelli, the engineer who designed this new type of road, decided to cover the expenses by introducing a toll.
Other motorways (or autostrade) built before World War II in Italy were Naples - Pompeii, Florence - Pisa, Padua - Venice, Milan - Turin, Milan- Bergamo - Brescia and Rome - Ostia. The total length of the Italian motorway system is about 7,016 kilometres (4,360 mi), as of 30 July 2022. To these data are added 13 motorway spur routes, which extend for 355 kilometres (221 mi). The density is 22.4 kilometres (13.9 mi) of motorway for every 1,000 square kilometres (390 sq mi) of Italian territory.
Italian motorways (or autostrade) are mostly managed by concessionaire companies. From 1 October 2012 the granting body is the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport and no longer Anas and the majority (5,773.4 kilometres (3,587.4 mi) in 2009) are subject to toll payments. On Italian motorways, the toll applies to almost all motorways not managed by Anas. The collection of motorway tolls, from a tariff point of view, is managed mainly in two ways: either through the "closed motorway system" (km travelled) or through the "open motorway system" (flat-rate toll).
Italy's motorways (or autostrade) have a standard speed limit of 130 km/h (80 mph) for cars. Limits for other vehicles (or when visibility is poor due to weather) are lower. Legal provisions allow operators to set the limit to 150 km/h (95 mph) on their concessions on a voluntary basis if there are three lanes in each direction and a working SICVE, or Safety Tutor, which is a speed-camera system that measures the average speed over a given distance.
Type B highway (Italian: strada extraurbana principale), commonly but unofficially known as superstrada (Italian equivalent for expressway), is a divided highway with at least two lanes in each direction, paved shoulder on the right, no cross-traffic and no at-grade intersections. Access restrictions on such highways are exactly the same as motorways (or autostrade). The signage at the beginning and the end of the strade extraurbane principali is the same, except the background colour is blue instead of green. The general speed limit on strade extraurbane principali is 110 km/h (70 mph), unless otherwise indicated. Strade extraurbane principali are not tolled. |
synth_fc_1877_rep12 | Positive | History | Ranking | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikita_Khrushchev | 12 | Cuban Missile Crisis and the test ban treaty (1962–1964)
Superpower tensions culminated in the Cuban Missile Crisis (in the USSR, the "Caribbean crisis") of October 1962, as the Soviet Union sought to install medium-range nuclear missiles in Cuba, about 90 miles (140 km) from the U.S. coast. Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro was reluctant to accept the missiles, and, once he was persuaded, warned Khrushchev against transporting the missiles in secret. Castro stated, thirty years later, "We had a sovereign right to accept the missiles. We were not violating international law. Why do it secretly—as if we had no right to do it? I warned Nikita that secrecy would give the imperialists the advantage."
On 16 October, Kennedy was informed that U-2 flights over Cuba had discovered what were most likely medium-range missile sites, and though he and his advisors considered approaching Khrushchev through diplomatic channels, they could come up with no way of doing this that would not appear weak. On 22 October, Kennedy addressed his nation by television, revealing the missiles' presence and announcing a blockade of Cuba. Informed in advance of the speech but not (until one hour before) the content, Khrushchev and his advisors feared an invasion of Cuba. Even before Kennedy's speech, they ordered Soviet commanders in Cuba that they could use all weapons against an attack—except atomic weapons.
As the crisis unfolded, tensions were high in the U.S.; less so in the Soviet Union, where Khrushchev made several public appearances and went to the Bolshoi Theatre to hear American opera singer Jerome Hines. By 25 October, with the Soviets unclear about Kennedy's full intentions, Khrushchev decided that the missiles would have to be withdrawn from Cuba. Khrushchev agreed to withdraw the missiles in exchange for a U.S. promise not to invade Cuba and a secret promise that the U.S. would withdraw missiles from Turkey. As the last term was not publicly announced at the request of the U.S., and was not known until just before Khrushchev's death in 1971, the resolution was seen as a great defeat for the Soviets and contributed to Khrushchev's fall less than two years later. Castro had urged Khrushchev to launch a preemptive nuclear attack on the U.S. in the event of an invasion of Cuba, and was angered by the outcome, referring to Khrushchev in profane terms.
After the crisis, superpower relations improved, as Kennedy gave a conciliatory speech on 10 June 1963, recognizing the Soviet people's suffering during World War II, and paying tribute to their achievements. Khrushchev called the speech the best by a U.S. president since Franklin D. Roosevelt, and, in July, negotiated a test ban treaty with U.S. negotiator Averell Harriman and Lord Hailsham of the United Kingdom. Plans for a second Khrushchev-Kennedy summit were dashed by Kennedy's assassination in November 1963. The new U.S. president, Lyndon Johnson, hoped for continued improved relations but was distracted by other issues and had little opportunity to develop a relationship with Khrushchev before the premier was ousted. |
synth_fc_579_rep18 | Positive | Corporate Management | Database update | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Node_(networking) | 1 | In telecommunications networks, a node is either a redistribution point or a communication endpoint. A physical network node is an electronic device that is attached to a network, and is capable of creating, receiving, or transmitting information over a communication channel. In data communication, a physical network node may either be data communication equipment or data terminal equipment. A passive distribution point such as a distribution frame or patch panel is not a node. |
synth_fc_2324_rep30 | Positive | Law | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game | 16 | Intellectual property for video games
Most commonly, video games are protected by copyright, though both patents and trademarks have been used as well.
Though local copyright regulations vary to the degree of protection, video games qualify as copyrighted visual-audio works, and enjoy cross-country protection under the Berne Convention. This typically only applies to the underlying code, as well as to the artistic aspects of the game such as its writing, art assets, and music. Gameplay itself is generally not considered copyrightable; in the United States among other countries, video games are considered to fall into the idea–expression distinction in that it is how the game is presented and expressed to the player that can be copyrighted, but not the underlying principles of the game.
Because gameplay is normally ineligible for copyright, gameplay ideas in popular games are often replicated and built upon in other games. At times, this repurposing of gameplay can be seen as beneficial and a fundamental part of how the industry has grown by building on the ideas of others. For example Doom (1993) and Grand Theft Auto III (2001) introduced gameplay that created popular new game genres, the first-person shooter and the Grand Theft Auto clone, respectively, in the few years after their release. However, at times and more frequently at the onset of the industry, developers would intentionally create video game clones of successful games and game hardware with few changes, which led to the flooded arcade and dedicated home console market around 1978. Cloning is also a major issue with countries that do not have strong intellectual property protection laws, such as within China. The lax oversight by China's government and the difficulty for foreign companies to take Chinese entities to court had enabled China to support a large grey market of cloned hardware and software systems. The industry remains challenged to distinguish between creating new games based on refinements of past successful games to create a new type of gameplay, and intentionally creating a clone of a game that may simply swap out art assets. |
synth_fc_3369_rep10 | Negative | Store & Facility | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscilloscope | 43 | Handheld oscilloscopes
Handheld oscilloscopes are useful for many test and field service applications. Today, a handheld oscilloscope is usually a digital sampling oscilloscope, using a liquid crystal display.
Many handheld and bench oscilloscopes have the ground reference voltage common to all input channels. If more than one measurement channel is used at the same time, all the input signals must have the same voltage reference, and the shared default reference is the "earth". If there is no differential preamplifier or external signal isolator, this traditional desktop oscilloscope is not suitable for floating measurements. (Occasionally an oscilloscope user breaks the ground pin in the power supply cord of a bench-top oscilloscope in an attempt to isolate the signal common from the earth ground. This practice is unreliable since the entire stray capacitance of the instrument cabinet connects into the circuit. It is also a hazard to break a safety ground connection, and instruction manuals strongly advise against it.)
Some models of oscilloscope have isolated inputs, where the signal reference level terminals are not connected together. Each input channel can be used to make a "floating" measurement with an independent signal reference level. Measurements can be made without tying one side of the oscilloscope input to the circuit signal common or ground reference.
The isolation available is categorized as shown below: |
synth_fc_2828_rep13 | Positive | Physics & Chemistry | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_integral | 6 | Quantum mechanics
The path integral formulation of quantum mechanics actually refers not to path integrals in this sense but to functional integrals, that is, integrals over a space of paths, of a function of a possible path. However, path integrals in the sense of this article are important in quantum mechanics; for example, complex contour integration is often used in evaluating probability amplitudes in quantum scattering theory. |
synth_fc_796_rep23 | No function call | Evolution modeling | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollen | 10 | Pollination
The transfer of pollen grains to the female reproductive structure (pistil in angiosperms) is called pollination. Pollen transfer is frequently portrayed as a sequential process that begins with placement on the vector, moves through travel, and ends with deposition. This transfer can be mediated by the wind, in which case the plant is described as anemophilous (literally wind-loving). Anemophilous plants typically produce great quantities of very lightweight pollen grains, sometimes with air-sacs. Non-flowering seed plants (e.g., pine trees) are characteristically anemophilous. Anemophilous flowering plants generally have inconspicuous flowers. Entomophilous (literally insect-loving) plants produce pollen that is relatively heavy, sticky and protein -rich, for dispersal by insect pollinators attracted to their flowers. Many insects and some mites are specialized to feed on pollen, and are called palynivores.
In non-flowering seed plants, pollen germinates in the pollen chamber, located beneath the micropyle, underneath the integuments of the ovule. A pollen tube is produced, which grows into the nucellus to provide nutrients for the developing sperm cells. Sperm cells of Pinophyta and Gnetophyta are without flagella, and are carried by the pollen tube, while those of Cycadophyta and Ginkgophyta have many flagella.
When placed on the stigma of a flowering plant, under favorable circumstances, a pollen grain puts forth a pollen tube, which grows down the tissue of the style to the ovary, and makes its way along the placenta, guided by projections or hairs, to the micropyle of an ovule. The nucleus of the tube cell has meanwhile passed into the tube, as does also the generative nucleus, which divides (if it has not already) to form two sperm cells. The sperm cells are carried to their destination in the tip of the pollen tube. Double-strand breaks in DNA that arise during pollen tube growth appear to be efficiently repaired in the generative cell that carries the male genomic information to be passed on to the next plant generation. However, the vegetative cell that is responsible for tube elongation appears to lack this DNA repair capability. |
synth_fc_1541_rep1 | Positive | Geography | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi | 10 | Hackney carriages
Horse-drawn for-hire hackney carriage services began operating in both Paris and London in the early 17th century. The first documented public hackney coach service for hire was in London in 1605. In 1625 carriages were made available for hire from innkeepers in London and the first taxi rank appeared on the Strand outside the Maypole Inn in 1636. In 1635 the Hackney Carriage Act was passed by Parliament to legalise horse-drawn carriages for hire. Coaches were hired out by innkeepers to merchants and visitors. A further "Ordinance for the Regulation of Hackney-Coachmen in London and the places adjacent" was approved by Parliament in 1654 and the first hackney-carriage licences were issued in 1662.
A similar service was started by Nicolas Sauvage in Paris in 1637. His vehicles were known as fiacres, as the main vehicle depot apparently was opposite a shrine to Saint Fiacre. (The term fiacre is still used in French to describe a horse-drawn vehicle for hire, while the German term Fiaker is used, especially in Austria, to refer to the same thing.) |
synth_fc_504_rep29 | Positive | Corporate Management | Database removal | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airport | 13 | Maintenance management
Like industrial equipment or facility management, airports require tailor-made maintenance management due to their complexity. With many tangible assets spread over a large area in different environments, these infrastructures must therefore effectively monitor these assets and store spare parts to maintain them at an optimal level of service.
To manage these airport assets, several solutions are competing for the market: CMMS (computerized maintenance management system) predominate, and mainly enable a company's maintenance activity to be monitored, planned, recorded and rationalized. |
synth_fc_1990_rep20 | Positive | History | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemen | 41 | Politics
Yemen is a republic with a bicameral legislature. Under the 1991 constitution, an elected president, an elected 301-seat Assembly of Representatives, and an appointed 111-member Shura Council share power. The president is the head of state, and the prime minister is the head of government. In Sana'a, a Supreme Political Council (not recognized internationally) forms the government.
The 1991 constitution provides that the president be elected by popular vote from at least two candidates endorsed by at least 15 members of the Parliament. The prime minister, in turn, is appointed by the president and must be approved by two-thirds of the Parliament. The presidential term of office is seven years, and the parliamentary term of elected office is six years. Suffrage is universal for people aged 18 and older, but only Muslims may hold elected office.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh became the first elected president in reunified Yemen in 1999 (though he had been president of unified Yemen since 1990 and president of North Yemen since 1978). He was re-elected to office in September 2006. Saleh's victory was marked by an election that international observers judged was "partly free", though the election was accompanied by violence, violations of press freedoms, and allegations of fraud. Parliamentary elections were held in April 2003, and the General People's Congress maintained an absolute majority. Saleh remained almost uncontested in his seat of power until 2011, when local frustration at his refusal to hold another round of elections, as combined with the consequences of the 2011 Arab Spring, resulted in mass protests. In 2012, he was forced to resign from power, though he remained an important factor in Yemeni politics, allying with the Houthis during their takeover in the mid-2010s.
The constitution calls for an independent judiciary. The former northern and southern legal codes have been unified. The legal system includes separate commercial courts and a Supreme Court based in Sana'a. Sharia is the main source of laws, with many court cases being debated according to the religious basis of law and many judges being religious scholars as well as legal authorities. The Prison Authority Organization Act, Republican decree no. 48 (1981), and Prison Act regulations, provide the legal framework for management of the country's prison system. |
synth_fc_2199_rep11 | No function call | Law | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_tax | 14 | New home exemption
The Newly Built Home Exemption is a program that reduces or eliminates the property transfer tax on new homes. The amount is limited to $13,000 for qualifying individuals who must be either a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident. The property purchased must be located in British Columbia, have a fair market value of $750,000, be smaller than 1.25 acres and be used as a principle residence. It can be used in conjunction with the B.C. Home Owner Mortgage and Equity Partnership. |
synth_fc_563_rep21 | Positive | Corporate Management | Database search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphanage | 3 | Comparison to alternatives
Research from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP) is often cited as demonstrating that residential institutions negatively impact the wellbeing of children. The BEIP selected orphanages in Bucharest, Romania that raised abandoned children in socially and emotionally deprived environments in order to study the changes in development of infants and children after they had been placed with specially trained foster families in the local community. This study demonstrated how the loving attention typically provided to children by their parents or caregivers is pivotal for optimal human development, specifically of the brain; adequate nutrition is not enough. Further research of children who were adopted from institutions in Eastern European countries to the US demonstrated that for every 3.5 months that an infant spent in the institution, they lagged behind their peers in growth by 1 month. Further, a meta-analysis of research on the IQs of children in orphanages found lower IQs among the children in many institutions, but this result was not found in the low-income country setting. Worldwide, residential institutions like orphanages can often be detrimental to the psychological development of affected children. In countries where orphanages are no longer in use, the long-term care of unwarded children by the state has been transitioned to a domestic environment, with an emphasis on replicating a family home. Many of these countries, such as the United States, utilize a system of monetary stipends paid to foster parents to incentivize and subsidize the care of state wards in private homes. A distinction must be made between foster care and adoption, as adoption would remove the child from the care of the state and transfer the legal responsibility for that child's care to the adoptive parent completely and irrevocably, whereas, in the case of foster care, the child would remain a ward of the state with the foster parent acting only as a caregiver. Orphanages, especially larger ones, have had some well publicised examples of poor care. In large institutions children, but particularly babies, may not receive enough eye contact, physical contact, and stimulation to promote proper physical, social or cognitive development. In the worst cases, orphanages can be dangerous and unregulated places where children are subject to abuse and neglect. Children living in orphanages for prolonged periods get behind in development goals, and have worse mental health. Orphanage children are not included in statistics making it easy to traffic them or abuse them in other ways. There are campaigns to include orphanage children and street children in progress statistics. |
synth_fc_2961_rep12 | Positive | School | Database creation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teacher | 10 | Obligation to honor students rights
Sudbury-model democratic schools claim that popularly based authority can maintain order more effectively than dictatorial authority for governments and schools alike. They also claim that in these schools the preservation of public order is easier and more efficient than anywhere else. Primarily because rules and regulations are made by the community as a whole, thence the school atmosphere is one of persuasion and negotiation, rather than confrontation since there is no one to confront. Sudbury model democratic schools' proponents argue that a school that has good, clear laws, fairly and democratically passed by the entire school community, and a good judicial system for enforcing these laws, is a school in which community discipline prevails, and in which an increasingly sophisticated concept of law and order develops, against other schools today, where rules are arbitrary, authority is absolute, punishment is capricious, and due process of law is unknown. |
synth_fc_3207_rep19 | Positive | Sport | Ranking | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Nadal | 50 | Nadal vs. Federer
Roger Federer and Nadal played each other from 2004 to 2019, and their rivalry was a significant part of both men's careers. They held the top two rankings on the ATP Tour from July 2005 to 14 August 2009, and again from 11 September 2017 to 15 October 2018. They are the only pair of men to be consistently ranked in the Top 2 for four years continuously (from July 2005 to August 2009). Nadal ascended to No. 2 in July 2005 and held this spot for a record 160 consecutive weeks before surpassing Federer in August 2008. Nadal and Federer are also the only pair of men to have ever finished six consecutive calendar years at the top 2 positions (from 2005 to 2010).
They played 40 times. Nadal leads 24–16 overall and 10–4 in Grand Slam tournaments. Nadal has a winning record on clay (14–2) and outdoor hard courts (8–6), while Federer leads the indoor hard courts 5–1 and grass 3–1.
As tournament seedings are based on rankings, 24 of their matches were in tournament finals, including a joint-record nine major finals (tied with Djokovic–Nadal). From 2006 to 2008, they played in every French Open and Wimbledon final, and also met in the title matches of the 2009 Australian Open, the 2011 French Open and the 2017 Australian Open. Nadal won six of the nine, losing the first two Wimbledon finals and in Australia. Four of these matches were five-set matches (2007 and 2008 Wimbledon, 2009 and 2017 Australian Open), and the 2008 Wimbledon final has been lauded as the greatest match ever by many long-time tennis analysts. Nadal is the only player who has defeated Federer in the final of a major on all three surfaces (grass, hard, and clay). |
synth_fc_1584_rep1 | Positive | Geography | Database search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96gedei_Khan | 4 | Karakorum
From 1235 to 1238 Ögedei constructed a series of palaces and pavilions at stopping places in his annual nomadic route through central Mongolia. The first palace Wanangong was constructed by North Chinese artisans. The Emperor urged his relatives build residences nearby and settled the deported craftsmen from China near the site. The construction of the city, Karakorum (Хархорум), was finished in 1235, assigning different quarters to Islamic and North Chinese craftsmen, who competed to win Ögedei's favor. Earthen walls with 4 gates surrounded the city. Attached were private apartments, while in front of stood a giant stone tortoise bearing an engraved pillar, like those that were commonly used in East Asia. There was a castle with doors like the gates of the garden and a series of lakes where many water fowl gathered. Ögedei erected several houses of worship for his Buddhist, Muslim, Taoist, and Christian followers. In the Chinese ward, there was a Confucian temple where Yelu Chucai used to create or regulate a calendar on the Chinese model. |
synth_fc_158_rep9 | Negative | Biology | Generation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalysis | 1 | Catalysis (/ k ə ˈ t æ l ə s ɪ s /) is the increase in rate of a chemical reaction due to an added substance known as a catalyst (/ ˈ k æ t əl ɪ s t /). Catalysts are not consumed by the reaction and remain unchanged after it. If the reaction is rapid and the catalyst recycles quickly, very small amounts of catalyst often suffice; mixing, surface area, and temperature are important factors in reaction rate. Catalysts generally react with one or more reactants to form intermediates that subsequently give the final reaction product, in the process of regenerating the catalyst.
The rate increase occurs because the catalyst allows the reaction to occur by an alternative mechanism which may be much faster than the non-catalyzed mechanism. However the non-catalyzed mechanism does remain possible, so that the total rate (catalyzed plus non-catalyzed) can only increase in the presence of the catalyst and never decrease.
Catalysis may be classified as either homogeneous, whose components are dispersed in the same phase (usually gaseous or liquid) as the reactant, or heterogeneous, whose components are not in the same phase. Enzymes and other biocatalysts are often considered as a third category.
Catalysis is ubiquitous in chemical industry of all kinds. Estimates are that 90% of all commercially produced chemical products involve catalysts at some stage in the process of their manufacture.
The term "catalyst" is derived from Greek καταλύειν, kataluein, meaning "loosen" or "untie". The concept of catalysis was invented by chemist Elizabeth Fulhame, based on her novel work in oxidation-reduction experiments. |
synth_fc_1454_rep6 | Positive | Geography | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Bodrov_Jr. | 1 | Sergei Sergeyevich Bodrov, also known as Sergei Bodrov Jr., was a Russian actor who had lead roles in the films Brother, Prisoner of the Mountains, East/West and Brother 2. He was the son of the Russian playwright, actor, director and producer Sergei Bodrov. He died in the Kolka–Karmadon rock ice slide at the end of the second day of shooting of his film The Messenger. |
synth_fc_3353_rep21 | Positive | Store & Facility | Entity search | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accordion | 26 | Czech Republic
Accordion is often played at traditional Czech pubs, such as U Flekú, Prague. |
synth_fc_173_rep19 | No function call | Biology | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malware | 28 | Virus
A computer virus is software usually hidden within another seemingly innocuous program that can produce copies of itself and insert them into other programs or files, and that usually performs a harmful action (such as destroying data). They have been likened to biological viruses. An example of this is a portable execution infection, a technique, usually used to spread malware, that inserts extra data or executable code into PE files. A computer virus is software that embeds itself in some other executable software (including the operating system itself) on the target system without the user's knowledge and consent and when it is run, the virus is spread to other executable files. |
synth_fc_1852_rep2 | Positive | History | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud | 7 | Resignations from the IPA
Some of Freud's followers subsequently withdrew from the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) and founded their own schools.
From 1909, Adler's views on topics such as neurosis began to differ markedly from those held by Freud. As Adler's position appeared increasingly incompatible with Freudianism, a series of confrontations between their respective viewpoints took place at the meetings of the Viennese Psychoanalytic Society in January and February 1911. In February 1911, Adler, then the president of the society, resigned his position. At this time, Stekel also resigned from his position as vice president of the society. Adler finally left the Freudian group altogether in June 1911 to form his own organization with nine other members who had also resigned from the group. This new formation was initially called Society for Free Psychoanalysis but it was soon renamed the Society for Individual Psychology. In the period after World War I, Adler became increasingly associated with a psychological position he devised called individual psychology.
In 1912, Jung published Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido (published in English in 1916 as Psychology of the Unconscious) making it clear that his views were taking a direction quite different from those of Freud. To distinguish his system from psychoanalysis, Jung called it analytical psychology. Anticipating the final breakdown of the relationship between Freud and Jung, Ernest Jones initiated the formation of a Secret Committee of loyalists charged with safeguarding the theoretical coherence and institutional legacy of the psychoanalytic movement. Formed in the autumn of 1912, the Committee comprised Freud, Jones, Abraham, Ferenczi, Rank, and Hanns Sachs. Max Eitingon joined the Committee in 1919. Each member pledged himself not to make any public departure from the fundamental tenets of psychoanalytic theory before he had discussed his views with the others. After this development, Jung recognised that his position was untenable and resigned as editor of the Jahrbuch and then as president of the IPA in April 1914. The Zürich branch of the IPA withdrew from membership the following July.
Later the same year, Freud published a paper entitled " The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement ", the German original being first published in the Jahrbuch, giving his view on the birth and evolution of the psychoanalytic movement and the withdrawal of Adler and Jung from it.
The final defection from Freud's inner circle occurred following the publication in 1924 of Rank's The Trauma of Birth which other members of the Committee read as, in effect, abandoning the Oedipus Complex as the central tenet of psychoanalytic theory. Abraham and Jones became increasingly forceful critics of Rank and though he and Freud were reluctant to end their close and long-standing relationship the break finally came in 1926 when Rank resigned from his official posts in the IPA and left Vienna for Paris. His place on the committee was taken by Anna Freud. Rank eventually settled in the United States where his revisions of Freudian theory were to influence a new generation of therapists uncomfortable with the orthodoxies of the IPA. |
synth_fc_2040_rep22 | Negative | Hotel | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Vegas_Sands | 1 | Las Vegas Sands Corp. is an American casino and resort company with corporate headquarters in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. It was founded by Sheldon G. Adelson and his partners out of the Sands Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. The Sands was demolished and redeveloped as The Venetian, opening in 1999. An adjacent resort, The Palazzo, opened in 2007. Both resorts were sold in 2022. The company holds several resorts in Asia, including Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, which opened in 2010. Through its majority-owned subsidiary Sands China, the company owns several properties in Macau, including Sands Macao, The Londoner Macao, The Venetian Macao, and The Parisian Macao. As of 2020, it is the third-largest casino company worldwide by revenue. |
synth_fc_1192_rep7 | No function call | Finance | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus | 15 | Agreement with the Spanish crown
Columbus waited at King Ferdinand's camp until Ferdinand and Isabella conquered Granada, the last Muslim stronghold on the Iberian Peninsula, in January 1492. A council led by Isabella's confessor, Hernando de Talavera, found Columbus's proposal to reach the Indies implausible. Columbus had left for France when Ferdinand intervened, first sending Talavera and Bishop Diego Deza to appeal to the queen. Isabella was finally convinced by the king's clerk Luis de Santángel, who argued that Columbus would take his ideas elsewhere, and offered to help arrange the funding. Isabella then sent a royal guard to fetch Columbus, who had traveled 2 leagues (over 10 km) toward Córdoba.
In the April 1492 " Capitulations of Santa Fe ", King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella promised Columbus that if he succeeded he would be given the rank of Admiral of the Ocean Sea and appointed Viceroy and Governor of all the new lands he might claim for Spain. He had the right to nominate three persons, from whom the sovereigns would choose one, for any office in the new lands. He would be entitled to 10% (diezmo) of all the revenues from the new lands in perpetuity. He also would have the option of buying one-eighth interest in any commercial venture in the new lands, and receive one-eighth (ochavo) of the profits.
In 1500, during his third voyage to the Americas, Columbus was arrested and dismissed from his posts. He and his sons, Diego and Fernando, then conducted a lengthy series of court cases against the Castilian crown, known as the pleitos colombinos, alleging that the Crown had illegally reneged on its contractual obligations to Columbus and his heirs. The Columbus family had some success in their first litigation, as a judgment of 1511 confirmed Diego's position as viceroy but reduced his powers. Diego resumed litigation in 1512, which lasted until 1536, and further disputes initiated by heirs continued until 1790. |
synth_fc_969_rep12 | Positive | Finance | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobster | 3 | Grading
Caught lobsters are graded as new-shell, hard-shell, or old-shell. Because lobsters that have recently shed their shells are the most delicate, an inverse relationship exists between the price of American lobster and its flavor. New-shell lobsters have paper-thin shells and a worse meat-to-shell ratio, but the meat is very sweet. However, the lobsters are so delicate that even transport to Boston almost kills them, making the market for new-shell lobsters strictly local to the fishing towns where they are offloaded. Hard-shell lobsters with firm shells but less sweet meat can survive shipping to Boston, New York, and even Los Angeles, so they command a higher price than new-shell lobsters. Meanwhile, old-shell lobsters, which have not shed since the previous season and have a coarser flavor, can be air-shipped anywhere in the world and arrive alive, making them the most expensive. |
synth_fc_2617_rep16 | Negative | Music | Ranking | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard_Khil | 1 | Eduard Anatolyevich Khil, often anglicized as Edward Hill, was a Russian baritone singer. Khil became known to international audiences in 2010, when a 1976 clip of him singing a non-lexical vocable version of the song "I Am Very Glad, As I Am Finally Returning Back Home" became an Internet meme, often referred to as "Trololol" or "Trololo", or as the "Russian Rickroll", and the song became associated with Internet trolling. The song's newfound prominence in Internet culture led him to adopt Mr. Trololo as a stage name. |
synth_fc_2396_rep18 | Positive | Media | Document search | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia | 12 | Education
Education is free at all levels, although higher education is restricted to citizens only. The school system is composed of elementary, intermediate, and secondary schools. Classes are segregated by sex. At the secondary level, students are able to choose from three types of schools: general education, vocational and technical, or religious. The rate of literacy is 99% among males and 96% among females in 2020. Youth literacy rose to approximately 99.5% for both sexes.
Higher education has expanded rapidly, with large numbers of universities and colleges being founded particularly since 2000. Institutions of higher education include King Saud University, the Islamic University at Medina, and the King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah. Princess Norah University is the largest women's university in the world. King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, known as KAUST, is the first mixed-gender university campus in Saudi Arabia and was founded in 2009. Other colleges and universities emphasize curricula in sciences and technology, military studies, religion, and medicine. Institutes devoted to Islamic studies, in particular, abound. Women typically receive college instruction in segregated institutions.
The Academic Ranking of World Universities, known as Shanghai Ranking, ranked five Saudi institutions among its 2022 list of the 500 top universities in the world. The QS World University Rankings lists 14 Saudi universities among the 2022 world's top universities and 23 universities among the top 100 in the Arab world. The 2022 list of U.S. News & World Report Best Global University Ranking ranked King Abdulaziz University among the top 50 universities in the world and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology among the top 100 universities in the world.
In 2018, Saudi Arabia ranked 28th worldwide in terms of high-quality research output according to the scientific journal Nature. This makes Saudi Arabia the best performing Middle Eastern, Arab, and Muslim country. Saudi Arabia spends 8.8% of its gross domestic product on education, compared with the global average of 4.6%. Saudi Arabia was ranked 48th in the Global Innovation Index in 2023, up from 68th in 2019.
The Saudi education system has been accused of encouraging Islamic terrorism, leading to reform efforts. Following the 9/11 attacks, the government aimed to tackle the twin problems of encouraging extremism and the inadequacy of the country's university education for a modern economy, by slowly modernizing the education system through the "Tatweer" reform programme. The Tatweer programme is reported to have a budget of approximately US$2 billion and focuses on moving teaching away from the traditional Saudi methods of memorization and rote learning towards encouraging students to analyse and problem-solve. It also aims to create an education system which will provide a more secular and vocationally based training.
In 2021, the Washington Post reported on the measures taken by Saudi Arabia to clean textbooks from paragraphs considered antisemitic and sexist. The paragraphs dealing with the punishment of homosexuality or same-sex relations have been deleted, and expressions of admiration for the extremist martyrdom. Antisemitic expressions and calls to fight the Jews became fewer. David Weinberg, director of international affairs for the Anti-Defamation League, said that references to demonizing Jews, Christians, and Shiites have been removed from some places or have toned down. The U.S. State Department expressed in an email that it welcomed the changes. The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs supports a training programme for Saudi teachers. |
synth_fc_1489_rep20 | Positive | Geography | Database search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_state_of_C%C3%B3rdoba | 1 | The Emirate of Córdoba, from 929, the Caliphate of Córdoba, was an Arab Islamic state ruled by the Umayyad dynasty from 756 to 1031. Its territory comprised most of the Iberian Peninsula (known to Muslims as al-Andalus), the Balearic Islands, and parts of North Africa, with its capital in Córdoba. From 756 it was ruled as an emirate until Abd al-Rahman III adopted the title of caliph in 929.
The state was founded by Abd al-Rahman I, an Umayyad prince who fled the defeat and persecution of the Umayyad clan amid the Abbasid Revolution. The polity then flourished for the best part of three centuries, before disintegrating in the early 11th century during the Fitna of al-Andalus, a civil war between the descendants of caliph Hisham II and the successors of his hajib (court official), Al-Mansur. In 1031, after years of infighting, the caliphate fractured into a number of independent Muslim taifa (kingdoms).
The period was characterized by an expansion of trade and culture, including the construction of well-known pieces of Andalusi architecture. |
synth_fc_3146_rep9 | Positive | Sport | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypoxia_(medicine) | 13 | By cause
Intermittent hypoxic training induces mild generalized hypoxia for short periods as a training method to improve sporting performance. This is not considered a medical condition. Acute cerebral hypoxia leading to blackout can occur during freediving. This is a consequence of prolonged voluntary apnea underwater, and generally occurs in trained athletes in good health and good physical condition. |
synth_fc_1739_rep19 | Positive | Health | Database search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nursing | 18 | Taiwan
In Taiwan, the Ministry of Health and Welfare regulates nursing. The Taiwan Union of Nurses Association (TUNA) organizes nurses. |
synth_fc_1451_rep25 | No function call | Geography | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Bengal | 19 | Government and politics
West Bengal is governed through a parliamentary system of representative democracy, a feature the state shares with other Indian states. Universal suffrage is granted to residents. There are two branches of government. The legislature, the West Bengal Legislative Assembly, consists of elected members and special office bearers such as the Speaker and Deputy Speaker, who are elected by the members. Assembly meetings are presided over by the Speaker or the Deputy Speaker in the Speaker's absence. The judiciary is composed of the Calcutta High Court and a system of lower courts. Executive authority is vested in the Council of Ministers headed by the Chief Minister although the titular head of government is the Governor. The Governor is the Head of State appointed by the President of India. The leader of the party or coalition with a majority in the Legislative Assembly is appointed as the Chief Minister by the Governor. The Council of Ministers is appointed by the Governor on the advice of the Chief Minister. The Council of Ministers reports to the Legislative Assembly. The Assembly is unicameral with 295 members, or MLAs, including one nominated from the Anglo-Indian community. Terms of office run for five years unless the Assembly is dissolved before the completion of the term. Auxiliary authorities known as panchayats, for which local body elections are regularly held, govern local affairs. The state contributes 42 seats to the Lok Sabha and 16 seats to the Rajya Sabha of the Indian Parliament.
Politics in West Bengal is dominated by the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Indian National Congress (INC), and the Left Front alliance (led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M)). Following the West Bengal State Assembly Election in 2011, the All India Trinamool Congress and Indian National Congress coalition under Mamata Banerjee of the All India Trinamool Congress was elected to power with 225 seats in the legislature.
Prior to this, West Bengal was ruled by the Left Front for 34 years (1977–2011), making it the world's longest-running democratically elected communist government. Banerjee was re-elected twice as Chief Minister in the 2016 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election and 2021 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election with 211 and 215 seats respectively, an absolute majority by the Trinamool Congress. The state has one autonomous region, the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration. |
synth_fc_1770_rep12 | Positive | Health | API setting | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoid_fever | 21 | Signs and symptoms
Classically, the progression of untreated typhoid fever has three distinct stages, each lasting about a week. Over the course of these stages, the patient becomes exhausted and emaciated. |
synth_fc_3868_rep1 | Positive | Weather & Air quality | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo | 35 | Floods
Tokyo is located on the Kantō Plain with five river systems and dozens of rivers that expand during each season. Important rivers are Edogawa, Nakagawa, Arakawa, Kandagawa, Megurogawa and Tamagawa. In 1947, Typhoon Kathleen struck Tokyo, destroying 31,000 homes and killing 1,100 people. In 1958, Typhoon Ida dropped 400 mm (16 in) of rain in a single week, causing streets to flood. In the 1950s and 1960s, the government invested 6–7% of the national budget on disaster and risk reduction. A huge system of dams, levees and tunnels was constructed. The purpose is to manage heavy rain, typhonic rain, and river floods.
Tokyo has currently the world's largest underground floodwater diversion facility called the Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel (MAOUDC). It took 13 years to build and was completed in 2006. The MAOUDC is a 6.3 km (3.9 mi) long system of tunnels, 22 meters (72 ft) underground, with 70-meter (230 ft) tall cylindrical tanks, each tank being large enough to fit a space shuttle or the Statue of Liberty. During floods, excess water is collected from rivers and drained to the Edo River. Low-lying areas of Kōtō, Edogawa, Sumida, Katsushika, Taitō and Arakawa near the Arakawa River are most at risk of flooding. |
synth_fc_2844_rep20 | Negative | Real estate | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Lee | 9 | Marriage and residences
From 1945 to 1947, Lee lived in the rented top floor of a brownstone in the East 90s in Manhattan. He married Joan Clayton Boocock, originally from Newcastle, England, on December 5, 1947, and in 1949, the couple bought a house in Woodmere, New York, on Long Island, living there through 1952. Their daughter Joan Celia "J. C." Lee was born in 1950. Another daughter, Jan Lee, died a few days after her birth in 1953.
The Lees resided in the Long Island community of Hewlett Harbor, New York, from 1952 to 1980. They also owned a condominium on East 63rd Street in Manhattan from 1975 to 1980, and during the 1970s they owned a vacation home in Remsenburg, New York. For their move to the West Coast in 1981, they bought a home in West Hollywood, California, previously owned by comedian Jack Benny 's radio announcer Don Wilson. |
synth_fc_3105_rep4 | Negative | Sport | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Cruyff | 8 | Catalonia national team
As well as representing Catalonia on the pitch in 1976, Cruyff also managed the Catalonia national team from 2009 to 2013, leading the team to a victory over Argentina in his debut match.
On 2 November 2009, Cruyff was named as manager of the Catalonia national team. It was his first managing job in 13 years. On 22 December 2009, they played a friendly game against Argentina, which ended in a Catalonia win, 4–2 at Camp Nou. On 28 December 2010, Catalonia played a friendly against Honduras winning 4–0 at Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys. On 30 December 2011, Catalonia played Tunisia in a goalless draw at the Lluís Companys. In their last game under Cruyff, on 2 January 2013, Catalonia drew with Nigeria at the Cornellà-El Prat, 1–1. |
synth_fc_3457_rep29 | Positive | Time | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Husayn_ibn_Ali | 10 | Maqtal literature and legendary accounts
Maqtal (pl. Maqatil) works narrate the story of someone's death. Although Maqatil on the deaths of Ali, Uthman and various others have been written, the Maqtal genre has focused mainly on the story of Husayn's death.
As well as Abu Mikhnaf's Maqtal, other Arabic Maqatil on Husayn were written. Most of these mix history with legend and have elaborate details on Husayn's miraculous birth, which is stated to be on 10 Muharram, coinciding with his date of death. The universe as well as humanity are described as having been created on the day of Ashura (10 Muharram). Ashura is also asserted to have been the day of both Abraham 's and Muhammad's birth and of the ascension of Jesus to heaven, and of numerous other events concerning prophets. Husayn is claimed to have performed various miracles, including quenching his companions' thirst by putting his thumb in their mouths and satisfying their hunger by bringing down food from the heavens, and to have killed several thousand Umayyad attackers. Other accounts claim that when Husayn died, his horse shed tears and killed many Umayyad soldiers; the sky became red and it rained blood; angels, jinns and wild animals wept; that light emanated from Husayn's severed head and that it recited the Qur'an; and that all of his killers met calamitous end.
Maqtal later entered Persian, Turkish, and Urdu literature, and inspired the development of rawda. |
synth_fc_3405_rep17 | Positive | Store & Facility | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuala_Lumpur | 10 | Retail
Kuala Lumpur alone has 66 shopping malls and is the retail and fashion hub of both Malaysia and Southeast Asia. Shopping in Malaysia contributed RM7.7 billion (US$2.26 billion) or 20.8 percent of the RM31.9 billion tourism receipts in 2006.
Suria KLCC is one of Malaysia's premier upscale shopping destinations due to its location beneath the Petronas Twin Towers.Apart from Suria KLCC, the Bukit Bintang district has the highest concentration of shopping malls in Kuala Lumpur. It includes: Pavilion KL, Fahrenheit 88, Plaza Low Yat, Berjaya Times Square, Lot 10, Sungei Wang Plaza, Starhill Gallery, Lalaport BBCC, Quill City Mall and Avenue K. Changkat area of Bukit Bintang hosts various cafes, alfresco dining outlets, illegal activities such as prostitution and more. It is best known as one of the red-light districts in Kuala Lumpur. Bangsar district also has a few shopping complexes, including Bangsar Village, Bangsar Shopping Centre, KL Gateway Mall, Bangsar South, KL Eco City Mall, The Gardens and Mid Valley Megamall.
Apart from shopping complexes, Kuala Lumpur has designated numerous zones in the city to market locally manufactured products such as textiles, fabrics and handicrafts especially at Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman. Traditional clothing of ethnic Malays such as baju Kurung and baju kebaya can be found here. The Chinatown of Kuala Lumpur, commonly known as Petaling Street, is one of them. Chinatown features many pre-independence buildings with Straits Chinese and colonial architectural influences.
Since 2000, the Malaysian Ministry of Tourism introduced a mega sale event for shopping in Malaysia. The mega sale event is held three times a year – in March, May and December – in which all shopping malls are encouraged to participate to boost Kuala Lumpur as a leading shopping destination in Asia which has been maintained until present with new mega sales. |
synth_fc_45_rep16 | Negative | Architecture | Guide | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoclassical_architecture | 10 | Great Britain and Ireland
From the middle of the 18th century, exploration and publication changed the course of British architecture from the Palladian architecture towards a purer vision of the Ancient Greco-Roman ideal. James 'Athenian' Stuart 's work The Antiquities of Athens and Other Monuments of Greece was very influential in this regard, as were Robert Wood 's Palmyra and Baalbec. A combination of simple forms and high levels of enrichment was adopted by the majority of contemporary British architects and designers. The revolution begun by Stuart was soon to be eclipsed by the work of the Adam brothers, James Wyatt, Sir William Chambers, George Dance the Younger, James Gandon, and provincially based architects such as John Carr and Thomas Harrison of Chester.
In Scotland and the north of England, where the Gothic Revival was less strong, architects continued to develop the neoclassical style of William Henry Playfair. The works of Cuthbert Brodrick and Alexander Thomson show that by the end of the 19th century the results could be powerful and eccentric.
In Ireland, where Gothic Revival was also less popular, a refined, restrained form of the neoclassical developed, and can be seen in the works of James Gandon and other architects working at the time. It is particularly evident in Dublin, which is a largely neoclassical and Georgian city. |
synth_fc_1315_rep16 | Positive | Food | Order | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea | 15 | Agriculture
The agriculture sector at some point employed approximately 75% of the country. The rice is cultivated in the flooded zones between streams and rivers. The local production of rice is not sufficient to feed the country, so rice is imported from Asia. The sector cultivates coffee beans, pineapples, peaches, nectarines, mangoes, oranges, bananas, potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, pepper, and other types of produce. Guinea is one of the emerging regional producers of apples and pears. There are plantations of grapes, pomegranates, and more recent years have seen the development of strawberry plantations, based on the vertical hydroponic system. Soil, water, and climatic conditions provide opportunities for irrigated farming and agro industry. Other industries include processing plants for beer, juices, soft drinks and tobacco. |
synth_fc_1275_rep11 | Positive | Finance | Database search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Read-only_memory | 14 | Field-programmable
By applying write protection, some types of reprogrammable ROMs may temporarily become read-only memory. |
synth_fc_366_rep30 | Positive | Book | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurus | 4 | Middle Ages
By the early fifth century AD, Epicureanism was virtually extinct. The Christian Church Father Augustine of Hippo (354–430 AD) declared, "its ashes are so cold that not a single spark can be struck from them." While the ideas of Plato and Aristotle could easily be adapted to suit a Christian worldview, the ideas of Epicurus were not nearly as easily amenable. As such, while Plato and Aristotle enjoyed a privileged place in Christian philosophy throughout the Middle Ages, Epicurus was not held in such esteem. Information about Epicurus's teachings was available, through Lucretius's On the Nature of Things, quotations of it found in medieval Latin grammars and florilegia, and encyclopedias, such as Isidore of Seville 's Etymologiae (seventh century) and Hrabanus Maurus 's De universo (ninth century), but there is little evidence that these teachings were systematically studied or comprehended.
During the Middle Ages, Epicurus was remembered by the educated as a philosopher, but he frequently appeared in popular culture as a gatekeeper to the Garden of Delights, the "proprietor of the kitchen, the tavern, and the brothel." He appears in this guise in Martianus Capella 's Marriage of Mercury and Philology (fifth century), John of Salisbury 's Policraticus (1159), John Gower 's Mirour de l'Omme, and Geoffrey Chaucer 's Canterbury Tales. Epicurus and his followers appear in Dante Alighieri 's Inferno in the Sixth Circle of Hell, where they are imprisoned in flaming coffins for having believed that the soul dies with the body. |
synth_fc_183_rep10 | Negative | Biology | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclidean_algorithm | 30 | Linear Diophantine equations
Diophantine equations are equations in which the solutions are restricted to integers; they are named after the 3rd-century Alexandrian mathematician Diophantus. A typical linear Diophantine equation seeks integers x and y such that
where a, b and c are given integers. This can be written as an equation for x in modular arithmetic:
Let g be the greatest common divisor of a and b. Both terms in ax + by are divisible by g; therefore, c must also be divisible by g, or the equation has no solutions. By dividing both sides by c / g, the equation can be reduced to Bezout's identity
where s and t can be found by the extended Euclidean algorithm. This provides one solution to the Diophantine equation, x = s (c / g) and y = t (c / g).
In general, a linear Diophantine equation has no solutions, or an infinite number of solutions. To find the latter, consider two solutions, (x, y) and (x, y), where
or equivalently
Therefore, the smallest difference between two x solutions is b / g, whereas the smallest difference between two y solutions is a / g. Thus, the solutions may be expressed as
By allowing u to vary over all possible integers, an infinite family of solutions can be generated from a single solution (x, y). If the solutions are required to be positive integers (x > 0, y > 0), only a finite number of solutions may be possible. This restriction on the acceptable solutions allows some systems of Diophantine equations with more unknowns than equations to have a finite number of solutions; this is impossible for a system of linear equations when the solutions can be any real number (see Underdetermined system). |
synth_fc_1216_rep1 | Positive | Finance | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinkansen | 43 | Thailand
Japan will provide Shinkansen technology for a high-speed rail link between Bangkok and Chiang Mai under an agreement reached with Thailand on 27 May 2015. Total project costs are estimated in excess of 1 trillion yen ($8.1 billion). Several hurdles remain, however, including securing the funding. If the project is realized, it would mark the fifth time Shinkansen technology has been exported. |
synth_fc_1560_rep27 | Positive | Geography | Database search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Neruda | 8 | Early life
Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto was born on 12 July 1904, in Parral, Chile, a city in Linares Province, now part of the greater Maule Region, some 350 km south of Santiago. His father, José del Carmen Reyes Morales, was a railway employee, and his mother Rosa Neftalí Basoalto Opazo was a school teacher who died two months after he was born on 14 September. On 26 September, he was baptized in the parish of San Jose de Parral. Neruda grew up in Temuco with Rodolfo and a half-sister, Laura Herminia "Laurita," from one of his father's extramarital affairs (her mother was Aurelia Tolrà, a Catalan woman). He composed his first poems in the winter of 1914. Neruda was an atheist. |
synth_fc_99_rep7 | No function call | Biology | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differentiable_function | 2 | Differentiability and continuity
If f is differentiable at a point x, then f must also be continuous at x. In particular, any differentiable function must be continuous at every point in its domain. The converse does not hold: a continuous function need not be differentiable. For example, a function with a bend, cusp, or vertical tangent may be continuous, but fails to be differentiable at the location of the anomaly.
Most functions that occur in practice have derivatives at all points or at almost every point. However, a result of Stefan Banach states that the set of functions that have a derivative at some point is a meagre set in the space of all continuous functions. Informally, this means that differentiable functions are very atypical among continuous functions. The first known example of a function that is continuous everywhere but differentiable nowhere is the Weierstrass function. |
synth_fc_3560_rep13 | Negative | Travel itinerary | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datong | 1 | Datong is a prefecture-level city in northern Shanxi Province in the People's Republic of China. It is located in the Datong Basin at an elevation of 1,040 metres (3,410 ft) and borders Inner Mongolia to the north and west and Hebei to the east. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 3,105,591 of whom 1,790,452 lived in the built-up area made of the 2 out 4 urban districts of Pingcheng and Yungang as Yunzhou and Xinrong are not conurbated yet. |
synth_fc_3726_rep23 | No function call | Weather & Air quality | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_forecasting | 21 | Analog
The analog technique is a complex way of making a forecast, requiring the forecaster to remember a previous weather event that is expected to be mimicked by an upcoming event. What makes it a difficult technique to use is that there is rarely a perfect analog for an event in the future. Some call this type of forecasting pattern recognition. It remains a useful method of observing rainfall over data voids such as oceans, as well as the forecasting of precipitation amounts and distribution in the future. A similar technique is used in medium range forecasting, which is known as teleconnections, when systems in other locations are used to help pin down the location of another system within the surrounding regime. An example of teleconnections are by using El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) related phenomena. |
synth_fc_1124_rep15 | Positive | Finance | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh-day_Adventist_Church | 21 | Worship service
The major weekly worship service occurs on Saturday, typically commencing with Sabbath School which is a structured time of small-group bible study at church. Adventists make use of an officially produced "Sabbath School Lesson", which deals with a particular biblical text or doctrine every quarter.
After a brief break, the community joins together again for a church service that follows a typical evangelical format, with a sermon as a central feature. Corporate singing, Scripture readings, prayers and an offering, including tithing (money collection), are other standard features. The instruments and forms of worship music vary greatly throughout the worldwide church. |
synth_fc_77_rep8 | Positive | Astronomy | Database update | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wall_of_China | 13 | From the Moon
The Great Wall of China cannot be seen by the naked human eye from the Moon. Even though the myth is thoroughly debunked, it is still ingrained in popular culture. The apparent width of the Great Wall from the Moon would be the same as that of a human hair viewed from 3 km (2 mi) away.
One of the earliest known references to the myth that the Great Wall can be seen from the moon appears in a letter written in 1754 by the English antiquary William Stukeley. Stukeley wrote that, "This mighty wall of four score miles in length is only exceeded by the Chinese Wall, which makes a considerable figure upon the terrestrial globe, and may be discerned at the Moon." The claim was also mentioned by Henry Norman in 1895 where he states "besides its age it enjoys the reputation of being the only work of human hands on the globe visible from the Moon." The issue of "canals" on Mars was prominent in the late 19th century and may have led to the belief that long, thin objects were visible from space. The claim that the Great Wall is visible from the moon also appears in 1932's Ripley's Believe It or Not! strip. |
synth_fc_1675_rep9 | Positive | Health | Calculation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhenium | 5 | Other uses
The isotopes Re and Re are radioactive and are used for treatment of liver cancer. They both have similar penetration depth in tissue (5 mm for Re and 11 mm for Re), but Re has the advantage of a longer half life (90 hours vs. 17 hours).
Re is also being used experimentally in a novel treatment of pancreatic cancer where it is delivered by means of the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes. The Re isotope is also used for the rhenium-SCT (skin cancer therapy). The treatment uses the isotope's properties as a beta emitter for brachytherapy in the treatment of basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma of the skin.
Related by periodic trends, rhenium has a similar chemistry to that of technetium; work done to label rhenium onto target compounds can often be translated to technetium. This is useful for radiopharmacy, where it is difficult to work with technetium – especially the technetium-99m isotope used in medicine – due to its expense and short half-life.
Rhenium is used in manufacturing high precision equipment like gyroscopes. Its high density, mechanical stability and corrosion resistance characteristics ensure the equipment's durability and precise performance in demanding conditions. Rhenium cathodes are also used for their stability and precision in spectral analysis. |
synth_fc_3206_rep27 | Negative | Sport | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilt_Chamberlain | 37 | San Francisco Warriors (1959–1965)
Chamberlain made his NBA debut on October 24, 1959, starting for the Philadelphia Warriors. He was listed as 7 ft 1 in (2.16 m) tall and 258 lb (117 kg). He became the NBA's highest-paid player when he signed for $30,000 in his rookie contract. In comparison, the previous top earner was Bob Cousy of the Celtics with $25,000, the same sum Eddie Gottlieb used to buy the Warriors franchise in 1952. |
synth_fc_2130_rep2 | Negative | Law | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War | 51 | Peace committees
Among those Burghers who had stopped fighting, it was decided to form peace committees to persuade those who were still fighting to desist. In December 1900, Lord Kitchener gave permission that a central Burgher Peace Committee be inaugurated in Pretoria. By the end of 1900 some thirty envoys were sent out to the various districts to form local peace committees to persuade burghers to give up the fight. Previous leaders of the Boers, like Generals Piet de Wet and Andries Cronjé were involved in the organisation. Meyer de Kock was the only emissary of a peace committee to be convicted of high treason and executed by firing squad. |
synth_fc_2735_rep19 | Positive | Physics & Chemistry | Database search | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity | 10 | Electronics
Electronics deals with electrical circuits that involve active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes, sensors and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies. The nonlinear behaviour of active components and their ability to control electron flows makes digital switching possible, and electronics is widely used in information processing, telecommunications, and signal processing. Interconnection technologies such as circuit boards, electronics packaging technology, and other varied forms of communication infrastructure complete circuit functionality and transform the mixed components into a regular working system.
Today, most electronic devices use semiconductor components to perform electron control. The underlying principles that explain how semiconductors work are studied in solid state physics, whereas the design and construction of electronic circuits to solve practical problems are part of electronics engineering. |
synth_fc_2899_rep1 | Positive | Restaurant | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec | 4 | Cuisine
The traditional Quebecois cuisine descends from 16th-century French cuisine, the fur trade and a history of hunting. Quebec's cuisine has also been influenced by learning from First Nation, by English cuisine and by American cuisine. Quebec is most famous for its tourtière, pâté chinois, poutine, and St. Catherine's taffy among others. "Le temps des sucres" is a period during springtime when many Quebecers go to the sugar shack (cabane à sucre) for a traditional meal.
Quebec is the world's biggest maple syrup producer. The province has a long history of producing maple syrup, and creating new maple-derived products. Other major food products include beer, wine (including ice wine and ice cider), and cheese. |
synth_fc_3496_rep2 | Positive | Traffic | Feature search | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guadalajara | 30 | Urbanism
Guadalajara's street plan has evolved over time into a radial urban plan, with five major routes into and out of the city. It is surrounded by ring roads.
The original city of Guadalajara was planned on a grid, with north–south and east–west intersecting streets.Over time, villages surrounding Guadalajara were incorporated into the city - first Analco to the southeast, then Mexicaltzingo to the south, Mezquitan to the north, and San Juan de Dios to the east, all of which introduced more variety to the plan. As it grew towards the west, it kept the original north–south orientation. As it grew towards the east, this grid was tilted towards the south-east to match up with the grids of the former towns Analco and San Juan de Dios, across the river from central Guadalajara on the eastern side of Rio San Juan de Dios (Rio San Juan de Dios is now underground; it runs beneath Calzada Independencia).
When the railway was introduced to Guadalajara in 1888, the southern part of the city began development, and its streets aligned with the grid to the east of the old Rio San Juan de Dios. Additional 20th-century expansion of the city introduced even more variety, as developers introduced different kinds of non-grid street plans in new areas. During the government of José de Jesús González Gallo, between 1947 and 1953, major public works changed the urban landscape of the historic center of the city.
Major controversial projects included the widening of Avenida 16 de Septiembre and Avenida Juárez, which were no longer adequate to handle car traffic in the center of the city. In the process, many buildings of architectural and historical value were demolished. Historical buildings around Guadalajara Cathedral were also demolished to leave large open spaces on the four sides of the Cathedral in the form of a large Latin cross, in which the cathedral is now centered. There were other, somewhat less controversial, projects to improve the flow of traffic and increase commerce in other parts of the city. |
synth_fc_50_rep3 | Positive | Architecture | Analysis | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawn_mower | 15 | Rotary mowers
A rotary mower rotates about a vertical axis with the blade spinning at high speed relying on impact to cut the grass. This tends to result in a rougher cut and bruises and shreds the grass leaf resulting in discolouration of the leaf ends as the shredded portion dies. This is particularly prevalent if the blades become clogged or blunt. Most rotary mowers need to be set a little higher than cylinder equivalents to avoid scalping and gouging of slightly uneven lawns, although some modern rotaries are fitted with a rear roller to provide a more formal striped cut. These machines will also tend to cut lower (13 mm or 1 ⁄ 2 in) than a standard four-wheeled rotary.
The main parts of a rotary mower are: |
synth_fc_2180_rep23 | Positive | Law | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauritius | 2 | Chagos Archipelago territorial dispute
Mauritius has long sought sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago, located 1,287 km (800 mi) to the north-east. Chagos was administratively part of Mauritius from the 18th century when the French first settled the islands. All of the islands forming part of the French colonial territory of Isle de France (as Mauritius was then known) were ceded to the British in 1810 under the Act of Capitulation signed between the two powers. In 1965, three years before the independence of Mauritius, the United Kingdom split the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius and the islands of Aldabra, Farquhar and Desroches from the Seychelles to form the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). The islands were formally established as an overseas territory of the United Kingdom on 8 November 1965. On 23 June 1976, Aldabra, Farquhar and Desroches were returned to Seychelles as a result of its attaining independence. The BIOT now comprises the Chagos Archipelago only. The UK leased the main island of the archipelago, Diego Garcia, to the United States under a 50-year lease to establish a military base. In 2016, Britain extended the lease to the US till 2036. Mauritius has repeatedly asserted that the separation of its territories is a violation of United Nations resolutions banning the dismemberment of colonial territories before independence and claims that the Chagos Archipelago, including Diego Garcia, forms an integral part of the territory of Mauritius under both Mauritian law and international law. Between 1968 and 1973, British officials forcibly expelled over 1,000 Chagossians to Mauritius and the Seychelles. As part of the deportation, British officials have been accused of ordering the island's dog population of 1,000 to be gassed. At the United Nations and in statements to its Parliament, the UK stated that there was no "permanent population" in the Chagos Archipelago and described the population as "contract labourers" who were relocated. Since 1971, only the atoll of Diego Garcia is inhabited, home to some 3,000 UK and US military and civilian contracted personnel. Chagossians have since engaged in activism to return to the archipelago, claiming that their forced expulsion and dispossession were illegal.
Mauritius considers the territorial sea of the Chagos Archipelago and Tromelin island as part of its exclusive economic zone.
On 20 December 2010, Mauritius initiated proceedings against the United Kingdom under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to challenge the legality of the Chagos Marine Protected Area (MPA), which the UK purported to declare around the Chagos Archipelago in April 2010. The dispute was arbitrated by the Permanent Court of Arbitration. The Tribunal's decision determined that the UK's undertaking to return the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius gives Mauritius an interest in significant decisions that bear upon possible future uses of the archipelago.
On 25 February 2019, the judges of the International Court of Justice by thirteen votes to one stated that the United Kingdom is under an obligation to bring to an end its administration of the Chagos Archipelago as rapidly as possible. Only the American judge, Joan Donoghue, voted in favor of the UK. The president of the court, Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf, said the detachment of the Chagos Archipelago in 1965 from Mauritius had not been based on a "free and genuine expression of the people concerned". "This continued administration constitutes a wrongful act", he said, adding "The UK has an obligation to bring to an end its administration of the Chagos Archipelago as rapidly as possible and that all member states must co-operate with the United Nations to complete the decolonization of Mauritius."
On 22 May 2019, the United Nations General Assembly debated and adopted a resolution that affirmed that the Chagos Archipelago, which has been occupied by the UK for more than 50 years, "forms an integral part of the territory of Mauritius". The resolution gives effect to an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), demanded that the UK "withdraw its colonial administration... unconditionally within a period of no more than six months". 116 states voted in favour of the resolution, 55 abstained and only Australia, Hungary, Israel and Maldives supported the UK and US. During the debate, the Mauritian Prime Minister described the expulsion of Chagossians as "a crime against humanity ". While the resolution is not legally binding, it carries significant political weight since the ruling came from the UN's highest court and the assembly vote reflects world opinion. The resolution also has immediate practical consequences: the UN, its specialised agencies, and all other international organisations are now bound, as a matter of UN law, to support the decolonisation of Mauritius even if the UK claim that it has no doubt about its sovereignty. |
synth_fc_3487_rep8 | Negative | Time | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigitte_Bardot | 7 | Beginnings: 1952–1955
Bardot appeared on the cover of Elle again in 1952, which landed her an offer for a small part in the comedy film Crazy for Love the same year, directed by Jean Boyer and starring Bourvil. She was paid 200,000 francs (about 575 1952 US dollars) for the small role portraying a cousin of the main character. Bardot had her second film role in Manina, the Girl in the Bikini (1952), directed by Willy Rozier. She also had roles in the 1953 films The Long Teeth and His Father's Portrait.
Bardot had a small role in a Hollywood -financed film being shot in Paris in 1953, Act of Love, starring Kirk Douglas. She received media attention when she attended the Cannes Film Festival in April 1953.
Bardot had a leading role in 1954 in an Italian melodrama, Concert of Intrigue and in a French adventure film, Caroline and the Rebels. She had a good part as a flirtatious student in the 1955 School for Love, opposite Jean Marais, for director Marc Allégret.
Bardot played her first sizeable English-language role in 1955 in Doctor at Sea, as the love interest for Dirk Bogarde. The film was the third-most-popular movie in Britain that year.
Bardot had a small role in The Grand Maneuver (1955) for director René Clair, supporting Gérard Philipe and Michelle Morgan. The part was bigger in The Light Across the Street (1956) for director Georges Lacombe. She had another in the Hollywood film, Helen of Troy, playing Helen's handmaiden.
For the Italian movie Mio figlio Nerone (1956) brunette Bardot was asked by the director to appear as a blonde. She dyed her hair rather than wear a wig; she was so pleased with the results that she decided to retain the color. |
synth_fc_3698_rep10 | Positive | Visual Art | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarization_(waves) | 4 | Polarization and vision
Many animals are capable of perceiving some of the components of the polarization of light, e.g., linear horizontally polarized light. This is generally used for navigational purposes, since the linear polarization of sky light is always perpendicular to the direction of the sun. This ability is very common among the insects, including bees, which use this information to orient their communicative dances. Polarization sensitivity has also been observed in species of octopus, squid, cuttlefish, and mantis shrimp. In the latter case, one species measures all six orthogonal components of polarization, and is believed to have optimal polarization vision. The rapidly changing, vividly colored skin patterns of cuttlefish, used for communication, also incorporate polarization patterns, and mantis shrimp are known to have polarization selective reflective tissue. Sky polarization was thought to be perceived by pigeons, which was assumed to be one of their aids in homing, but research indicates this is a popular myth.
The naked human eye is weakly sensitive to polarization, without the need for intervening filters. Polarized light creates a very faint pattern near the center of the visual field, called Haidinger's brush. This pattern is very difficult to see, but with practice one can learn to detect polarized light with the naked eye. |
synth_fc_3234_rep30 | Negative | Sport | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamical_systems_theory | 2 | In biomechanics
In sports biomechanics, dynamical systems theory has emerged in the movement sciences as a viable framework for modeling athletic performance and efficiency. It comes as no surprise, since dynamical systems theory has its roots in Analytical mechanics. From psychophysiological perspective, the human movement system is a highly intricate network of co-dependent sub-systems (e.g. respiratory, circulatory, nervous, skeletomuscular, perceptual) that are composed of a large number of interacting components (e.g. blood cells, oxygen molecules, muscle tissue, metabolic enzymes, connective tissue and bone). In dynamical systems theory, movement patterns emerge through generic processes of self-organization found in physical and biological systems. There is no research validation of any of the claims associated to the conceptual application of this framework. |
synth_fc_2485_rep16 | Positive | Movie | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7oise_Hardy | 1 | Françoise Madeleine Hardy was a French singer-songwriter who was known for singing melancholic, sentimental ballads. Hardy rose to prominence in the early 1960s as a leading figure in French yé-yé music and became a cultural icon in France and internationally. In addition to her native French, she also sang in English, Italian, and German. Her musical career spanned more than 50 years, with over 30 studio albums released. Born and raised in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, Hardy made her musical debut in 1962 on French label Disques Vogue and found immediate success through the song "Tous les garçons et les filles". Drifting away from her early rock and roll influences, she began to record in London in 1964, which allowed her to broaden her sound with albums such as Mon amie la rose, L'amitié, La maison où j'ai grandi, and Ma jeunesse fout le camp.... In the late 1960s and early 1970s, she released Comment te dire adieu, La question, and Message personnel. During this period, she worked with songwriters such as Serge Gainsbourg, Patrick Modiano, Michel Berger, and Catherine Lara. Between 1977 and 1988, she worked with producer Gabriel Yared on the albums Star, Musique saoûle, Gin Tonic, and À suivre. Her 1988 record Décalages was publicized as her final album, although she returned eight years later with Le danger, which reinvented her sound as harsher alternative rock. Her following albums of the 2000s — Clair-obscur, Tant de belles choses, and (Parenthèses...) — saw a return to her mellow style. In the 2010s, Hardy released her final three albums: La pluie sans parapluie, L'amour fou, and Personne d'autre. In addition to music, Hardy landed film roles as a supporting actress in Château en Suède, Une balle au cœur, and the American production Grand Prix. She became a muse for fashion designers such as André Courrèges, Yves Saint Laurent, and Paco Rabanne, and collaborated with photographer Jean-Marie Périer. Hardy developed a career as an astrologer, having written extensively on the subject from the 1970s onwards. She was also an author of fiction and non-fiction books from the 2000s. Her autobiography, Le désespoir des singes...et autres bagatelles, was a best-seller in France. As a public figure, Hardy was known for her shyness, disenchantment with celebrity life, and self-deprecatory attitude, which were attributed to her lifelong struggles with anxiety and insecurity. She married French singer-songwriter Jacques Dutronc in 1981. Their son, Thomas, also became a musician. Hardy remains one of the best-selling singers in French history and continues to be regarded as an important and influential figure in both French pop music and fashion. In 2006 she was awarded the Grande médaille de la chanson française, an honorary award given by the Académie française, in recognition of her career in music. Hardy died of cancer in Paris in June 2024, aged 80. |
synth_fc_2723_rep16 | Positive | Music | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Eno | 15 | Video work
Eno has spoken of an early and ongoing interest in exploring light in a similar way to his work with sound. He started experimenting with the medium of video in 1978. Eno describes the first video camera he received, which would initially become his main tool for creating ambient video and light installations:
"One afternoon while I was working in the studio with Talking Heads, the roadie from Foreigner, working in an adjacent studio, came in and asked whether anyone wanted to buy some video equipment. I'd never really thought much about video, and found most 'video art' completely unmemorable, but the prospect of actually owning a video camera was, at that time, quite exotic."
The Panasonic industrial camera Eno received had significant design flaws preventing the camera from sitting upright without the assistance of a tripod. This led to his works being filmed in vertical format, requiring the television set to be flipped on its side to view it in the proper orientation. The pieces Eno produced with this method, such as Mistaken Memories of Mediaeval Manhattan (1980) and Thursday Afternoon (1984) (accompanied by the album of the same title), were labelled as 'Video Paintings.' He explained that he refers to them as 'video paintings' because "if you say to people 'I make videos', they think of Sting 's new rock video or some really boring, grimy ' Video Art '. It's just a way of saying, 'I make videos that don't move very fast."
These works presented Eno with the opportunity to expand his ambient aesthetic into a visual form, manipulating the medium of video to produce something not present in the normal television experience. His video works were shown around the world in exhibitions in New York and Tokyo, as well as released on the compilation 14 Video Paintings in 2005.
Eno continued his video experimentation through the 80s, 90s and 2000s, leading to further experimentation with the television as a malleable light source and informing his generative works such as 77 Million Paintings in 2006. |
synth_fc_1464_rep29 | Positive | Geography | Feature search | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbados | 26 | World Trade Organization, European Commission, CARIFORUM
Barbados is an original member (1995) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and participates actively in its work. It grants at least MFN treatment to all its trading partners. European Union relations and cooperation with Barbados are carried out both on a bilateral and a regional basis. Barbados is party to the Cotonou Agreement, through which, As of December 2007, it is linked by an Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Commission. The pact involves the Caribbean Forum (CARIFORUM) subgroup of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP). CARIFORUM is the only part of the wider ACP-bloc that has concluded the full regional trade-pact with the European Union. There are also ongoing EU- Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and EU- CARIFORUM dialogues.
Trade policy has also sought to protect a small number of domestic activities, mostly food production, from foreign competition, while recognising that most domestic needs are best met by imports. |
synth_fc_884_rep18 | Positive | Finance | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia | 26 | Military
The two main institutions involved in the management of Australia's armed forces are the Australian Defence Force (ADF) and the Department of Defence, together known as " Defence ". The Australian Defence Force is the military wing, headed by the chief of the defence force, and contains three branches: the Royal Australian Navy, the Australian Army and the Royal Australian Air Force. In 2021, it had 84,865 currently serving personnel (including 60,286 regulars and 24,581 reservists). The Department of Defence is the civilian wing and is headed by the secretary of defence. These two leaders collective manage Defence as a diarchy, with shared and joint responsibilities. The titular role of commander-in-chief is held by the governor-general, however actual command is vested in the chief of the Defence Force. The executive branch of the Commonwealth government has overall control of the military through the minister of defence, who is subject to the decisions of Cabinet and its National Security Committee. Major Australian intelligence agencies include the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (foreign intelligence), the Australian Signals Directorate (signals intelligence) and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (domestic security).
In 2022, defence spending was 1.9% of GDP, representing the world's 13th largest defence budget. In 2024, the ADF had active operations in the Middle-East and the Indo-Pacific (including security and aid provisions), was contributing to UN forces in relation to South Sudan, Syria-Israel and North Korea, and domestically was assisting to prevent asylum-seekers enter the country and with natural disaster relief. |
synth_fc_2028_rep17 | Positive | History | Ranking | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnipro | 3 | Religion
Ludwig Charlemagne-Bode and Pietro Visconti designed and erected the 19th century Holy Trinity Cathedral in Dnipro, which is an Eastern Orthodox cathedral of the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate. It was known as the Trinity Church for most of the 1800s until changing to the Church of the Descent of the Holy Spirit. It is now a historical landmark within the city.
The UOC's Dnipropetrovsk House Of Organ And Chamber Music is a performance hall and an Eastern Orthodox cathedral from the 20th century. In addition, the structure is a national architectural and historical landmark.
The Saint Nicholas Church in Dnipro is a national monument and the Eastern Orthodox cathedral of the UOC from the 19th century. It is located on what was formerly Novi Kodaky property and is the oldest church in Dnipro.
The German Evangelical-Lutheran Church in the Ukraine (GELCU) owns the 19th-century Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. Catherine. It is also known as the St. Catherine Evangelical Lutheran Church. It is the first church in Ukraine to open after independence. |
synth_fc_2701_rep8 | Negative | Music | Guide | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_von_Karajan | 3 | Last years
In his later years, Karajan suffered from heart and back problems, needing surgery on the latter. He resigned as principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic on 24 April 1989. His last concert was Bruckner's 7th Symphony with the Vienna Philharmonic. He died of a heart attack at his home in Anif on 16 July 1989 at the age of 81.
Karajan believed in reincarnation and said he would like to be reborn as an eagle so he could soar over his beloved Alps. Even so, on 29 June 1985, he conducted Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Coronation Mass during a Mass celebrated by Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Basilica, on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, and with his wife and daughters received Holy Communion from the hand of the Pope. By the end of his life he had reconciled with the Catholic Church, and requested a Catholic burial. |
synth_fc_633_rep17 | Positive | Currency | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel | 5 | Canada
99.9% nickel five-cent coins were struck in Canada (the world's largest nickel producer at the time) during non-war years from 1922 to 1981; the metal content made these coins magnetic. During the war years 1942–1945, most or all nickel was removed from Canadian and US coins to save it for making armor. Canada used 99.9% nickel from 1968 in its higher-value coins until 2000. |
synth_fc_2559_rep17 | Positive | Museum | Recommendation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosario | 10 | Statue of Che Guevara
The 4-metre-tall bronze statue of Che Guevara was unveiled on 14 June 2008 to commemorate the 80th anniversary of his birth. It is made from 75,000 bronze keys donated by Argentines nationwide and weighs 2.7 tons. The statue was made by artist Andrés Zerneri and is the first such monument to Guevara in his native Argentina. |
synth_fc_446_rep7 | Positive | Corporate Management | Database update | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrous_oxide | 25 | Safety
Nitrous oxide is a significant occupational hazard for surgeons, dentists and nurses. Because nitrous oxide is minimally metabolised in humans (with a rate of 0.004%), it retains its potency when exhaled into the room by the patient, and can pose an intoxicating and prolonged exposure hazard to the clinic staff if the room is poorly ventilated. Where nitrous oxide is administered, a continuous-flow fresh-air ventilation system or N O scavenger system is used to prevent a waste-gas buildup.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health recommends that workers' exposure to nitrous oxide should be controlled during the administration of anaesthetic gas in medical, dental and veterinary operators. It set a recommended exposure limit (REL) of 25 ppm (46 mg/m) to escaped anaesthetic. |
synth_fc_2675_rep19 | Positive | Music | Generation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_musical_instrument | 12 | Computer music
An important new development was the advent of computers for the purpose of composing music, as opposed to manipulating or creating sounds. Iannis Xenakis began what is called musique stochastique, or stochastic music, which is a method of composing that employs mathematical probability systems. Different probability algorithms were used to create a piece under a set of parameters. Xenakis used graph paper and a ruler to aid in calculating the velocity trajectories of glissando for his orchestral composition Metastasis (1953 – 54), but later turned to the use of computers to compose pieces like ST/4 for string quartet and ST/48 for orchestra (both 1962).
The impact of computers continued in 1956. Lejaren Hiller and Leonard Issacson composed Illiac Suite for string quartet, the first complete work of computer-assisted composition using algorithmic composition.
In 1957, Max Mathews at Bell Lab wrote MUSIC-N series, a first computer program family for generating digital audio waveforms through direct synthesis. Then Barry Vercoe wrote MUSIC 11 based on MUSIC IV-BF, a next-generation music synthesis program (later evolving into csound, which is still widely used).
In mid 80s, Miller Puckette at IRCAM developed graphic signal-processing software for 4X called Max (after Max Mathews), and later ported it to Macintosh (with Dave Zicarelli extending it for Opcode) for real-time MIDI control, bringing algorithmic composition availability to most composers with modest computer programming background. |
synth_fc_83_rep25 | Positive | Astronomy | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy | 16 | Modified gravity
The evidence for dark energy is heavily dependent on the theory of general relativity. Therefore, it is conceivable that a modification to general relativity also eliminates the need for dark energy. There are many such theories, and research is ongoing. The measurement of the speed of gravity in the first gravitational wave measured by non-gravitational means (GW170817) ruled out many modified gravity theories as explanations to dark energy.
Astrophysicist Ethan Siegel states that, while such alternatives gain mainstream press coverage, almost all professional astrophysicists are confident that dark energy exists and that none of the competing theories successfully explain observations to the same level of precision as standard dark energy. |
synth_fc_3562_rep30 | Positive | Travel itinerary | Calculation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surabaya | 15 | Geography
Surabaya the capital of East Java province, extends over 350.56 km (135.35 sq mi), its metropolitan area covers 6,310.06 km (2,436.33 sq mi), which includes the satellite cities of Mojokerto, Gresik, Sidoarjo, Bangkalan, and Lamongan, and has an estimated population of 9.96 million as of 2023, making it the Second largest urban area in Indonesia and the Top 50 largest in the world. Surabaya ranks 11th among the Indonesian city in the human development index. Surabaya's offer business and employment opportunities, along with its ability to offer a potentially higher standard of living compared to other parts of the country, have attracted migrants from across the Indonesian archipelago, making it a melting pot of numerous cultures.
The city is referred to as Kota Pahlawan (the city of heroes) due to the significance of the Battle of Surabaya during the Indonesian National Revolution. The city is one of the important financial, commercial, industrial, transportation, and entertainment hubs of the archipelago. Arguably the second most significant city after Jakarta, the city is also home to Indonesia's second-busiest seaport, the Port of Tanjung Perak, which is located in northern Surabaya. The city is also known for being one of the cleanest and greenest in Indonesia. |
synth_fc_3511_rep20 | Positive | Travel itinerary | Calculation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_de_Janeiro | 17 | Tourism
Rio de Janeiro is Brazil's primary tourist attraction and resort. It receives the most visitors per year of any city in South America with 2.82 million international tourists a year.
Attractions in the city include approximately 80 kilometers of beaches, Corcovado and Sugarloaf mountains, and the Maracanã Stadium. While the city had in past had a thriving tourism sector, the industry entered a decline in the last quarter of the 20th century. Annual international airport arrivals dropped from 621,000 to 378,000 and average hotel occupancy dropped to 50% between 1985 and 1993. The fact that Brasília replaced Rio de Janeiro as the Brazilian capital in 1960 and that São Paulo replaced Rio as the country's commercial, financial and main cultural center during the mid-20th century, has also been cited as a leading cause of the decline.
Rio de Janeiro's government has since undertaken to modernize the city's economy, reduce its chronic social inequalities, and improve its commercial standing as part of an initiative for the regeneration of the tourism industry.
Rio de Janeiro is an international hub of highly active and diverse nightlife with bars, dance bars and nightclubs staying open well past midnight. The city is an important global LGBT destination, with 1 million LGBT tourists visiting each year.
The Farme de Amoedo Street "Rua Farme de Amoedo" is located in Ipanema, a neighborhood in the South Zone of the city. The street and the nearby beach are popular in the LGBT community. |
synth_fc_753_rep26 | No function call | DNA sequence | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominance_(genetics) | 1 | In genetics, dominance is the phenomenon of one variant (allele) of a gene on a chromosome masking or overriding the effect of a different variant of the same gene on the other copy of the chromosome. The first variant is termed dominant and the second is called recessive. This state of having two different variants of the same gene on each chromosome is originally caused by a mutation in one of the genes, either new or inherited. The terms autosomal dominant or autosomal recessive are used to describe gene variants on non-sex chromosomes (autosomes) and their associated traits, while those on sex chromosomes (allosomes) are termed X-linked dominant, X-linked recessive or Y-linked; these have an inheritance and presentation pattern that depends on the sex of both the parent and the child. Since there is only one copy of the Y chromosome, Y-linked traits cannot be dominant or recessive. Additionally, there are other forms of dominance, such as incomplete dominance, in which a gene variant has a partial effect compared to when it is present on both chromosomes, and co-dominance, in which different variants on each chromosome both show their associated traits. Dominance is a key concept in Mendelian inheritance and classical genetics. Letters and Punnett squares are used to demonstrate the principles of dominance in teaching, and the upper-case letters are used to denote dominant alleles and lower-case letters are used for recessive alleles. An often quoted example of dominance is the inheritance of seed shape in peas. Peas may be round, associated with allele R, or wrinkled, associated with allele r. In this case, three combinations of alleles (genotypes) are possible: RR, Rr, and rr. The RR (homozygous) individuals have round peas, and the rr (homozygous) individuals have wrinkled peas. In Rr (heterozygous) individuals, the R allele masks the presence of the r allele, so these individuals also have round peas. Thus, allele R is dominant over allele r, and allele r is recessive to allele R. Dominance is not inherent to an allele or its traits (phenotype). It is a strictly relative effect between two alleles of a given gene of any function; one allele can be dominant over a second allele of the same gene, recessive to a third, and co-dominant with a fourth. Additionally, one allele may be dominant for one trait but not others. Dominance differs from epistasis, the phenomenon of an allele of one gene masking the effect of alleles of a different gene. |
synth_fc_1865_rep9 | Positive | History | Document search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuan_dynasty | 15 | Impact
A rich cultural diversity developed during the Yuan dynasty. The major cultural achievements were the development of drama and the novel and the increased use of the written vernacular. Arts and culture also greatly developed and flourished during the Yuan dynasty. There was a widespread introduction of blue and white painted porcelain, as well as a major change to Chinese painting. The political unity of China and much of central Asia promoted trade between East and West. The Mongols' extensive West Asian and European contacts produced a fair amount of cultural exchange. The other cultures and peoples in the Mongol Empire also very much influenced China. It had significantly eased trade and commerce across Asia until its decline; the communications between Yuan dynasty and its ally and subordinate in Persia, the Ilkhanate, encouraged this development. Buddhism had a great influence in the Yuan government, and the Tibetan-rite Tantric Buddhism had significantly influenced China during this period. The Muslims of the Yuan dynasty introduced Middle Eastern cartography, astronomy, medicine, clothing, and cuisine in East Asia. Eastern crops such as carrots, turnips, new varieties of lemons, eggplants, and melons, high-quality granulated sugar, and cotton were all either introduced or successfully popularized during the Yuan dynasty.
Western musical instruments were introduced to enrich Chinese performing arts. From this period dates the conversion to Islam, by Muslims of Central Asia, of growing numbers of Chinese in the northwest and southwest. Nestorianism and Roman Catholicism also enjoyed a period of toleration. Buddhism (especially Tibetan Buddhism) flourished, although Taoism endured certain persecutions in favor of Buddhism from the Yuan government. Confucian governmental practices and examinations based on the Classics, which had fallen into disuse in north China during the period of disunity, were reinstated by the Yuan court, probably in the hope of maintaining order over Han society. Advances were realized in the fields of travel literature, cartography, geography, and scientific education.
Certain Chinese innovations and products, such as purified saltpetre, printing techniques, porcelain, playing cards, and medical literature, were exported to Europe and Western Asia, while the production of thin glass and cloisonné became popular in China. The Yuan exercised a profound influence on the Chinese Ming dynasty. The Ming Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang (1368–97) admired the Mongols' unification of China and adopted its garrison system.
Aside from the ancient Roman embassies, the first recorded travels by Europeans to China and back date from this time. The most famous traveler of the period was the Venetian Marco Polo, whose account of his trip to "Cambaluc," the capital of the Great Khan, and of life there astounded the people of Europe. The account of his travels, Il milione (or, The Million, known in English as the Travels of Marco Polo), appeared about the year 1299. Some doubted the accuracy of Marco Polo's accounts due to the lack of mentioning the Great Wall of China, chopsticks, tea houses – which would have been a prominent sight since Europeans had yet to adopt a tea culture – as well the practice of foot binding by the women in capital of the Great Khan. Recent studies however show that Polo's account is largely accurate and unique.
The Yuan undertook extensive public works. Among Kublai Khan's top engineers and scientists was the astronomer Guo Shoujing, who was tasked with many public works projects and helped the Yuan reform the lunisolar calendar to provide an accuracy of 365.2425 days of the year, which was only 26 seconds off the modern Gregorian calendar 's measurement. Road and water communications were reorganized and improved. To provide against possible famines, granaries were ordered built throughout the empire. The city of Beijing was rebuilt with new palace grounds that included artificial lakes, hills and mountains, and parks. During the Yuan period, Beijing became the terminus of the Grand Canal of China, which was completely renovated. These commercially oriented improvements encouraged overland and maritime commerce throughout Asia and facilitated direct Chinese contacts with Europe. Chinese travelers to the West were able to provide assistance in such areas as hydraulic engineering. Contacts with the West also brought the introduction to China of a major food crop, sorghum, along with other foreign food products and methods of preparation.
The Yuan dynasty was the first dynasty founded by non- Han ethnicity that ruled all of China proper. In the historiography of Mongolia, it is generally considered to be the continuation of the Mongol Empire. Mongols are widely known to worship the Eternal Heaven, and according to the traditional Mongolian ideology Yuan is considered to be "the beginning of an infinite number of beings, the foundation of peace and happiness, state power, the dream of many peoples, besides it there is nothing great or precious." In traditional historiography of China, on the other hand, the Yuan dynasty is usually considered to be the legitimate dynasty between the Song dynasty and the Ming dynasty. Note, however, Yuan dynasty is traditionally often extended to cover the Mongol Empire before Kublai Khan 's formal establishment of the Yuan in 1271, partly because Kublai officially honoured prior rulers of the Mongol Empire as Yuan emperors by conferring them posthumous names and temple names. Despite the traditional historiography as well as the official views (including the government of the Ming dynasty which overthrew the Yuan dynasty), there also exist Chinese people who did not consider the Yuan dynasty as a legitimate dynasty of China, but rather as a period of foreign domination. The latter believe that Han Chinese were treated as second-class citizens, and that China stagnated economically and scientifically.
The dynasty chose white as its imperial color, which corresponds to the Metal element according to the theory of the Five Elements (wuxing). The Metal element does not follow from the Song's dynastic element Five in the creation sequence of the five elements. Instead, it follows from the Jin dynasty 's dynastic element Earth. Although the Yuan did not openly announce it, its choice of white as its imperial color suggests that it considered Jin, another conquest dynasty, rather than the Han-Chinese Song dynasty, as its rightful predecessor.
The dragon clothing of Imperial China was used by the Ilkhanids, the Chinese Huangdi (Emperor) title was used by the Ilkhanids due to heavy clout upon the Mongols of the Chinese system of politics. Seals with Chinese characters were created by the Ilkhanids themselves besides the seals they received from the Yuan dynasty which contain references to a Chinese government organization. |
synth_fc_3164_rep18 | Negative | Sport | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_sports | 14 | Germany
Female athletic dominance grew during the Weimar period in Germany with several factors contributing to this new era. Many opportunities made it possible for women to join sports programs and push boundaries within society. These included the enrollment of women in German universities, the rise in female employment, as well as involvement in war industries. All of these are examples of economic changes due to World War I. Women's fashion reflected the changes that women perceived in themselves. Women's magazines showed them in sporting outfits as they were motivated to create an appearance that featured them as healthy and fit. The same women were known at night in more fashionable outfits, displaying femininity. Women were becoming more competitive in sport. The competitive sports that women began participating in, included swimming, ski-jumping, and soccer. Participation in masculine sports including boxing and weightlifting, drew the attention of the press. The growing participation of women in sport also sparked a rise in satirical exaggerations of women that downplayed their role in the athletic world. Pictures of women in sporting attire were produced with the intention of publicizing a negative image of their bodies as a consequence of their participation in sport. As issues surrounding women's sexuality began to grow in the public sphere, women also gained more publicity and attention in relationship to their place in sports. |
synth_fc_3393_rep5 | Negative | Store & Facility | Ranking | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeddah | 12 | Open-air art
During the oil boom in the late 1970s and 1980s, there was a focused civic effort led by Mohamed Said Farsi, who was then the city's mayor, to bring art to Jeddah's public areas. As a result, Jeddah contains a large number of modern open-air sculptures and works of art, typically situated in roundabouts. Sculptures include works by Jean/Hans Arp, César Baldaccini, Alexander Calder, Henry Moore, Joan Miró, Hubert Minnebo and Victor Vasarely. They often depict traditional Saudi items such as coffee pots, incense burners, palm trees, etc. Islamic tradition prohibits the depiction of living creatures, especially the human form, and this has affected the art. Other statues include a giant geometry set, a giant bicycle, a huge block of concrete with several cars protruding from it at odd angles, and a monumental sculpture by Aref Rayess called "Swords of God (Soyuf Allah)". At the interchange between Al-Madinah Road, King Abdulaziz Road, and Prince Abullah Al-Faisal Road, there are large sculptures of camels that are the center of a roundabout. The roundabout is commonly known as 'The Camel Roundabout'. |
synth_fc_1882_rep10 | Negative | History | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_genre | 19 | Reggae
Reggae music, originating from the late 1960s Jamaica, is a genre of music that was originally used by Jamaicans to define themselves with their lifestyle and social aspects. The meaning behind reggae songs tend to be about love, faith or a higher power, and freedom. Reggae music is important to Jamaican culture as it has been used as inspiration for many third world liberation movements. Bob Marley, an artist primarily known for reggae music, was honored by Zimbabwe's 1980 Independence celebration due to his music giving inspirations to freedom fighters. The music genre of reggae is known to incorporate stylistic techniques from rhythm and blues, jazz, African, Caribbean, and other genres as well but what makes reggae unique are the vocals and lyrics. The vocals tend to be sung in Jamaican Patois, Jamaican English, and Iyaric dialects. The lyrics of reggae music usually tend to raise political awareness and on cultural perspectives. |
synth_fc_2952_rep6 | Positive | School | Database creation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giza | 8 | Education
Giza's learning institutions include Cairo University, which was moved to Giza in 1924. The city is a hub of education and educational services not only for Egypt but also for the entire Mediterranean Region. Giza has numerous schools, kindergartens, and institutes of higher learning.
The Cairo Japanese School, a Japanese international school, is in Giza. The Deutsche Evangelische Oberschule, a German international school, is located in Dokki in Giza. Previously the Pakistan International School of Cairo had its campus in Giza. |
synth_fc_1426_rep11 | Positive | Food | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steaming | 3 | History
Some of the world's earliest examples of steam cooking were found in China's Yellow River Valley; early steam cookers made of stoneware have been found dating back as far as 5,000 BCE. And also in Gunma Prefecture, Japan, created during the Stone Age. Some of the earliest examples of steam cooking have been found in Italy and Sardinia, created during the Bronze Age, and in Cochise County, Arizona, where steam pits were used for cooking about 10,000 years ago. From the eighth century CE, thin cypress strips were used to make steamers; today, their slatted bases are constructed from bamboo. The classic steamer has a chimney in the center, which distributes the steam among the tiers.
While steaming has not caught up in the west for assorted dishes, the technique has been heavily popularized worldwide by Chinese and East Asian cuisine. The two main classic steamers feature the ancient bamboo steamer as well as the modern metal (aluminium or stainless steel) steamer, with the difference being that the bamboo lid takes longer to heat up but absorbs excess moisture and allows heat to condense again over the delicate food. Other developments were the creation of microwaveable silicone steamers and plastic-hybrid steamers. |
synth_fc_933_rep10 | Positive | Finance | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Rich | 1 | Marc Rich was an international commodities trader, financier, and businessman. He founded the commodities company Glencore, and was later indicted in the United States on federal charges of tax evasion, wire fraud, racketeering, and making oil deals with Iran during the Iran hostage crisis. He fled to Switzerland at the time of the indictment and never returned to the United States. He received a widely criticized presidential pardon from President Bill Clinton, on his last day in office; Rich's ex-wife Denise had made large donations to the Democratic Party. |
synth_fc_532_rep19 | Positive | Corporate Management | Database removal | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvisational_theatre | 2 | Applying improv principles in life
Many people who have studied improv have noted that the guiding principles of improv are useful, not just on stage, but in everyday life. For example, Stephen Colbert in a commencement address said,
Well, you are about to start the greatest improvisation of all. With no script. No idea what's going to happen, often with people and places you have never seen before. And you are not in control. So say "yes." And if you're lucky, you'll find people who will say "yes" back.
Tina Fey, in her book Bossypants, lists several rules of improv that apply in the workplace. There has been much interest in bringing lessons from improv into the corporate world. In a New York Times article titled "Can Executives Learn to Ignore the Script?", Stanford professor and author, Patricia Ryan Madson notes, "executives and engineers and people in transition are looking for support in saying yes to their own voice. Often, the systems we put in place to keep us secure are keeping us from our more creative selves."
Applying improv principles is also commonly used to enhance ideation in teams and groups. |
synth_fc_645_rep19 | Positive | Currency | API setting | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_the_Great | 10 | Administrative modernisation
In his earliest published work, the Anti-Machiavel, and his later Testament politique (Political Testament), Frederick wrote that the sovereign was the first servant of the state. Frederick helped transform Prussia from a European backwater to an economically strong and politically reformed state. He protected his industries with high tariffs and minimal restrictions on domestic trade. He increased the freedom of speech in press and literature, abolished most uses of judicial torture, and limited which crimes could be punished by death. Working with his Grand Chancellor Samuel von Cocceji, he reformed the judicial system and made it more efficient, and he moved the courts toward greater legal equality of all citizens by removing special courts for special social classes. The reform was completed after Frederick's death, resulting in the Prussian Law Code of 1794, which balanced absolutism with human rights and corporate privilege with equality before the law. Reception to the law code was mixed as it was often viewed as contradictory.
Frederick strove to put Prussia's fiscal system in order. In January 1750, Johann Philipp Graumann was appointed as Frederick's confidential adviser on finance, military affairs, and royal possessions, and the Director-General of all mint facilities. Graumann's currency reform slightly lowered the silver content of Prussian thaler from 1 ⁄ 12 Cologne mark of silver to 1 ⁄ 14, which brought the metal content of the thaler into alignment with its face value, and it standardised the Prussian coinage system. As a result, Prussian coins, which had been leaving the country nearly as fast as they were minted, remained in circulation in Prussia. Frederick estimated that he earned about one million thalers in profits on the seignorage. The coin eventually became universally accepted beyond Prussia and helped increase industry and trade. A gold coin, the Friedrich d'or, was also minted to oust the Dutch ducat from the Baltic trade. However, the fixed ratio between gold and silver led to the gold coins being perceived as more valuable, which caused them to leave circulation in Prussia. Unable to meet Frederick's expectations for profit, Graumann was removed in 1754.
Although Frederick's debasement of the coinage to fund the Seven Years' War left the Prussian monetary system in disarray, the Mint Edict of May 1763 brought it back to stability by fixing rates at which depreciated coins would be accepted and requiring tax payments in currency of prewar value. This resulted in a shortage of ready money, but Frederick controlled prices by releasing the grain stocks he held in reserve for military campaigns. Many other rulers soon followed the steps of Frederick in reforming their own currencies. The functionality and stability of the reform made the Prussian monetary system the standard in Northern Germany.
Around 1751, Frederick founded the Emden Company to promote trade with China. He introduced the lottery, fire insurance, and a giro discount and credit bank to stabilise the economy. One of Frederick's achievements after the Seven Years' War included the control of grain prices, whereby government storehouses would enable the civilian population to survive in needy regions, where the harvest was poor. He commissioned Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky to promote the trade and – to take on the competition with France – put a silk factory where 1,500 people found employment. Frederick followed Gotzkowsky's recommendations in the field of toll levies and import restrictions. When Gotzkowsky asked for a deferral during the Amsterdam banking crisis of 1763, Frederick took over his porcelain factory, now known as KPM.
Frederick modernised the Prussian civil service and promoted religious tolerance throughout his realm to attract more settlers in East Prussia. With the help of French experts, he organised a system of indirect taxation, which provided the state with more revenue than direct taxation; though French officials administering it may have pocketed some of the profit. He established new regulations for tax officials to reduce graft. In 1781, Frederick made coffee a royal monopoly and employed disabled soldiers, the coffee sniffers, to spy on citizens illegally roasting coffee, much to the annoyance of the general population.
Though Frederick started many reforms during his reign, his ability to see them to fulfillment was not as disciplined or thorough as his military successes. |
synth_fc_2020_rep16 | Negative | History | Recommendation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic-warfare_aircraft | 1 | An electronic-warfare aircraft is a military aircraft equipped for electronic warfare (EW), that is, degrading the effectiveness of enemy radar and radio systems by using radar jamming and deception methods. In 1943, British Avro Lancaster aircraft were equipped with chaff in order to blind enemy air defence radars. They were supplemented by specially-equipped aircraft flown by No. 100 Group RAF, which operated modified Halifaxes, Liberators and Fortresses carrying various jammers such as Carpet, Airborne Cigar, Mandrel, Jostle, and Piperack. |
synth_fc_878_rep6 | Positive | Finance | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cent_(currency) | 1 | The cent is a monetary unit of many national currencies that equals 1⁄100 of the basic monetary unit. Etymologically, the word cent derives from the Latin centum meaning 'hundred'. The cent sign is commonly a simple minuscule letter c. In North America, the c is crossed by a diagonal or vertical stroke, yielding the character ¢. The United States one cent coin is generally known by the nickname "penny", alluding to the British coin and unit of that name. Australia ended production of their 1¢ coin in 1992, as did Canada in 2012. Some Eurozone countries ended production of the 1 euro cent coin, most recently Slovakia in 2022. |
synth_fc_774_rep17 | Positive | Evolution modeling | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_signaling | 17 | Ion channel linked receptors
Ion channel linked receptors are a group of transmembrane ion-channel proteins which open to allow ions such as Na, K, Ca, and/or Cl to pass through the membrane in response to the binding of a chemical messenger (i.e. a ligand), such as a neurotransmitter.
When a presynaptic neuron is excited, it releases a neurotransmitter from vesicles into the synaptic cleft. The neurotransmitter then binds to receptors located on the postsynaptic neuron. If these receptors are ligand-gated ion channels, a resulting conformational change opens the ion channels, which leads to a flow of ions across the cell membrane. This, in turn, results in either a depolarization, for an excitatory receptor response, or a hyperpolarization, for an inhibitory response.
These receptor proteins are typically composed of at least two different domains: a transmembrane domain which includes the ion pore, and an extracellular domain which includes the ligand binding location (an allosteric binding site). This modularity has enabled a 'divide and conquer' approach to finding the structure of the proteins (crystallising each domain separately). The function of such receptors located at synapses is to convert the chemical signal of presynaptically released neurotransmitter directly and very quickly into a postsynaptic electrical signal. Many LICs are additionally modulated by allosteric ligands, by channel blockers, ions, or the membrane potential. LICs are classified into three superfamilies which lack evolutionary relationship: cys-loop receptors, ionotropic glutamate receptors and ATP-gated channels. |
synth_fc_2114_rep27 | Positive | Law | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_discrimination | 5 | Legislation
The European Convention on Human Rights, in Article 14, contains protections against social class ("social origin") discrimination. |
synth_fc_1902_rep24 | Positive | History | Feature search | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Bamba_(song) | 1 | "La Bamba" is a Mexican folk song, originally from the state of Veracruz, also known as "La Bomba". The song is best known from a 1958 adaptation by Ritchie Valens, a Top 40 hit on the U.S. charts. Valens's version is ranked number 345 on Rolling Stone magazine′s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. "La Bamba" has been recorded by numerous artists, notably by Los Lobos whose version was the title track of the 1987 film La Bamba, a bio-pic about Valens; their version reached No. 1 on many charts in the same year. |
synth_fc_3325_rep21 | Negative | Store & Facility | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathmandu | 29 | Electricity and water supply
Electricity in Kathmandu is regulated and distributed by the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA). Water supply and sanitation facilities are provided by the Kathmandu Upatyaka Khanepani Limited (KUKL). There is a severe shortage of water for household purposes such as drinking, bathing, cooking and washing and irrigation. People have been using bottled mineral water, water from tank trucks and from the ancient dhunge dharas (Nepali: ढुङ्गे धारा) for all the purposes related to water. The city water shortage should be solved by the completion of the much plagued Melamchi Water Supply Project by the end of 2019. Despite continued efforts by governmental bodies, Kathmandu is one of the most polluted cities in Nepal, largely due to overpopulation. |
synth_fc_164_rep9 | No function call | Biology | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemotherapy | 8 | Infertility
Some types of chemotherapy are gonadotoxic and may cause infertility. Chemotherapies with high risk include procarbazine and other alkylating drugs such as cyclophosphamide, ifosfamide, busulfan, melphalan, chlorambucil, and chlormethine. Drugs with medium risk include doxorubicin and platinum analogs such as cisplatin and carboplatin. On the other hand, therapies with low risk of gonadotoxicity include plant derivatives such as vincristine and vinblastine, antibiotics such as bleomycin and dactinomycin, and antimetabolites such as methotrexate, mercaptopurine, and 5-fluorouracil.
Female infertility by chemotherapy appears to be secondary to premature ovarian failure by loss of primordial follicles. This loss is not necessarily a direct effect of the chemotherapeutic agents, but could be due to an increased rate of growth initiation to replace damaged developing follicles.
People may choose between several methods of fertility preservation prior to chemotherapy, including cryopreservation of semen, ovarian tissue, oocytes, or embryos. As more than half of cancer patients are elderly, this adverse effect is only relevant for a minority of patients. A study in France between 1999 and 2011 came to the result that embryo freezing before administration of gonadotoxic agents to females caused a delay of treatment in 34% of cases, and a live birth in 27% of surviving cases who wanted to become pregnant, with the follow-up time varying between 1 and 13 years.
Potential protective or attenuating agents include GnRH analogs, where several studies have shown a protective effect in vivo in humans, but some studies show no such effect. Sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) has shown similar effect, but its mechanism of inhibiting the sphingomyelin apoptotic pathway may also interfere with the apoptosis action of chemotherapy drugs.
In chemotherapy as a conditioning regimen in hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, a study of people conditioned with cyclophosphamide alone for severe aplastic anemia came to the result that ovarian recovery occurred in all women younger than 26 years at time of transplantation, but only in five of 16 women older than 26 years. |
synth_fc_221_rep10 | Negative | Biomass | Ranking | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandpiper | 3 | Description
The sandpipers exhibit considerable range in size and appearance, the wide range of body forms reflecting a wide range of ecological niches. Sandpipers range in size from the least sandpiper, at as little as 18 grams (0.040 pounds) and 11 cm (4.3 in) in length, to the Far Eastern curlew, at up to 66 cm (26 in) in length, and the Eurasian curlew, at up to 1.3 kg (2.9 lb). Within species there is considerable variation in patterns of sexual dimorphism. Males are larger than females in ruffs and several sandpipers, but are smaller than females in the knots, curlews, phalaropes and godwits. The sexes are similarly sized in the snipes, woodcock and tringine sandpipers. Compared to the other large family of wading birds, the plovers (Charadriidae), they tend to have smaller eyes, more slender heads, and longer thinner bills. Some are quite long-legged, and most species have three forward pointing toes with a smaller hind toe (the exception is the sanderling, which lacks a hind toe).
Sandpipers are more geared towards tactile foraging methods than the plovers, which favour more visual foraging methods, and this is reflected in the high density of tactile receptors in the tips of their bills. These receptors are housed in a slight horny swelling at the tip of the bill (except for the surfbird and the two turnstones). Bill shape is highly variable within the family, reflecting differences in feeding ecology. Bill length relative to head length varies from three times the length of the head in the long-billed curlew to just under half the head length in the Tuamotu sandpiper. Bills may be straight, slightly upcurled or strongly downcurved. Like all birds, the bills of sandpipers are capable of cranial kinesis, literally being able to move the bones of the skull (other than the obvious movement of the lower jaw) and specifically bending the upper jaw without opening the entire jaw, an act known as rhynchokinesis. It has been hypothesized this helps when probing by allowing the bill to be partly opened with less force and improving manipulation of prey items in the substrate. Rhynchokinesis is also used by sandpipers feeding on prey in water to catch and manipulate prey. |
synth_fc_639_rep22 | Positive | Currency | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coin | 11 | Achaemenid coinage (546–330 BC)
When Cyrus the Great (550–530 BC) came to power, coinage was unfamiliar in his realm. Barter and to some extent silver bullion was used instead for trade. The practice of using silver bars for currency also seems to have been current in Central Asia from the 6th century.
Cyrus the Great introduced coins to the Persian Empire after 546 BC, following his conquest of Lydia and the defeat of its king Croesus, who had put in place the first coinage in history. With his conquest of Lydia, Cyrus acquired a region in which coinage was invented, developed through advanced metallurgy, and had already been in circulation for about 50 years, making the Lydian Kingdom one of the leading trade powers of the time. It seems Cyrus initially adopted the Lydian coinage as such, and continued to strike Lydia's lion-and-bull coinage.
Original coins of the Achaemenid Empire were issued from 520 BC – 450 BC to 330 BC. The Persian Daric was the first truly Achaemenid gold coin which, along with a similar silver coin, the Siglos, represented the bimetallic monetary standard of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. |
synth_fc_1117_rep5 | Positive | Finance | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic | 25 | Supply shortages
Pandemic fears led to panic buying, emptying groceries of essentials such as food, toilet paper, and bottled water. Panic buying stemmed from perceived threat, perceived scarcity, fear of the unknown, coping behaviour and social psychological factors (e.g. social influence and trust).
Supply shortages were due to disruption to factory and logistic operations; shortages were worsened by supply chain disruptions from factory and port shutdowns, and labour shortages.
Shortages continued as managers underestimated the speed of economic recovery after the initial economic crash. The technology industry, in particular, warned of delays from underestimates of semiconductor demand for vehicles and other products.
According to WHO Secretary-General Tedros Ghebreyesus, demand for personal protective equipment (PPE) rose one hundredfold, pushing prices up twentyfold. PPE stocks were exhausted everywhere.
In September 2021, the World Bank reported that food prices remained generally stable and the supply outlook remained positive. However, the poorest countries witnessed a sharp increase in food prices, reaching the highest level since the pandemic began. The Agricultural Commodity Price Index stabilized in the third quarter but remained 17% higher than in January 2021.
By contrast, petroleum products were in surplus at the beginning of the pandemic, as demand for gasoline and other products collapsed due to reduced commuting and other trips. The 2021 global energy crisis was driven by a global surge in demand as the world economy recovered. Energy demand was particularly strong in Asia. |
synth_fc_2887_rep8 | Positive | Restaurant | Entity search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_Man | 4 | Food
In the past, the basic national dish of the island was spuds and herrin, boiled potatoes and herring. This plain dish was supported by the subsistence farmers of the island, who for centuries crofted the land and fished the sea. Chips, cheese and gravy, a dish similar to poutine, is found in most of the island's fast-food outlets. It consists of thick-cut chips, covered in shredded Cheddar cheese and topped with a thick gravy. However, as of the Isle of Man Food & Drink Festival 2018, queen scallops (queenies) have been crowned the Manx national dish with many restaurants, hotels and pubs serving local wild queen scallops.
Seafood has traditionally accounted for a large proportion of the local diet. Although commercial fishing has declined in recent years, local delicacies include Manx kippers (smoked herrings) which are produced by the smokeries in Peel on the west coast of the island, albeit mainly from North Sea herring these days. The smokeries also produce other specialities including smoked salmon and bacon.
Crab, lobster and scallops are commercially fished, and the queen scallop is regarded as a particular delicacy, with a light, sweet flavour. Cod, ling and mackerel are often angled for the table, and freshwater trout and salmon can be taken from the local rivers and lakes, supported by the government fish hatchery at Cornaa on the east coast.
Cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry are all commercially farmed; Manx lamb from the hill farms is a popular dish. The Loaghtan, the indigenous breed of Manx sheep, has a rich, dark meat that has found favour with chefs, featuring in dishes on the BBC's MasterChef series.
Manx cheese has also found some success, featuring smoked and herb-flavoured varieties, and is stocked by many of the UK's supermarket chains. Manx cheese took bronze medals in the 2005 British Cheese Awards and sold 578 tonnes over the year. Manx cheddar has been exported to Canada where it is available in some supermarkets.
Beer is brewed on a commercial scale by Okells Brewery, which was established in 1850 and is the island's largest brewer, and by Bushy's Brewery, Hooded Ram, Odin, Radical Brewing, Noa Brewhouse and Kaneens Brewery. The Isle of Man's Pure Beer Act of 1874, which resembles the German Reinheitsgebot, is still in effect: under this Act, brewers may only use water, malt, sugar and hops in their brews. |
synth_fc_3670_rep12 | Positive | Video game | Feature search | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinate_system | 4 | Homogeneous coordinate system
A point in the plane may be represented in homogeneous coordinates by a triple (x, y, z) where x / z and y / z are the Cartesian coordinates of the point. This introduces an "extra" coordinate since only two are needed to specify a point on the plane, but this system is useful in that it represents any point on the projective plane without the use of infinity. In general, a homogeneous coordinate system is one where only the ratios of the coordinates are significant and not the actual values. |
synth_fc_3283_rep12 | Positive | Sport | Feature search | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provence | 20 | Sports
Pétanque, a form of boules, is a popular sport played in towns and villages all over Provence.
A more athletic version of the sport called jeu provençal was popular throughout Provence in the 19th century – this version is featured in the novels and memoires of Marcel Pagnol; players ran three steps before throwing the ball, and it resembled at times a form of ballet. The modern version of the game was created in 1907 at the town of La Ciotat by a former champion of jeu provençal named Jules Hugues, who was unable to play because of his rheumatism. He devised a new set of rules where the field was much smaller, and players did not run before throwing the ball, but remained inside a small circle with their feet together. This gave the game its name, lei peds tancats, in the Provençal dialect of Occitan, 'feet together'. The first tournament was played in La Ciotat in 1910. The first steel boules were introduced in 1927.
The object is to throw a ball (boule) as close as possible to a smaller ball, called the cochonnet, (this kind of throw is called to faire le point or pointer); or to knock away a boules of the opponent that is close to the cochonnet (this is called to tirer). Players compete one-on-one (tête-à-tête), in teams of two (doublettes) or teams of three (triplettes). The object is to accumulate thirteen points. The point belongs to the ball the closest to the cochonnet. A player pitches balls until he can regain the point (reprenne le point) by having his ball closest to the cochonnet. Each ball from a single team, if there are no other balls from the other team closer to the cochonnet, counts as a point. The points are counted when all of the balls have been tossed by both teams. |
synth_fc_1078_rep27 | Positive | Finance | Calculation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cr%C3%BCmqi | 28 | Metro
The Ürümqi Metro opened on 25 October 2018, when the northern section of Line 1 was opened to the public. The southern section of Line 1 opened on 28 June 2019. Line 1 runs between Ürümqi Diwopu International Airport and Santunbei in downtown Ürümqi, with a total length of 27.615 km (17.2 mi) and 21 stations. It is fully underground.
The planned system consists of 7 lines being 211 km (131 mi) in length. The first two lines, Line 1 and Line 2 will be constructed with an estimated cost of 31.24 billion yuan. |
synth_fc_2282_rep30 | Negative | Law | Ranking | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffiti | 18 | Tracker databases
Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti. |
synth_fc_1080_rep3 | No function call | Finance | Calculation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(2009_film) | 1 | Avatar is a 2009 epic science fiction film co-produced, co-edited, written, and directed by James Cameron. The cast includes Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez and Sigourney Weaver. It is the first installment in the Avatar film series. It is set in the mid-22nd century, when humans are colonizing Pandora, a lush habitable moon of a gas giant in the Alpha Centauri star system, in order to mine the valuable mineral unobtanium, the room-temperature superconductor mineral. The expansion of the mining colony threatens the continued existence of a local tribe of Na'vi, a humanoid species indigenous to Pandora. The title of the film refers to a genetically engineered Na'vi body operated from the brain of a remotely located human that is used to interact with the natives of Pandora. Development of Avatar began in 1994, when James Cameron wrote an 80-page treatment for the film. Filming was supposed to take place after the completion of Cameron's 1997 film Titanic, for a planned release in 1999; however, according to Cameron, the necessary technology was not yet available to achieve his vision of the film. Work on the language of the Na'vi began in 2005, and Cameron began developing the screenplay and fictional universe in early 2006. Avatar was officially budgeted at $237 million, due to the groundbreaking array of new visual effects Cameron achieved in cooperation with Weta Digital in Wellington. Other estimates put the cost at between $280 million and $310 million for production and at $150 million for promotion. The film made extensive use of new motion capture filming techniques and was released for traditional viewing, 3D viewing, and 4D experiences. The series also featured Cameron reunite with his Titanic co-producer Jon Landau, who would he later credit for having a prominent role in the film's production. Avatar premiered at the Odeon Leicester Square in London on December 10, 2009, and was released in the United States on December 18. The film received positive reviews from critics, who highly praised its groundbreaking visual effects, though the story received some criticism for being derivative. During its theatrical run, the film broke several box office records, including becoming the highest-grossing film of all time. In July 2019, this position was overtaken by Avengers: Endgame, but with subsequent re-releases, beginning with China in March 2021, it returned to becoming the highest-grossing film since then. Adjusted for inflation, Avatar is the second-highest-grossing movie of all time, only behind Gone with the Wind, with a total of a little more than $3.5 billion. It also became the first film to gross more than $2 billion and the best-selling video title of 2010 in the United States. Avatar was nominated for nine awards at the 82nd Academy Awards, winning three, and received numerous other accolades. The success of the film also led to electronics manufacturers releasing 3D televisions and caused 3D films to increase in popularity. Its success led to the Avatar franchise, which includes the sequels Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025), Avatar 4 (2029), and Avatar 5 (2031). |
synth_fc_2720_rep13 | Positive | Music | Generation | Single | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7oise_Hardy | 1 | Françoise Madeleine Hardy was a French singer-songwriter who was known for singing melancholic, sentimental ballads. Hardy rose to prominence in the early 1960s as a leading figure in French yé-yé music and became a cultural icon in France and internationally. In addition to her native French, she also sang in English, Italian, and German. Her musical career spanned more than 50 years, with over 30 studio albums released. Born and raised in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, Hardy made her musical debut in 1962 on French label Disques Vogue and found immediate success through the song "Tous les garçons et les filles". Drifting away from her early rock and roll influences, she began to record in London in 1964, which allowed her to broaden her sound with albums such as Mon amie la rose, L'amitié, La maison où j'ai grandi, and Ma jeunesse fout le camp.... In the late 1960s and early 1970s, she released Comment te dire adieu, La question, and Message personnel. During this period, she worked with songwriters such as Serge Gainsbourg, Patrick Modiano, Michel Berger, and Catherine Lara. Between 1977 and 1988, she worked with producer Gabriel Yared on the albums Star, Musique saoûle, Gin Tonic, and À suivre. Her 1988 record Décalages was publicized as her final album, although she returned eight years later with Le danger, which reinvented her sound as harsher alternative rock. Her following albums of the 2000s — Clair-obscur, Tant de belles choses, and (Parenthèses...) — saw a return to her mellow style. In the 2010s, Hardy released her final three albums: La pluie sans parapluie, L'amour fou, and Personne d'autre. In addition to music, Hardy landed film roles as a supporting actress in Château en Suède, Une balle au cœur, and the American production Grand Prix. She became a muse for fashion designers such as André Courrèges, Yves Saint Laurent, and Paco Rabanne, and collaborated with photographer Jean-Marie Périer. Hardy developed a career as an astrologer, having written extensively on the subject from the 1970s onwards. She was also an author of fiction and non-fiction books from the 2000s. Her autobiography, Le désespoir des singes...et autres bagatelles, was a best-seller in France. As a public figure, Hardy was known for her shyness, disenchantment with celebrity life, and self-deprecatory attitude, which were attributed to her lifelong struggles with anxiety and insecurity. She married French singer-songwriter Jacques Dutronc in 1981. Their son, Thomas, also became a musician. Hardy remains one of the best-selling singers in French history and continues to be regarded as an important and influential figure in both French pop music and fashion. In 2006 she was awarded the Grande médaille de la chanson française, an honorary award given by the Académie française, in recognition of her career in music. Hardy died of cancer in Paris in June 2024, aged 80. |
synth_fc_849_rep13 | Positive | Finance | Calculation | Multi | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pension | 33 | Zero pillar
This non-contributory pillar was introduced only recently, aiming to alleviate poverty among the elderly, and permitting fiscal conditions. It is usually financed by the state and is in form of basic pension schemes or social assistance. In some typologies, the zero and the first pillar overlap. |
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