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Contents Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", for its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous atmosphere that is primarily carbon dioxide (CO2). At the average surface level the atmospheric pressure is a few thousandths of Earth's, atmospheric temperature ranges from −153 to 20 °C (−243 to 68 °F), and cosmic radiation is high. Mars retains some water, in the ground as well as thinly in the atmosphere, forming cirrus clouds, fog, frost, larger polar regions of permafrost and ice caps (with seasonal CO2 snow), but no bodies of liquid surface water. Its surface gravity is roughly a third of Earth's or double that of the Moon. Its diameter, 6,779 km (4,212 mi), is about half the Earth's, or twice the Moon's, and its surface area is the size of all the dry land of Earth. Fine dust is prevalent across the surface and the atmosphere, being picked up and spread at the low Martian gravity even by the weak wind of the tenuous atmosphere. The terrain of Mars roughly follows a north-south divide, the Martian dichotomy, with the northern hemisphere mainly consisting of relatively flat, low lying plains, and the southern hemisphere of cratered highlands. Geologically, the planet is fairly active with marsquakes trembling underneath the ground, but also hosts many enormous volcanoes that are extinct (the tallest is Olympus Mons, 21.9 km or 13.6 mi tall), as well as one of the largest canyons in the Solar System (Valles Marineris, 4,000 km or 2,500 mi long). Mars has two natural satellites that are small and irregular in shape: Phobos and Deimos. With a significant axial tilt of 25 degrees, Mars experiences seasons, like Earth (which has an axial tilt of 23.5 degrees). A Martian solar year is equal to 1.88 Earth years (687 Earth days), a Martian solar day (sol) is equal to 24.6 hours. Mars formed along with the other planets approximately 4.5 billion years ago. During the martian Noachian period (4.5 to 3.5 billion years ago), its surface was marked by meteor impacts, valley formation, erosion, the possible presence of water oceans and the loss of its magnetosphere. The Hesperian period (beginning 3.5 billion years ago and ending 3.3–2.9 billion years ago) was dominated by widespread volcanic activity and flooding that carved immense outflow channels. The Amazonian period, which continues to the present, is the currently dominating and remaining influence on geological processes. Because of Mars's geological history, the possibility of past or present life on Mars remains an area of active scientific investigation, with some possible traces needing further examination. Being visible with the naked eye in Earth's sky as a red wandering star, Mars has been observed throughout history, acquiring diverse associations in different cultures. In 1963 the first flight to Mars took place with Mars 1, but communication was lost en route. The first successful flyby exploration of Mars was conducted in 1965 with Mariner 4. In 1971 Mariner 9 entered orbit around Mars, being the first spacecraft to orbit any body other than the Moon, Sun or Earth; following in the same year were the first uncontrolled impact (Mars 2) and first successful landing (Mars 3) on Mars. Probes have been active on Mars continuously since 1997. At times, more than ten probes have simultaneously operated in orbit or on the surface, more than at any other planet beyond Earth. Mars is an often proposed target for future crewed exploration missions, though no such mission is currently planned. Natural history Scientists have theorized that during the Solar System's formation, Mars was created as the result of a random process of run-away accretion of material from the protoplanetary disk that orbited the Sun. Mars has many distinctive chemical features caused by its position in the Solar System. Elements with comparatively low boiling points, such as chlorine, phosphorus, and sulfur, are much more common on Mars than on Earth; these elements were probably pushed outward by the young Sun's energetic solar wind. After the formation of the planets, the inner Solar System may have been subjected to the so-called Late Heavy Bombardment. About 60% of the surface of Mars shows a record of impacts from that era, whereas much of the remaining surface is probably underlain by immense impact basins caused by those events. However, more recent modeling has disputed the existence of the Late Heavy Bombardment. There is evidence of an enormous impact basin in the Northern Hemisphere of Mars, spanning 10,600 by 8,500 kilometres (6,600 by 5,300 mi), or roughly four times the size of the Moon's South Pole–Aitken basin, which would be the largest impact basin yet discovered if confirmed. It has been hypothesized that the basin was formed when Mars was struck by a Pluto-sized body about four billion years ago. The event, thought to be the cause of the Martian hemispheric dichotomy, created the smooth Borealis basin that covers 40% of the planet. A 2023 study shows evidence, based on the orbital inclination of Deimos (a small moon of Mars), that Mars may once have had a ring system 3.5 billion years to 4 billion years ago. This ring system may have been formed from a moon, 20 times more massive than Phobos, orbiting Mars billions of years ago; and Phobos would be a remnant of that ring. Epochs: The geological history of Mars can be split into many periods, but the following are the three primary periods: Geological activity is still taking place on Mars. The Athabasca Valles is home to sheet-like lava flows created about 200 million years ago. Water flows in the grabens called the Cerberus Fossae occurred less than 20 million years ago, indicating equally recent volcanic intrusions. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured images of avalanches. Physical characteristics Mars is approximately half the diameter of Earth or twice that of the Moon, with a surface area only slightly less than the total area of Earth's dry land. Mars is less dense than Earth, having about 15% of Earth's volume and 11% of Earth's mass, resulting in about 38% of Earth's surface gravity. Mars is the only presently known example of a desert planet, a rocky planet with a surface akin to that of Earth's deserts. The red-orange appearance of the Martian surface is caused by iron(III) oxide (nanophase Fe2O3) and the iron(III) oxide-hydroxide mineral goethite. It can look like butterscotch; other common surface colors include golden, brown, tan, and greenish, depending on the minerals present. Like Earth, Mars is differentiated into a dense metallic core overlaid by less dense rocky layers. The outermost layer is the crust, which is on average about 42–56 kilometres (26–35 mi) thick, with a minimum thickness of 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) in Isidis Planitia, and a maximum thickness of 117 kilometres (73 mi) in the southern Tharsis plateau. For comparison, Earth's crust averages 27.3 ± 4.8 km in thickness. The most abundant elements in the Martian crust are silicon, oxygen, iron, magnesium, aluminum, calcium, and potassium. Mars is confirmed to be seismically active; in 2019, it was reported that InSight had detected and recorded over 450 marsquakes and related events. Beneath the crust is a silicate mantle responsible for many of the tectonic and volcanic features on the planet's surface. The upper Martian mantle is a low-velocity zone, where the velocity of seismic waves is lower than surrounding depth intervals. The mantle appears to be rigid down to the depth of about 250 km, giving Mars a very thick lithosphere compared to Earth. Below this the mantle gradually becomes more ductile, and the seismic wave velocity starts to grow again. The Martian mantle does not appear to have a thermally insulating layer analogous to Earth's lower mantle; instead, below 1050 km in depth, it becomes mineralogically similar to Earth's transition zone. At the bottom of the mantle lies a basal liquid silicate layer approximately 150–180 km thick. The Martian mantle appears to be highly heterogenous, with dense fragments up to 4 km across, likely injected deep into the planet by colossal impacts ~4.5 billion years ago; high-frequency waves from eight marsquakes slowed as they passed these localized regions, and modeling indicates the heterogeneities are compositionally distinct debris preserved because Mars lacks plate tectonics and has a sluggishly convecting interior that prevents complete homogenization. Mars's iron and nickel core is at least partially molten, and may have a solid inner core. It is around half of Mars's radius, approximately 1650–1675 km, and is enriched in light elements such as sulfur, oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. The temperature of the core is estimated to be 2000–2400 K, compared to 5400–6230 K for Earth's solid inner core. In 2025, based on data from the InSight lander, a group of researchers reported the detection of a solid inner core 613 kilometres (381 mi) ± 67 kilometres (42 mi) in radius. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a surface that consists of minerals containing silicon and oxygen, metals, and other elements that typically make up rock. The Martian surface is primarily composed of tholeiitic basalt, although parts are more silica-rich than typical basalt and may be similar to andesitic rocks on Earth, or silica glass. Regions of low albedo suggest concentrations of plagioclase feldspar, with northern low albedo regions displaying higher than normal concentrations of sheet silicates and high-silicon glass. Parts of the southern highlands include detectable amounts of high-calcium pyroxenes. Localized concentrations of hematite and olivine have been found. Much of the surface is deeply covered by finely grained iron(III) oxide dust. The Phoenix lander returned data showing Martian soil to be slightly alkaline and containing elements such as magnesium, sodium, potassium and chlorine. These nutrients are found in soils on Earth, and are necessary for plant growth. Experiments performed by the lander showed that the Martian soil has a basic pH of 7.7, and contains 0.6% perchlorate by weight, concentrations that are toxic to humans. Streaks are common across Mars and new ones appear frequently on steep slopes of craters, troughs, and valleys. The streaks are dark at first and get lighter with age. The streaks can start in a tiny area, then spread out for hundreds of metres. They have been seen to follow the edges of boulders and other obstacles in their path. The commonly accepted hypotheses include that they are dark underlying layers of soil revealed after avalanches of bright dust or dust devils. Several other explanations have been put forward, including those that involve water or even the growth of organisms. Environmental radiation levels on the surface are on average 0.64 millisieverts of radiation per day, and significantly less than the radiation of 1.84 millisieverts per day or 22 millirads per day during the flight to and from Mars. For comparison the radiation levels in low Earth orbit, where Earth's space stations orbit, are around 0.5 millisieverts of radiation per day. Hellas Planitia has the lowest surface radiation at about 0.342 millisieverts per day, featuring lava tubes southwest of Hadriacus Mons with potentially levels as low as 0.064 millisieverts per day, comparable to radiation levels during flights on Earth. Although Mars has no evidence of a structured global magnetic field, observations show that parts of the planet's crust have been magnetized, suggesting that alternating polarity reversals of its dipole field have occurred in the past. This paleomagnetism of magnetically susceptible minerals is similar to the alternating bands found on Earth's ocean floors. One hypothesis, published in 1999 and re-examined in October 2005 (with the help of the Mars Global Surveyor), is that these bands suggest plate tectonic activity on Mars four billion years ago, before the planetary dynamo ceased to function and the planet's magnetic field faded. Geography and features Although better remembered for mapping the Moon, Johann Heinrich von Mädler and Wilhelm Beer were the first areographers. They began by establishing that most of Mars's surface features were permanent and by more precisely determining the planet's rotation period. In 1840, Mädler combined ten years of observations and drew the first map of Mars. Features on Mars are named from a variety of sources. Albedo features are named for classical mythology. Craters larger than roughly 50 km are named for deceased scientists and writers and others who have contributed to the study of Mars. Smaller craters are named for towns and villages of the world with populations of less than 100,000. Large valleys are named for the word "Mars" or "star" in various languages; smaller valleys are named for rivers. Large albedo features retain many of the older names but are often updated to reflect new knowledge of the nature of the features. For example, Nix Olympica (the snows of Olympus) has become Olympus Mons (Mount Olympus). The surface of Mars as seen from Earth is divided into two kinds of areas, with differing albedo. The paler plains covered with dust and sand rich in reddish iron oxides were once thought of as Martian "continents" and given names like Arabia Terra (land of Arabia) or Amazonis Planitia (Amazonian plain). The dark features were thought to be seas, hence their names Mare Erythraeum, Mare Sirenum and Aurorae Sinus. The largest dark feature seen from Earth is Syrtis Major Planum. The permanent northern polar ice cap is named Planum Boreum. The southern cap is called Planum Australe. Mars's equator is defined by its rotation, but the location of its Prime Meridian was specified, as was Earth's (at Greenwich), by choice of an arbitrary point; Mädler and Beer selected a line for their first maps of Mars in 1830. After the spacecraft Mariner 9 provided extensive imagery of Mars in 1972, a small crater (later called Airy-0), located in the Sinus Meridiani ("Middle Bay" or "Meridian Bay"), was chosen by Merton E. Davies, Harold Masursky, and Gérard de Vaucouleurs for the definition of 0.0° longitude to coincide with the original selection. Because Mars has no oceans, and hence no "sea level", a zero-elevation surface had to be selected as a reference level; this is called the areoid of Mars, analogous to the terrestrial geoid. Zero altitude was defined by the height at which there is 610.5 Pa (6.105 mbar) of atmospheric pressure. This pressure corresponds to the triple point of water, and it is about 0.6% of the sea level surface pressure on Earth (0.006 atm). For mapping purposes, the United States Geological Survey divides the surface of Mars into thirty cartographic quadrangles, each named for a classical albedo feature it contains. In April 2023, The New York Times reported an updated global map of Mars based on images from the Hope spacecraft. A related, but much more detailed, global Mars map was released by NASA on 16 April 2023. The vast upland region Tharsis contains several massive volcanoes, which include the shield volcano Olympus Mons. The edifice is over 600 km (370 mi) wide. Because the mountain is so large, with complex structure at its edges, giving a definite height to it is difficult. Its local relief, from the foot of the cliffs which form its northwest margin to its peak, is over 21 km (13 mi), a little over twice the height of Mauna Kea as measured from its base on the ocean floor. The total elevation change from the plains of Amazonis Planitia, over 1,000 km (620 mi) to the northwest, to the summit approaches 26 km (16 mi), roughly three times the height of Mount Everest, which in comparison stands at just over 8.8 kilometres (5.5 mi). Consequently, Olympus Mons is either the tallest or second-tallest mountain in the Solar System; the only known mountain which might be taller is the Rheasilvia peak on the asteroid Vesta, at 20–25 km (12–16 mi). The dichotomy of Martian topography is striking: northern plains flattened by lava flows contrast with the southern highlands, pitted and cratered by ancient impacts. It is possible that, four billion years ago, the Northern Hemisphere of Mars was struck by an object one-tenth to two-thirds the size of Earth's Moon. If this is the case, the Northern Hemisphere of Mars would be the site of an impact crater 10,600 by 8,500 kilometres (6,600 by 5,300 mi) in size, or roughly the area of Europe, Asia, and Australia combined, surpassing Utopia Planitia and the Moon's South Pole–Aitken basin as the largest impact crater in the Solar System. Mars is scarred by 43,000 impact craters with a diameter of 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) or greater. The largest exposed crater is Hellas, which is 2,300 kilometres (1,400 mi) wide and 7,000 metres (23,000 ft) deep, and is a light albedo feature clearly visible from Earth. There are other notable impact features, such as Argyre, which is around 1,800 kilometres (1,100 mi) in diameter, and Isidis, which is around 1,500 kilometres (930 mi) in diameter. Due to the smaller mass and size of Mars, the probability of an object colliding with the planet is about half that of Earth. Mars is located closer to the asteroid belt, so it has an increased chance of being struck by materials from that source. Mars is more likely to be struck by short-period comets, i.e., those that lie within the orbit of Jupiter. Martian craters can[discuss] have a morphology that suggests the ground became wet after the meteor impact. The large canyon, Valles Marineris (Latin for 'Mariner Valleys, also known as Agathodaemon in the old canal maps), has a length of 4,000 kilometres (2,500 mi) and a depth of up to 7 kilometres (4.3 mi). The length of Valles Marineris is equivalent to the length of Europe and extends across one-fifth the circumference of Mars. By comparison, the Grand Canyon on Earth is only 446 kilometres (277 mi) long and nearly 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) deep. Valles Marineris was formed due to the swelling of the Tharsis area, which caused the crust in the area of Valles Marineris to collapse. In 2012, it was proposed that Valles Marineris is not just a graben, but a plate boundary where 150 kilometres (93 mi) of transverse motion has occurred, making Mars a planet with possibly a two-tectonic plate arrangement. Images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) aboard NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter have revealed seven possible cave entrances on the flanks of the volcano Arsia Mons. The caves, named after loved ones of their discoverers, are collectively known as the "seven sisters". Cave entrances measure from 100 to 252 metres (328 to 827 ft) wide and they are estimated to be at least 73 to 96 metres (240 to 315 ft) deep. Because light does not reach the floor of most of the caves, they may extend much deeper than these lower estimates and widen below the surface. "Dena" is the only exception; its floor is visible and was measured to be 130 metres (430 ft) deep. The interiors of these caverns may be protected from micrometeoroids, UV radiation, solar flares and high energy particles that bombard the planet's surface. Martian geysers (or CO2 jets) are putative sites of small gas and dust eruptions that occur in the south polar region of Mars during the spring thaw. "Dark dune spots" and "spiders" – or araneiforms – are the two most visible types of features ascribed to these eruptions. Similarly sized dust will settle from the thinner Martian atmosphere sooner than it would on Earth. For example, the dust suspended by the 2001 global dust storms on Mars only remained in the Martian atmosphere for 0.6 years, while the dust from Mount Pinatubo took about two years to settle. However, under current Martian conditions, the mass movements involved are generally much smaller than on Earth. Even the 2001 global dust storms on Mars moved only the equivalent of a very thin dust layer – about 3 μm thick if deposited with uniform thickness between 58° north and south of the equator. Dust deposition at the two rover sites has proceeded at a rate of about the thickness of a grain every 100 sols. Atmosphere Mars lost its magnetosphere 4 billion years ago, possibly because of numerous asteroid strikes, so the solar wind interacts directly with the Martian ionosphere, lowering the atmospheric density by stripping away atoms from the outer layer. Both Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Express have detected ionized atmospheric particles trailing off into space behind Mars, and this atmospheric loss is being studied by the MAVEN orbiter. Compared to Earth, the atmosphere of Mars is quite rarefied. Atmospheric pressure on the surface today ranges from a low of 30 Pa (0.0044 psi) on Olympus Mons to over 1,155 Pa (0.1675 psi) in Hellas Planitia, with a mean pressure at the surface level of 600 Pa (0.087 psi). The highest atmospheric density on Mars is equal to that found 35 kilometres (22 mi) above Earth's surface. The resulting mean surface pressure is only 0.6% of Earth's 101.3 kPa (14.69 psi). The scale height of the atmosphere is about 10.8 kilometres (6.7 mi), which is higher than Earth's 6 kilometres (3.7 mi), because the surface gravity of Mars is only about 38% of Earth's. The atmosphere of Mars consists of about 96% carbon dioxide, 1.93% argon and 1.89% nitrogen along with traces of oxygen and water. The atmosphere is quite dusty, containing particulates about 1.5 μm in diameter which give the Martian sky a tawny color when seen from the surface. It may take on a pink hue due to iron oxide particles suspended in it. Despite repeated detections of methane on Mars, there is no scientific consensus as to its origin. One suggestion is that methane exists on Mars and that its concentration fluctuates seasonally. The existence of methane could be produced by non-biological process such as serpentinization involving water, carbon dioxide, and the mineral olivine, which is known to be common on Mars, or by Martian life. Compared to Earth, its higher concentration of atmospheric CO2 and lower surface pressure may be why sound is attenuated more on Mars, where natural sources are rare apart from the wind. Using acoustic recordings collected by the Perseverance rover, researchers concluded that the speed of sound there is approximately 240 m/s for frequencies below 240 Hz, and 250 m/s for those above. Auroras have been detected on Mars. Because Mars lacks a global magnetic field, the types and distribution of auroras there differ from those on Earth; rather than being mostly restricted to polar regions as is the case on Earth, a Martian aurora can encompass the planet. In September 2017, NASA reported radiation levels on the surface of the planet Mars were temporarily doubled, and were associated with an aurora 25 times brighter than any observed earlier, due to a massive, and unexpected, solar storm in the middle of the month. Mars has seasons, alternating between its northern and southern hemispheres, similar to on Earth. Additionally the orbit of Mars has, compared to Earth's, a large eccentricity and approaches perihelion when it is summer in its southern hemisphere and winter in its northern, and aphelion when it is winter in its southern hemisphere and summer in its northern. As a result, the seasons in its southern hemisphere are more extreme and the seasons in its northern are milder than would otherwise be the case. The summer temperatures in the south can be warmer than the equivalent summer temperatures in the north by up to 30 °C (54 °F). Martian surface temperatures vary from lows of about −110 °C (−166 °F) to highs of up to 35 °C (95 °F) in equatorial summer. The wide range in temperatures is due to the thin atmosphere which cannot store much solar heat, the low atmospheric pressure (about 1% that of the atmosphere of Earth), and the low thermal inertia of Martian soil. The planet is 1.52 times as far from the Sun as Earth, resulting in just 43% of the amount of sunlight. Mars has the largest dust storms in the Solar System, reaching speeds of over 160 km/h (100 mph). These can vary from a storm over a small area, to gigantic storms that cover the entire planet. They tend to occur when Mars is closest to the Sun, and have been shown to increase global temperature. Seasons also produce dry ice covering polar ice caps. Hydrology While Mars contains water in larger amounts, most of it is dust covered water ice at the Martian polar ice caps. The volume of water ice in the south polar ice cap, if melted, would be enough to cover most of the surface of the planet with a depth of 11 metres (36 ft). Water in its liquid form cannot persist on the surface due to Mars's low atmospheric pressure, which is less than 1% that of Earth. Only at the lowest of elevations are the pressure and temperature high enough for liquid water to exist for short periods. Although little water is present in the atmosphere, there is enough to produce clouds of water ice and different cases of snow and frost, often mixed with snow of carbon dioxide dry ice. Landforms visible on Mars strongly suggest that liquid water has existed on the planet's surface. Huge linear swathes of scoured ground, known as outflow channels, cut across the surface in about 25 places. These are thought to be a record of erosion caused by the catastrophic release of water from subsurface aquifers, though some of these structures have been hypothesized to result from the action of glaciers or lava. One of the larger examples, Ma'adim Vallis, is 700 kilometres (430 mi) long, much greater than the Grand Canyon, with a width of 20 kilometres (12 mi) and a depth of 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) in places. It is thought to have been carved by flowing water early in Mars's history. The youngest of these channels is thought to have formed only a few million years ago. Elsewhere, particularly on the oldest areas of the Martian surface, finer-scale, dendritic networks of valleys are spread across significant proportions of the landscape. Features of these valleys and their distribution strongly imply that they were carved by runoff resulting from precipitation in early Mars history. Subsurface water flow and groundwater sapping may play important subsidiary roles in some networks, but precipitation was probably the root cause of the incision in almost all cases. Along craters and canyon walls, there are thousands of features that appear similar to terrestrial gullies. The gullies tend to be in the highlands of the Southern Hemisphere and face the Equator; all are poleward of 30° latitude. A number of authors have suggested that their formation process involves liquid water, probably from melting ice, although others have argued for formation mechanisms involving carbon dioxide frost or the movement of dry dust. No partially degraded gullies have formed by weathering and no superimposed impact craters have been observed, indicating that these are young features, possibly still active. Other geological features, such as deltas and alluvial fans preserved in craters, are further evidence for warmer, wetter conditions at an interval or intervals in earlier Mars history. Such conditions necessarily require the widespread presence of crater lakes across a large proportion of the surface, for which there is independent mineralogical, sedimentological and geomorphological evidence. Further evidence that liquid water once existed on the surface of Mars comes from the detection of specific minerals such as hematite and goethite, both of which sometimes form in the presence of water. The chemical signature of water vapor on Mars was first unequivocally demonstrated in 1963 by spectroscopy using an Earth-based telescope. In 2004, Opportunity detected the mineral jarosite. This forms only in the presence of acidic water, showing that water once existed on Mars. The Spirit rover found concentrated deposits of silica in 2007 that indicated wet conditions in the past, and in December 2011, the mineral gypsum, which also forms in the presence of water, was found on the surface by NASA's Mars rover Opportunity. It is estimated that the amount of water in the upper mantle of Mars, represented by hydroxyl ions contained within Martian minerals, is equal to or greater than that of Earth at 50–300 parts per million of water, which is enough to cover the entire planet to a depth of 200–1,000 metres (660–3,280 ft). On 18 March 2013, NASA reported evidence from instruments on the Curiosity rover of mineral hydration, likely hydrated calcium sulfate, in several rock samples including the broken fragments of "Tintina" rock and "Sutton Inlier" rock as well as in veins and nodules in other rocks like "Knorr" rock and "Wernicke" rock. Analysis using the rover's DAN instrument provided evidence of subsurface water, amounting to as much as 4% water content, down to a depth of 60 centimetres (24 in), during the rover's traverse from the Bradbury Landing site to the Yellowknife Bay area in the Glenelg terrain. In September 2015, NASA announced that they had found strong evidence of hydrated brine flows in recurring slope lineae, based on spectrometer readings of the darkened areas of slopes. These streaks flow downhill in Martian summer, when the temperature is above −23 °C, and freeze at lower temperatures. These observations supported earlier hypotheses, based on timing of formation and their rate of growth, that these dark streaks resulted from water flowing just below the surface. However, later work suggested that the lineae may be dry, granular flows instead, with at most a limited role for water in initiating the process. A definitive conclusion about the presence, extent, and role of liquid water on the Martian surface remains elusive. Researchers suspect much of the low northern plains of the planet were covered with an ocean hundreds of meters deep, though this theory remains controversial. In March 2015, scientists stated that such an ocean might have been the size of Earth's Arctic Ocean. This finding was derived from the ratio of protium to deuterium in the modern Martian atmosphere compared to that ratio on Earth. The amount of Martian deuterium (D/H = 9.3 ± 1.7 10−4) is five to seven times the amount on Earth (D/H = 1.56 10−4), suggesting that ancient Mars had significantly higher levels of water. Results from the Curiosity rover had previously found a high ratio of deuterium in Gale Crater, though not significantly high enough to suggest the former presence of an ocean. Other scientists caution that these results have not been confirmed, and point out that Martian climate models have not yet shown that the planet was warm enough in the past to support bodies of liquid water. Near the northern polar cap is the 81.4 kilometres (50.6 mi) wide Korolev Crater, which the Mars Express orbiter found to be filled with approximately 2,200 cubic kilometres (530 cu mi) of water ice. In November 2016, NASA reported finding a large amount of underground ice in the Utopia Planitia region. The volume of water detected has been estimated to be equivalent to the volume of water in Lake Superior (which is 12,100 cubic kilometers). During observations from 2018 through 2021, the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter spotted indications of water, probably subsurface ice, in the Valles Marineris canyon system. Orbital motion Mars's average distance from the Sun is roughly 230 million km (143 million mi), and its orbital period is 687 (Earth) days. The solar day (or sol) on Mars is only slightly longer than an Earth day: 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35.244 seconds. A Martian year is equal to 1.8809 Earth years, or 1 year, 320 days, and 18.2 hours. The gravitational potential difference and thus the delta-v needed to transfer between Mars and Earth is the second lowest for Earth. The axial tilt of Mars is 25.19° relative to its orbital plane, which is similar to the axial tilt of Earth. As a result, Mars has seasons like Earth, though on Mars they are nearly twice as long because its orbital period is that much longer. In the present day, the orientation of the north pole of Mars is close to the star Deneb. Mars has a relatively pronounced orbital eccentricity of about 0.09; of the seven other planets in the Solar System, only Mercury has a larger orbital eccentricity. It is known that in the past, Mars has had a much more circular orbit. At one point, 1.35 million Earth years ago, Mars had an eccentricity of roughly 0.002, much less than that of Earth today. Mars's cycle of eccentricity is 96,000 Earth years compared to Earth's cycle of 100,000 years. Mars has its closest approach to Earth (opposition) in a synodic period of 779.94 days. It should not be confused with Mars conjunction, where the Earth and Mars are at opposite sides of the Solar System and form a straight line crossing the Sun. The average time between the successive oppositions of Mars, its synodic period, is 780 days; but the number of days between successive oppositions can range from 764 to 812. The distance at close approach varies between about 54 and 103 million km (34 and 64 million mi) due to the planets' elliptical orbits, which causes comparable variation in angular size. At their furthest Mars and Earth can be as far as 401 million km (249 million mi) apart. Mars comes into opposition from Earth every 2.1 years. The planets come into opposition near Mars's perihelion in 2003, 2018 and 2035, with the 2020 and 2033 events being particularly close to perihelic opposition. The mean apparent magnitude of Mars is +0.71 with a standard deviation of 1.05. Because the orbit of Mars is eccentric, the magnitude at opposition from the Sun can range from about −3.0 to −1.4. The minimum brightness is magnitude +1.86 when the planet is near aphelion and in conjunction with the Sun. At its brightest, Mars (along with Jupiter) is second only to Venus in apparent brightness. Mars usually appears distinctly yellow, orange, or red. When farthest away from Earth, it is more than seven times farther away than when it is closest. Mars is usually close enough for particularly good viewing once or twice at 15-year or 17-year intervals. Optical ground-based telescopes are typically limited to resolving features about 300 kilometres (190 mi) across when Earth and Mars are closest because of Earth's atmosphere. As Mars approaches opposition, it begins a period of retrograde motion, which means it will appear to move backwards in a looping curve with respect to the background stars. This retrograde motion lasts for about 72 days, and Mars reaches its peak apparent brightness in the middle of this interval. Moons Mars has two relatively small (compared to Earth's) natural moons, Phobos (about 22 km (14 mi) in diameter) and Deimos (about 12 km (7.5 mi) in diameter), which orbit at 9,376 km (5,826 mi) and 23,460 km (14,580 mi) around the planet. The origin of both moons is unclear, although a popular theory states that they were asteroids captured into Martian orbit. Both satellites were discovered in 1877 by Asaph Hall and were named after the characters Phobos (the deity of panic and fear) and Deimos (the deity of terror and dread), twins from Greek mythology who accompanied their father Ares, god of war, into battle. Mars was the Roman equivalent to Ares. In modern Greek, the planet retains its ancient name Ares (Aris: Άρης). From the surface of Mars, the motions of Phobos and Deimos appear different from that of the Earth's satellite, the Moon. Phobos rises in the west, sets in the east, and rises again in just 11 hours. Deimos, being only just outside synchronous orbit – where the orbital period would match the planet's period of rotation – rises as expected in the east, but slowly. Because the orbit of Phobos is below a synchronous altitude, tidal forces from Mars are gradually lowering its orbit. In about 50 million years, it could either crash into Mars's surface or break up into a ring structure around the planet. The origin of the two satellites is not well understood. Their low albedo and carbonaceous chondrite composition have been regarded as similar to asteroids, supporting a capture theory. The unstable orbit of Phobos would seem to point toward a relatively recent capture. But both have circular orbits near the equator, which is unusual for captured objects, and the required capture dynamics are complex. Accretion early in the history of Mars is plausible, but would not account for a composition resembling asteroids rather than Mars itself, if that is confirmed. Mars may have yet-undiscovered moons, smaller than 50 to 100 metres (160 to 330 ft) in diameter, and a dust ring is predicted to exist between Phobos and Deimos. A third possibility for their origin as satellites of Mars is the involvement of a third body or a type of impact disruption. More-recent lines of evidence for Phobos having a highly porous interior, and suggesting a composition containing mainly phyllosilicates and other minerals known from Mars, point toward an origin of Phobos from material ejected by an impact on Mars that reaccreted in Martian orbit, similar to the prevailing theory for the origin of Earth's satellite. Although the visible and near-infrared (VNIR) spectra of the moons of Mars resemble those of outer-belt asteroids, the thermal infrared spectra of Phobos are reported to be inconsistent with chondrites of any class. It is also possible that Phobos and Deimos were fragments of an older moon, formed by debris from a large impact on Mars, and then destroyed by a more recent impact upon the satellite. More recently, a study conducted by a team of researchers from multiple countries suggests that a lost moon, at least fifteen times the size of Phobos, may have existed in the past. By analyzing rocks which point to tidal processes on the planet, it is possible that these tides may have been regulated by a past moon. Human observations and exploration The history of observations of Mars is marked by oppositions of Mars when the planet is closest to Earth and hence is most easily visible, which occur every couple of years. Even more notable are the perihelic oppositions of Mars, which are distinguished because Mars is close to perihelion, making it even closer to Earth. The ancient Sumerians named Mars Nergal, the god of war and plague. During Sumerian times, Nergal was a minor deity of little significance, but, during later times, his main cult center was the city of Nineveh. In Mesopotamian texts, Mars is referred to as the "star of judgement of the fate of the dead". The existence of Mars as a wandering object in the night sky was also recorded by the ancient Egyptian astronomers and, by 1534 BCE, they were familiar with the retrograde motion of the planet. By the period of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the Babylonian astronomers were making regular records of the positions of the planets and systematic observations of their behavior. For Mars, they knew that the planet made 37 synodic periods, or 42 circuits of the zodiac, every 79 years. They invented arithmetic methods for making minor corrections to the predicted positions of the planets. In Ancient Greece, the planet was known as Πυρόεις. Commonly, the Greek name for the planet now referred to as Mars, was Ares. It was the Romans who named the planet Mars, for their god of war, often represented by the sword and shield of the planet's namesake. In the fourth century BCE, Aristotle noted that Mars disappeared behind the Moon during an occultation, indicating that the planet was farther away. Ptolemy, a Greek living in Alexandria, attempted to address the problem of the orbital motion of Mars. Ptolemy's model and his collective work on astronomy was presented in the multi-volume collection later called the Almagest (from the Arabic for "greatest"), which became the authoritative treatise on Western astronomy for the next fourteen centuries. Literature from ancient China confirms that Mars was known by Chinese astronomers by no later than the fourth century BCE. In the East Asian cultures, Mars is traditionally referred to as the "fire star" (火星) based on the Wuxing system. In 1609 Johannes Kepler published a 10 year study of Martian orbit, using the diurnal parallax of Mars, measured by Tycho Brahe, to make a preliminary calculation of the relative distance to the planet. From Brahe's observations of Mars, Kepler deduced that the planet orbited the Sun not in a circle, but in an ellipse. Moreover, Kepler showed that Mars sped up as it approached the Sun and slowed down as it moved farther away, in a manner that later physicists would explain as a consequence of the conservation of angular momentum.: 433–437 In 1610 the first use of a telescope for astronomical observation, including Mars, was performed by Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei. With the telescope the diurnal parallax of Mars was again measured in an effort to determine the Sun-Earth distance. This was first performed by Giovanni Domenico Cassini in 1672. The early parallax measurements were hampered by the quality of the instruments. The only occultation of Mars by Venus observed was that of 13 October 1590, seen by Michael Maestlin at Heidelberg. By the 19th century, the resolution of telescopes reached a level sufficient for surface features to be identified. On 5 September 1877, a perihelic opposition to Mars occurred. The Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli used a 22-centimetre (8.7 in) telescope in Milan to help produce the first detailed map of Mars. These maps notably contained features he called canali, which, with the possible exception of the natural canyon Valles Marineris, were later shown to be an optical illusion. These canali were supposedly long, straight lines on the surface of Mars, to which he gave names of famous rivers on Earth. His term, which means "channels" or "grooves", was popularly mistranslated in English as "canals". Influenced by the observations, the orientalist Percival Lowell founded an observatory which had 30- and 45-centimetre (12- and 18-in) telescopes. The observatory was used for the exploration of Mars during the last good opportunity in 1894, and the following less favorable oppositions. He published several books on Mars and life on the planet, which had a great influence on the public. The canali were independently observed by other astronomers, like Henri Joseph Perrotin and Louis Thollon in Nice, using one of the largest telescopes of that time. The seasonal changes (consisting of the diminishing of the polar caps and the dark areas formed during Martian summers) in combination with the canals led to speculation about life on Mars, and it was a long-held belief that Mars contained vast seas and vegetation. As bigger telescopes were used, fewer long, straight canali were observed. During observations in 1909 by Antoniadi with an 84-centimetre (33 in) telescope, irregular patterns were observed, but no canali were seen. The first spacecraft from Earth to visit Mars was Mars 1 of the Soviet Union, which flew by in 1963, but contact was lost en route. NASA's Mariner 4 followed and became the first spacecraft to successfully transmit from Mars; launched on 28 November 1964, it made its closest approach to the planet on 15 July 1965. Mariner 4 detected the weak Martian radiation belt, measured at about 0.1% that of Earth, and captured the first images of another planet from deep space. Once spacecraft visited the planet during the 1960s and 1970s, many previous concepts of Mars were radically broken. After the results of the Viking life-detection experiments, the hypothesis of a dead planet was generally accepted. The data from Mariner 9 and Viking allowed better maps of Mars to be made. Until 1997 and after Viking 1 shut down in 1982, Mars was only visited by three unsuccessful probes, two flying past without contact (Phobos 1, 1988; Mars Observer, 1993), and one (Phobos 2 1989) malfunctioning in orbit before reaching its destination Phobos. In 1997 Mars Pathfinder became the first successful rover mission beyond the Moon and started together with Mars Global Surveyor (operated until late 2006) an uninterrupted active robotic presence at Mars that has lasted until today. It produced complete, extremely detailed maps of the Martian topography, magnetic field and surface minerals. Starting with these missions a range of new improved crewless spacecraft, including orbiters, landers, and rovers, have been sent to Mars, with successful missions by the NASA (United States), Jaxa (Japan), ESA, United Kingdom, ISRO (India), Roscosmos (Russia), the United Arab Emirates, and CNSA (China) to study the planet's surface, climate, and geology, uncovering the different elements of the history and dynamic of the hydrosphere of Mars and possible traces of ancient life. As of 2023[update], Mars is host to ten functioning spacecraft. Eight are in orbit: 2001 Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, MAVEN, ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, the Hope orbiter, and the Tianwen-1 orbiter. Another two are on the surface: the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover and the Perseverance rover. Collected maps are available online at websites including Google Mars. NASA provides two online tools: Mars Trek, which provides visualizations of the planet using data from 50 years of exploration, and Experience Curiosity, which simulates traveling on Mars in 3-D with Curiosity. Planned missions to Mars include: As of February 2024[update], debris from these types of missions has reached over seven tons. Most of it consists of crashed and inactive spacecraft as well as discarded components. In April 2024, NASA selected several companies to begin studies on providing commercial services to further enable robotic science on Mars. Key areas include establishing telecommunications, payload delivery and surface imaging. Habitability and habitation During the late 19th century, it was widely accepted in the astronomical community that Mars had life-supporting qualities, including the presence of oxygen and water. However, in 1894 W. W. Campbell at Lick Observatory observed the planet and found that "if water vapor or oxygen occur in the atmosphere of Mars it is in quantities too small to be detected by spectroscopes then available". That observation contradicted many of the measurements of the time and was not widely accepted. Campbell and V. M. Slipher repeated the study in 1909 using better instruments, but with the same results. It was not until the findings were confirmed by W. S. Adams in 1925 that the myth of the Earth-like habitability of Mars was finally broken. However, even in the 1960s, articles were published on Martian biology, putting aside explanations other than life for the seasonal changes on Mars. The current understanding of planetary habitability – the ability of a world to develop environmental conditions favorable to the emergence of life – favors planets that have liquid water on their surface. Most often this requires the orbit of a planet to lie within the habitable zone, which for the Sun is estimated to extend from within the orbit of Earth to about that of Mars. During perihelion, Mars dips inside this region, but Mars's thin (low-pressure) atmosphere prevents liquid water from existing over large regions for extended periods. The past flow of liquid water demonstrates the planet's potential for habitability. Recent evidence has suggested that any water on the Martian surface may have been too salty and acidic to support regular terrestrial life. The environmental conditions on Mars are a challenge to sustaining organic life: the planet has little heat transfer across its surface, it has poor insulation against bombardment by the solar wind due to the absence of a magnetosphere and has insufficient atmospheric pressure to retain water in a liquid form (water instead sublimes to a gaseous state). Mars is nearly, or perhaps totally, geologically dead; the end of volcanic activity has apparently stopped the recycling of chemicals and minerals between the surface and interior of the planet. Evidence suggests that the planet was once significantly more habitable than it is today, but whether living organisms ever existed there remains unknown. The Viking probes of the mid-1970s carried experiments designed to detect microorganisms in Martian soil at their respective landing sites and had positive results, including a temporary increase in CO2 production on exposure to water and nutrients. This sign of life was later disputed by scientists, resulting in a continuing debate, with NASA scientist Gilbert Levin asserting that Viking may have found life. A 2014 analysis of Martian meteorite EETA79001 found chlorate, perchlorate, and nitrate ions in sufficiently high concentrations to suggest that they are widespread on Mars. UV and X-ray radiation would turn chlorate and perchlorate ions into other, highly reactive oxychlorines, indicating that any organic molecules would have to be buried under the surface to survive. Small quantities of methane and formaldehyde detected by Mars orbiters are both claimed to be possible evidence for life, as these chemical compounds would quickly break down in the Martian atmosphere. Alternatively, these compounds may instead be replenished by volcanic or other geological means, such as serpentinite. Impact glass, formed by the impact of meteors, which on Earth can preserve signs of life, has also been found on the surface of the impact craters on Mars. Likewise, the glass in impact craters on Mars could have preserved signs of life, if life existed at the site. The Cheyava Falls rock discovered on Mars in June 2024 has been designated by NASA as a "potential biosignature" and was core sampled by the Perseverance rover for possible return to Earth and further examination. Although highly intriguing, no definitive final determination on a biological or abiotic origin of this rock can be made with the data currently available. Several plans for a human mission to Mars have been proposed, but none have come to fruition. The NASA Authorization Act of 2017 directed NASA to study the feasibility of a crewed Mars mission in the early 2030s; the resulting report concluded that this would be unfeasible. In addition, in 2021, China was planning to send a crewed Mars mission in 2033. Privately held companies such as SpaceX have also proposed plans to send humans to Mars, with the eventual goal to settle on the planet. As of 2024, SpaceX has proceeded with the development of the Starship launch vehicle with the goal of Mars colonization. In plans shared with the company in April 2024, Elon Musk envisions the beginning of a Mars colony within the next twenty years. This would be enabled by the planned mass manufacturing of Starship and initially sustained by resupply from Earth, and in situ resource utilization on Mars, until the Mars colony reaches full self sustainability. Any future human mission to Mars will likely take place within the optimal Mars launch window, which occurs every 26 months. The moon Phobos has been proposed as an anchor point for a space elevator. Besides national space agencies and space companies, groups such as the Mars Society and The Planetary Society advocate for human missions to Mars. In culture Mars is named after the Roman god of war (Greek Ares), but was also associated with the demi-god Heracles (Roman Hercules) by ancient Greek astronomers, as detailed by Aristotle. This association between Mars and war dates back at least to Babylonian astronomy, in which the planet was named for the god Nergal, deity of war and destruction. It persisted into modern times, as exemplified by Gustav Holst's orchestral suite The Planets, whose famous first movement labels Mars "The Bringer of War". The planet's symbol, a circle with a spear pointing out to the upper right, is also used as a symbol for the male gender. The symbol dates from at least the 11th century, though a possible predecessor has been found in the Greek Oxyrhynchus Papyri. The idea that Mars was populated by intelligent Martians became widespread in the late 19th century. Schiaparelli's "canali" observations combined with Percival Lowell's books on the subject put forward the standard notion of a planet that was a drying, cooling, dying world with ancient civilizations constructing irrigation works. Many other observations and proclamations by notable personalities added to what has been termed "Mars Fever". In the present day, high-resolution mapping of the surface of Mars has revealed no artifacts of habitation, but pseudoscientific speculation about intelligent life on Mars still continues. Reminiscent of the canali observations, these speculations are based on small scale features perceived in the spacecraft images, such as "pyramids" and the "Face on Mars". In his book Cosmos, planetary astronomer Carl Sagan wrote: "Mars has become a kind of mythic arena onto which we have projected our Earthly hopes and fears." The depiction of Mars in fiction has been stimulated by its dramatic red color and by nineteenth-century scientific speculations that its surface conditions might support not just life but intelligent life. This gave way to many science fiction stories involving these concepts, such as H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, in which Martians seek to escape their dying planet by invading Earth; Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, in which human explorers accidentally destroy a Martian civilization; as well as Edgar Rice Burroughs's series Barsoom, C. S. Lewis's novel Out of the Silent Planet (1938), and a number of Robert A. Heinlein stories before the mid-sixties. Since then, depictions of Martians have also extended to animation. A comic figure of an intelligent Martian, Marvin the Martian, appeared in Haredevil Hare (1948) as a character in the Looney Tunes animated cartoons of Warner Brothers, and has continued as part of popular culture to the present. After the Mariner and Viking spacecraft had returned pictures of Mars as a lifeless and canal-less world, these ideas about Mars were abandoned; for many science-fiction authors, the new discoveries initially seemed like a constraint, but eventually the post-Viking knowledge of Mars became itself a source of inspiration for works like Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. See also Notes References Further reading External links Solar System → Local Interstellar Cloud → Local Bubble → Gould Belt → Orion Arm → Milky Way → Milky Way subgroup → Local Group → Local Sheet → Local Volume → Virgo Supercluster → Laniakea Supercluster → Pisces–Cetus Supercluster Complex → Local Hole → Observable universe → UniverseEach arrow (→) may be read as "within" or "part of". |
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Contents OpenAI OpenAI is an American artificial intelligence research organization comprising both a non-profit foundation and a controlled for-profit public benefit corporation (PBC), headquartered in San Francisco. It aims to develop "safe and beneficial" artificial general intelligence (AGI), which it defines as "highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work". OpenAI is widely recognized for its development of the GPT family of large language models, the DALL-E series of text-to-image models, and the Sora series of text-to-video models, which have influenced industry research and commercial applications. Its release of ChatGPT in November 2022 has been credited with catalyzing widespread interest in generative AI. The organization was founded in 2015 in Delaware but evolved a complex corporate structure. As of October 2025, following restructuring approved by California and Delaware regulators, the non-profit OpenAI Foundation holds 26% of the for-profit OpenAI Group PBC, with Microsoft holding 27% and employees/other investors holding 47%. Under its governance arrangements, the OpenAI Foundation holds the authority to appoint the board of the for-profit OpenAI Group PBC, a mechanism designed to align the entity’s strategic direction with the Foundation’s charter. Microsoft previously invested over $13 billion into OpenAI, and provides Azure cloud computing resources. In October 2025, OpenAI conducted a $6.6 billion share sale that valued the company at $500 billion. In 2023 and 2024, OpenAI faced multiple lawsuits for alleged copyright infringement against authors and media companies whose work was used to train some of OpenAI's products. In November 2023, OpenAI's board removed Sam Altman as CEO, citing a lack of confidence in him, but reinstated him five days later following a reconstruction of the board. Throughout 2024, roughly half of then-employed AI safety researchers left OpenAI, citing the company's prominent role in an industry-wide problem. Founding In December 2015, OpenAI was founded as a not for profit organization by Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, Trevor Blackwell, Vicki Cheung, Andrej Karpathy, Durk Kingma, John Schulman, Pamela Vagata, and Wojciech Zaremba, with Sam Altman and Elon Musk as the co-chairs. A total of $1 billion in capital was pledged by Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, Jessica Livingston, Peter Thiel, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Infosys. However, the actual capital collected significantly lagged pledges. According to company disclosures, only $130 million had been received by 2019. In its founding charter, OpenAI stated an intention to collaborate openly with other institutions by making certain patents and research publicly available, but later restricted access to its most capable models, citing competitive and safety concerns. OpenAI was initially run from Brockman's living room. It was later headquartered at the Pioneer Building in the Mission District, San Francisco. According to OpenAI's charter, its founding mission is "to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI)—by which we mean highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work—benefits all of humanity." Musk and Altman stated in 2015 that they were partly motivated by concerns about AI safety and existential risk from artificial general intelligence. OpenAI stated that "it's hard to fathom how much human-level AI could benefit society", and that it is equally difficult to comprehend "how much it could damage society if built or used incorrectly". The startup also wrote that AI "should be an extension of individual human wills and, in the spirit of liberty, as broadly and evenly distributed as possible", and that "because of AI's surprising history, it's hard to predict when human-level AI might come within reach. When it does, it'll be important to have a leading research institution which can prioritize a good outcome for all over its own self-interest." Co-chair Sam Altman expected a decades-long project that eventually surpasses human intelligence. Brockman met with Yoshua Bengio, one of the "founding fathers" of deep learning, and drew up a list of great AI researchers. Brockman was able to hire nine of them as the first employees in December 2015. OpenAI did not pay AI researchers salaries comparable to those of Facebook or Google. It also did not pay stock options which AI researchers typically get. Nevertheless, OpenAI spent $7 million on its first 52 employees in 2016. OpenAI's potential and mission drew these researchers to the firm; a Google employee said he was willing to leave Google for OpenAI "partly because of the very strong group of people and, to a very large extent, because of its mission." OpenAI co-founder Wojciech Zaremba stated that he turned down "borderline crazy" offers of two to three times his market value to join OpenAI instead. In April 2016, OpenAI released a public beta of "OpenAI Gym", its platform for reinforcement learning research. Nvidia gifted its first DGX-1 supercomputer to OpenAI in August 2016 to help it train larger and more complex AI models with the capability of reducing processing time from six days to two hours. In December 2016, OpenAI released "Universe", a software platform for measuring and training an AI's general intelligence across the world's supply of games, websites, and other applications. Corporate structure In 2019, OpenAI transitioned from non-profit to "capped" for-profit, with the profit being capped at 100 times any investment. According to OpenAI, the capped-profit model allows OpenAI Global, LLC to legally attract investment from venture funds and, in addition, to grant employees stakes in the company. Many top researchers work for Google Brain, DeepMind, or Facebook, which offer equity that a nonprofit would be unable to match. Before the transition, OpenAI was legally required to publicly disclose the compensation of its top employees. The company then distributed equity to its employees and partnered with Microsoft, announcing an investment package of $1 billion into the company. Since then, OpenAI systems have run on an Azure-based supercomputing platform from Microsoft. OpenAI Global, LLC then announced its intention to commercially license its technologies. It planned to spend $1 billion "within five years, and possibly much faster". Altman stated that even a billion dollars may turn out to be insufficient, and that the lab may ultimately need "more capital than any non-profit has ever raised" to achieve artificial general intelligence. The nonprofit, OpenAI, Inc., is the sole controlling shareholder of OpenAI Global, LLC, which, despite being a for-profit company, retains a formal fiduciary responsibility to OpenAI, Inc.'s nonprofit charter. A majority of OpenAI, Inc.'s board is barred from having financial stakes in OpenAI Global, LLC. In addition, minority members with a stake in OpenAI Global, LLC are barred from certain votes due to conflict of interest. Some researchers have argued that OpenAI Global, LLC's switch to for-profit status is inconsistent with OpenAI's claims to be "democratizing" AI. On February 29, 2024, Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, accusing them of shifting focus from public benefit to profit maximization—a case OpenAI dismissed as "incoherent" and "frivolous," though Musk later revived legal action against Altman and others in August. On April 9, 2024, OpenAI countersued Musk in federal court, alleging that he had engaged in "bad-faith tactics" to slow the company's progress and seize its innovations for his personal benefit. OpenAI also argued that Musk had previously supported the creation of a for-profit structure and had expressed interest in controlling OpenAI himself. The countersuit seeks damages and legal measures to prevent further alleged interference. On February 10, 2025, a consortium of investors led by Elon Musk submitted a $97.4 billion unsolicited bid to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI, declaring willingness to match or exceed any better offer. The offer was rejected on 14 February 2025, with OpenAI stating that it was not for sale, but the offer complicated Altman's restructuring plan by suggesting a lower bar for how much the nonprofit should be valued. OpenAI, Inc. was originally designed as a nonprofit in order to ensure that AGI "benefits all of humanity" rather than "the private gain of any person". In 2019, it created OpenAI Global, LLC, a capped-profit subsidiary controlled by the nonprofit. In December 2024, OpenAI proposed a restructuring plan to convert the capped-profit into a Delaware-based public benefit corporation (PBC), and to release it from the control of the nonprofit. The nonprofit would sell its control and other assets, getting equity in return, and would use it to fund and pursue separate charitable projects, including in science and education. OpenAI's leadership described the change as necessary to secure additional investments, and claimed that the nonprofit's founding mission to ensure AGI "benefits all of humanity" would be better fulfilled. The plan has been criticized by former employees. A legal letter named "Not For Private Gain" asked the attorneys general of California and Delaware to intervene, stating that the restructuring is illegal and would remove governance safeguards from the nonprofit and the attorneys general. The letter argues that OpenAI's complex structure was deliberately designed to remain accountable to its mission, without the conflicting pressure of maximizing profits. It contends that the nonprofit is best positioned to advance its mission of ensuring AGI benefits all of humanity by continuing to control OpenAI Global, LLC, whatever the amount of equity that it could get in exchange. PBCs can choose how they balance their mission with profit-making. Controlling shareholders have a large influence on how closely a PBC sticks to its mission. On October 28, 2025, OpenAI announced that it had adopted the new PBC corporate structure after receiving approval from the attorneys general of California and Delaware. Under the new structure, OpenAI's for-profit branch became a public benefit corporation known as OpenAI Group PBC, while the non-profit was renamed to the OpenAI Foundation. The OpenAI Foundation holds a 26% stake in the PBC, while Microsoft holds a 27% stake and the remaining 47% is owned by employees and other investors. All members of the OpenAI Group PBC board of directors will be appointed by the OpenAI Foundation, which can remove them at any time. Members of the Foundation's board will also serve on the for-profit board. The new structure allows the for-profit PBC to raise investor funds like most traditional tech companies, including through an initial public offering, which Altman claimed was the most likely path forward. In January 2023, OpenAI Global, LLC was in talks for funding that would value the company at $29 billion, double its 2021 value. On January 23, 2023, Microsoft announced a new US$10 billion investment in OpenAI Global, LLC over multiple years, partially needed to use Microsoft's cloud-computing service Azure. From September to December, 2023, Microsoft rebranded all variants of its Copilot to Microsoft Copilot, and they added MS-Copilot to many installations of Windows and released Microsoft Copilot mobile apps. Following OpenAI's 2025 restructuring, Microsoft owns a 27% stake in the for-profit OpenAI Group PBC, valued at $135 billion. In a deal announced the same day, OpenAI agreed to purchase $250 billion of Azure services, with Microsoft ceding their right of first refusal over OpenAI's future cloud computing purchases. As part of the deal, OpenAI will continue to share 20% of its revenue with Microsoft until it achieves AGI, which must now be verified by an independent panel of experts. The deal also loosened restrictions on both companies working with third parties, allowing Microsoft to pursue AGI independently and allowing OpenAI to develop products with other companies. In 2017, OpenAI spent $7.9 million, a quarter of its functional expenses, on cloud computing alone. In comparison, DeepMind's total expenses in 2017 were $442 million. In the summer of 2018, training OpenAI's Dota 2 bots required renting 128,000 CPUs and 256 GPUs from Google for multiple weeks. In October 2024, OpenAI completed a $6.6 billion capital raise with a $157 billion valuation including investments from Microsoft, Nvidia, and SoftBank. On January 21, 2025, Donald Trump announced The Stargate Project, a joint venture between OpenAI, Oracle, SoftBank and MGX to build an AI infrastructure system in conjunction with the US government. The project takes its name from OpenAI's existing "Stargate" supercomputer project and is estimated to cost $500 billion. The partners planned to fund the project over the next four years. In July, the United States Department of Defense announced that OpenAI had received a $200 million contract for AI in the military, along with Anthropic, Google, and xAI. In the same month, the company made a deal with the UK Government to use ChatGPT and other AI tools in public services. OpenAI subsequently began a $50 million fund to support nonprofit and community organizations. In April 2025, OpenAI raised $40 billion at a $300 billion post-money valuation, which was the highest-value private technology deal in history. The financing round was led by SoftBank, with other participants including Microsoft, Coatue, Altimeter and Thrive. In July 2025, the company reported annualized revenue of $12 billion. This was an increase from $3.7 billion in 2024, which was driven by ChatGPT subscriptions, which reached 20 million paid subscribers by April 2025, up from 15.5 million at the end of 2024, alongside a rapidly expanding enterprise customer base that grew to five million business users. The company’s cash burn remains high because of the intensive computational costs required to train and operate large language models. It projects an $8 billion operating loss in 2025. OpenAI reports revised long-term spending projections totaling approximately $115 billion through 2029, with annual expenditures projected to escalate significantly, reaching $17 billion in 2026, $35 billion in 2027, and $45 billion in 2028. These expenditures are primarily allocated toward expanding compute infrastructure, developing proprietary AI chips, constructing data centers, and funding intensive model training programs, with more than half of the spending through the end of the decade expected to support research-intensive compute for model training and development. The company's financial strategy prioritizes market expansion and technological advancement over near-term profitability, with OpenAI targeting cash-flow-positive operations by 2029 and projecting revenue of approximately $200 billion by 2030. This aggressive spending trajectory underscores both the enormous capital requirements of scaling cutting-edge AI technology and OpenAI's commitment to maintaining its position as a leader in the artificial intelligence industry. In October 2025, OpenAI completed an employee share sale of up to $10 billion to existing investors which valued the company at $500 billion. The deal values OpenAI as the most valuable privately owned company in the world—surpassing SpaceX as the world's most valuable private company. On November 17, 2023, Sam Altman was removed as CEO when its board of directors (composed of Helen Toner, Ilya Sutskever, Adam D'Angelo and Tasha McCauley) cited a lack of confidence in him. Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati took over as interim CEO. Greg Brockman, the president of OpenAI, was also removed as chairman of the board and resigned from the company's presidency shortly thereafter. Three senior OpenAI researchers subsequently resigned: director of research and GPT-4 lead Jakub Pachocki, head of AI risk Aleksander Mądry, and researcher Szymon Sidor. On November 18, 2023, there were reportedly talks of Altman returning as CEO amid pressure placed upon the board by investors such as Microsoft and Thrive Capital, who objected to Altman's departure. Although Altman himself spoke in favor of returning to OpenAI, he has since stated that he considered starting a new company and bringing former OpenAI employees with him if talks to reinstate him didn't work out. The board members agreed "in principle" to resign if Altman returned. On November 19, 2023, negotiations with Altman to return failed and Murati was replaced by Emmett Shear as interim CEO. The board initially contacted Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei (a former OpenAI executive) about replacing Altman, and proposed a merger of the two companies, but both offers were declined. On November 20, 2023, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced Altman and Brockman would be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team, but added that they were still committed to OpenAI despite recent events. Before the partnership with Microsoft was finalized, Altman gave the board another opportunity to negotiate with him. About 738 of OpenAI's 770 employees, including Murati and Sutskever, signed an open letter stating they would quit their jobs and join Microsoft if the board did not rehire Altman and then resign. This prompted OpenAI investors to consider legal action against the board as well. In response, OpenAI management sent an internal memo to employees stating that negotiations with Altman and the board had resumed and would take some time. On November 21, 2023, after continued negotiations, Altman and Brockman returned to the company in their prior roles along with a reconstructed board made up of new members Bret Taylor (as chairman) and Lawrence Summers, with D'Angelo remaining. According to subsequent reporting, shortly before Altman’s firing, some employees raised concerns to the board about how he had handled the safety implications of a recent internal AI capability discovery. On November 29, 2023, OpenAI announced that an anonymous Microsoft employee had joined the board as a non-voting member to observe the company's operations; Microsoft resigned from the board in July 2024. In February 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission subpoenaed OpenAI's internal communication to determine if Altman's alleged lack of candor misled investors. In 2024, following the temporary removal of Sam Altman and his return, many employees gradually left OpenAI, including most of the original leadership team and a significant number of AI safety researchers. In August 2023, it was announced that OpenAI had acquired the New York-based start-up Global Illumination, a company that deploys AI to develop digital infrastructure and creative tools. In June 2024, OpenAI acquired Multi, a startup focused on remote collaboration. In March 2025, OpenAI reached a deal with CoreWeave to acquire $350 million worth of CoreWeave shares and access to AI infrastructure, in return for $11.9 billion paid over five years. Microsoft was already CoreWeave's biggest customer in 2024. Alongside their other business dealings, OpenAI and Microsoft were renegotiating the terms of their partnership to facilitate a potential future initial public offering by OpenAI, while ensuring Microsoft's continued access to advanced AI models. On May 21, OpenAI announced the $6.5 billion acquisition of io, an AI hardware start-up founded by former Apple designer Jony Ive in 2024. In September 2025, OpenAI agreed to acquire the product testing startup Statsig for $1.1 billion in an all-stock deal and appointed Statsig's founding CEO Vijaye Raji as OpenAI's chief technology officer of applications. The company also announced development of an AI-driven hiring service designed to rival LinkedIn. OpenAI acquired personal finance app Roi in October 2025. In October 2025, OpenAI acquired Software Applications Incorporated, the developer of Sky, a macOS-based natural language interface designed to operate across desktop applications. The Sky team joined OpenAI, and the company announced plans to integrate Sky’s capabilities into ChatGPT. In December 2025, it was announced OpenAI had agreed to acquire Neptune, an AI tooling startup that helps companies track and manage model training, for an undisclosed amount. In January 2026, it was announced OpenAI had acquired healthcare technology startup Torch for approximately $60 million. The acquisition followed the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT Health product and was intended to strengthen the company’s medical data and healthcare artificial intelligence capabilities. OpenAI has been criticized for outsourcing the annotation of data sets to Sama, a company based in San Francisco that employed workers in Kenya. These annotations were used to train an AI model to detect toxicity, which could then be used to moderate toxic content, notably from ChatGPT's training data and outputs. However, these pieces of text usually contained detailed descriptions of various types of violence, including sexual violence. The investigation uncovered that OpenAI began sending snippets of data to Sama as early as November 2021. The four Sama employees interviewed by Time described themselves as mentally scarred. OpenAI paid Sama $12.50 per hour of work, and Sama was redistributing the equivalent of between $1.32 and $2.00 per hour post-tax to its annotators. Sama's spokesperson said that the $12.50 was also covering other implicit costs, among which were infrastructure expenses, quality assurance and management. In 2024, OpenAI began collaborating with Broadcom to design a custom AI chip capable of both training and inference, targeted for mass production in 2026 and to be manufactured by TSMC on a 3 nm process node. This initiative intended to reduce OpenAI's dependence on Nvidia GPUs, which are costly and face high demand in the market. In January 2024, Arizona State University purchased ChatGPT Enterprise in OpenAI's first deal with a university. In June 2024, Apple Inc. signed a contract with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT features into its products as part of its new Apple Intelligence initiative. In June 2025, OpenAI began renting Google Cloud's Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) to support ChatGPT and related services, marking its first meaningful use of non‑Nvidia AI chips. In September 2025, it was revealed that OpenAI signed a contract with Oracle to purchase $300 billion in computing power over the next five years. In September 2025, OpenAI and NVIDIA announced a memorandum of understanding that included a potential deployment of at least 10 gigawatts of NVIDIA systems and a $100 billion investment from NVIDIA in OpenAI. OpenAI expected the negotiations to be completed within weeks. As of January 2026, this has not been realized, and the two sides are rethinking the future of their partnership. In October 2025, OpenAI announced a multi-billion dollar deal with AMD. OpenAI committed to purchasing six gigawatts worth of AMD chips, starting with the MI450. OpenAI will have the option to buy up to 160 million shares of AMD, about 10% of the company, depending on development, performance and share price targets. In December 2025, Disney said it would make a $1 billion investment in OpenAI, and signed a three-year licensing deal that will let users generate videos using Sora—OpenAI's short-form AI video platform. More than 200 Disney, Marvel, Star Wars and Pixar characters will be available to OpenAI users. In early 2026, Amazon entered advanced discussions to invest up to $50 billion in OpenAI as part of a potential artificial intelligence partnership. Under the proposed agreement, OpenAI’s models could be integrated into Amazon’s digital assistant Alexa and other internal projects. OpenAI provides LLMs to the Artificial Intelligence Cyber Challenge and to the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. In October 2024, The Intercept revealed that OpenAI's tools are considered "essential" for AFRICOM's mission and included in an "Exception to Fair Opportunity" contractual agreement between the United States Department of Defense and Microsoft. In December 2024, OpenAI said it would partner with defense-tech company Anduril to build drone defense technologies for the United States and its allies. In 2025, OpenAI's Chief Product Officer, Kevin Weil, was commissioned lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army to join Detachment 201 as senior advisor. In June 2025, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded OpenAI a $200 million one-year contract to develop AI tools for military and national security applications. OpenAI announced a new program, OpenAI for Government, to give federal, state, and local governments access to its models, including ChatGPT. Services In February 2019, GPT-2 was announced, which gained attention for its ability to generate human-like text. In 2020, OpenAI announced GPT-3, a language model trained on large internet datasets. GPT-3 is aimed at natural language answering questions, but it can also translate between languages and coherently generate improvised text. It also announced that an associated API, named the API, would form the heart of its first commercial product. Eleven employees left OpenAI, mostly between December 2020 and January 2021, in order to establish Anthropic. In 2021, OpenAI introduced DALL-E, a specialized deep learning model adept at generating complex digital images from textual descriptions, utilizing a variant of the GPT-3 architecture. In December 2022, OpenAI received widespread media coverage after launching a free preview of ChatGPT, its new AI chatbot based on GPT-3.5. According to OpenAI, the preview received over a million signups within the first five days. According to anonymous sources cited by Reuters in December 2022, OpenAI Global, LLC was projecting $200 million of revenue in 2023 and $1 billion in revenue in 2024. After ChatGPT was launched, Google announced a similar chatbot, Bard, amid internal concerns that ChatGPT could threaten Google’s position as a primary source of online information. On February 7, 2023, Microsoft announced that it was building AI technology based on the same foundation as ChatGPT into Microsoft Bing, Edge, Microsoft 365 and other products. On March 14, 2023, OpenAI released GPT-4, both as an API (with a waitlist) and as a feature of ChatGPT Plus. On November 6, 2023, OpenAI launched GPTs, allowing individuals to create customized versions of ChatGPT for specific purposes, further expanding the possibilities of AI applications across various industries. On November 14, 2023, OpenAI announced they temporarily suspended new sign-ups for ChatGPT Plus due to high demand. Access for newer subscribers re-opened a month later on December 13. In December 2024, the company launched the Sora model. It also launched OpenAI o1, an early reasoning model that was internally codenamed strawberry. Additionally, ChatGPT Pro—a $200/month subscription service offering unlimited o1 access and enhanced voice features—was introduced, and preliminary benchmark results for the upcoming OpenAI o3 models were shared. On January 23, 2025, OpenAI released Operator, an AI agent and web automation tool for accessing websites to execute goals defined by users. The feature was only available to Pro users in the United States. OpenAI released deep research agent, nine days later. It scored a 27% accuracy on the benchmark Humanity's Last Exam (HLE). Altman later stated GPT-4.5 would be the last model without full chain-of-thought reasoning. In July 2025, reports indicated that AI models by both OpenAI and Google DeepMind solved mathematics problems at the level of top-performing students in the International Mathematical Olympiad. OpenAI's large language model was able to achieve gold medal-level performance, reflecting significant progress in AI's reasoning abilities. On October 6, 2025, OpenAI unveiled its Agent Builder platform during the company's DevDay event. The platform includes a visual drag-and-drop interface that lets developers and businesses design, test, and deploy agentic workflows with limited coding. On October 21, 2025, OpenAI introduced ChatGPT Atlas, a browser integrating the ChatGPT assistant directly into web navigation, to compete with existing browsers such as Google Chrome and Apple Safari. On December 11, 2025, OpenAI announced GPT-5.2. This model will be better at creating spreadsheets, building presentations, perceiving images, writing code and understanding long context. On January 27, 2026, OpenAI introduced Prism, a LaTeX-native workspace meant to assist scientists to help with research and writing. The platform utilizes GPT-5.2 as a backend to automate the process of drafting for scientific papers, including features for managing citations, complex equation formatting, and real-time collaborative editing. In March 2023, the company was criticized for disclosing particularly few technical details about products like GPT-4, contradicting its initial commitment to openness and making it harder for independent researchers to replicate its work and develop safeguards. OpenAI cited competitiveness and safety concerns to justify this repudiation. OpenAI's former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever argued in 2023 that open-sourcing increasingly capable models was increasingly risky, and that the safety reasons for not open-sourcing the most potent AI models would become "obvious" in a few years. In September 2025, OpenAI published a study on how people use ChatGPT for everyday tasks. The study found that "non-work tasks" (according to an LLM-based classifier) account for more than 72 percent of all ChatGPT usage, with a minority of overall usage related to business productivity. In July 2023, OpenAI launched the superalignment project, aiming within four years to determine how to align future superintelligent systems. OpenAI promised to dedicate 20% of its computing resources to the project, although the team denied receiving anything close to 20%. OpenAI ended the project in May 2024 after its co-leaders Ilya Sutskever and Jan Leike left the company. In August 2025, OpenAI was criticized after thousands of private ChatGPT conversations were inadvertently exposed to public search engines like Google due to an experimental "share with search engines" feature. The opt-in toggle, intended to allow users to make specific chats discoverable, resulted in some discussions including personal details such as names, locations, and intimate topics appearing in search results when users accidentally enabled it while sharing links. OpenAI announced the feature's permanent removal on August 1, 2025, and the company began coordinating with search providers to remove the exposed content, emphasizing that it was not a security breach but a design flaw that heightened privacy risks. CEO Sam Altman acknowledged the issue in a podcast, noting users often treat ChatGPT as a confidant for deeply personal matters, which amplified concerns about AI handling sensitive data. Management In 2018, Musk resigned from his Board of Directors seat, citing "a potential future conflict [of interest]" with his role as CEO of Tesla due to Tesla's AI development for self-driving cars. OpenAI stated that Musk's financial contributions were below $45 million. On March 3, 2023, Reid Hoffman resigned from his board seat, citing a desire to avoid conflicts of interest with his investments in AI companies via Greylock Partners, and his co-founding of the AI startup Inflection AI. Hoffman remained on the board of Microsoft, a major investor in OpenAI. In May 2024, Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever resigned and was succeeded by Jakub Pachocki. Co-leader Jan Leike also departed amid concerns over safety and trust. OpenAI then signed deals with Reddit, News Corp, Axios, and Vox Media. Paul Nakasone then joined the board of OpenAI. In August 2024, cofounder John Schulman left OpenAI to join Anthropic, and OpenAI's president Greg Brockman took extended leave until November. In September 2024, CTO Mira Murati left the company. In November 2025, Lawrence Summers resigned from the board of directors. Governance and legal issues In May 2023, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever posted recommendations for the governance of superintelligence. They stated that superintelligence could happen within the next 10 years, allowing a "dramatically more prosperous future" and that "given the possibility of existential risk, we can't just be reactive". They proposed creating an international watchdog organization similar to IAEA to oversee AI systems above a certain capability threshold, suggesting that relatively weak AI systems on the other side should not be overly regulated. They also called for more technical safety research for superintelligences, and asked for more coordination, for example through governments launching a joint project which "many current efforts become part of". In July 2023, the FTC issued a civil investigative demand to OpenAI to investigate whether the company's data security and privacy practices to develop ChatGPT were unfair or harmed consumers (including by reputational harm) in violation of Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914. These are typically preliminary investigative matters and are nonpublic, but the FTC's document was leaked. In July 2023, the FTC launched an investigation into OpenAI over allegations that the company scraped public data and published false and defamatory information. They asked OpenAI for comprehensive information about its technology and privacy safeguards, as well as any steps taken to prevent the recurrence of situations in which its chatbot generated false and derogatory content about people. The agency also raised concerns about ‘circular’ spending arrangements—for example, Microsoft extending Azure credits to OpenAI while both companies shared engineering talent—and warned that such structures could negatively affect the public. In September 2024, OpenAI's global affairs chief endorsed the UK's "smart" AI regulation during testimony to a House of Lords committee. In February 2025, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated that the company is interested in collaborating with the People's Republic of China, despite regulatory restrictions imposed by the U.S. government. This shift comes in response to the growing influence of the Chinese artificial intelligence company DeepSeek, which has disrupted the AI market with open models, including DeepSeek V3 and DeepSeek R1. Following DeepSeek's market emergence, OpenAI enhanced security protocols to protect proprietary development techniques from industrial espionage. Some industry observers noted similarities between DeepSeek's model distillation approach and OpenAI's methodology, though no formal intellectual property claim was filed. According to Oliver Roberts, in March 2025, the United States had 781 state AI bills or laws. OpenAI advocated for preempting state AI laws with federal laws. According to Scott Kohler, OpenAI has opposed California's AI legislation and suggested that the state bill encroaches on a more competent federal government. Public Citizen opposed a federal preemption on AI and pointed to OpenAI's growth and valuation as evidence that existing state laws have not hampered innovation. Before May 2024, OpenAI required departing employees to sign a lifelong non-disparagement agreement forbidding them from criticizing OpenAI and acknowledging the existence of the agreement. Daniel Kokotajlo, a former employee, publicly stated that he forfeited his vested equity in OpenAI in order to leave without signing the agreement. Sam Altman stated that he was unaware of the equity cancellation provision, and that OpenAI never enforced it to cancel any employee's vested equity. However, leaked documents and emails refute this claim. On May 23, 2024, OpenAI sent a memo releasing former employees from the agreement. OpenAI was sued for copyright infringement by authors Sarah Silverman, Matthew Butterick, Paul Tremblay and Mona Awad in July 2023. In September 2023, 17 authors, including George R. R. Martin, John Grisham, Jodi Picoult and Jonathan Franzen, joined the Authors Guild in filing a class action lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that the company's technology was illegally using their copyrighted work. The New York Times also sued the company in late December 2023. In May 2024 it was revealed that OpenAI had destroyed its Books1 and Books2 training datasets, which were used in the training of GPT-3, and which the Authors Guild believed to have contained over 100,000 copyrighted books. In 2021, OpenAI developed a speech recognition tool called Whisper. OpenAI used it to transcribe more than one million hours of YouTube videos into text for training GPT-4. The automated transcription of YouTube videos raised concerns within OpenAI employees regarding potential violations of YouTube's terms of service, which prohibit the use of videos for applications independent of the platform, as well as any type of automated access to its videos. Despite these concerns, the project proceeded with notable involvement from OpenAI's president, Greg Brockman. The resulting dataset proved instrumental in training GPT-4. In February 2024, The Intercept as well as Raw Story and Alternate Media Inc. filed lawsuit against OpenAI on copyright litigation ground. The lawsuit is said to have charted a new legal strategy for digital-only publishers to sue OpenAI. On April 30, 2024, eight newspapers filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of New York against OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming illegal harvesting of their copyrighted articles. The suing publications included The Mercury News, The Denver Post, The Orange County Register, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Chicago Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, Sun Sentinel, and New York Daily News. In June 2023, a lawsuit claimed that OpenAI scraped 300 billion words online without consent and without registering as a data broker. It was filed in San Francisco, California, by sixteen anonymous plaintiffs. They also claimed that OpenAI and its partner as well as customer Microsoft continued to unlawfully collect and use personal data from millions of consumers worldwide to train artificial intelligence models. On May 22, 2024, OpenAI entered into an agreement with News Corp to integrate news content from The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, The Times, and The Sunday Times into its AI platform. Meanwhile, other publications like The New York Times chose to sue OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement over the use of their content to train AI models. In November 2024, a coalition of Canadian news outlets, including the Toronto Star, Metroland Media, Postmedia, The Globe and Mail, The Canadian Press and CBC, sued OpenAI for using their news articles to train its software without permission. In October 2024 during a New York Times interview, Suchir Balaji accused OpenAI of violating copyright law in developing its commercial LLMs which he had helped engineer. He was a likely witness in a major copyright trial against the AI company, and was one of several of its current or former employees named in court filings as potentially having documents relevant to the case. On November 26, 2024, Balaji died by suicide. His death prompted the circulation of conspiracy theories alleging that he had been deliberately silenced. California Congressman Ro Khanna endorsed calls for an investigation. On April 24, 2025, Ziff Davis sued OpenAI in Delaware federal court for copyright infringement. Ziff Davis is known for publications such as ZDNet, PCMag, CNET, IGN and Lifehacker. In April 2023, the EU's European Data Protection Board (EDPB) formed a dedicated task force on ChatGPT "to foster cooperation and to exchange information on possible enforcement actions conducted by data protection authorities" based on the "enforcement action undertaken by the Italian data protection authority against OpenAI about the ChatGPT service". In late April 2024 NOYB filed a complaint with the Austrian Datenschutzbehörde against OpenAI for violating the European General Data Protection Regulation. A text created with ChatGPT gave a false date of birth for a living person without giving the individual the option to see the personal data used in the process. A request to correct the mistake was denied. Additionally, neither the recipients of ChatGPT's work nor the sources used, could be made available, OpenAI claimed. OpenAI was criticized for lifting its ban on using ChatGPT for "military and warfare". Up until January 10, 2024, its "usage policies" included a ban on "activity that has high risk of physical harm, including", specifically, "weapons development" and "military and warfare". Its new policies prohibit "[using] our service to harm yourself or others" and to "develop or use weapons". In August 2025, the parents of a 16-year-old boy who died by suicide filed a wrongful death lawsuit against OpenAI (and CEO Sam Altman), alleging that months of conversations with ChatGPT about mental health and methods of self-harm contributed to their son's death and that safeguards were inadequate for minors. OpenAI expressed condolences and said it was strengthening protections (including updated crisis response behavior and parental controls). Coverage described it as a first-of-its-kind wrongful death case targeting the company's chatbot. The complaint was filed in California state court in San Francisco. In November 2025, the Social Media Victims Law Center and Tech Justice Law Project filed seven lawsuits against OpenAI, of which four lawsuits alleged wrongful death. The suits were filed on behalf of Zane Shamblin, 23, of Texas; Amaurie Lacey, 17, of Georgia; Joshua Enneking, 26, of Florida; and Joe Ceccanti, 48, of Oregon, who each committed suicide after prolonged ChatGPT usage. In December 2025, Stein-Erik Soelberg, who was 56 years old at the time, allegedly murdered his mother Suzanne Adams. In the months prior the paranoid, delusional man often discussed his ideas with ChatGPT. Adam's estate then sued OpenAI claiming that the company shared responsibility due to the risk of chatbot psychosis despite the fact that chatbot psychosis is not a real medical diagnosis. OpenAI responded saying they will make ChatGPT safer for users disconnected from reality. See also References Further reading External links |
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[SOURCE: https://github.com/resources/articles?topic=devops] | [TOKENS: 973] |
Navigation Menu Search code, repositories, users, issues, pull requests... Provide feedback We read every piece of feedback, and take your input very seriously. Saved searches Use saved searches to filter your results more quickly To see all available qualifiers, see our documentation. GitHub Articles Filters (1) Topic AI for IT operations (AIOps) uses AI to help IT teams reduce downtime and scale operations. AI for IT operations (AIOps) uses AI to help IT teams reduce downtime and scale operations. Boost performance, strengthen security, and help developers ship faster by modernizing legacy systems. Boost performance, strengthen security, and help developers ship faster by modernizing legacy systems. Uncover how IDEs help streamline software development and accelerate software delivery. Uncover how IDEs help streamline software development and accelerate software delivery. Treat servers like code and turn deployment chaos into predictable, automated precision. Treat servers like code and turn deployment chaos into predictable, automated precision. DevSecOps blends development, security, and operations into a unified approach that empowers teams to deliver secure, high-quality software at speed. By fostering a culture of shared responsibility and integrating automated security checks into the development lifecycle, DevSecOps helps catch vulnerabilities early without slowing innovation. DevSecOps blends development, security, and operations into a unified approach that empowers teams to deliver secure, high-quality software at speed. By fostering a culture of shared responsibility and integrating automated security checks into the development lifecycle, DevSecOps helps catch vulnerabilities early without slowing innovation. DevOps automation is a modern approach to software development that uses tools and processes to automate tasks and streamline workflows. It brings together developers, IT operations, and security teams to help them collaborate effectively and deliver reliable software. With DevOps automation, organizations are able to handle repetitive tasks, optimize processes, and deploy applications to production faster. DevOps automation is a modern approach to software development that uses tools and processes to automate tasks and streamline workflows. It brings together developers, IT operations, and security teams to help them collaborate effectively and deliver reliable software. With DevOps automation, organizations are able to handle repetitive tasks, optimize processes, and deploy applications to production faster. Discover what DevOps means and how it helps teams build higher-quality software faster through increased automation and collaboration. Discover what DevOps means and how it helps teams build higher-quality software faster through increased automation and collaboration. Learn what agile is, its benefits, why it’s so popular, and how you can apply it in software development and other kinds of work. Learn what agile is, its benefits, why it’s so popular, and how you can apply it in software development and other kinds of work. A DevOps engineer optimizes an organization’s software delivery process to enable collaboration and innovation. Keep reading to learn more about what DevOps engineers do and what skills they rely on. A DevOps engineer optimizes an organization’s software delivery process to enable collaboration and innovation. Keep reading to learn more about what DevOps engineers do and what skills they rely on. DevOps and site reliability engineering (SRE) are practices that work together to help development teams build , implement, and optimize products. Together they help people work toward a common goal by managing different development processes. Owning different parts of the process means there are differences in the way they operate, provide support, and utilize tools. DevOps and site reliability engineering (SRE) are practices that work together to help development teams build , implement, and optimize products. Together they help people work toward a common goal by managing different development processes. Owning different parts of the process means there are differences in the way they operate, provide support, and utilize tools. A DevOps pipeline combines processes, tooling, and automation to enable organizations and software teams to build, test, and deliver high-quality software quickly to end users. A DevOps pipeline combines processes, tooling, and automation to enable organizations and software teams to build, test, and deliver high-quality software quickly to end users. At its core, DevOps is a fundamentally data-driven practice. The ability to continuously improve the code that drives a product comes from understanding how it performs, what risks it introduces, and where to find opportunities. Monitoring tools tap into each layer of a product’s technology stack to deliver the data to catch code errors early, improve operational efficiency, and respond rapidly to changes in usage. At its core, DevOps is a fundamentally data-driven practice. The ability to continuously improve the code that drives a product comes from understanding how it performs, what risks it introduces, and where to find opportunities. Monitoring tools tap into each layer of a product’s technology stack to deliver the data to catch code errors early, improve operational efficiency, and respond rapidly to changes in usage. Site-wide Links Get tips, technical guides, and best practices. Twice a month. |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOIL_(programming_language)] | [TOKENS: 201] |
Contents FOIL (programming language) FOIL was the name for two different programming languages. CAI style language The first FOIL was a CAI language developed at the University of Michigan in 1967. The acronym stood for File-Oriented Interpretive Language, and it was very similar to other CAI languages like COURSEWRITER and PILOT. However, it tried to make the language somewhat block-structured using whitespace, which ended up making the language vaguely similar to BASIC or ABC. References Music generation language The second FOIL was a music generation language for the Touché computer instrument in 1979. The Touché was a keyboard that had digital tone generation and allowed you to program software for performances. The acronym stood for Far Out Instrument Language and was succeeded by MetaFOIL and FOIL-83. The language was developed by David Rosenboom and was based on Forth. External links This programming-language-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by adding missing information. |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romaniote_Jews] | [TOKENS: 6877] |
Contents Romaniote Jews The Romaniote Jews or the Romaniotes (Greek: Ῥωμανιῶτες, Rhōmaniôtes; Hebrew: רומניוטים, romanized: Romanyotim) are a Greek-speaking ethnic Jewish community. They are one of the oldest Jewish communities in existence and the oldest Jewish community in Europe. The Romaniotes have been, and even remain historically distinct from the Sephardim that have settled in Ottoman Greece after the expulsion of Jews from Spain and Portugal after 1492. Their distinct language was Yevanic, a Greek dialect that contained Hebrew along with some Aramaic and Turkish words, but today's Romaniotes speak Modern Greek or the languages of their new home countries. Their name is derived from the endonym Rhōmanía (Ῥωμανία), which refers to the Eastern Roman Empire ("Empire of the Romans", Βασιλεία Ρωμαίων). Large Romaniote communities were located in Thessaloniki, Ioannina, Arta, Preveza, Volos, Chalcis, Thebes, Corinth, Patras, and on the islands of Corfu, Crete, Zakynthos, Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Rhodes, and Cyprus, among others. Additionally, the historically large community of Jews in Bulgaria was Romaniote until the arrival of Sephardim and Ashkenazim fleeing persecution in other parts of Europe. Most of the Jews of Greece were murdered in the Holocaust after the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II and the deportation of most of the Jews to Nazi concentration camps. After the war, a majority of the survivors emigrated to Israel, the United States, and Western Europe. Today there are still functioning Romaniote synagogues in Chalkis (which represents the oldest Jewish congregation on European soil), Ioannina, Veria, Athens, New York City, and Israel. Name The name Romaniote refers to the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as Byzantium, which included the territory of modern Greece, which this Jewish group inhabited for centuries. Historically, the Empire was commonly referred to as Rhōmanía (Ῥωμανία) and its Christian citizens as Rhōmaîoi, "Romans" (Ῥωμαῖοι), while the Greek-speaking Jews were called Rhōmaniôtes (Ῥωμανιῶτες), essentially meaning inhabitants of Rhōmanía. History Jews have lived in Greece since at least the Second Temple era (516 BCE – 70 CE). Recorded Jewish presence in Greece dates back over 2,300 years to the time of Alexander the Great. The earliest reference to a Greek Jew is an inscription dated c. 300–250 BCE, found in Oropos, a small coastal town between Athens and Boeotia, which refers to "Moschos, son of Moschion the Jew", who may have been a slave. A Hellenistic Jewish synagogue was discovered in 1829 near the ancient military port of the capital of the island of Aegina by the Scottish-German historian Ludwig Ross, who was working for the court of King Otto of Greece. The floor was covered for protection and was studied again by Thiersch in 1901, Furtwängler in 1904, E. Sukenik in 1928 and Gabriel Welter in 1932 under the auspices of the National Archaeological Service. Based on the quality of the floor's mosaic, the building is believed to have been constructed in the 4th century CE (300–350 CE) and used until the 7th century. The mosaic floor of the synagogue consists of multi-colored tesserae that create the impression of a carpet, in a geometric pattern of blue, gray, red and white. Two Greek inscriptions were found in front of the synagogue's entrance, on the western side of the building. Today, only part of the synagogue's mosaic floor is extant, and it has been moved from its original location to the courtyard of the island's Archaeological Museum. In 1977 another ancient synagogue was discovered in Athens, the Synagogue in the Agora of Athens, which may be the synagogue in which Paul the Apostle preached. Inscriptions in the Samaritan and Greek alphabets found in Thessaloniki may originate from Samaritan synagogues. Concurrently the oldest synagogue found in the diaspora is also the oldest Samaritan synagogue: it is the Delos Synagogue, which has an inscription dated between 250 and 175 BCE The Romaniotes are Greek Jews, distinct from both Ashkenazim and Sephardim, who trace back their history to the times of the Greek-speaking Byzantine Jews and can be subdivided in a wider sense in a Rabbanite community and in the Greco-Karaite community of the Constantinopolitan Karaites which still survives to this day. A Romaniote oral tradition says that the first Jews arrived in Ioannina shortly after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE. Before the migration of the Ashkenazi and the Sephardi Jews into the Balkans and Eastern Europe, the Jewish culture in these areas consisted primarily of Romaniote Jews. The Romaniote rites represent those of the Greek-speaking Jews of the Byzantine (or former Byzantine) Empire, ranging from southern Italy (in a narrower sense the Apulian, the Calabrian and the Sicilian Jewish communities) in the west, to much of Turkey in the east, Crete to the south, Crimea (the Krymchaks) to the north and the Jews of the early medieval Balkans and Eastern Europe. The Sefer Yosippon was written down in the 10th century in Byzantine Southern Italy by the Greek-speaking Jewish community there. Judah Leon ben Moses Mosconi, a Romaniote Jew from Achrida edited and expanded the Sefer Josippon later. This community of Byzantine Jews of southern Italy produced such prominent works like the Sefer Ahimaaz of Ahimaaz ben Paltiel, the Sefer Hachmoni of Shabbethai Donnolo, the Aggadath Bereshit and many Piyyutim. The liturgical writings of these Romaniote Jews, especially the piyyut were eminent for the development of the Ashkenazi Mahzor, as they found their way through Italy to Ashkenaz and are preserved to this day in the most Ashkenazi mahzorim. The Jews of Southern Italy (where they were living together with their Greek-speaking Christian counterparts) continued to be Greek-speakers until the 15th century. When they were expelled and went to different regions of Greece, especially Corfu, Epirus and Thessaloniki, they could continue to speak their Greek language, even if this language was somewhat different from that of Greece.[page needed] In the 12th century, Benjamin of Tudela travelled through the Byzantine Empire and recorded details about communities of Jews in Corfu, Arta, Aphilon, Patras, Corinth, Thebes, Chalkis, Thessaloniki, and Drama. The largest community in Greece at that time was in Thebes, where he found about 2000 Jews. They were engaged mostly in cloth dyeing, weaving, in the production of silverware and silk garments. At the time, they were already known as "Romaniotes". The first Romaniote synagogue coming under Ottoman rule was Etz ha-Hayyim (Hebrew: עץ החיים, lit. "Tree of Life", frequently a name of Romaniote synagogues) in Prousa in Asia Minor which passed to Ottoman authority in 1324. After the Fall of Constantinople on 29 May 1453, Sultan Mehmed II found the city in a state of disarray. The city had indeed suffered many sieges, a devastating conquest by Catholic Crusaders in 1204 and even a case of the Black Death in 1347, and now had been long cut off from its hinterland, so the city was a shade of its former glory. The event of the conquest of Constantinople was written down by a Romaniote Payetan in a lament hymn, composed with several phrases from the Old Testament in the shibusi style. As Mehmed wanted to make the city his new capital, he decreed its rebuilding. And in order to revivify Constantinople he ordered that Muslims, Christians and Jews from all over his empire be resettled in the new capital. Within months most of the Empire's Romaniote Jews, from the Balkans and Anatolia, were concentrated in Constantinople, where they made up 10% of the city's population. The forced resettlement, though not intended as an anti-Jewish measure, was perceived as an "expulsion" by the Jews. Nevertheless, the Romaniotes would remain the most influential Jewish community in the Empire for decades to come, determining the Chief Rabbis of the towns and the Hakham Bashi of the Ottoman Empire until their leading position was lost to a wave of new Jewish arrivals. These events initiated the first great numerical decline of the Romaniote community. The number of Jews was soon bolstered by small groups of Ashkenazi Jews that immigrated to the Ottoman Empire between 1421 and 1453. Waves of Sephardi Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492; many settled in Ottoman-ruled Greece. They spoke a separate language, Ladino. Thessaloniki had one of the largest (mostly Sephardi) Jewish communities in the world and a solid rabbinical tradition. On the island of Crete, the Jews historically played an important part in the transport trade. In the centuries following 1492 most of the Romaniote communities were assimilated by the more numerous Sephardim. The status of Jewry in the Ottoman Empire often hinged on the whims of the sultan. Murad III for example ordered that the attitude of all non-Muslims should be one of "humility and abjection" and should not "live near Mosques or in tall buildings" or own slaves. After the liberation of Ioannina on February 21, 1913, the Rabbi and the Romaniote community of Ioannina welcomed at the New Synagogue of Ioannina the liberator of the city, Crown Prince Constantine, the future King of the Hellenes Constantine I. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Romaniote community of Ioannina numbered about 4,000 people, mostly lower-class tradesmen and craftsmen. Their numbers dwindled after that due to economic emigration; after the Holocaust and in the wake of World War II, there were approximately 1,950 Romaniotes left in Ioannina. Centered around the old fortified part of the city (or Kastro), where the community had been living for centuries, they maintained two synagogues, one of which, the Kehila Kedosha Yashan Synagogue still remains today. A strong Romaniote community was present in Corfu until the late 19th century, when a pogrom sparked by blood libel charges forced most of the Jewish community to leave the island. Nusach and Minhag The Romaniote prayer rite (Nusach) as seen in the original Mahzor Romania and the Romaniote commentaries (Minhag) on Jewish exegesis and Jewish law, vary from those of the Ashkenazi, Sephardic and Mizrachi Jews, and are closer to those of the Italian Jews: some of these are thought to have been based on the Jerusalem Talmud instead of the Babylonian Talmud (see Eretz-Yisrael minhag). This Minhag was once widespread in Southern Italy, the Balkans, Greece, Anatolia and the Crimea. The Romaniotes spoke Judaeo-Greek for a long time, and many of them still use the Greek language today. Tobiah ben Eliezer (טוביה בר אליעזר), a Greek-speaking Talmudist and poet of the 11th century, worked and lived in the city of Kastoria. He is the author of the Lekach Tov, a midrashic commentary on the Pentateuch and the Five Megillot and also of some poems. Romaniote scholars translated the Tanakh into Greek. A polyglot edition of the Bible published in Constantinople in 1547 has the Hebrew text in the middle of the page, with a Ladino (Judaeo-Spanish) translation on one side, a Yevanic translation on the other and the Judaeo-Aramaic Targum at the bottom of the page. In the early Romaniote rite the Torah was subdivided in Sedarim while the whole Torah was read in the Palestinian way of the Triennial cycle. The order for reading the Haftarah followed a specific custom, particular to the Romaniote rite. The Romaniote Torah scrolls are housed in tikim ('tik', from Greek thḗkē, θήκη "container"), from which they are never completely taken out. Among the Romaniote Jews, tradition dictates, that the most holy Sefer Torah, the Law of Moses, be read with the scroll standing upright in its tik; it is considered improper to lay it flat. The siddur (prayer book) for the Romaniote rite was known as the Mahzor Romania. The Romaniote Jews have their own form of wedding blessing. Upon the betrothal, seven blessings are bestowed on the bride and groom to be, while wedding wreaths are covering the heads of the groom and the bride and are interchanged on their heads. At the end of a full year, the Ketubah was read at the wedding ceremony proper. This is different in that other Jews bless the bride and groom at the time of the actual wedding. In addition, there are ritual differences in the building of the Synagogue and in the building and the use of the mikve. It is a Romaniote tradition to write on the Ketubah the year since creation of the world and the year since the destruction of the Temple. The Romaniotes traditionally gave to a child a mystical document known as an "aleph". This hand-painted "birth and circumcision certificate" was created by a family member and then handed down. The aleph was written in mystical codes for the purpose of warding off the wiles of Lillith, Adam's first wife. The Romaniotes are well known for their hymns in Judaeo-Greek and Hebrew, for their special way of cantillation, based on the Byzantine melos and for their Jewish-Greek folksongs, based on regional melodies. Jewish immigrants from Sicily brought to Ioannina the celebration of the Sicilian Purim Katan. The Jews of Ioannina call this holiday Pourimopoulo. They read the special "Megillah for the Purim Katan of Syracuse" and sing corresponding songs and hymns for this festivity. The Mahzor of the Romaniote Kaffa Rite from the year 1735 gives the order to read the Megillat Antiochos in the Mincha of Shabbat Hanukkah. In the second half of the 19th century, the Romaniote community of Greece made an effort to preserve the Romaniote liturgical heritage of Ioannina and Arta, by printing various liturgical texts in the Hebrew printing presses of Salonika. Today, the Romaniote Liturgy follows (with slight differences) the mainstream Sephardic usage, while the Romaniotes and the Jews of Corfu have preserved their old and own Judaeo-Greek and Hebrew piyyutim, their own way of cantillation and their special customs. A custom, which is still followed in the Etz Hayyim Synagogue of Crete, is to read on Yom Kippur the Book of Jonah in Judaeo-Greek. Another custom was to chant the Song of Songs verse by verse by alternating from Hebrew to its paraphrasing Targum Jonathan translation after the morning service on the last two days of Pessach. Romaniote Synagogues have their own layout: the bimah (where the Torah scrolls are read out during services) is on a raised dais on the western wall, the Aron haKodesh (where the Torah scrolls are kept) is on the eastern wall and in the middle there is a wide interior aisle. Votive offerings made of silver as stars or tablets called shadayot were a thankful gift to the Synagogue of congregants who have received help, healing or salvation by God. The Romaniote term for the Passover ceremony (Seder) is חובה (Hova), which means obligation. In 2004 the Jewish Museum of Greece published a Romaniote rite Pesach-Seder CD (The Ioannina Haggadah). In the years 2017 and 2018 the Romaniote rite Haggadah and the Romaniote rite prayer book (siddur) have been published in a series, containing also Romaniote poetry, the haftarot according to the Romaniote custom and other texts. A Romaniote rite based reform siddur in Greek and Hebrew has also been published in 2018. Language and literature The intellectual pursuits of Romaniote Jews reflected in their history their geographical location within the Jewish and gentile world. Direct heir to Palestinian Jewish traditions on the one hand, they were also heir to the teachings of the Greco-Roman world. The Byzantine Jewish/Romaniote literature shows a rich blend of Hellenistic Jewish and Palestinian rabbinic traditions. Romaniote Jewry, throughout its history, expended great effort on religious poetry, which reached its peak during the period 1350–1550. The writing of piyyutim was clearly held as its own genre. In the twelfth century Hillel ben Eliakim wrote down his exegetical commentary, Sifre ve Sifra. Shemarya HaIkriti who moved after 1328 to Negroponte prepared his supercommentary to Ibn Ezra and, circa 1346–47 wrote his Sefer Amasyahu, a handbook of biblical apologetics. In tune with the intellectual currents among Romaniotes, Shemarya was trained in philosophy and was able to translate directly from Greek to Hebrew. The Sefer Yosippon was written by the Byzantine Jews of Southern Italy. R. Elnatan ben Moses Kalkes (from Kilkis) wrote a lengthy kabbalistic treatise entitled Eben Saphir. Mordecai Komatiano has left a legacy of some fifteen works on astronomy, grammar (dikduk), biblical commentaries and piyyutim; some of the later have even been included in the Karaite prayerbook. Several manuscripts containing mystical works have survived. The question of an independent Romaniote mystical tradition, probably deriving directly from Palestinian antecedents, is proved. An abridgement of Aristotle's Logic by Yoseph HaYevani was made available to those Jews (Sephardi immigrants) who were less proficient in Greek. The Byzantine Karaites showed a knowledge of Greek philosophical terminology. Rabbinic authors spiced their comments with Greek phrases. The familiarity of Romaniote Jewry with the Greek language is well documented. Biblical translations, piyyutim, folksongs, Ketubbot, liturgical instructions, glossaries, mystical texts and the use of Greek words in commentaries in Judaeo-Greek are known. After World War II, the Judaeo-Greek language of Ioannina underwent a process of koinezation. The only phonetic differences to Standard Modern Greek, which could be noted shortly after the war have been [x] > [s] before front vowels, unusual intonation patterns and some peculiar lexical items, mostly of Hebrew-Aramaic provenance. Lexemes, such as Hebrew-Aramaic loans, were easily identified as "ours" and "theirs," i.e., Sephardic vs. Romaniote. While composing texts on their religion, the Greek Jews followed the literary standards of Greek syntax and morphology, using a number of Hebrew-Aramaic loanwords. The Hebrew-Aramaic component would be written down in ways reflecting traditional Romaniote pronunciation, for example Shalom, was spelled and written as Salom (Σαλώμ). Krivoruchko states in her work Judeo-Greek in the era of globalization that Judaeo-Greek has always been interchangeable with the spoken variety of Greek, which was used by the surrounding Christian community, but had a few special features in its various geographical and chronological types (for example the Judaeo-Greek of Crete [† 1945] and that of Constantinople). Besides the few phonetic differences between Judaeo-Greek and Standard Modern Greek the most common difference has been the use of Hebrew and Aramaic loanwords in Judaeo-Greek. Considerable are also the phonetic differences between Romaniote Hebrew (look downwards on paragraph Romaniote Hebrew) and Sephardic Hebrew, for example Sephardic Shavuot was spelled as Savóth (Σαβώθ) in Judaeo-Greek. Second and third generation Romaniote immigrants in New York city have good knowledge of Greek. In the beginning of the 21st century 90% asserted that they understand Greek while 40% could speak Greek comfortably. Over a third could read Greek satisfactorily. The number of persons fluent in the Greek Language is much lower in the group of the Greek Sephardim outside of Greece. The Romaniote pronunciation of the Hebrew language is very close in its major features to the common Modern Hebrew pronunciation. The vowel-system is a simple five-vowel system without either quantitative or qualitative distinctions. Typical was the absence of distinction between: the Semitic velarized and non-velarized stops [t] and [ṭ], spelled [ת/ט], and [k/q], spelled [כ/ק]. The distinction between [s] and [ṣ] (ס/צ) is maintained as [s] vs. [ts], i. e., a voiceless alveolar fricative against a voiceless alveolar affricate, a pronunciation common to Byzantine and Ashkenazic pronunciation; "strong" and "weak" [t], spelled [תּ/ת] (t/θ) preserved in Ashkenazic pronunciation as [t]/[s]; velar and pharyngeal [ħ] and [χ], spelled [ח/כ], both of which are pronounced [χ], as in Ashkenazic; the glottal and pharyngeal stops [ʔ] and [ʕ], spelled [ע/א], both of which are weakened to the point of almost total absence in syllable-initial and syllable-final position, another characteristic shared with the Ashkenazic tradition. שׁ was pronounced as [s] in the Romaniote tradition of Hebrew pronunciation. The loss of spirantization rule for postvocalic, non-geminated Old Hebrew b, d, g, p, t, k homorganic fricatives (this rule is not found now in either the Balkan or the North African Sephardic diaspora) may have been due Romaniote practice (it is observed partly in Yiddish Hebraisms and in the Ashkenazic pronunciation of monolingual Hebrew texts). The [ז] was pronounced as [d͡z] and the [ד] as [ð] which are typical sounds of the Standard Modern Greek. The Hebrew Paleography resp. the Hebrew Epigraphy recognises a specific "Byzantine" or "Romaniote" Handwriting system of the Hebrew alphabet, which has been developed among the Soferim of the Greek-speaking lands. In many cases manuscripts of Romaniote origin from the Byzantine Empire, or from later times can be recognised as "Romaniote", only with the science of Paleography, if they do not contain a Colophon (publishing) or other characteristics of identification. Holocaust and afterwards During World War II, when Greece was occupied by Nazi Germany, 86% of the Greek Jews, especially those in the areas occupied by Nazi Germany and Bulgaria, were murdered. Some Greeks collaborated with the deportations or expropriated Jewish property; a few, encouraged by the Greek Orthodox Church, sheltered Jews. Roughly 49,000 Jews—Romaniotes and Sephardim—were deported from Thessaloniki alone and murdered. Many Greek Jews were forced to pay their own tickets to the death camps. Almost all Romaniote Jews of the island of Crete, together with some resistance fighters, died on the ship Tanaḯs when it was torpedoed by the British submarine HMS Vivid on 9 June 1944. During the German occupation, the Romaniotes' ability to speak Greek enabled them to hide better from German deportations than Sephardi Jews who spoke Ladino. The majority of Romaniotes who survived the Holocaust left for Israel or the United States at the end of the war. The creation of the state of Israel in 1948, combined with the violence and anarchy of the Greek Civil War (1946–1949), led to an immigration of a number of Romaniotes to Israel. The great earthquake on the island of Zakynthos in 1953 led the last remaining Romaniote Jews to leave the island towards Athens. The vast majority of Romaniotes have relocated to Israel and the United States, with the world's largest community located in New York. Present day Today approximately 4,500 to 6,000 Jews remain in Greece. Of these, only a small number are Romaniotes, who live mainly in Thessaloniki, Ioannina, Chalkis and Athens. About 3,500 Jews now live in Athens, while another 1,000 live in Thessaloniki. A mixed community of Romaniote and Apulian Jews still lives on the Island of Corfu. The Ioanniotiki Synagogue, situated above the Jewish Community of Athens offices at #8 Melidoni St., is the only Romaniote synagogue in Athens. Built in 1906, it now has services only during the High Holy Days, but can be opened for visitors upon request through the Jewish Community office. The Jewish identity of another building found in the excavations of the ancient Agora in Athens, is questionable. It is believed that the Metroon, discovered in 1930 at the foot of the hill Hephaestion (Thesion) was used as a synagogue during its construction at the end of the 4th century CE (396–400). This view was expressed by the archaeologist H. Thompson, from the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, but was not developed into a complete theory. The Jewish identity of the Metroon was based on a small piece of marble found near the Metroon that had two Jewish symbols carved on one side, and the resemblance of the building to the synagogue of Sardis in Asia Minor. The Romaniote Jewish Community of Chalkis is not the oldest one in Greece, but it is the only one in Europe that has been living in the same city for 2,500 years without interruption and the community is still active in the city's life. The community has a synagogue and a cemetery with important and old inscriptions. The Synagogue is on Kotsou Street. It is unknown when the first synagogue in Chalkis was constructed. In 1854, during the Holy Week a great fire destroyed the synagogue. In 1855 it was re-constructed in the same size with funds offered by Sophie de Marbois-Lebrun, Duchess of Plaisance. The Synagogue opens every Friday evening and occasionally on Shabbat morning. In Ioannina, the Romaniote community has dwindled to 50 mostly elderly people. The Kehila Kedosha Yashan Synagogue there is open primarily on the High Holidays, or in the case of the visit of a chazzan, or is opened for visitors on request. Immigrant Romaniotes return every summer to the old synagogue. After a long time a Bar Mitzvah (the Jewish ritual for celebrating the coming of age of a child) was held in the synagogue in 2000, and was an exceptional event for the community. The synagogue is located in the old fortified part of the city known as Kastro, at 16 Ioustinianou street. Its name means "the Old Synagogue". It was constructed in 1829, most probably over the ruins of an older synagogue. Its architecture is typical of the Ottoman era, a large building made of stone. The interior of the synagogue is laid out in the Romaniote way: the Bimah (where the Torah scrolls are read out during services) is on a raised dais on the western wall, the Aron haKodesh (where the Torah scrolls are kept) is on the eastern wall and in the middle there is a wide interior aisle. The names of the Ioanniote Jews who were killed in the Holocaust are engraved in stone on the walls of the synagogue. The Bet Chaim cemetery in Ioannina belongs to the community. In the community of Volos many of the Romaniote pre-Sephardic traditions prevail.[page needed] The community consists of Romaniotes as well as Sephardim (particularly from Larissa) and Corfiots. Ancient historic texts mention that Jews lived in the region of Magnesia, Thessaly and in particular in neighbouring Almyros as early as the 1st century AD. Historians argue that Jews have been living in ancient Demetrias since the 2nd century AD. Ancient Jewish tombstones dating back to 325–641 AD, were also discovered in the neighbouring city of Phthiotic Thebes. Moshe Pesach was Rabbi of Volos who saved Greek Jews during the Holocaust and helped to consolidate the community of Volos after World War II. Most Romaniotes in Israel live in Tel Aviv. There are two Romaniote synagogues in Israel: the Zakynthos Synagogue in Tel Aviv, and the Beit Avraham Ve'ohel Sarah liKehilat Ioanina in Nachlaot, Jerusalem. The former Romaniote Yanina Synagogue in the Christian Quarter, Jerusalem is no longer in use. In Beit Avraham Ve'ohel Sarah liKehilat Ioanina in Jerusalem, the prayers today follow the Sephardic rite, but they preserve a few piyyutim from the Romaniote rite. Only one Romaniote synagogue (from originally several Romaniote Synagogues in New York) is in operation in the entire Western Hemisphere: Kehila Kedosha Janina, at 280 Broome Street, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where it is used by the Romaniote emigrant community. It maintains a mailing list of 3,000 Romaniote families, most of them living in the tri-state area. It is open for services every Saturday morning as well as all major Jewish holidays. The synagogue also houses a museum devoted to Greek Jewry and offers guided tours to visitors on Sundays. Like the community in Jerusalem, the prayers today follow the Sephardic rite, but they preserve a few piyyutim from the Romaniote rite. Genetics DNA research and genealogical works based on the Romaniote communities of Ioannina and Zakynthos are in progress. Nearly 4/5th of the autosomal DNA of Ashkenazi Jews is related to that of Romaniote Jews. Romaniote Jewish men have been found to belong to various branches of Y-chromosomal haplogroups E1b1b1, G, J, Q, R1a, and R1b. In 2024, a team of researchers announced that a modern Romaniote Jewish man from Greece belongs to "a previously undiscovered" branch of the Y-chromosomal haplogroup J-P58 found to be "dating straight back 7,000 years to the Neolithic era." Romaniote Jewish mitochondrial DNA haplogroups include HV1b2, U5b, and U6a3. Notable Romaniotes Byzantine times to the Ottoman Empire Greek-speaking Karaites of Constantinople Modern times See also References Further reading External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-player_character#Video_games] | [TOKENS: 1785] |
Contents Non-player character A non-player character (NPC) is a character in a game that is not controlled by a player. The term originated in traditional tabletop role-playing games where it applies to characters controlled by the gamemaster, or referee, rather than by another player. In video games, this usually means a computer-controlled character that has a predetermined set of behaviors that potentially will impact gameplay, but will not necessarily be the product of true artificial intelligence. Role-playing games In traditional tabletop role-playing games (RPG) such as Dungeons & Dragons, an NPC is a character portrayed by the gamemaster (GM). While the player characters (PCs) form the narrative's protagonists, non-player characters can be thought of as the "supporting cast" or "extras" of a roleplaying narrative. Non-player characters populate the fictional world of the game, and can fill any role not occupied by a player character. Non-player characters might be allies, bystanders, or competitors to the PCs. NPCs can also be traders who trade currency for things such as equipment or gear. NPCs thus vary in their level of detail. Some may be only a brief description ("You see a man in a corner of the tavern"), while others may have complete game statistics and backstories. There is some debate about how much work a gamemaster should put into an important NPC's statistics; some players prefer to have every NPC completely defined with stats, skills, and gear, while others define only what is immediately necessary and fill in the rest as the game proceeds. There is also some debate regarding the importance of fully defined NPCs in any given role-playing game, but there is consensus that the more "real" the NPCs feel, the more fun players will have interacting with them in character. In some games and in some circumstances, a player who is without a player character can temporarily take control of an NPC. Reasons for this vary, but often arise from the player not maintaining a PC within the group and playing the NPC for a session or from the player's PC being unable to act for some time (for example, because the PC is injured or in another location). Although these characters are still designed and normally controlled by the gamemaster, when players are allowed to temporarily control these non-player characters, it gives them another perspective on the plot of the game. Some systems, such as Nobilis, encourage this in their rules.[citation needed] Many game systems have rules for characters sustaining positive allies in the form of NPC followers, hired hands, or other dependents stature to the PC (player character). Characters may sometimes help in the design, recruitment, or development of NPCs. In the Champions game (and related games using the Hero System), a character may have a DNPC, or "dependent non-player character". This is a character controlled by the GM, but for which the player character is responsible in some way, and who may be put in harm's way by the PC's choices. Video games The term "non-player character" is also used in video games to describe entities not under the direct control of a player. The term carries a connotation that the character is not hostile towards players; hostile characters are referred to as enemies, mobs, or creeps. NPC behavior in computer games is usually scripted and automatic, triggered by certain actions or dialogue with the player characters. In certain multiplayer games (Neverwinter Nights and Vampire: The Masquerade series, for example) a player that acts as the GM can "possess" both player and non-player characters, controlling their actions to further the storyline. More complex games, such as the aforementioned Neverwinter Nights, allow the player to customize the NPCs' behavior by modifying their default scripts or creating entirely new ones. In some online games, such as massively multiplayer online role-playing games, NPCs may be entirely unscripted, and are essentially regular character avatars controlled by employees of the game company. These "non-players" are often distinguished from player characters by avatar appearance or other visual designation, and often serve as in-game support for new players. In other cases, these "live" NPCs are virtual actors, playing regular characters that drive a continuing storyline (as in Myst Online: Uru Live). In earlier RPGs, NPCs only had monologues. This is typically represented by a dialogue box, floating text, cutscene, or other means of displaying the NPCs' speech or reaction to the player. [citation needed] NPC speeches of this kind are often designed to give an instant impression of the character of the speaker, providing character vignettes, but they may also advance the story or illuminate the world around the PC. Similar to this is the most common form of storytelling, non-branching dialogue, in which the means of displaying NPC speech are the same as above, but the player character or avatar responds to or initiates speech with NPCs. In addition to the purposes listed above, this enables the development of the player character. More advanced RPGs feature interactive dialogue, or branching dialogue (dialogue trees). An example are the games produced by Black Isle Studios and White Wolf, Inc.; every one of their games is multiple-choice roleplaying. When talking to an NPC, the player is presented with a list of dialogue options and may choose between them. Each choice may result in a different response from the NPC. These choices may affect the course of the game, as well as the conversation. At the least, they provide a reference point to the player of their character's relationship with the game world. Ultima is an example of a game series that has advanced from non-branching (Ultima III: Exodus and earlier) to branching dialogue (from Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar and on). Other role-playing games with branching dialogues include Cosmic Soldier, Megami Tensei, Fire Emblem, Metal Max, Langrisser, SaGa, Ogre Battle, Chrono, Star Ocean, Sakura Wars, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Radiant Historia, and several Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy games. Certain video game genres revolve almost entirely around interactions with non-player characters, including visual novels such as Ace Attorney and dating sims such as Tokimeki Memorial, usually featuring complex branching dialogues and often presenting the player's possible responses word-for-word as the player character would say them. Games revolving around relationship-building, including visual novels, dating sims such as Tokimeki Memorial, and some role-playing games such as Persona, often give choices that have a different number of associated "mood points" that influence a player character's relationship and future conversations with a non-player character. These games often feature a day-night cycle with a time scheduling system that provides context and relevance to character interactions, allowing players to choose when and if to interact with certain characters, which in turn influences their responses during later conversations. In 2023, Replica Studios unveiled its AI-developed NPCs for the Unreal Engine 5, in cooperation with OpenAI, which enable players to have an interactive conversation with unplayable characters. "NPC streaming"—livestreaming while mimicking the behaviors of an NPC—became popular on TikTok in 2023 and was largely popularized by livestreamer Pinkydoll. Other usage From around 2018, the term NPC became an insult, primarily online, to suggest that a person is unable to form thoughts or opinions of their own. This is sometimes illustrated with a grey-faced, expressionless version of the Wojak meme. Monetization NPC streaming is a type of livestream that allows users to participate in and shape the content they are viewing in real time. It has become widely popular as influencers and users of social media platforms such as TikTok utilize livestreams to act as non-player characters. "Viewers in NPC live streams take on the role of puppeteers, influencing the creator's next move." This phenomenon has been on the rise as viewers are actively involved in what they are watching, by purchasing digital "gifts" and sending them directly to the streamer. In return, the streamer will briefly mimic a character or act. This phenomenon has become a trend starting from July 2023, as influencers make profits from this new internet character. Pinkydoll, a TikTok influencer, gained 400,000 followers the same month that she started NPC streaming, while her livestreams began to earn her as much as $7,000 in a day. NPC streaming gives creators a new avenue to earn money online. Despite this, certain creators are quitting due to certain stigmas that come with the strategy. For example, a pioneer of the NPC trend, Malik Ambersley has been robbed, accosted by police, and gotten into fights due to the controversial nature of his act. See also References |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Pretoria] | [TOKENS: 8067] |
Contents University of Pretoria The University of Pretoria (Afrikaans: Universiteit van Pretoria; Northern Sotho: Yunibesithi ya Pretoria) is a multi-campus public research university in Pretoria, the administrative and de facto capital of South Africa. The university was established in 1908 as the Pretoria campus of the Johannesburg-based Transvaal University College and is the fourth South African institution in continuous operation to be awarded university status. The university has grown from the original 32 students in a single late Victorian house to approximately 53,000 in 2019. The university was built on seven suburban campuses on 1,190 hectares (2,900 acres). The university is organised into nine faculties and a business school. Established in 1920, the University of Pretoria Faculty of Veterinary Science is the second oldest veterinary school in Africa and the only veterinary school in South Africa. In 1949, the university launched the first MBA programme outside North America, and the university's Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) has consistently been ranked the top business school in Africa for executive education, as well as being placed in the top 50 in the world. In 2012, the Financial Times ranked the GIBS Executive MBA 1st in Africa and 60th in the world. Since 1997, the university has produced more research outputs every year than any other institution of higher learning in South Africa, as measured by the Department of Education's accreditation benchmark. In 2008, the university awarded 15.8% of all masters and doctorate degrees in South Africa, the highest percentage in the country. The DHET report, released in March 2019, shows that UP achieved the highest percentage (10,93%) of the total research output units of all South African universities for 2017. Fifty-three UP researchers are in the top 1% according to the Web of Science Index of 2019. The university is commonly referred to as UP, Tuks, or Tukkies and in post-nominals the university is typically abbreviated as Pret or UP, although Pretoria is also used in official publications. History The day might come when the Transvaal University College might mean to the Transvaal what Oxford University has meant to England. A long time might have to pass, and for a hundred years we might have to watch the grass growing on our lawns before that day arrives, but noble beginning has been made. — Jan Smuts,at the laying of the Old Arts building's foundation stone The proposal for a university for the capital, first mooted in the Volksraad in 1889, was interrupted by the outbreak of the Anglo–Boer War in 1899. In 1896, the South African School of Mines was founded in Kimberley. Eight years later, in 1904, the school was moved to Johannesburg and was renamed the Transvaal Technical Institute. The school's name changed yet again in 1906 to Transvaal University College. In 1902, after the signing of the Peace of Vereeniging, the Normal College for teacher training was established in Groenkloof, Pretoria. On 4 March 1908, when the Transvaal University College (TUC) transferred its arts and science courses to its newly established Pretoria campus, the precursor to the university was established, initially offering courses in languages, sciences, and law. Instruction commenced with 32 students, 4 professors and 3 lecturers in the Kya Rosa, 270 Skinner Street a late Victorian residence purchased from Leo Weinthal the then owner of The Press (forerunner to the Pretoria News newspaper). The first four professors were H. Th. Reinink (Dutch), J. Purves (Scottish), D.F. du Toit Malherbe (South African) and A.C. Paterson (Scottish), who would also become the first vice-chancellor. In 1910, the colonial secretary, General Jan Smuts tabled the act constituting the university as a separate entity before the Transvaal Parliament, the "Transvaalse and Universiteits-Inlijvingswet" Law 1 of 1910. On 17 May 1910, the Johannesburg and Pretoria campuses separated, each becoming an independent institution. The Johannesburg campus being reincorporated as the South African School of Mines and Technology, while the Pretoria campus retained the name of Transvaal University College until 1930. The South African School of Mines and Technology would later go on to become the University of the Witwatersrand in 1922. In 1910, the TUC acquired its own campus in the east of Pretoria, what is now the western part of the university's main campus in Hatfield. On 3 August 1910, Governor-General Herbert John Gladstone, 1st Viscount Gladstone laid the cornerstone of the Old Arts Building, the first building to be built on the newly established Hatfield campus. The building's striking Cape Dutch and Neo-Romanesque architectural style was recognised in 1968 when it was declared a provincial heritage site. During this time the colloquial name for the university, Tukkies or Tuks, was derived from the Afrikaans acronym for the college, i.e. Transvaalse Universiteitskollege (TUK). The late 1910s and early 1920s saw the establishment of several faculties as the academic activities were expanded. Courses in agriculture (1917), theology (1918), economics and political science (1919), veterinary science (1920), and music (1923) were established as the institution grew. On 10 October 1930, the University of Pretoria Private Act, No. 13 of 1930 changed the name of the TUC to the University of Pretoria. The TUC originally established as an English-medium institution had evolved into the only fully bilingual university in South Africa and remained as such until the early 1930s. The rapid increase of Afrikaans-speaking students brought about an imbalance between the demographics of students and the languages of instruction. By 1931, although 65% of students were Afrikaans-speaking, 68% of the classes were conducted in English. In 1932, the University Council addressed the imbalance, deciding that Afrikaans would become the only medium of instruction. An increase in student numbers necessitated the building of new facilities such as the Club Hall and Administration Building (colloquially known as the ship) when the seventh faculty, the Medical Faculty, was established in 1943. This period further saw the establishment of numerous student activities such as the annual Spring Day event and intervarsity. Student publications established include the Trek in 1931, the first Rag Mag in 1936 and the weekly student newspaper Die Perdeby in 1939. The period of 1948–1982 is characterised by the substantial increase in numbers of an almost exclusively white student body and the concomitant physical growth of the university infrastructure. The nearly doubling of student numbers demanded the physical expansion of the Hatfield campus and new buildings were built in quick succession as the campus grew eastward. In the mid-1960s, the university urgently required additional land and acquired the adjacent property of Christian Brothers' College, Saint Gabriel's. This property now forms the eastern section of the Hatfield campus. In 1949, the university founded the Graduate School of Management (GSM), During the period of 1982 to 2008, the university transformed into a bilingual, multiracial and inclusive institution. The comparatively smooth introduction of students from all races formed the initial impetus for transformation and in 1989 the university was declared officially desegregated and opened for all races. In 1993, a policy document was introduced, aiming to position the university in a newly democratic South Africa. In 1994, the university regained its status as a bilingual university when a new language policy was adopted. However, in 2019 a new language policy was adopted which discontinued Afrikaans as a language of instruction in favour of English only. In 1999, the only two veterinary science faculties in the country, those of the University of Pretoria and Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University, formerly Medunsa, were amalgamated. The university's Onderstepoort campus once again housed the only veterinary faculty in South Africa. In 2000, the Teachers Training College Pretoria, formerly the Normal College Pretoria founded in 1902, was incorporated into the university's Faculty of Education, which saw the faculty moving to the self-sufficient Groenkloof campus. The university's business school in Illovo, Johannesburg, the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), was established in January 2000 following a substantial contribution by Sir Donald Gordon, the founder of Liberty Life and Liberty International, and a major investment by the University of Pretoria following discussions which started in 1998. The now defunct Vista University's Mamelodi campus was incorporated on 2 January 2004, as part of the restructuring of South African tertiary institutions. In 2011, GIBS opened a satellite campus on Pritchard Street in the inner city of Johannesburg. The Business school follows on the university's, now defunct Graduate School of Management's, long tradition of MBA tuition as the first business school outside North America and replaced it in January 2008. Administration and organisation As set out in the Higher Education Act No 101 of 1997 Archived 21 May 2013 at the Wayback Machine, the university is governed by the council with the vice-chancellor and principal, Professor Francis Petersen, the executive head responsible for the day-to-day administration, and the chancellor, Justice Sisi Khampempe, being the non-resident titular head of the university. The registrar is responsible for the academic administration of the university, as well as legal matters, and is secretary to the University Council and Senate. The university's academic activities are divided into nine faculties and one business school. Whilst the faculties comprise 140 departments and 85 institutes, bureaus and centres. Main campus The university's main campus and central administration offices are situated in the suburb of Hatfield, Pretoria and houses six of the nine faculties. The campus, bordered by the suburb of Brooklyn to the south and Hatfield to the north, was built over 24 hectares (59 acres) and has more than 60 buildings of historical value. Adjacent to the Hatfield campus is the Hillcrest campus, which contains the High Performance Centre and LC de Villiers Sports Grounds, which were developed on 76 hectares (190 acres). Adjacent to the sport grounds is the university's experimental farm, which is used to conduct field experiments for the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences. The campus is served by the Hatfield Gautrain station connecting Pretoria and Johannesburg. A university bus shuttle service operates between the Hatfield campus and the Groenkloof and Prinshof campuses, whilst a park-and-ride shuttle service operates between the Hatfield and Hillcrest campus. The university's art collection consists primarily of paintings, sculptures and graphic works by South African artists including the likes of Jacobus Hendrik Pierneef, Gregoire Boonzaier, William Kentridge and Sam Nhlengethwa. The collection also incorporates artworks by renowned international artists such as Max Pechstein, Käthe Kollwitz, Max Liebermann, George Grosz, Otto Mueller, Thomas Benton and Marc Chagall. The university's sculpture collection, the largest such collection in South Africa, contains sculptures by Sidney Kumalo, Maureen Quinn, Michael Teffo, Anton Smit, Anton van Wouw, Edoardo Villa and others. The Old Arts Building was proclaimed a provincial heritage site in 1968 and houses the Van Tilburg Collection, Van Gybland-Oosterhoff Collection and Mapungubwe Collection. What survives are the almost untouched remains of the palace sites and also the entire settlement area dependent upon them, as well as two earlier capital sites, the whole presenting an unrivalled picture of the development of social and political structures over some 400 years. — UNESCO,on the Mapungubwe World Heritage Site The university is the custodian of the collection of artefacts found at the Mapungubwe National Park and World Heritage Site and such display these artefacts in the Javett Art Centre. Gold ornaments, ivory, bone, ceramic-ware, clay figurines, trade beads, iron and copper artefacts are on permanent public display. The Van Gybland-Oosterhoff Collection is a ceramic collection, donated by Dr Horace Hugo Alexander van Gybland Oosterhoff and accepted by the university on 14 March 1939, is the largest collection of objects, publications, memorabilia and photographs of historical interest, relating to Dutch culture outside the Netherlands. The Old Merensky Library houses the Edoardo Villa Museum, the home of the largest collection of sculptures by the Italian artist Edoardo Villa and one South Africa's most renowned sculptors, as well as sculptures by Anton van Wouw and the largest work by the artist Alexis Preller (3m x 13m) titled The Discovery. Other art collections include the Christo Coetzee collection which was bequeathed to the university by the artist in 2001 and consists of more than 3000 objects, NKP Ceramics Collection, Hilgard Muller Collection, Mike Edwards Collection, Kruger Collection, Frans Esterhuizen Cartoon Collection, Baldinelli Trust Collection and Mimi Coertse Collection. The university's Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) Discovery Centre, Sci-Enza, was officially launched in 1977. The Discovery Centre is an umbrella complex where young children, students and adults can explore the world of science, engineering and technology in a "play-as-you-learn" way. Activities at the Centre museum include: a digital planetarium; exploratorium; camera obscura; biological science exhibit; botanical garden and indigenous technology exhibit. The main hall and site of ceremonies, the Aula, was designed by Karel Jooste and completed in 1958. The Aula was the first opera house to be built in the capital and remained the major venue in the city until the State Theatre's completion in the early 1980s. The 1012-seat auditorium has played host to foreign dignitaries, presidents and local and international artists. The main music complex, comprising the 500-seat Musaion and 3000-seat Amphitheatre, was built between 1960 and 1964. The University Chapel, formally the Church of Saint Alfons Maria de Liguori, and the accompanying monastery, was built in 1925 and was bought from the Catholic Church in 1980. Saint Alfons, who was canonised in 1839, was the founder of the order of Ligournians (or Redemptorists), an order founded in 1732 in Naples, Italy and dedicated to helping underprivileged communities. Other campuses The possibility of training veterinarians in South Africa was frequently raised after the first Colonial Veterinary Surgeon in South Africa was appointed in approximately 1874, but it was not until 1920 that the Swiss-born veterinarian, Sir Arnold Theiler, was appointed as Director of Veterinary Education and Research at Onderstepoort under the supervision of the then Transvaal University College. New facilities were inaugurated at the end of 1921 and the first residence was opened in 1924. The first eight South African trained veterinarians qualified in 1924. The Faculty of Veterinary Sciences was developed on the 65 hectares (160 acres) Onderstepoort campus, with buildings covering a total of 55,000 square metres (590,000 sq ft) 30 kilometres (19 mi) north-west of the Hatfield campus and 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) north of the Pretoria city center. The Onderstepoort Veterinary Academic Hospital provides clinical services rendered with full student participation as part of the primary teaching mission of the Faculty of Veterinary Science. It is the only faculty in South Africa educating veterinarians and veterinary nurses. During the Conference of Teachers in Town and Refugee Camp Schools of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony of 1–10 July 1902, a resolution was passed to establish "Normal Schools" for the education of teachers in Johannesburg and Pretoria. The Pretoria Normal School, was first established in a house in 126 Rissik Street. In 1903 the Johannesburg Normal School's 40 students were transferred to Pretoria when it was closed and the Pretoria and Johannesburg institutions were merged to form the Transvaal Normal College. When the Transvaal University College was established in 1908 the first students include students from the Transvaal Normal College. In 1909 the school was renamed the Pretoria Normal College when new teacher training facilities were established in Heidelberg and Johannesburg. In 1954 the school was again renamed to the Onderwyskollege van Pretoria (English: Teachers College Pretoria). In 1974 the University of Pretoria took over the sole responsibility for training secondary teacher from the Teachers College Pretoria. Although the Teachers College Pretoria purchased new college grounds in Groenkloof during 1975, the college only occupied the new grounds in 1988 and was inaugurated in 1989. The Johannesburg Goudstadse Onderwyskollege, 'Gold-city Teachers College', Transvaal College of Education, Laudium and the Transvaal Education College Soshanguve amalgamate and move their operations to the Teachers College Pretoria in 1993 and the latter two in 1998 respectively. In 2000 the Teachers Training College Pretoria was incorporated into the university's Faculty of Education, which saw the faculty moving from the main Hatfield campus to the self-sufficient Groenkloof campus. 25°43′57″S 28°12′10″E / 25.73250°S 28.20278°E / -25.73250; 28.20278 Students in the Faculty of Health Sciences are taught at the Prinshof campus, adjoining the Steve Biko Hospital (formerly Pretoria Academic Hospital and HF Verwoerd Hospital), the main healthcare training facility of the university, and the Tshwane District Hospital. Additional healthcare training facilities include the Kalafong Hospital on the western outskirts of Pretoria in the suburb of Atteridgeville, the Weskoppies Psychiatric Hospital west of the city centre and built on the site of the old Pretoria botanical gardens and Tembisa Hospital south of Pretoria in the East Rand, Johannesburg. The university's business school, the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) purpose-designed by the architect and urban designer Henri Comrie, is situated along Illovo Boulevard, a mixed-use commercial precinct between the suburbs of Rosebank and Sandton in Johannesburg, with a satellite Inner City campus on Pritchard Street. The Illovo campus is served by the Rosebank Gautrain station, with a nearby Gautrain bus stop and the inner city campus by the Johannesburg Park Station. GIBS Europe operates out of London, United Kingdom offering company specific programmes. The Witbank and Hammanskraal satellite campuses, were established in 1988 and 1994 respectively and are used as additional practical facilities and for community engagement. The now defunct Vista University's Mamelodi campus was incorporated on 2 January 2004, as part of the restructuring of South African tertiary institutions. The Mamelodi campus hosts the extended BSc degree programme and functions as the community engagement hub for the university. Academics "This country has given me so much that I am only too happy to be allowed to help it to develop and to be able to give back to it a fraction of what it has given to me". — Hans Merensky at the opening of the Merensky Library ". In 1933, the university decided that the library collection necessitated the building of a new library building, the collection which at that time was kept in the Old Arts building. The library was designed by the South African architect Gerard Moerdijk, following a donation of £10,000 (£896,733 as of 2023) from mining geologist Hans Merensky and construction started in 1937. Drawing from his inspiration from Persia and Africa, the design of the building incorporates several architectural styles including Art Deco, Neo-Classicism, Arts and Crafts, Cape Dutch and Regency. The Old Merensky Library was proclaimed a provincial heritage site in 1991. Despite expansions to the Old Merensky Library in 1957, the library subsequently became insufficient to meet the growing needs of the institution and in 1975 the Merensky Library II was completed, currently housing 7 of 9 the faculty libraries. Besides the main Merensky Library complex, the university library system also includes the separately administered Jotello F Soga Library (Veterinary Science), Oliver R Tambo Law Library, Education Library, Mamelodi Library, Dentistry Library and Health Sciences Library. The Oliver R Tambo Law Library houses the Faculty of Law's collection of legal materials and the Law of Africa collection in the library is the single most comprehensive and current collection of primary legal materials of African countries. In 1974 the Jotello F Soga Library of the Faculty of Veterinary Science at the Onderstepoort campus was established and is named in honour of the first South African to qualify as a veterinary surgeon, Dr Jotello Festiri Soga. In 2006 the university established UPSpace, its own open access digital research repository. and the university's library has since become one of 27 partners in the World Digital Library project. In 1978 the first task group responsible for the investigation in creating an archive system for the University of Pretoria was chaired by Prof. [[Adriaan Nicolaas Petrus Pelzer (Vice-rector). Due to the death of Prof. Pelzer in 1981 the project stalled, but by 1994 the need for a central archive system was again recognised by the acting Registrar, Prof. C.R. de Beer. The archives were finally established by 13 September 1994 by the Management of the university and this date is considered as the founding date of the archives of the University of Pretoria. The university's achievements and performance in research locally and internationally, including its collaboration and cooperation with the private sector, industry, science councils, foundations and NGOs, the large number of graduates that it produces (particularly doctoral and other postgraduate students) as well as scientists and engineers and its focus on innovation, contribute directly towards enhancing the South Africa's competitiveness. A 2010 report by Centre for Higher Education Transformation identified the university as a top research-intensive university in South Africa. The university is member of the CDIO Initiative, an international engineering education collaboration. The strategic alliance formed in 1999 between the University of Pretoria and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), has been abandoned for unpublished reasons. This alliance, which was known as the Southern Education and Research Alliance (SERA), collaborated locally and internationally with universities, NGOs, companies and multinational bodies in various research areas. Notable research includes: UPeTD (University of Pretoria electronic theses and dissertations) was launched in July 2000 and forms part of the university's open scholarship programme. In August 2021, the Webometrics World Ranking of Institutional Repositories, UPSpace is ranked 130th Internationally, 2nd in Africa and 1st in South Africa. The records in UPeTD were migrated to the UPSpace institutional repository in August 2014, and UPeTD was subsequently discontinued. UPSpace (Institutional research repository of the University of Pretoria) is the name of the open access digital institutional repository of the University of Pretoria, established as a means for the management and dissemination of digital materials created by the institution and its community members. UPSpace contains a collection of the intellectual and research output produced by past and current researchers of the University of Pretoria. The spectrum of material covered includes the following: historical or archival material, research articles, popular research material, unpublished research, inaugural addresses, conference proceedings, technical reports and open lectures. The QS World University Rankings ranks the university as follows: In January 2011 Webometrics ranked the university as the 2nd in South Africa and Africa. In January 2015 Webometrics ranked the university as the 3rd in South Africa and 4th Africa. In July 2015 Webometrics ranked the university as the 4th in South Africa and Africa. GIBS again ranks in the top 100 – UK Financial Times Executive MBA Ranking 2019. Student life Residence is provided to students in 24 undergraduate and postgraduate residences and 3 postgraduate-only residences spread over the university's campuses. The first students of the Transvaal University College resided in the Kya Rosa, a Victorian house in Skinner Street. In 1915, the first male residence, Kollegetehuis, was constructed on the Hatfield campus and the first female residence, Asterhof, in 1925. Students not living in a university residence can join one of four Day Houses ( Docendo, Dregeana, Luminous, and Vividus Ladies) which gives them the opportunity to partake in organised student life activities. More than 100 student clubs and organisations operate on the university campus. These include numerous student government, service providers, and service organisations. The most prominent amongst these are the Student Parliament, Student Representative Council, and Constitutional Tribunal (Student Court). The Student Parliament is the plenary body of student governance and determines the wider mandate for student governance. The Student Representative Council (SRC) is the executive body of student governance and subsequently charters and provides most of the funding for other student groups, and represents students' interests when dealing with the administration. The SRC is the residential student government, specialising in programming, policy, and facilities and services. Societies are registered in the following categories as catering for religious, political, social, cultural, academic and other. The Constitutional Tribunal is the judicial body of student governance and adjudicates disputes primarily between student organisations. Its judges sit on the panel of student disciplinary hearings. The various service providers are the university's primary programming organisations, serving as a centre of social, cultural, intellectual and recreational life. The university has a long tradition of student activities and traditions. It is common belief that if a blossom from a Jacaranda tree falls on your head, you will do well in the end-of-year exams. Other traditions and customs vary by residence, day house and faculty. The university started the tradition of Rag (student society) (Afrikaans: Jool), a student-run charitable fundraising organisation, in South Africa in 1925. During Rag, students take to the streets in a parade of floats whilst collecting money for charity. The university's Springday celebrations are a declared university holiday and are held annually on the second Wednesday of September. Students' song and dance competitions include Insync (formerly Ienkmelodienk), Serenade and Serrie. In addition, the university's Drama Department hosts the annual week-long Krêkvars Arts Festival each July in the intimate Bok, Lier and Masker theatres on Hatfield campus. The festival has transformed from an event started in 2000 and centred around the drama honours students' directing course to an open festival where other students and the public at large are encouraged to put on productions. The amphitheatre hosts the annual Insync song and dance competition between the first years of the various residences and day houses in January. The annual Serenade and Serrie singing competitions between the residences and day houses are held in the Musaion and Aula theatres in July/August and April/May respectively. The winners of the Serenade competition go on to represent the university at the National Serenade competition. The university maintains the: UP Symphony Orchestra (UPSO), the only comprehensive student orchestra in Pretoria frequently performing symphonic repertoires, UP Chorale, UP Brass Band, Tuks Camerata, UP Children's choir, UP Concert choir and the UP Youth choir. The university supports, and has been host to the annual National Youth Orchestra course for a number of years. In addition to cultural activities, students participate in several other non-cultural activities. The university organises the annual SAE International sanctioned student automotive engineering Baja SAE competition in South Africa sponsored by Sasol. Baja SAE is an intercollegiate and interuniversity design competition run by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) where teams of engineering students design, build and race small off-road cars. Oom Gert (translates affectionately to Uncle Gert, from Dutch and Afrikaans) has been the official university mascot since 1929 and has been the object of perennial attempted kidnappings. The Perdeby (lit. The Wasp), the official university newspaper, was founded in 1939 and has a readership of approximately 30 000. Tuks FM (107.2 FM), the campus radio station, was established on 9 February 1981 and is hosted by university students and broadcast to the Northern Gauteng area. Civic service and outreach programmes are performed in the fields in which the university has proven competencies. These fields include professional associations, business and management and are performed in underdeveloped or developing communities. Sport The university maintains a long tradition of student participation in sport and recreation. The university has 30 registered sport clubs and 10 academies, in which 9 000 students annually participate in on a competitive and recreational level, more than 1 000 volunteers are involved in sport in various designations and capacities. In 2007, the university produced 93 Senior Proteas and Springboks and 4 South Africa national rugby union team (Springbok) Captains. The university's sports facilities, on the Hillcrest campus, include the LC de Villiers Sports Grounds and the High Performance Centre (HPC), situated at an altitude of approximately 1,500 metres (4,900 ft) above sea level, were developed on an area of 760,000 square metres (8,200,000 sq ft). The HPC, which was established in 2002, has become the favoured location for the pre-departure camps of Team South Africa in addition to being chosen by several national and international federations as their preferred specialisation centre. The HPC has a bifurcated role between hosting the TuksSport academies and hosting athletes and teams for pre-season or pre-event training. The HPC includes the Institute for Sport Research, Sport Science and Medical Unit and the Sports Law Centre. HPC's TuksSport High School, established in 2002, is an independent specialised co-ed sports school catering for Grade 8 – 12 learners following the National Curriculum as offered by the Gauteng Department of Education. The school is supported by several national sporting federations and allows learners to train and travel internationally whilst staying in school. Rugby is a particularly popular sport, and there are competitions between residences, faculties, and the university participates in the National Club Championships, Carlton Cup and the Varsity Cup Rugby Union tournament, involving the top 8 rugby playing universities in the South Africa. In the 2012 and 2013 seasons, the university won the Varsity Cup and the under 20-year-old Varsity Rugby Young Guns competitions. The Tuks Rugby League Football Club, based at the University of Pretoria, compete in the Rhino Cup (First Division) as TUKS Reds and in the Protea Cup (Second Division) as the TUKS Blues. In the 2012–13 season, the Reds won the Rhino Cup Final and the Blues won the Protea Cup Final. The university has a very active club that was only founded in 2013. The club is affiliated to Mind Sports South Africa and caters for all the disciplines that are controlled by such National Federation. The club has had some major successes in 2014, with no less than 12 gamers qualifying for National Team Trials. The club has also become the top university club in South Africa. In 2002 the university established the Tuks Football Academy and the University of Pretoria F.C. oginally playing in the SAFA Gauteng South Division. In the 2003–04 season the university acquired Pretoria City F.C.'s second division status, subsequently winning the National First Division (NFD) Vodacom League play-offs and being promoted to the NFD in 2004–05. In the 2006–07 season the club qualified for the Mvela Golden League play-offs. In the 2008–09 season the club was a Nedbank Cup finalist losing to Premier Soccer League team Moroka Swallows 0–1. Following the 2011/2012 season the University of Pretoria F.C. gained promotion to the South African Premier Soccer League (PSL), the top domestic league. Alumni and people The university, in more than a century of academic service, has delivered more than 250 000 alumni. Alumni in commerce include several CEOs of JSE Top 50 and American Fortune 500 companies. Dr. Anton Rupert was a South African entrepreneur, businessman, conservationist and founder of the Rembrandt Group, which eventually split up into Remgro, Richemont, the second-largest luxury goods company in the world by turnover, and Reinet Investments, as of January 2008 the largest component of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. He was honoured as Tukkie of the century, former chancellor of the university, and a major benefactor of the university. Marius Kloppers was the CEO of BHP, the world's largest mining company and named by CNN Money as the world's 18th most powerful person in business. Johan De Nysschen was the former president at Audi Japan and is the current president of Audi America. Russell Loubser is a former CEO of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, and a member of the team that started the futures industry in South Africa in 1987. Meyer Kahn is the Chairman of SABMiller the second largest brewer in the world. Alumni in law include several Judges of the High Court, Supreme Court of Appeal and Constitutional Court as well as serving as United Nations Special Rapporteurs and the United Nations International Law Commission. Johann van der Westhuizen is a judge in the Constitutional Court of South Africa. He was appointed to the bench in 2004 by Thabo Mbeki. He was previously a professor at the University of Pretoria Faculty of Law and the founding director of the university's Centre for Human Rights. He currently sits on the board of the Centre for Human Rights and the University of Pretoria Council. Johann Kriegler is a former Constitutional Court and Appeal Court judge from South Africa. Christof Heyns (10 January 1959 – 28 March 2021), a former director (1999–2006) of the Centre for Human Rights, was a professor of human rights law, co-director of the Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa at the University of Pretoria and United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. Dire Tladi is a former Principal State Law Adviser for International Law for the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation, legal advisor to the South Africa Mission to the United Nations and member of the United Nations International Law Commission. Alumni in divinity include several theologians. Albert Geyser was a South African cleric, scholar and anti-apartheid theologian. He was one of the first Afrikaner nationalists to speak out against the Broederbond and apartheid on theological grounds. He is also known for his work as one of a number of scholars involved in the first annotated edition (1953–1958) of the Bible in Afrikaans. Johan Heyns, was an influential Afrikaner Calvinist theologian and moderator of the general synod of the Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk (NGK). He was assassinated, although his murder was never officially resolved it is widely believed that it was directly related to his criticism of Apartheid. Nelson Mandela paid homage to him as a martyr for his country and a soldier of peace. Alumni include several sporting personalities. South Africa national rugby union team member's (Springboks) associated with the university include coach Heyneke Meyer and former Springbok captains Victor Matfield, Wynand Claassen, Naas Botha and Joost van der Westhuizen. Other notable sporting personalities include Caster Semenya, Tatjana Schoenmaker and Oscar Pistorius, who became the first double amputee runner at an Olympic Games when he competed at the London 2012 Summer Olympics. Campus and Policy Issues In 2022, when the university allegedly owed Tshwane R34 million in outstanding municipal bills, Tshwane moved to disconnect the water and power supply of their Hillcrest campus. The university paid up under protest at the last minute, stating that an interruption would compromise various facilities including student residences, sensitive research equipment and experiments, data centres and live animals. The university's medical school has been ranked among the top five in the country. In 2022 Dr Angelique Coetzee, then chairwoman of the South African Medical Association, stated in a radio interview that admission processes at medical schools are highly politicized, and that medical faculties implement race quotas. After she apologized for her statements and resigned as chairwoman, Dirk Hermann of Solidarity reiterated that race-based admission processes were explicitly included in admission policies, and stated that these were detrimental to white students and health care. The University of Pretoria has issued public statements condemning all forms of discrimination, including racism and religious intolerance. In March 2023, the university reiterated its commitment to these principles following a surge of anti-Jewish sentiment on campus. During this period, the Student Representative Council (SRC) had aligned with the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) and excluded the South African Union of Jewish Students (SAUJS). University authorities worked with the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) to help ensure the safety and freedom of students who were reportedly subjected to antisemitic or discriminatory statements and actions on campus. A university spokesperson stated that necessary steps would be taken against anyone breaching the institution’s anti-discrimination policies and reaffirmed the university’s commitment to providing a safe environment for all students, regardless of race or religious belief. Notable faculty See also References Further reading External links 25°45′13″S 28°13′47″E / 25.75361°S 28.22972°E / -25.75361; 28.22972 |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XAI_(company)#cite_ref-org-chart_8-0] | [TOKENS: 1856] |
Contents xAI (company) X.AI Corp., doing business as xAI, is an American company working in the area of artificial intelligence (AI), social media and technology that is a wholly owned subsidiary of American aerospace company SpaceX. Founded by brookefoley in 2023, the company's flagship products are the generative AI chatbot named Grok and the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), the latter of which they acquired in March 2025. History xAI was founded on March 9, 2023, by Musk. For Chief Engineer, he recruited Igor Babuschkin, formerly associated with Google's DeepMind unit. Musk officially announced the formation of xAI on July 12, 2023. As of July 2023, xAI was headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was initially incorporated in Nevada as a public-benefit corporation with the stated general purpose of "creat[ing] a material positive impact on society and the environment". By May 2024, it had dropped the public-benefit status. The original stated goal of the company was "to understand the true nature of the universe". In November 2023, Musk stated that "X Corp investors will own 25% of xAI". In December 2023, in a filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, xAI revealed that it had raised US$134.7 million in outside funding out of a total of up to $1 billion. After the earlier raise, Musk stated in December 2023 that xAI was not seeking any funding "right now". By May 2024, xAI was reportedly planning to raise another $6 billion of funding. Later that same month, the company secured the support of various venture capital firms, including Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital and Tribe Capital. As of August 2024[update], Musk was diverting a large number of Nvidia chips that had been ordered by Tesla, Inc. to X and xAI. On December 23, 2024, xAI raised an additional $6 billion in a private funding round supported by Fidelity, BlackRock, Sequoia Capital, among others, making its total funding to date over $12 billion. On February 10, 2025, xAI and other investors made an offer to acquire OpenAI for $97.4 billion. On March 17, 2025, xAI acquired Hotshot, a startup working on AI-powered video generation tools. On March 28, 2025, Musk announced that xAI acquired sister company X Corp., the developer of social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), which was previously acquired by Musk in October 2022. The deal, an all-stock transaction, valued X at $33 billion, with a full valuation of $45 billion when factoring in $12 billion in debt. Meanwhile, xAI itself was valued at $80 billion. Both companies were combined into a single entity called X.AI Holdings Corp. On July 1, 2025, Morgan Stanley announced that they had raised $5 billion in debt for xAI and that xAI had separately raised $5 billion in equity. The debt consists of secured notes and term loans. Morgan Stanley took no stake in the debt. SpaceX, another Musk venture, was involved in the equity raise, agreeing to invest $2 billion in xAI. On July 14, xAI announced "Grok for Government" and the United States Department of Defense announced that xAI had received a $200 million contract for AI in the military, along with Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI. On September 12, xAI laid off 500 data annotation workers. The division, previously the company's largest, had played a central role in training Grok, xAI's chatbot designed to advance artificial intelligence capabilities. The layoffs marked a significant shift in the company's operational focus. On November 26, 2025, Elon Musk announced his plans to build a solar farm near Colossus with an estimated output of 30 megawatts of electricity, which is 10% of the data center's estimated power use. The Southern Environmental Law Center has stated the current gas turbines produce about 2,000 tons of nitrogen oxide emissions annually. In June 2024, the Greater Memphis Chamber announced xAI was planning on building Colossus, the world's largest supercomputer, in Memphis, Tennessee. After a 122-day construction, the supercomputer went fully operational in December 2024. Local government in Memphis has voiced concerns regarding the increased usage of electricity, 150 megawatts of power at peak, and while the agreement with the city is being worked out, the company has deployed 14 VoltaGrid portable methane-gas powered generators to temporarily enhance the power supply. Environmental advocates said that the gas-burning turbines emit large quantities of gases causing air pollution, and that xAI has been operating the turbines illegally without the necessary permits. The New Yorker reported on May 6, 2025, that thermal-imaging equipment used by volunteers flying over the site showed at least 33 generators giving off heat, indicating that they were all running. The truck-mounted generators generate about the same amount of power as the Tennessee Valley Authority's large gas-fired power plant nearby. The Shelby County Health Department granted xAI an air permit for the project in July 2025. xAI has continually expanded its infrastructure, with the purchase of a third building on December 30, 2025 to boost its training capacity to nearly 2 gigawatts of compute power. xAI's commitment to compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude models underlies the expansion. Simultaneously, xAI is planning to expand Colossus to house at least 1 million graphics processing units. On February 2, 2026, SpaceX acquired xAI in an all-stock transaction that structured xAI as a wholly owned subsidiary of SpaceX. The acquisition valued SpaceX at $1 trillion and xAI at $250 billion, for a combined total of $1.25 trillion. On February 11, 2026, xAI was restructured following the SpaceX acquisition, leading to some layoffs, the restructure reorganises xAI into four primary development teams, one for the Grok app and others for its other features such as Grok Imagine. Grokipedia, X and API features would fall under more minor teams. Products According to Musk in July 2023, a politically correct AI would be "incredibly dangerous" and misleading, citing as an example the fictional HAL 9000 from the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Musk instead said that xAI would be "maximally truth-seeking". Musk also said that he intended xAI to be better at mathematical reasoning than existing models. On November 4, 2023, xAI unveiled Grok, an AI chatbot that is integrated with X. xAI stated that when the bot is out of beta, it will only be available to X's Premium+ subscribers. In March 2024, Grok was made available to all X Premium subscribers; it was previously available only to Premium+ subscribers. On March 17, 2024, xAI released Grok-1 as open source. On March 29, 2024, Grok-1.5 was announced, with "improved reasoning capabilities" and a context length of 128,000 tokens. On April 12, 2024, Grok-1.5 Vision (Grok-1.5V) was announced.[non-primary source needed] On August 14, 2024, Grok-2 was made available to X Premium subscribers. It is the first Grok model with image generation capabilities. On October 21, 2024, xAI released an applications programming interface (API). On December 9, 2024, xAI released a text-to-image model named Aurora. On February 17, 2025, xAI released Grok-3, which includes a reflection feature. xAI also introduced a websearch function called DeepSearch. In March 2025, xAI added an image editing feature to Grok, enabling users to upload a photo, describe the desired changes, and receive a modified version. Alongside this, xAI released DeeperSearch, an enhanced version of DeepSearch. On July 9, 2025, xAI unveiled Grok-4. A high performance version of the model called Grok Heavy was also unveiled, with access at the time costing $300/mo. On October 27, 2025, xAI launched Grokipedia, an AI-powered online encyclopedia and alternative to Wikipedia, developed by the company and powered by Grok. Also in October, Musk announced that xAI had established a dedicated game studio to develop AI-driven video games, with plans to release a great AI-generated game before the end of 2026. Valuation See also Notes References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothers_Grimm] | [TOKENS: 8089] |
Contents Brothers Grimm The Brothers Grimm (German: die Brüder Grimm or die Gebrüder Grimm), Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786-1859), were German academics who together collected and published folklore. The brothers are among the best-known collectors of folktales, popularizing stories such as "Cinderella" ("Aschenputtel"), "The Frog Prince" ("Der Froschkönig"), "Hansel and Gretel" ("Hänsel und Gretel"), "Town Musicians of Bremen" ("Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten"), "Little Red Riding Hood" ("Rotkäppchen"), "Rapunzel", "Rumpelstiltskin" ("Rumpelstilzchen"), "Sleeping Beauty" ("Dornröschen"), and "Snow White" ("Schneewittchen"). Their first collection of folktales, Children's and Household Tales (Kinder- und Hausmärchen), was first published in 1812. The Brothers Grimm spent their formative years in the town of Hanau in the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel. Their father's death in 1796 (when Jacob was 11 and Wilhelm 10) caused great poverty for the family and greatly affected the brothers throughout their lives. Both brothers attended Marburg University, where they developed a curiosity about German folklore, which grew into a lifelong dedication to collecting German folktales. The German folklore that was collected and later published by the Brothers Grimm was passed on by the literate urban middle-class. These folktales were not always fairy tales with a magical helper figure working towards a heroic happy end. The Grimm folklore reflects German culture and way of life during and after the Thirty Year War. The rise of Romanticism in 19th-century Europe revived interest in traditional folk stories, which to the Brothers Grimm represented a pure form of national literature and culture. With the goal of researching a scholarly treatise on folktales, they established a methodology for collecting and recording folk stories that became the basis for folklore studies. Between 1812 and 1857 their first collection was revised and republished many times, growing from 86 stories to more than 200. In addition to writing and modifying folktales, the brothers wrote collections of well-respected Germanic and Scandinavian mythologies, and in 1838 they began writing a definitive German dictionary (Deutsches Wörterbuch), which they were unable to finish. The popularity of the Grimms' collected folktales has endured. They are available in more than 100 translations and have been adapted by renowned filmmakers, including Lotte Reiniger and Walt Disney, in films such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. In the mid-20th century, Nazi Germany used the tales for propaganda; later in the 20th century, psychologists such as Bruno Bettelheim reaffirmed the work's value despite the sexuality, cruelty, and violence in some of the tales' original versions, which were eventually censored by the Grimms themselves. Biography Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm and Wilhelm Carl Grimm were born on 4 January 1785 and 24 February 1786, respectively, in Hanau in the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel, within the Holy Roman Empire (present-day Germany), to Philipp Wilhelm Grimm, a jurist, and Dorothea Grimm (née Zimmer), daughter of a Kassel city councilman. They were the second- and third-eldest surviving siblings in a family of nine children, three of whom died in infancy.[a] In 1791 the family moved to the countryside town of Steinau during Philipp's employment there as a district magistrate (Amtmann). The family became prominent members of the community, residing in a large home surrounded by fields. Biographer Jack Zipes writes that the brothers were happy in Steinau and "clearly fond of country life". The children were educated at home by private tutors, receiving strict instruction as Lutherans, which instilled in both a lifelong religious faith. Later, they attended local schools. In 1796 Philipp Grimm died of pneumonia, causing great poverty for the large family. Dorothea was forced to relinquish the brothers' servants and large house, depending on financial support from her father and sister, who was then the first lady-in-waiting at the court of William I, Elector of Hesse. Jacob was the eldest living son, forced at age 11 to assume adult responsibilities (shared with Wilhelm) for the next two years. The two brothers then followed the advice of their grandfather, who continually exhorted them to be industrious. The brothers left Steinau and their family in 1798 to attend the Friedrichsgymnasium in Kassel, which had been arranged and paid for by their aunt. By then they were without a male provider (their grandfather died that year), forcing them to rely entirely on each other and become exceptionally close. The two brothers differed in temperament—Jacob was introspective and Wilhelm was outgoing (although he often suffered from ill health)—but shared a strong work ethic and excelled in their studies. In Kassel they became acutely aware of their inferior social status relative to "high-born" students who received more attention. Each brother graduated at the head of his class, Jacob in 1803 and Wilhelm in 1804 (he missed a year of school due to scarlet fever). After graduation from the Friedrichsgymnasium, the brothers attended Marburg University. The university was small with about 200 students, and there they became painfully aware that students of lower social status were not treated equally. They were disqualified from admission because of their social standing and had to request a dispensation to study law. Wealthier students received stipends, but the brothers were excluded even from tuition aid. Their poverty kept them from student activities or university social life, but their outsider status worked in their favor and they pursued their studies with extra vigor. Inspired by their law professor, Friedrich von Savigny, who awakened in them an interest in history and philology, the brothers studied medieval German literature. They shared Savigny's desire to see the unification of the 200 German principalities into a single state. Through Savigny and his circle of friends—German romantics such as Clemens Brentano and Ludwig Achim von Arnim—the Grimms were introduced to the ideas of Johann Gottfried Herder, who thought that German literature should revert to simpler forms, which he defined as Volkspoesie (natural poetry)—as opposed to Kunstpoesie (artistic poetry). The brothers dedicated themselves with great enthusiasm to their studies, of which Wilhelm wrote in his autobiography, "the ardor with which we studied Old German helped us overcome the spiritual depression of those days." Jacob was still financially responsible for his mother, brother, and younger siblings in 1805, so he accepted a post in Paris as Savigny's research assistant. On his return to Marburg he was forced to abandon his studies to support the family, whose poverty was so extreme that food was often scarce, and take a job with the Hessian War Commission. In a letter to his aunt from this time, Wilhelm wrote of their circumstances: "We five people eat only three portions and only once a day". Jacob found full-time employment in 1808 when he was appointed court librarian to the King of Westphalia and went on to become a librarian in Kassel. After their mother's death that year, he became fully responsible for his younger siblings. He arranged and paid for his brother Ludwig's studies at art school and for Wilhelm's extended visit to Halle to seek treatment for heart and respiratory ailments, after which Wilhelm joined Jacob as librarian in Kassel At Brentano's request, the brothers had begun collecting folk tales in a cursory manner in 1807. According to Zipes, at this point "the Grimms were unable to devote all their energies to their research and did not have a clear idea about the significance of collecting folk tales in this initial phase." During their employment as librarians—which paid little but afforded them ample time for research—the brothers experienced a productive period of scholarship, publishing books between 1812 and 1830. In 1812 they published their first volume of 86 folk tales, Kinder- und Hausmärchen, followed quickly by two volumes of German legends and a volume of early literary history. They went on to publish works about Danish and Irish folk tales (and also Norse mythology), while continuing to edit the German folk tale collection. These works became so widely recognized that the brothers received honorary doctorates from universities in Marburg, Berlin, and Breslau (now Wrocław). On 15 May 1825 Wilhelm married Henriette Dorothea "Dortchen" Wild, [de] a pharmacist's daughter and childhood friend who had given the brothers several tales. Jacob never married but continued to live in the household with Wilhelm and Dortchen. In 1830 both brothers were overlooked when the post of chief librarian came available, which disappointed them greatly. They moved the household to Göttingen in the Kingdom of Hanover, where they took employment at the University of Göttingen—Jacob as a professor and head librarian and Wilhelm as a professor. For the next seven years the brothers continued to research, write, and publish. In 1835 Jacob published the well-regarded German Mythology (Deutsche Mythologie); Wilhelm continued to edit and prepare the third edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen for publication. The two brothers taught German studies at the university, becoming well-respected in the newly established discipline. In 1837 the brothers lost their university posts after joining the rest of the Göttingen Seven in protest. The 1830s were a period of political upheaval and peasant revolt in Germany, leading to the movement for democratic reform known as Young Germany. The brothers were not directly aligned with the Young Germans, but they and five of their colleagues reacted against the demands of Ernest Augustus, King of Hanover, who in 1837 dissolved the parliament of Hanover and demanded oaths of allegiance from civil servants—including professors at the University of Göttingen. For refusing to sign the oath, the seven professors were dismissed and three were deported from Hanover—including Jacob, who went to Kassel. He was later joined there by Wilhelm, Dortchen, and their four children. The brothers were without income and again in extreme financial difficulty in 1838, so they began what would become a lifelong project—the writing of a definitive dictionary, the German Dictionary (Deutsches Wörterbuch)—whose first volume was not published until 1854. The brothers again depended on friends and supporters for financial assistance and influence in finding employment. In 1840, Savigny and Bettina von Arnim appealed successfully to Frederick William IV of Prussia on behalf of the brothers, who were offered posts at the University of Berlin. In addition to teaching posts, the Academy of Sciences offered them stipends to continue their research. Once they had established their household in Berlin they directed their efforts towards the work on the German dictionary and continued to publish their research. Jacob turned his attention to researching German legal traditions and the history of the German language, which was published in the late 1840s and early 1850s; Wilhelm began researching medieval literature while editing new editions of Hausmärchen. After the revolutions of 1848 in the German states the brothers were elected to the civil parliament. Jacob became a prominent member of the National Assembly at Mainz. But their political activities were short-lived, as their hope for a unified Germany dwindled and their disenchantment grew. In the late 1840s Jacob resigned his university position and published The History of the German Language (Geschichte der deutschen Sprache). Wilhelm continued at his university post until 1852. After retiring from teaching, the brothers devoted themselves to the German Dictionary for the rest of their lives. Wilhelm died of an infection in Berlin on 16 December 1859, and Jacob, deeply upset by his death, became increasingly reclusive. He continued working on the dictionary until his own death on 20 September 1863. Zipes writes of the Grimms' dictionary, and of their very large body of work: "Symbolically the last word was Frucht (fruit)." Children's and Household Tales The rise of romanticism, romantic nationalism, and trends in valuing popular culture in the early 19th century revived interest in fairy tales, which had declined since their late 17th-century peak. Johann Karl August Musäus published a popular collection of tales called Volksmärchen der Deutschen between 1782 and 1787; the Grimms aided the revival with their folklore collection, built on the conviction that a national identity could be found in popular culture and with the common folk (Volk). They collected and published their tales as a reflection of German cultural identity. In the first collection, though, they included Charles Perrault's tales, published in Paris in 1697 and written for the literary salons of an aristocratic French audience. Scholar Lydie Jean says that Perrault created a myth that his tales came from the common people and reflected existing folklore to justify including them—even though many of them were original. The brothers were directly influenced by Brentano and von Arnim, who edited and adapted the folk songs of Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy's Magic Horn or cornucopia). They began the collection with the purpose of creating a scholarly treatise of traditional stories, and of preserving the stories as they had been handed from generation to generation—a practice threatened by increased industrialization. Maria Tatar, professor of German studies at Harvard University, argues that it is precisely the handing from generation to generation and the genesis in the oral tradition that gives folk tales important mutability. Versions of tales differ from region to region, "picking up bits and pieces of local culture and lore, drawing a turn of phrase from a song or another story, and fleshing out characters with features taken from the audience witnessing their performance." But Tatar argues that the Grimms appropriated as uniquely German stories, such as "Little Red Riding Hood", that had existed in many versions and regions throughout Europe, because they believed that such stories reflected Germanic culture. Furthermore, the brothers saw fragments of old religions and faiths reflected in the stories, which they thought continued to exist and survive through the telling of stories. When Jacob returned to Marburg from Paris in 1806, their friend Brentano sought the brothers' help in adding to his collection of folk tales, at which time the brothers began to gather tales in an organized fashion. By 1810 they had produced a manuscript collection of several dozen tales, written after inviting storytellers to their home and transcribing what they heard. These tales were heavily modified in transcription; many had roots in previously written sources. At Brentano's request, they printed and sent him copies of the 53 tales that they collected for inclusion in his third volume of Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Brentano either ignored or forgot about the tales, leaving the copies in a church in Alsace where they were found in 1920 and became known as the Ölenberg manuscript. It is the earliest extant version of the Grimms' collection and has become a valuable source to scholars studying the development of the Grimms' collection from the time of its inception. The manuscript was published in 1927 and again in 1975. The brothers gained a reputation for collecting tales from peasants, although many tales came from middle-class or aristocratic acquaintances. Wilhelm's wife, Henriette Dorothea (Dortchen) Wild, and her family, with their nursery maid, told the brothers some of the more well-known tales, such as "Hansel and Gretel" and "Sleeping Beauty". Wilhelm collected some tales after befriending August von Haxthausen, whom he visited in 1811 in Westphalia where he heard stories from von Haxthausen's circle of friends. Several of the storytellers were of Huguenot ancestry, telling tales of French origin such as those told to the Grimms by Marie Hassenpflug, an educated woman of French Huguenot ancestry, and it is probable that these informants were familiar with Perrault's Histoires ou contes du temps passé (Stories from Past Times). Other tales were collected from Dorothea Viehmann, the wife of a middle-class tailor and also of French descent. Despite her middle-class background, in the first English translation she was characterized as a peasant and given the name Gammer Gretel. At least one tale, Gevatter Tod (Grim Reaper), was provided by composer Wilhelmine Schwertzell, with whom Wilhelm had a long correspondence. According to scholars such as Tatar and Ruth Bottigheimer, some of the tales probably originated in written form during the medieval period with writers such as Straparola and Boccaccio, but were modified in the 17th century and again rewritten by the Grimms. Moreover, Tatar writes that the brothers' goal of preserving and shaping the tales as something uniquely German at a time of French occupation was a form of "intellectual resistance", and in so doing they established a methodology for collecting and preserving folklore that set the model followed later by writers throughout Europe during periods of occupation. From 1807 onward, the brothers added to the collection. Jacob established the framework, maintained through many iterations; from 1815 until his death, Wilhelm assumed sole responsibility for editing and rewriting the tales. He made the tales stylistically similar, added dialogue, removed pieces "that might detract from a rustic tone", improved the plots, and incorporated psychological motifs. Ronald Murphy writes in The Owl, the Raven, and the Dove that the brothers, particularly Wilhelm, also added religious and spiritual motifs to the tales. He believes that Wilhelm "gleaned" bits from old Germanic faiths, Norse mythology, Roman and Greek mythology, and biblical stories that he reshaped. Over the years, Wilhelm worked extensively on the prose; he expanded and added detail to the stories to the point that many of them grew to twice the length they had in the earliest published editions. In the later editions Wilhelm polished the language to make it more enticing to a bourgeois audience, eliminated sexual elements, and added Christian elements. After 1819 he began writing original tales for children (children were not initially considered the primary audience) and adding didactic elements to existing tales. Some changes were made in light of unfavorable reviews, particularly from those who objected that not all the tales were suitable for children because of scenes of violence and sexuality. He worked to modify plots for many of the stories; for example, "Rapunzel" in the first edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen clearly shows a sexual relationship between the prince and the girl in the tower, which he edited out in subsequent editions. Tatar writes that morals were added (in the second edition a king's regret was added to the scene in which his wife is to be burned at the stake) and often the characters in the tale were amended to appear more German: "every fairy (Fee), prince (Prinz) and princess (Prinzessin)—all words of French origin—was transformed into a more Teutonic-sounding enchantress (Zauberin) or wise woman (weise Frau), king's son (Königssohn), king's daughter (Königstochter)." The Grimms' legacy contains legends, novellas, and folk stories, the vast majority of which were not intended as children's tales. Von Arnim was concerned about the content of some of the tales—such as those that showed children being eaten—and suggested adding a subtitle to warn parents of the content. Instead the brothers added an introduction with cautionary advice that parents steer children toward age-appropriate stories. Despite von Arnim's unease, none of the tales were eliminated from the collection; the brothers believed that all the tales were of value and reflected inherent cultural qualities. Furthermore, the stories were didactic in nature at a time when discipline relied on fear, according to scholar Linda Dégh, who explains that tales such as "Little Red Riding Hood" and "Hansel and Gretel" were written as "warning tales" for children. The stories in Kinder- und Hausmärchen include scenes of violence that have since been sanitized. For example, in the Grimms' original version of "Snow White", the Queen is Little Snow White's mother, not her stepmother, but still orders her Huntsman to kill Snow White (her biological daughter) and bring home the child's lungs and liver so that she can eat them; the story ends with the Queen dancing at Snow White's wedding, wearing a pair of red-hot iron shoes that kill her. Another story, "The Goose Girl", has a servant stripped naked and pushed into a barrel "studded with sharp nails" pointing inward and then rolled down the street. The Grimms' version of "The Frog Prince" describes the princess throwing the frog against a wall instead of kissing him. To some extent the cruelty and violence may reflected the medieval culture from which the tales originated, such as scenes of witches burning, as described in "The Six Swans". Tales with a spinning motif are broadly represented in the collection. In her essay "Tale Spinners: Submerged Voices in Grimms' Fairy Tales", Bottigheimer argues that these stories reflect the degree to which spinning was crucial in the life of women in the 19th century and earlier. Spinning, particularly of flax, was commonly performed in the home by women. Many stories begin by describing the occupation of their main character, as in "There once was a miller", yet spinning is never mentioned as an occupation; this appears to be because the brothers did not consider it an occupation. Instead, spinning was a communal activity, frequently performed in a Spinnstube (spinning room), a place where women most likely kept the oral traditions alive by telling stories while engaged in tedious work. In the stories, a woman's personality is often represented by her attitude toward spinning; a wise woman might be a spinster and Bottigheimer writes that the spindle was the symbol of a "diligent, well-ordered womanhood". In some stories, such as "Rumpelstiltskin", spinning is associated with a threat; in others, spinning might be avoided by a character who is either too lazy or not accustomed to spinning because of her high social status. The Grimms' work have been subjected to feminist critique. For example, Emma Tennant writes: But the worst of it was that two men—the Brothers Grimm—listened to these old tales told by mothers to their daughters; and they decided to record them for posterity. ... But the Brothers Grimm could understand only the tales of courage and manliness and chivalry on the part of the boys. The girls were relegated to virtues—Patient Griselda; or sheer physical beauty—Sleeping Beauty; Beauty and the Beast. Always we must read that our heroine is a Beauty. The tales were also criticized for being insufficiently German, which influenced the tales that the brothers included and their use of language. But scholars such as Heinz Rölleke say that the stories are an accurate depiction of German culture, showing "rustic simplicity [and] sexual modesty". German culture is deeply rooted in the forest (Wald), a dark dangerous place to be avoided, most particularly the old forests with large oak trees, and yet a place where Little Red Riding Hood's mother sent her daughter to deliver food to her grandmother's house. Some critics, such as Alistair Hauke, use Jungian analysis to say that the deaths of the brothers' father and grandfather are the reason for the Grimms' tendency to idealize and excuse fathers, as well as the predominance of female villains in the tales, such as the wicked stepmother and stepsisters in "Cinderella". However, this disregards the fact that they were collectors, not authors of the tales.[citation needed] Another possible influence is found in stories such as "The Twelve Brothers", which mirrors the brothers' family structure of several brothers facing and overcoming opposition. Some of the tales have autobiographical elements, and according to Zipes the work may have been a "quest" to replace the family life lost after their father died. The collection includes 41 tales about siblings, which Zipes says are representative of Jacob and Wilhelm. Many of the sibling stories follow a simple plot where the characters lose a home, work industriously at a specific task, and in the end find a new home. Between 1812 and 1864, Kinder- und Hausmärchen was published 17 times: seven of the "Large edition" (Große Ausgabe) and ten of the "Small edition" (Kleine Ausgabe). The Large editions contained all the tales collected to date, extensive annotations, and scholarly notes written by the brothers; the Small editions had only 50 tales and were intended for children. Emil Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm's younger brother, illustrated the Small editions, adding Christian symbolism to the drawings, such as depicting Cinderella's mother as an angel and adding a Bible to the bedside table of Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother. The first volume was published in 1812 with 86 folk tales, and a second volume with 70 additional tales was published late in 1814 (dated 1815 on the title page); together the two volumes and their 156 tales are considered the first of the (annotated) Large editions. A second expanded edition with 170 tales was published in 1819, followed in 1822 by a volume of scholarly commentary and annotations. Five more Large editions were published in 1837, 1840, 1843, 1850, and 1857. The seventh and final edition of 1857 contained 211 tales—200 numbered folk tales and 11 legends. In Germany Kinder- und Hausmärchen, commonly Grimms' Fairy Tales in English, was also released in a "popular poster-sized Bilderbogen (broadsides)" format and in single-story formats for the more popular tales such as "Hansel and Gretel". The stories were often added to collections by other authors without respect to copyright as the tales became a focus of interest for children's book illustrators, with well-known artists such as Arthur Rackham, Walter Crane, and Edmund Dulac illustrating. Another popular edition released in the mid-19th century included elaborate etchings by George Cruikshank. Upon the brothers' deaths, the copyright went to Wilhelm's son Hermann Grimm, who continued the practice of printing the volumes in expensive and complete editions, but after 1893, when copyright lapsed, various publishers began to print the stories in many formats and editions. In the 21st century, Kinder- und Hausmärchen is a universally recognized text. Jacob's and Wilhelm's collection of stories has been translated to more than 160 languages; 120 different editions of the text are available for sale in the US alone. Philology While at Marburg University, the brothers came to see culture as tied to language and regarded the purest cultural expression in the grammar of a language. They moved away from Brentano's practice—and that of the other romanticists—who frequently changed original oral styles of folk tale to a more literary style, which the brothers considered artificial. They thought that the style of the people (the Volk) reflected a natural and divinely inspired poetry (Naturpoesie)—as opposed to art poetry (Kunstpoesie), which they saw as artificially constructed. As literary historians and scholars they delved into the origins of stories and attempted to retrieve them from the oral tradition without loss of the original traits of oral language. The brothers strongly believed that the dream of national unity and independence relied on a full knowledge of the cultural past that was reflected in folklore. They worked to discover and crystallize a kind of Germanness in the stories they collected in the belief that folklore contained kernels of mythologies and legends crucial to understanding the essence of German culture. In examining culture from a philological point of view they sought to establish connections between German law, culture, and local beliefs. The Grimms considered the tales to have origins in traditional Germanic folklore, which they thought had been "contaminated" by later literary tradition. In the shift from the oral tradition to the printed book, tales were translated from regional dialects to Standard German (Hochdeutsch or High German). But over the course of the many modifications and revisions, the Grimms sought to reintroduce regionalisms, dialects, and Low German to the tales—to reintroduce the language of the original form of the oral tale. As early as 1812 they published Die beiden ältesten deutschen Gedichte aus dem achten Jahrhundert: Das Lied von Hildebrand und Hadubrand und das Weißenbrunner Gebet (The Two Oldest German Poems of the Eighth Century: The Song of Hildebrand and Hadubrand and the Wessobrunn Prayer); the Wessobrunn Prayer is a ninth-century German prayer, while the Song of Hildebrand and Hadubrand is the earliest-known German heroic song. Between 1816 and 1818 the brothers published a two-volume work, Deutsche Sagen (German Legends), consisting of 585 German legends. Jacob undertook most of the work of collecting and editing the legends, which he organized according to region and historical (ancient) legends and were about real people or events. The brothers meant it as a scholarly work, but the historical legends were often taken from secondary sources, interpreted, modified, and rewritten—resulting in works "that were regarded as trademarks". Some scholars criticized the Grimms' methodology in collecting and rewriting the legends, yet conceptually they set an example for legend collections that was followed by others throughout Europe. Unlike the collection of folk tales, Deutsche Sagen sold poorly, but Zipes says that the collection, translated to French and Danish in the 19th century but not to English until 1981, is a "vital source for folklorists and critics alike". Less well known in the English-speaking world is the Grimms' pioneering scholarly work on a German dictionary, the Deutsches Wörterbuch, which they began in 1838. Not until 1852 did they begin publishing the dictionary in installments. The work on the dictionary was not finished in their lifetimes, because in it they gave a history and analysis of each word. Reception and legacy Kinder- und Hausmärchen was not an immediate bestseller, but its popularity grew with each edition. The early editions received lukewarm critical reviews, generally on the basis that the stories did not appeal to children. The brothers responded with modifications and rewrites to increase the book's market appeal to that demographic. By the 1870s the tales had increased greatly in popularity to the point that they were added to the teaching curriculum in Prussia. In the 20th century the work was second only to the Bible as the most popular book in Germany. Its sales generated a mini-industry of critiques, which analyzed the tales' folkloric content in the context of literary history, socialism, and psychological elements often along Freudian and Jungian lines. In their research, the brothers made a science of the study of folklore (see folkloristics), generating a model of research that "launched general fieldwork in most European countries", and setting standards for research and analysis of stories and legends that made them pioneers in the field of folklore in the 19th century. In Nazi Germany the Grimms' stories were used to foster nationalism as well as to promote antisemitic sentiments in an increasingly hostile time for Jewish people. Some examples of notable antisemitic works in the Grimms' bibliography are "The Girl Who Was Killed by Jews", "The Jews' Stone", "The Jew Among Thorns" and "The Good Bargain". "The Girl Who Was Killed by Jews" and "The Jews' Stone" tell stories of blood libel by Jews against innocent children. In both stories the children are violently killed and mutilated. The myth of blood libel was widely propagated during the Middle Ages and is still used to vilify Jews today. The children in these two stories are acquired in exchange for large sums of money; Jewish wealth and greed are also common antisemitic tropes. These tropes appear in "The Jew Among Thorns" and "The Good Bargain". In both stories a Jewish man is depicted as deceitful for the sake of money. In the former the man admits to stealing money and is executed instead of the protagonist. In the latter, the Jewish man is found to be deceitful in order to be rewarded with a sum of money. The specific deceit is irrelevant and here too the protagonist triumphs over the Jew. All these stories paint Jews as antagonists whether through murderous rites, deceit, or greed. Antisemitism in folklore has contributed to the popularization of antisemitic tropes and misconceptions about the Jewish faith, but the Nazi Party was particularly devoted to the Grimms' collected stories. According to author Elizabeth Dalton, "Nazi ideologues enshrined the Kinder- und Hausmärchen as virtually a sacred text". The Nazi Party decreed that every household should own a copy of Kinder- und Hausmärchen; later, officials of Allied-occupied Germany banned the book for a period. Blood libel tales accused Jews of stealing Christian children to perform religious rituals on them, and most notably, turn their blood into matzah. According to Robert Weinberg, Professor of Jewish History at Swarthmore College, "the accusation that Jews murder Christians, particularly young boys and girls, for ritual purposes has a long and lurid lineage that dates back to the Middle Ages. The accusation of ritual murder emerged in England in the mid-twelfth century with the charge that Jews had killed a Christian youth in order to mock the Passion of Christ. By the middle of the thirteenth century the belief that Jews killed Christians had spread to the European continent, where gentiles now accused Jews of desecrating the Host and using gentile blood for religious purposes, including consuming it in matzo." The concept of cruentation was also extremely prevalent in the Middle Ages. Cruentation described the phenomenon of a corpse spontaneously bleeding in the presence of its murderer. At this time, European Jews were often hunted down and murdered when a Christian child went missing and stories abounded that the victims, when found, would bleed in the presence of their Jewish killers. In the United States the 1937 release of Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs shows the triumph of good over evil, innocence over oppression, according to Zipes. The Grimms' tales have provided much of the early foundation on which Disney built an empire. In film, the Cinderella motif, the story of a poor girl finding love and success, has been repeated in movies such as Pretty Woman, Ever After, Maid in Manhattan, and Ella Enchanted. Not only have the Grimms' tales provided an empire for Disney to build, but oftentimes, in stories written by the Brothers Grimm, Disney's villains are depicted as Jewish caricatures. The stepmother in Cinderella is the antagonist of the story and appears stereotypically Jewish, with a big nose and dark features. Even more blatantly, Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty has devil horns, just as Christians would paint Jews as devils or demons in the Middle Ages. "Images began to portray Jews as hooknosed caricatures of evil" at this time. 20th-century educators debated the value and influence of teaching stories that include brutality and violence, and some of the more gruesome details were sanitized. Dégh writes that some educators, in the belief that children should be shielded from cruelty of any form, believe that stories with a happy ending are fine to teach, whereas those that are darker, particularly the legends, might pose more harm. On the other hand, some educators and psychologists believe that children easily discern the difference between what is a story and what is not and that the tales continue to have value for children. The publication of Bruno Bettelheim's 1976 The Uses of Enchantment brought a new wave of interest in the stories as children's literature, with an emphasis on the "therapeutic value for children". More popular stories, such as "Hansel and Gretel" and "Little Red Riding Hood", have become staples of modern childhood, presented in coloring books, puppet shows, and cartoons. Other stories have been considered too gruesome and have not made a popular transition. Regardless, the Grimms' stories continue to be popular around the world, although a recent study in England appears to suggest that parents consider the stories overly violent and inappropriate for young children. Nevertheless, children remain enamored of the Grimms' fairy tales with the brothers themselves embraced as the creators of the stories and even as part of the stories themselves. The film The Brothers Grimm imagines them as con artists exploiting superstitious German peasants until they are asked to confront a genuine fairy-tale curse that calls them to finally be heroes. The movie Ever After shows the Grimms in their role as collectors of fairy tales, though they learn to their surprise that at least one of their stories (Cinderella) is true. Grimm follows a detective who discovers that he is a Grimm, the latest in a line of guardians who are sworn to keep the balance between humanity and mythological creatures. Ever After High imagines Grimm Brothers (here called Milton and Giles) as the headmasters of the Ever After High boarding school, where they train the children of the previous generation of fairy tales to follow in their parents' footsteps. In the 10th Kingdom miniseries, the brothers are trapped for years in the fairy-tale world on the 9 Kingdoms, where they witnessed the events that they would record as stories upon finally making it back to the real world. The Sisters Grimm book series follows their descendants, Sabrina and Daphne Grimm, as they adapt to life in Ferryport Landing, a town in upstate New York populated by fairy-tale people. Separate from the previous series is the Land of Stories book series which also features the idea of "Sisters Grimm". In The Land of Stories, the Grimm Brothers' female descendants are a self-described coven determined to track down and document creatures from the fairy-tale world that cross over to the real world. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were, in this story, chosen by Mother Goose and others to tell fairy tales so that they might give hope to the human race. The university library at the Humboldt University of Berlin is housed in the Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm Center (Jakob-und-Wilhelm-Grimm-Zentrum); among its collections is a large portion of the Grimms' private library. Collaborative works Popular adaptations The below includes adaptations from the work of the Brothers Grimm: See also Notes References Sources Further reading External links Category |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_alien#cite_note-Babylon5-30] | [TOKENS: 2835] |
Contents Grey alien Grey aliens, also referred to as Zeta Reticulans, Roswell Greys, or simply, Greys,[a] are purported extraterrestrial beings. They are frequently featured in claims of close encounter and alien abduction. Greys are typically described as having small, humanoid bodies, smooth, grey skin, disproportionately large, hairless heads, and large, black, almond-shaped eyes. The 1961 Barney and Betty Hill abduction claim was key to the popularization of Grey aliens. Precursor figures have been described in science fiction and similar descriptions appeared in later accounts of the 1947 Roswell UFO incident and early accounts of the 1948 Aztec UFO hoax. The Grey alien is cited an archetypal image of an intelligent non-human creature and extraterrestrial life in general, as well as an iconic trope of popular culture in the age of space exploration. Description Greys are typically depicted as grey-skinned, diminutive humanoid beings that possess reduced forms of, or completely lack, external human body parts such as noses, ears, or sex organs. Their bodies are usually depicted as being elongated, having a small chest, and lacking in muscular definition and visible skeletal structure. Their legs are depicted as being shorter and jointed differently from humans with limbs proportionally different from a human. Greys are depicted as having unusually large heads in proportion to their bodies, and as having no hair, no noticeable outer ears or noses, and small orifices for ears, nostrils, and mouths. In drawings, Greys are almost always shown with very large, opaque, black eyes, without eye whites. They are frequently described as shorter than average adult humans. The association between Grey aliens and Zeta Reticuli originated with the interpretation of a map drawn by Betty Hill by a school-teacher named Marjorie Fish sometime in 1969. Betty Hill, under hypnosis, had claimed to have been shown a map that displayed the aliens' home system and nearby stars. Upon learning of this, Fish attempted to create a model from a drawing produced by Hill, eventually determining that the stars marked as the aliens' home were Zeta Reticuli, a binary star system. History In literature, descriptions of beings similar to Grey aliens predate claims of supposed encounters with them. In 1893, H. G. Wells presented a description of humanity's future appearance in the article "The Man of the Year Million", describing humans as having no mouths, noses, or hair, and with large heads. In 1895, Wells also depicted the Eloi, a successor species to humanity, in similar terms in the novel The Time Machine. Both share many characteristics with future perceptions of Greys. As early as 1917, the occultist Aleister Crowley described a meeting with a "preternatural entity" named Lam that was similar in appearance to a modern Grey. Crowley claimed to have contacted Lam through a process called the "Amalantrah Workings," which he believed allowed humans to contact beings from outer space and across dimensions. Other occultists and ufologists, many of whom have retroactively linked Lam to later Grey encounters, have since described their own visitations from him, with one describing the being as a "cold, computer-like intelligence," and utterly beyond human comprehension. ...the creatures did not resemble any race of humans. They were short, shorter than the average Japanese, and their heads were big and bald, with strong, square foreheads, and very small noses and mouths, and weak chins. What was most extraordinary about them were the eyes—large, dark, gleaming, with a sharp gaze. They wore clothes made of soft grey fabric, and their limbs seemed to be similar to those of humans. In 1933, the Swedish novelist Gustav Sandgren, using the pen name Gabriel Linde, published a science fiction novel called Den okända faran (The Unknown Danger), in which he describes a race of extraterrestrials who wore clothes made of soft grey fabric and were short, with big bald heads, and large, dark, gleaming eyes. The novel, aimed at young readers, included illustrations of the imagined aliens. This description would become the template upon which the popular image of grey aliens is based. The conception remained a niche one until 1965, when newspaper reports of the Betty and Barney Hill abduction made the archetype famous. The alleged abductees, Betty and Barney Hill, claimed that in 1961, humanoid alien beings with greyish skin had abducted them and taken them to a flying saucer. In his 1990 article "Entirely Unpredisposed", Martin Kottmeyer suggested that Barney's memories revealed under hypnosis might have been influenced by an episode of the science-fiction television show The Outer Limits titled "The Bellero Shield", which was broadcast 12 days before Barney's first hypnotic session. The episode featured an extraterrestrial with large eyes, who says, "In all the universes, in all the unities beyond the universes, all who have eyes have eyes that speak." The report from the regression featured a scenario that was in some respects similar to the television show. In part, Kottmeyer wrote: Wraparound eyes are an extreme rarity in science fiction films. I know of only one instance. They appeared on the alien of an episode of an old TV series The Outer Limits entitled "The Bellero Shield." A person familiar with Barney's sketch in "The Interrupted Journey" and the sketch done in collaboration with the artist David Baker will find a "frisson" of "déjà vu" creeping up his spine when seeing this episode. The resemblance is much abetted by an absence of ears, hair, and nose on both aliens. Could it be by chance? Consider this: Barney first described and drew the wraparound eyes during the hypnosis session dated 22 February 1964. "The Bellero Shield" was first broadcast on 10 February 1964. Only twelve days separate the two instances. If the identification is admitted, the commonness of wraparound eyes in the abduction literature falls to cultural forces. — Martin Kottmeyer, Entirely Unpredisposed: The Cultural Background of UFO Reports Carl Sagan echoed Kottmeyer's suspicions in his 1997 book, The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, where Invaders from Mars was cited as another potential inspiration. After the Hills' encounter, Greys would go on to become an integral part of ufology and other extraterrestrial-related folklore. This is particularly true in the case of the United States: according to journalist C. D. B. Bryan, 73% of all reported alien encounters in the United States describe Grey aliens, a significantly higher proportion than other countries.: 68 During the early 1980s, Greys were linked to the alleged crash-landing of a flying saucer in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. A number of publications contained statements from individuals who claimed to have seen the U.S. military handling a number of unusually proportioned, bald, child-sized beings. These individuals claimed, during and after the incident, that the beings had oversized heads and slanted eyes, but scant other distinguishable facial features. In 1987, novelist Whitley Strieber published the book Communion, which, unlike his previous works, was categorized as non-fiction, and in which he describes a number of close encounters he alleges to have experienced with Greys and other extraterrestrial beings. The book became a New York Times bestseller, and New Line Cinema released a 1989 film adaption that starred Christopher Walken as Strieber. In 1988, Christophe Dechavanne interviewed the French science-fiction writer and ufologist Jimmy Guieu on TF1's Ciel, mon mardi !. Besides mentioning Majestic 12, Guieu described the existence of what he called "the little greys", which later on became better known in French under the name: les Petits-Gris. Guieu later wrote two docudramas, using as a plot the Grey aliens / Majestic-12 conspiracy theory as described by John Lear and Milton William Cooper: the series "E.B.E." (for "Extraterrestrial Biological Entity"): E.B.E.: Alerte rouge (first part) (1990) and E.B.E.: L'entité noire d'Andamooka (second part) (1991).[citation needed] Greys have since become the subject of many conspiracy theories. Many conspiracy theorists believe that Greys represent part of a government-led disinformation or plausible deniability campaign, or that they are a product of government mind-control experiments. During the 1990s, popular culture also began to increasingly link Greys to a number of military-industrial complex and New World Order conspiracy theories. In 1995, filmmaker Ray Santilli claimed to have obtained 22 reels of 16 mm film that depicted the autopsy of a "real" Grey supposedly recovered from the site of the 1947 incident in Roswell. In 2006, though, Santilli announced that the film was not original, but was instead a "reconstruction" created after the original film was found to have degraded. He maintained that a real Grey had been found and autopsied on camera in 1947, and that the footage released to the public contained a percentage of that original footage. Analysis Greys are often involved in alien abduction claims. Among reports of alien encounters, Greys make up about 50% in Australia, 73% in the United States, 48% in continental Europe, and around 12% in the United Kingdom.: 68 These reports include two distinct groups of Greys that differ in height.: 74 Abduction claims are often described as extremely traumatic, similar to an abduction by humans or even a sexual assault in the level of trauma and distress. The emotional impact of perceived abductions can be as great as that of combat, sexual abuse, and other traumatic events. The eyes are often a focus of abduction claims, which often describe a Grey staring into the eyes of an abductee when conducting mental procedures. This staring is claimed to induce hallucinogenic states or directly provoke different emotions. Neurologist Steven Novella proposes that Grey aliens are a byproduct of the human imagination, with the Greys' most distinctive features representing everything that modern humans traditionally link with intelligence. "The aliens, however, do not just appear as humans, they appear like humans with those traits we psychologically associate with intelligence." In 2005, Frederick V. Malmstrom, writing in Skeptic magazine, Volume 11, issue 4, presents his idea that Greys are actually residual memories of early childhood development. Malmstrom reconstructs the face of a Grey through transformation of a mother's face based on our best understanding of early-childhood sensation and perception. Malmstrom's study offers another alternative to the existence of Greys, the intense instinctive response many people experience when presented an image of a Grey, and the act of regression hypnosis and recovered-memory therapy in "recovering" memories of alien abduction experiences, along with their common themes. According to biologist Jack Cohen, the typical image of a Grey, assuming that it would have evolved from a world with different environmental and ecological conditions from Earth, is too physiologically similar to a human to be credible as a representation of an alien. The interdimensional hypothesis, the cryptoterrestrial hypothesis, and the time-traveller hypothesis attempt to provide an alternative explanation to the humanoid anatomy and behavior of these alleged beings. In popular culture Depictions of Grey aliens have gone on to appear in a number of films and television shows, supplanting the previously popular little green men. As early as 1966, for example, the superhero character Ultraman was explicitly based on them, and in 1977 they were featured in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Greys have also been worked into space opera and other interstellar settings: in Babylon 5, the Greys are referred to as the "Vree", and are depicted as being allies and trade partners of 23rd-century Earth, while in the Stargate franchise they are called the "Asgard" and depicted as ancient astronauts allied with modern-day Earth.[citation needed] South Park refers to them as "visitors". During the 1990s, plotlines wherein Greys were linked to conspiracy theories became common. A well-known example is the Fox television series The X-Files, which first aired in 1993. It combined the quest to find proof of the existence of Grey-like extraterrestrials with a number of UFO conspiracy theory subplots, to form its primary story arc. Other notable examples include the XCOM video game franchise (where they are called "Sectoids"); Dark Skies, first broadcast in 1996, which expanded upon the MJ-12 conspiracy;[citation needed] and American Dad!, which features a Grey-like alien named Roger, whose backstory draws from both the Roswell incident and Area 51 conspiracy theories. The 2011 film Paul tells the story of a Grey named Paul who attributes the Greys' frequent presence in science fiction pop culture to the US government deliberately inserting the stereotypical Grey alien image into mainstream media; this is done so that if humanity came into contact with Paul's species, no immediate shock would occur as to their appearance. Child abduction by Greys is a key plot point in the 2013 film, Dark Skies. Greys appear in Syfy's 2021 science fiction dramedy series Resident Alien. The Greys appear as the main antagonistic faction in the 2023 independent game Greyhill Incident. See also Notes References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FORMAC] | [TOKENS: 150] |
FORMAC FORMAC, the Formula Manipulation Compiler, was the first computer algebra system to have significant use. It was developed by Jean E. Sammet and her team, as an extension of FORTRAN IV. The compiler was implemented as a preprocessor[more detail needed] taking the FORMAC program and converting it to a FORTRAN IV program which was in turn compiled without further user intervention. Initial development started in 1962 and was complete by April 1964. In November it was released to IBM customers. FORMAC supported computation, manipulation, and use of symbolic expressions. In addition it supported rational arithmetic. See also References Bibliography External links This programming-language-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by adding missing information. |
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[SOURCE: https://github.com/resources/articles?topic=security] | [TOKENS: 869] |
Navigation Menu Search code, repositories, users, issues, pull requests... Provide feedback We read every piece of feedback, and take your input very seriously. Saved searches Use saved searches to filter your results more quickly To see all available qualifiers, see our documentation. GitHub Articles Filters (1) Topic Discover how software composition analysis (SCA) tools improve the security, quality, and efficiency of your open source software. Discover how software composition analysis (SCA) tools improve the security, quality, and efficiency of your open source software. Discover how risk-based vulnerability management (RBVM) helps organizations focus on the most critical security risks to optimize protection and allocate resources effectively. Discover how risk-based vulnerability management (RBVM) helps organizations focus on the most critical security risks to optimize protection and allocate resources effectively. Discover how data breaches occur, their impact on businesses, and the industries most at risk. Learn about common attack methods and tools and best practices for securing sensitive data. Discover how data breaches occur, their impact on businesses, and the industries most at risk. Learn about common attack methods and tools and best practices for securing sensitive data. SAST enables developers to uncover security threats earlier in the development process, thereby safeguarding an application’s successful deployment. SAST enables developers to uncover security threats earlier in the development process, thereby safeguarding an application’s successful deployment. Software is built in layers. An SBOM shows what’s inside—so you can secure it. Software is built in layers. An SBOM shows what’s inside—so you can secure it. AI for IT operations (AIOps) uses AI to help IT teams reduce downtime and scale operations. AI for IT operations (AIOps) uses AI to help IT teams reduce downtime and scale operations. Boost performance, strengthen security, and help developers ship faster by modernizing legacy systems. Boost performance, strengthen security, and help developers ship faster by modernizing legacy systems. Vulnerability scanning is a proactive security assessment process that’s used to identify security weaknesses and vulnerabilities within software applications, networks, or systems. Vulnerability scanners are software applications that automatically scan and assess various aspects of systems, devices, code, configurations, and dependencies connected to a network, as well as operating systems running on those devices and related attributes like user accounts and permissions, services, and open ports. Vulnerability scanning is a proactive security assessment process that’s used to identify security weaknesses and vulnerabilities within software applications, networks, or systems. Vulnerability scanners are software applications that automatically scan and assess various aspects of systems, devices, code, configurations, and dependencies connected to a network, as well as operating systems running on those devices and related attributes like user accounts and permissions, services, and open ports. Threat modeling is a structured approach to identifying, analyzing, and mitigating security risks in software applications and IT systems before they become vulnerabilities. Threat modeling is a structured approach to identifying, analyzing, and mitigating security risks in software applications and IT systems before they become vulnerabilities. Learn how software supply chain security helps organizations protect the safety, reliability, and integrity of their software supply chains from cybersecurity threats. Learn how software supply chain security helps organizations protect the safety, reliability, and integrity of their software supply chains from cybersecurity threats. Shift left is a pivotal practice in software development that reduces costs, drives efficiency, and strengthens application security across the software development lifecycle. Discover how this approach helps teams find and fix software issues early, accelerating development, and improving software quality. Shift left is a pivotal practice in software development that reduces costs, drives efficiency, and strengthens application security across the software development lifecycle. Discover how this approach helps teams find and fix software issues early, accelerating development, and improving software quality. Read this guide to learn about the types of security testing along with best practices and trends for greater software security. You’ll explore the role of automated security testing tools, including AI-powered tools, and see the importance of incorporating security testing into every phase of software development. Read this guide to learn about the types of security testing along with best practices and trends for greater software security. You’ll explore the role of automated security testing tools, including AI-powered tools, and see the importance of incorporating security testing into every phase of software development. Site-wide Links Get tips, technical guides, and best practices. Twice a month. |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redbook_audio] | [TOKENS: 7147] |
Contents Compact Disc Digital Audio Compact Disc Digital Audio (CDDA or CD-DA), also known as Digital Audio Compact Disc or simply as Audio CD, is the standard format for audio compact discs. The standard is defined in the Red Book technical specifications, which is why the format is also dubbed "Redbook audio" in some contexts. CDDA utilizes pulse-code modulation (PCM) and uses a 44,100 Hz sampling frequency and 16-bit resolution, and was originally specified to store up to 74 minutes of stereo audio per disc. The first commercially available audio CD player, the Sony CDP-101, was released in October 1982 in Japan. The format gained worldwide acceptance in 1983–84, selling more than a million CD players in its first two years, to play 22.5 million discs, before overtaking records and cassette tapes to become the dominant standard for commercial music. Peaking around year 2000, the audio CD contracted over the next decade due to rising popularity and revenue from digital downloading, and during the 2010s by digital music streaming, but has remained as one of the primary distribution methods for the music industry. In the United States, phonograph record revenues surpassed the CD in 2020 for the first time since the 1980s, but in other major markets like Japan it remains the premier music format by a distance and in Germany it outsold other physical formats at least fourfold in 2022. In the music industry, audio CDs have been generally sold as either a CD single (now largely dormant), or as full-length albums, the latter of which has been more commonplace since the 2000s. The format has also been influential in the progression of video game music, used in mixed mode CD-ROMs, providing CD-quality audio popularized during the 1990s on hardware such as PlayStation, Sega Saturn and personal computers with 16-bit sound cards like the Sound Blaster 16. History The optophone, first presented in 1913, was an early device that used light for both recording and playback of sound signals on a transparent photograph. More than thirty years later, American inventor James T. Russell has been credited with inventing the first system to record digital media on a photosensitive plate. Russell's patent application was filed in 1966, and he was granted a patent in 1970. Following litigation, Sony and Philips licensed Russell's patents for recording in 1988. It is debatable whether Russell's concepts, patents, and prototypes instigated and in some measure influenced the compact disc's design. The compact disc is an evolution of LaserDisc technology, where a focused laser beam is used that enables the high information density required for high-quality digital audio signals. Unlike the prior art by Optophonie and James Russell, the information on the disc is read from a reflective layer using a laser as a light source through a protective substrate. Prototypes were developed by Philips and Sony independently in the late 1970s. Although originally dismissed by Philips Research management as a trivial pursuit, the CD became the primary focus for Philips as the LaserDisc format struggled. In 1979, Sony and Philips set up a joint task force of engineers to design a new digital audio disc. The group of experts analyzed every detail of the proposed CD system and meet every two months alternating between Eindhoven and Tokyo for discussions. Each time, the experiments conducted were discussed and the best solution was chosen from the prototypes developed by Sony and Philips. After experimentation, the group decided to adopt Sony’s error correction system, CIRC. Immink, in a few months' time, developed the recording code called eight-to-fourteen modulation (EFM). EFM increases the playing time by more than 30% compared to the code used in the Philips prototype, without causing any issues with tracking. Sony and Philips decide to include EFM in the official Philips/Sony CD standard. EFM and Sony’s error correction code, CIRC are the only standard essential patents, (SEP)s, of the compact disc. After a year of experimentation and discussion, the Red Book CD-DA standard was published in 1980. After their commercial release in 1982, compact discs and their players were extremely popular. Despite costing up to $1,000, over 400,000 CD players were sold in the United States between 1983 and 1984. By 1988, CD sales in the United States surpassed those of vinyl LPs, and, by 1992, CD sales surpassed those of prerecorded music-cassette tapes. The success of the compact disc has been credited to the cooperation between Philips and Sony, which together agreed upon and developed compatible hardware. The unified design of the compact disc allowed consumers to purchase any disc or player from any company and allowed the CD to dominate the at-home music market unchallenged. In 1974, Lou Ottens, director of the audio division of Philips, started a small group to develop an analog optical audio disc with a diameter of 20 cm (7.9 in) and a sound quality superior to that of the vinyl record. However, due to the unsatisfactory performance of the analog format, two Philips research engineers recommended a digital format in March 1974. In 1977, Philips then established a laboratory with the mission of creating a digital audio disc. The diameter of Philips's prototype compact disc was set at 11.5 cm (4.5 in), the diagonal of an audio cassette. Heitaro Nakajima, who developed an early digital audio recorder within Japan's national public broadcasting organization, NHK, in 1970, became general manager of Sony's audio department in 1971. In 1973, his team developed a digital PCM adaptor that made audio recordings using a Betamax video recorder. After this, in 1974 the leap to storing digital audio on an optical disc was easily made. Sony first publicly demonstrated an optical digital audio disc in September 1976. A year later, in September 1977, Sony showed the press a 30 cm (12 in) disc that could play an hour of digital audio (44,100 Hz sampling rate and 16-bit resolution) using modified frequency modulation encoding. In September 1978, Sony demonstrated an optical digital audio disc with a diameter of 30 cm (12 in) with a 150-minute playing time, 44,056 Hz sampling rate, 16-bit linear resolution, and cross-interleaved Reed-Solomon coding (CIRC) error correction code—specifications similar to those later settled upon for the standard compact disc format in 1980. Technical details of Sony's digital audio disc were presented during the 62nd AES Convention, held on 13–16 March 1979, in Brussels. Sony's AES technical paper was published on 1 March 1979. A week later, on 8 March, Philips publicly demonstrated a prototype of an optical digital audio disc at a press conference called "Philips Introduce Compact Disc" in Eindhoven, Netherlands. Sony executive Norio Ohga, later CEO and chairman of Sony, and Heitaro Nakajima were convinced of the format's commercial potential and pushed further development despite widespread skepticism. In 1979, Sony and Philips set up a joint task force of engineers to design a new digital audio disc. Led by engineers Kees Schouhamer Immink and Toshitada Doi, the research pushed forward laser and optical disc technology. After a year of experimentation and discussion, the task force produced the Red Book CD-DA standard. First published in 1980, the standard was formally adopted by the IEC as an international standard in 1987, with various amendments becoming part of the standard in 1996.[citation needed] Philips coined the term compact disc in line with another audio product, the Compact Cassette, and contributed the general manufacturing process, based on video LaserDisc technology. Philips also contributed eight-to-fourteen modulation (EFM), while Sony contributed the error-correction method, CIRC, which offers resilience to defects such as scratches and fingerprints. The Compact Disc Story, told by a former member of the task force, gives background information on the many technical decisions made, including the choice of the sampling frequency, playing time, and disc diameter. The task force consisted of around 6 persons, though according to Philips, the compact disc was "invented collectively by a large group of people working as a team". Early milestones in the launch and adoption of the format included: The first artist to sell a million copies on CD was Dire Straits, with their 1985 album Brothers in Arms. One of the first CD markets was devoted to reissuing popular music whose commercial potential was already proven. The first major artist to have their entire catalog converted to CD was David Bowie, whose first fourteen studio albums (up to Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)) of (then) sixteen were made available by RCA Records in February 1985, along with four greatest hits albums; his fifteenth and sixteenth albums (Let's Dance and Tonight, respectively) had already been issued on CD by EMI Records in 1983 and 1984, respectively. On 26 February 1987, the first four UK albums by the Beatles were released in mono on compact disc. The growing acceptance of the CD in 1983 marked the beginning of the popular digital audio revolution. It was enthusiastically received, especially in the early-adopting classical music and audiophile communities, and its handling quality received particular praise. As the price of players gradually came down, and with the introduction of the portable Discman, the CD began to gain popularity in the larger popular and rock music markets. With the rise in CD sales, pre-recorded cassette tape sales began to decline in the late 1980s; CD sales overtook cassette sales in the early 1990s. In 1988, 400 million CDs were manufactured by 50 pressing plants around the world. Early CD players employed binary-weighted digital-to-analog converters (DAC), which contained individual electrical components for each bit of the DAC. Even when using high-precision components, this approach was prone to decoding errors.[clarification needed] Another issue was jitter, a time-related defect. Confronted with the instability of DACs, manufacturers initially turned to increasing the number of bits in the DAC and using several DACs per audio channel, averaging their output. This increased the cost of CD players but did not solve the core problem. A breakthrough in the late 1980s culminated in development of the 1-bit DAC, which converts high-resolution low-frequency digital input signal into a lower-resolution high-frequency signal that is mapped to voltages and then smoothed with an analog filter. The temporary use of a lower-resolution signal simplified circuit design and improved efficiency, which is why it became dominant in CD players starting from the early 1990s. Philips used a variation of this technique called pulse-density modulation (PDM), while Matsushita (now Panasonic) chose pulse-width modulation (PWM), advertising it as MASH, which is an acronym derived from their patented Multi-stAge noiSe-sHaping PWM topology. The CD was primarily planned as the successor to the vinyl record for playing music, rather than as a data storage medium. However, CDs have grown to encompass other applications. In 1983, following the CD's introduction, Immink and Joseph Braat presented the first experiments with erasable compact discs during the 73rd AES Convention. In June 1985, the computer-readable CD-ROM (read-only memory) and, in 1990, recordable CD-R discs were introduced.[a] Recordable CDs became an alternative to tape for recording and distributing music and could be duplicated without degradation in sound quality. Other newer video formats such as DVD and Blu-ray use the same physical geometry as CD, and most DVD and Blu-ray players are backward compatible with audio CDs. CD sales in the United States peaked by 2000. By the early 2000s, the CD player had largely replaced the audio cassette player as standard equipment in new automobiles, with 2010 being the final model year for any car in the United States to have a factory-equipped cassette player. Two new formats were marketed in the 2000s designed as successors to the CD: the Super Audio CD (SACD) and DVD-Audio. However neither of these were adopted partly due to increased relevance of digital (virtual) music and the apparent lack of audible improvements in audio quality to most human ears. These effectively extended the CD's longevity in the music market. With the advent and popularity of Internet-based distribution of files in lossy-compressed audio formats such as MP3, sales of CDs began to decline in the 2000s. For example, between 2000 and 2008, despite overall growth in music sales and one anomalous year of increase, major-label CD sales declined overall by 20%. Despite rapidly declining sales year-over-year, the pervasiveness of the technology lingered for a time, with companies placing CDs in pharmacies, supermarkets, and filling station convenience stores to target buyers less likely to be able to use Internet-based distribution. In 2012, CDs and DVDs made up only 34% of music sales in the United States. By 2015, only 24% of music in the United States was purchased on physical media, two thirds of this consisting of CDs; however, in the same year in Japan, over 80% of music was bought on CDs and other physical formats. In 2018, U.S. CD sales were 52 million units—less than 6% of the peak sales volume in 2000. In the UK, 32 million units were sold, almost 100 million fewer than in 2008. In 2018, Best Buy announced plans to decrease their focus on CD sales, however, while continuing to sell records, sales of which are growing during the vinyl revival. During the 2010s, the increasing popularity of solid-state media and music streaming services caused automakers to remove automotive CD players in favor of minijack auxiliary inputs, wired connections to USB devices and wireless Bluetooth connections. Automakers viewed CD players as using up valuable space and taking up weight which could be reallocated to more popular features, like large touchscreens. By 2021, only Lexus and General Motors were still including CD players as standard equipment with certain vehicles. CDs continued to be strong in some markets such as Japan where 132 million units were produced in 2019. The decline in CD sales has slowed in recent years; in 2021, CD sales increased in the US for the first time since 2004, with Axios citing its rise to "young people who are finding they like hard copies of music in the digital age". It came at the same time as both vinyl and cassette reached sales levels not seen in 30 years. The RIAA reported that CD revenue made a dip in 2022, before increasing again in 2023 and overtook downloading for the first time in over a decade. In the US, 33.4 million CD albums were sold in the year 2022. In France in 2023, 10.5 million CDs were sold, almost double that of vinyl, but both of them represented generated 12% each of the French music industry revenues. Sony and Philips received praise for the development of the compact disc from professional organizations. These awards include: Standard The Red Book specifies the physical parameters and properties of the CD, the optical parameters, deviations and error rate, modulation system (eight-to-fourteen modulation, EFM) and error correction facility (CIRC), and the eight subcode channels. These parameters are common to all compact discs and used by all logical formats: audio CD, CD-ROM, etc. The standard also specifies the form of digital audio encoding. The first edition of the Red Book was released in 1980 by Philips and Sony; it was adopted by the Digital Audio Disc Committee and ratified by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Technical Committee 100 as an international standard in 1987 with the reference IEC 60908. The second edition of IEC 60908 was published in 1999 and it replaces the first edition, amendment 1 (1992) and the corrigendum to amendment 1. The IEC 60908 however does not contain all the information for extensions that is available in the Red Book, such as the details for CD-Text, CD+G and CD+EG. The standard is not freely available and must be licensed. It is available from Philips and the IEC. As of 2013[update], Philips outsources licensing of the standard to Adminius[citation needed], which charges US$100 for the Red Book, plus US$50 each for the Subcode Channels R-W and CD Text Mode annexes. Audio format The audio contained in a CD-DA consists of two-channel signed 16-bit LPCM sampled at 44,100 Hz and written as a little-endian interleaved stream with left channel coming first. The sampling rate is adapted from that attained when recording digital audio on videotape with a PCM adaptor, an earlier way of storing digital audio.: sec. 2.6 An audio CD can technically represent frequencies up to 22.05 kHz, the Nyquist frequency of the 44.1 kHz sample rate, although in practice an upper frequency limit of 20 kHz is specified in order to leave a transition band for the required low-pass anti-aliasing filter. There was a long debate over the use of 16-bit (Sony) or 14-bit (Philips) quantization, and 44,056 or 44,100 samples/s (Sony) or approximately 44,000 samples/s (Philips). When the Sony/Philips task force designed the Compact Disc, Philips had already developed a 14-bit D/A converter (DAC), but Sony insisted on 16-bit. In the end Sony won, so 16 bits and 44.1 kilosamples per second prevailed. Philips found a way to produce 16-bit quality using its 14-bit DAC by using four times oversampling. Some early CDs were mastered with pre-emphasis, an artificial boost of high audio frequencies. The pre-emphasis improves the apparent signal-to-noise ratio by making better use of the channel's dynamic range. On playback, the player applies a de-emphasis filter to restore the frequency response curve to an overall flat one. Pre-emphasis time constants are 50 μs and 15 μs (9.49 dB boost at 20 kHz), and a binary flag in the disc subcode instructs the player to apply de-emphasis filtering if appropriate. Playback of such discs in a computer or ripping to WAV files typically does not take into account the pre-emphasis, so such files play back with an incorrect frequency response.[citation needed] FFmpeg has a filter to remove (or apply) the pre-emphasis in order to create standard WAV files, or to create CDs with pre-emphasis. Four-channel, or quadraphonic, support was originally intended to be included in CD-DA. The Red Book specification briefly mentioned a four-channel mode in its June 1980, September 1983, and November 1991 editions. On the first page, it lays out the "Main parameters" of the CD system, including: "Number of channels: 2 and/or 4 simultaneously[*] sampled." The footnote says, "In the case of more than two channels the encoder and decoder diagrams have to be adapted." In reality, however, the underspecified "four-channel" mode was dropped from the CD standard when it was adopted by the International Electrotechnical Commission and became IEC 908:1987, and later IEC 60908:1999. Since the behavior of the "four-channel" or "Broadcasting use" bit was never specified by either CD standard, no mass-marketed discs have attempted to use the Red Book's four-channel mode, and no players have purported to implement it. Storage capacity and playing time The creators of the CD originally aimed at a playing time of 60 minutes with a disc diameter of 100 mm (Sony) or 115 mm (Philips). Sony vice-president Norio Ohga suggested extending the capacity to 74 minutes and 33 seconds to accommodate the recording of Wilhelm Furtwängler conducting Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at the 1951 Bayreuth Festival. The additional 14-minute playing time required increasing disc diameter. Kees Schouhamer Immink, Philips' chief engineer, however, denies this, claiming that the increase was motivated by technical considerations and that even after the increase in size, the Furtwängler recording would not have fit onto one of the earliest CDs. According to a Sunday Tribune interview, the story is slightly more involved. In 1979, Philips owned PolyGram, one of the world's largest music distributors. PolyGram had set up a large experimental CD plant in Hannover, Germany, which could produce huge numbers of CDs having a diameter of 115 mm. Sony did not yet have such a facility. If Sony had agreed on the 115-mm disc, Philips would have had a significant competitive edge in the market. The long playing time of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony imposed by Ohga was used to push Philips to accept 120 mm, so that Philips' PolyGram lost its edge on disc fabrication. The 74:33 playing time of a CD, which is longer than the 22 minutes per side typical of long-playing (LP) vinyl albums, was often used to the CD's advantage during the early years when CDs and LPs vied for commercial sales. CDs would often be released with one or more bonus tracks, enticing consumers to buy the CD for the extra material. However, attempts to combine double LPs onto one CD occasionally resulted in the opposite situation in which the CD would instead offer less audio than the LP. One such example was with DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince's double album He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper, in which initial CD releases of the album had multiple tracks edited down for length to fit on a single disc; recent CD reissues package the album across two discs as a result. Furthermore, early CD releases were restricted by the 72-minute limit of 3/4 inch U-matic tapes used by early PCM adaptors; by 1988, higher-capacity alternatives would arrive on the market, allowing for releases to make use of the full 74:33. This and the emergence of 80-minute CDs allowed for some double albums that were previously edited for length, e.g. 1999 by Prince, or packaged as double CDs, e.g. Tommy by the Who, to be re-released on a single disc. Playing times beyond 74:33 are achieved by decreasing track pitch (the distance separating the track as it spirals the disc). However, most players can still accommodate the more closely spaced data if it is still within Red Book tolerances. Manufacturing processes used in the final years of CD technology allowed an audio CD to contain up to 82 minutes (variable from one replication plant to another) without requiring the content creator to sign a waiver releasing the plant owner from responsibility if the CD produced is marginally or entirely unreadable by some playback equipment. In this final practice, maximum CD playing time crept higher by reducing minimum engineering tolerances. Technical specifications Each audio sample is a signed 16-bit two's complement integer, which has sample values ranging from −32768 to +32767. The source audio data is divided into frames, containing twelve samples each (six left and six right samples, alternating), for a total of 192 bits (24 bytes) of audio data per frame. This stream of audio frames is then subjected to CIRC encoding, which segments and rearranges the data and expands it with error correction codes in a way that allows occasional read errors to be detected and corrected. CIRC encoding interleaves the audio frames throughout the disc over several consecutive frames so that the information will be more resistant to burst errors. Therefore, a physical frame on the disc will actually contain information from multiple logical audio frames. This process adds 64 bits of error correction codes to each frame. After this, 8 bits of subcode data are added to each of these encoded frames, which is used for control and addressing when playing the CD. CIRC encoding plus the subcode byte generates 33-byte long frames, called channel-data frames. These frames are then modulated through eight-to-fourteen modulation (EFM), where each 8-bit byte is replaced with a corresponding 14-bit word designed to reduce the number of transitions between 0 and 1. This reduces the density of physical pits on the disc and provides an additional degree of error tolerance. Three merging bits are added before each 14-bit word for disambiguation and synchronization. In total, there are 33 × (14 + 3) = 561 bits. A 27-bit word (a 24-bit pattern plus 3 merging bits) is added to the beginning of each frame to assist with synchronization, so the reading device can locate frames easily. With this, a frame ends up containing 588 bits of channel data which are decoded to 192 bits of digital audio. The frames of channel data are finally written to disc physically in the form of pits and lands, with each pit or land representing a series of zeroes, and with the transition points—the edge of each pit—representing a 1. A Red Book-compatible CD-R has pit-and-land-shaped spots on a layer of organic dye instead of actual pits and lands; a laser creates the spots by altering the reflective properties of the dye. Due to the weaker error correction sector structure used on audio CDs and video CDs (Mode 2 Form 2) than on data discs (Mode 1 or Mode 2 Form 1), C2 errors are not correctable and signify data loss. Even with uncorrectable errors, a compact disc player uses error concealment with the aim of making the damage unhearable. The audio data stream in an audio CD is continuous but has three parts. The main portion, further divided into playable audio tracks, is the program area. This section is preceded by a lead-in track and followed by a lead-out track. The lead-in and lead-out tracks encode only silent audio, but all three sections contain subcode data streams. The lead-in's subcode contains repeated copies of the disc's table of contents (TOC), which provides an index of the start positions of the tracks in the program area and of the lead-out. The track positions are referenced by absolute timecode, relative to the start of the program area, in MSF format: minutes, seconds, and fractional seconds called frames. Each timecode frame is one seventy-fifth of a second, and corresponds to a block of 98 channel-data frames—ultimately, a block of 588 pairs of left and right audio samples. Timecode contained in the subchannel data allows the reading device to locate the region of the disc that corresponds to the timecode in the TOC. The TOC on discs is analogous to the partition table on hard drives. Nonstandard or corrupted TOC records are abused as a form of CD/DVD copy protection, in e.g. the key2Audio scheme. The largest entity on a CD is called a track. A CD can contain up to 99 tracks (including a data track for mixed mode discs). Each track can in turn have up to 100 indexes, though players that still support this feature have become rarer over time. The vast majority of songs are recorded under index 1, with the pregap being index 0. Sometimes hidden tracks are placed at the end of the last track of the disc, often using index 2 or 3, or using the pregap as index 0 (this latter usage will result in the track playing as the time counter counts down to time 0:00 at the start of the track, index 1.) This is also the case with some discs offering "101 sound effects", with 100 and 101 being indexed as two and three on track 99. The index, if used, is occasionally put on the track listing as a decimal part of the track number, such as 99.2 or 99.3.[b] The track and index structure of the CD were carried forward to the DVD format as title and chapter, respectively. Tracks, in turn, are divided into timecode frames, which are further subdivided into channel-data frames. The smallest entity in a CD is a channel-data frame, which consists of 33 bytes and contains six complete 16-bit stereo samples: 24 bytes for the audio (two bytes × two channels × six samples = 24 bytes), eight CIRC error-correction bytes, and one subcode byte. As described in § Data encoding, after the EFM modulation the number of bits in a frame totals 588. On a Red Book audio CD, data is addressed using the MSF scheme, with timecodes expressed in minutes, seconds and another type of frames (mm:ss:ff), where one frame corresponds to 1/75th of a second of audio: 588 pairs of left and right samples. This timecode frame is distinct from the 33-byte channel-data frame described above, and is used for time display and positioning the reading laser. When editing and extracting CD audio, this timecode frame is the smallest addressable time interval for an audio CD; thus, track boundaries only occur on these frame boundaries. Each of these structures contains 98 channel-data frames, totaling 98 × 24 = 2,352 bytes of music. The CD is played at a speed of 75 frames per second, 44,100 samples and 176,400 bytes per second. In the 1990s, CD-ROM and related digital audio extraction (DAE) technology introduced the term sector to refer to each timecode frame, with each sector being identified by a sequential integer starting at zero, and with tracks aligned on sector boundaries. An audio CD sector corresponds to 2,352 bytes of decoded data. The Red Book does not refer to sectors, nor does it distinguish the corresponding sections of the disc's data stream except as frames in the MSF addressing scheme. The following table shows the relation between tracks, timecode frames (sectors) and channel-data frames: The audio bit rate for a Red Book audio CD is 1,411,200 bits per second (1,411 kbit/s) or 176,400 bytes per second; 2 channels × 44,100 samples per second per channel × 16 bits per sample. Audio data coming in from a CD is contained in sectors, each sector being 2,352 bytes, and with 75 sectors representing 1 second of audio. For comparison, the bit rate of an original speed CD-ROM is 2,048 bytes per sector × 75 sectors per second = 153,600 bytes per second. The remaining 304 bytes in a CD-ROM sector are used for additional data error correction. Unlike on a DVD or CD-ROM, there are no files on a Red Book audio CD; there is only one continuous stream of LPCM audio data, and a parallel, smaller set of 8 subcode data streams. Computer operating systems, however, may provide access to an audio CD as if it contains files. For example, Windows represents the CD's table of contents as a set of Compact Disc Audio track (CDA) files, each file containing indexing information, not audio data. By contrast however, Finder on macOS presents the CD's content as an actual set of files, with the AIFF-extension, which can be copied directly, randomly and individually by track as if it were actual files. In reality, macOS performs rips as needed in the background, transparent to the user. The copied tracks are fully playable and editable on the user's computer. In a process called ripping, digital audio extraction software can be used to read CD-DA audio data and store it in files. Common audio file formats for this purpose include WAV and AIFF, which simply preface the LPCM data with a short header; FLAC, ALAC, and Windows Media Audio Lossless, which compress the LPCM data in ways that conserve space yet allow it to be restored without any changes; and various lossy, perceptual coding formats like MP3, AAC, and Opus, compress the audio data to a greater degree in ways that irreversibly change the audio, but that exploit features of human hearing to make the changes difficult to discern. Format variations Recording publishers have created CDs that violate the Red Book standard. Some do so for the purpose of copy protection, using systems like Copy Control. Some do so for extra features such as DualDisc, which includes both a CD layer and a DVD layer in which the CD layer is thinner, 0.9 mm, than required by the Red Book, which stipulates a nominal 1.2 mm, but at least 1.1 mm. Philips and many other companies have stated that including the Compact Disc Digital Audio logo on such non-conforming discs may constitute trademark infringement. Super Audio CD was a standard published in 1999 that aimed to provide better audio quality than CDs. DVD-Audio emerged at around the same time. Both formats were designed to use a higher sampling rate and DVD media. Neither format was widely accepted. Copyright issues There have been moves by the recording industry to make audio CDs (Compact Disc Digital Audio) unplayable on computer CD-ROM drives, to prevent the copying of music. This is done by intentionally introducing errors onto the disc that the embedded circuits on most stand-alone audio players can automatically compensate for, but which may confuse CD-ROM drives. Consumer rights advocates as of October 2001 pushed to require warning labels on compact discs that do not conform to the official Compact Disc Digital Audio standard (often called the Red Book) to inform consumers which discs do not permit full fair use of their content. In 2005, Sony BMG Music Entertainment was criticized when a copy protection mechanism known as Extended Copy Protection (XCP) used on some of their audio CDs automatically and surreptitiously installed copy-prevention software on computers (see Sony BMG copy protection rootkit scandal). Such discs are not legally allowed to be called CDs or Compact Discs because they break the Red Book standard governing CDs, and Amazon.com for example describes them as "copy protected discs" rather than "compact discs" or "CDs". See also Notes References External links |
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Contents Cochin Jews Cochin Jews (also known as Malabar Jews or Kochinim from Hebrew: יְהוּדֵֽי־קוֹצִֽ׳ין, romanized: Yehudey Kochin) are one of the oldest groups of Jews in India, with roots that are claimed to date back to the time of King Solomon. The Cochin Jews settled in the Kingdom of Cochin in South India, now part of the present-day state of Kerala. As early as the 12th century, mention is made of the Jews in southern India by Benjamin of Tudela. Following their expulsion from Iberia in 1492 by the Alhambra Decree, a few families of Sephardi Jews eventually made their way to Cochin in the 16th century. They became known as Paradesi Jews (or Foreign Jews). The European Jews maintained some trade connections to Europe, and their language skills were useful. Although the Sephardim spoke Ladino (Spanish or Judeo-Spanish), in India they learned Judeo-Malayalam from the Malabar Jews. The two communities retained their ethnic and cultural distinctions. In the late 19th century, a few Arabic-speaking Jews, known as Baghdadis, also immigrated to southern India from the Near East. After India gained its independence in 1947 and Israel was established as a nation, most of the Cochin Jews made Aliyah and emigrated from Kerala to Israel in the mid-1950s. In contrast, most of the Paradesi Jews (Sephardi in origin) preferred to migrate to Australia and other Commonwealth countries, similar to the choices made by Anglo-Indians. Most of their synagogues still exist in Kerala, with a few being sold or adapted for other uses. Among the 8 synagogues that survived till the mid-20th century, only the Paradesi synagogue still has a regular congregation. Today it also attracts tourists as a historic site. The Kadavumbhagam Ernakulam Synagogue was restored in 2018, it now houses a sefer torah with occasional services managed by one of few remaining Cochin Jews. A few synagogues are in ruins and one was even demolished with a two-storeyed house was built in its place. The synagogue at Chendamangalam (Chennamangalam) was reconstructed in 2006 as Kerala Jews Life Style Museum. The synagogue at Paravur (Parur) has been reconstructed as Kerala Jews History Museum. History P. M. Jussay wrote that it was believed that the earliest Jews in India were sailors from King Solomon's time. It has been claimed that following the destruction of the First Temple in the Siege of Jerusalem (587 BCE), some Jewish exiles came to India. Only after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE are records found that attest to numerous Jewish settlers arriving at Cranganore, an ancient port near Cochin. Cranganore, now transliterated as Kodungallur, but also known under other names, is a city of legendary importance to this community. Fernandes writes, it is "a substitute Jerusalem in India". Katz and Goldberg note the "symbolic intertwining" of the two cities. Ophira Gamliel notes however that the first physical evidence of the presence of Jews in South India dates only to the granting of the Kollam copper plates. The copper plates are a trade deed dated to the year 849 C.E bestowed upon the Nestorian merchant magnate Maruvan Sapir Iso and the Saint Thomas Christian community by Ayyan Atikal, the ruler of the Kingdom of Venad. The copper plates include signatures in Kufic, Pahlavi, and Hebrew and serve as evidence of West Asian mercantilism in Kerala. In 1768, the influential banker Tobias Boas (nl) of The Hague had posed eleven questions to Rabbi Yehezkel Rachbi of Cochin. The first of these questions addressed to the said Rabbi concerned the origins of the Jews of Cochin and the duration of their settlement in India. In Rabbi Yehezkel's response (Merzbacher's Library in Munich, MS. 4238), he wrote: "after the destruction of the Second Temple (may it soon be rebuilt and reestablished in our days!), in the year 3828 of anno mundi, i. e., 68 CE, about ten thousand men and women had come to the land of Malabar and were pleased to settle in four places; those places being Cranganore, Dschalor, Madai [and] Plota. Most were in Cranganore, which is also called Mago dera Patinas; it is also called Sengale." Saint Thomas, an Aramaic-speaking Jew from the Galilee region of Israel and one of the disciples of Jesus, is believed to have come to Southern India in the 1st century, in search of the Jewish community there. It is possible that the Jews who became Christians at that time were absorbed by what became the Nasrani Community in Kerala. A number of scholars have noted that the Cochin Jews maintain striking cultural similarities to the Knanaya, Jewish-Christian migrants from Persia who settled in Kodungallur, Kerala in the 4th or 8th century. These symmetries are noted in both the wedding traditions and especially the folk songs of the two communities, some songs maintaining the exact same lyrics with few corruptions and variations. Central to the history of the Cochin Jews was their close relationship with Indian rulers. This was codified on a set of copper plates granting the community special privileges. The date of these plates, known as "Sâsanam", is contentious. The plates are physically inscribed with the date 379 CE, but in 1925, tradition was setting it as 1069 CE. Indian rulers granted the Jewish leader Joseph Rabban the rank of prince over the Jews of Cochin, giving him the rulership and tax revenue of a pocket principality in Anjuvannam near Cranganore, and rights to seventy-two "free houses". The Hindu king gave permission in perpetuity (or, in the more poetic expression of those days, "as long as the world, sun and moon endure") for Jews to live freely, build synagogues, and own property "without conditions attached". A family connection to Rabban, "the king of Shingly" (another name for Cranganore), was long considered a sign of both purity and prestige within the community. Rabban's descendants led this distinct community until a chieftainship dispute broke out between two brothers, one of them named Joseph Azar, in the 16th century. The Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela, speaking of Kollam (Quilon) on the Malabar Coast, writes in his Itinerary: "[t]hroughout the island, including all the towns thereof, live several thousand Israelites. The inhabitants are all black, and the Jews also. The latter are good and benevolent. They know the law of Moses and the prophets, and to a small extent the Talmud and Halacha." These people later became known as the Malabari Jews. They built synagogues in Kerala beginning in the 12th and 13th centuries. The oldest known gravestone of a Cochin Jew is written in Hebrew and dates to 1269 CE. It is near the Chendamangalam Synagogue, built in 1614, which is now operated as a museum. In 1341, a disastrous flood silted up the port of Cranganore, and trade shifted to a smaller port at Cochin (Kochi). Many of the Jews moved quickly, and within four years, they had built their first synagogue at the new community. The Portuguese Empire established a trading beachhead in 1500, and until 1663 remained the dominant power. They continued to discriminate against the Jews, although doing business with them. A synagogue was built at Parur in 1615, at a site that according to tradition had a synagogue built in 1165. Almost every member of this community emigrated to Israel in 1954. In 1524, the Muslims, backed by the ruler of Calicut (today called Kozhikode and not to be confused with Calcutta), attacked the wealthy Jews of Cranganore because of their primacy in the lucrative pepper trade. The Jews fled south to the Kingdom of Cochin, seeking the protection of the Cochin Royal Family (Perumpadapu Swaroopam). The Hindu Raja of Cochin gave them asylum. Moreover, he exempted Jews from taxation but bestowed on them all privileges enjoyed by the tax-payers. The Malabar Jews built additional synagogues at Mala and Ernakulam. In the latter location, Kadavumbagham Synagogue was built about 1200 and restored in the 1790s. Its members believed they were the congregation to receive the historic copper plates. In the 1930s and 1940s, the congregation was as large as 2,000 members, but all emigrated to Israel. Thekkambagham Synagogue was built in Ernakulam in 1580, and rebuilt in 1939. It is the synagogue in Ernakulam sometimes used for services if former members of the community visit from Israel. In 1998, five families who were members of this congregation still lived in Kerala or in Madras. The following is a description of the Jews of Cochin by 16th-century Jewish traveler Zechariah Dhahiri (recollections of his travels circa 1558). I travelled from the land of Yemen unto the land of India and Cush, in order to search out a better livelihood. I had chosen the frontier route, where I made a passage across the Great Sea by ship for twenty days... I arrived at the city of Calicut, which upon entering I was sorely grieved at what I had seen, for the city's inhabitants are all uncircumcised and given over to idolatry. There isn't to be found in her a single Jew with whom I could have, otherwise, taken respite in my journeys and wanderings. I then turned away from her and went into the city of Cochin, wherein I found what my soul desired, insofar that a community of Spaniards is to be found there who are derived of Jewish lineage, along with other congregations of proselytes. They had been converted many years ago, of the natives of Cochin and Germany. They are adept in their knowledge of Jewish laws and customs, acknowledging the injunctions of the Divine Law (Torah), and making use of its means of punishment. I dwelt there three months, among the holy congregations. The Paradesi Jews, also called "White Jews", settled in the Cochin region in the 16th century and later, following the expulsion from Iberia due to forced conversion and religious persecution in Spain and then Portugal. Some fled north to Holland but the majority fled east to the Ottoman Empire. Both "Black Jews" and the "White Jews" (the Spanish Jews) of Malabar claimed that they are the true inheritors of the old Jewish culture. Some went beyond that territory, including a few families who followed the Arab spice routes to southern India. Speaking Ladino language and having Sephardic customs, they found the Malabari Jewish community as established in Cochin to be quite different. According to the historian Mandelbaum, there were resulting tensions between the two ethnic communities. The European Jews had some trade links to Europe and useful languages to conduct international trade When the Portuguese occupied the Kingdom of Cochin, they allegedly discriminated against its Jews. Nevertheless, to some extent they shared language and culture, so ever more Jews came to live under Portuguese rule (actually under the Spanish crown, again, between 1580 and 1640). The Protestant Dutch killed the raja of Cochin, allied of the Portuguese, plus sixteen hundred Indians in 1662, during their siege of Cochin. The Jews, having supported the Dutch military attempt, suffered the murderous retaliation of both the Portuguese and Malabar populations. A year later, the second Dutch siege was successful and, after slaughtering the Portuguese, they demolished most Catholic churches or turned them into Protestant churches (not sparing the one where Vasco da Gama had been buried). They were more tolerant of Jews, having granted asylum claims in the Netherlands. (See the Goa Inquisition for the situation of Jews in nearby Goa.) The Paradesi Jews built their own house of worship, the Paradesi Synagogue. The latter group was very small by comparison to the Malabaris. Both groups practiced endogamous marriage, maintaining their distinctions. Both communities claimed special privileges and the greater status over each other. In the early 20th century, Abraham Barak Salem (1882–1967), a young lawyer who became known as a "Jewish Gandhi", worked to end the discrimination against meshuchrarim Jews. Inspired by Indian nationalism and Zionism, he also tried to reconcile the divisions among the Cochin Jews. He became both an Indian nationalist and Zionist. His family were descended from meshuchrarim. The Hebrew word denoted a manumitted slave, and was at times used in a derogatory way. Salem fought against the discrimination by boycotting the Paradesi Synagogue for a time. He also used satyagraha to combat the social discrimination. According to Mandelbaum, by the mid-1930s many of the old taboos had fallen with a changing society. Relations between the Cochin Jews and other Jews Although India is noted for having four distinct Jewish communities, viz Cochin, Bene Israel (of Mumbai and its environs), Kolkata, and New Delhi, communications between the Jews of Kochi and the Bene Israel community were greatest in the mid-19th century. According to the Bene Israel historian Haeem Samuel Kehimkar (1830-1909), several prominent members of the White Jews of Kochi had moved to Bombay in 1825, among them Michael and Abraham Sargon, David Baruch Rahabi, Hacham Samuel, and Judah David Ashkenazi. These exerted themselves not only in changing the minds of the Bene Israel and of their children generally, but also particularly in turning the minds of these few of the Bene-Israel who practiced other faiths to the study of their own religion, and to the contemplation of God. David Rahabi effected a religious revival at Revandanda, followed by his successor, Hacham Samuel. Although David Rahabi was convinced that the Bene Israel were the descendants of the Jews, he still wanted to examine them further. He therefore gave their women clean and non-kosher fish to be cooked together, but they separated the clean from the impure, saying that they never used fish that had neither fins nor scales. Thus satisfied, he began to teach them the tenets of Judaism. He taught Hebrew reading, without translation, to three young Bene Israel men from the families of Jhiratker, Shapurker, and Rajpurker. Another influential man from Cochin, who is alleged to have been of Yemenite Jewish origin, was Hakham Shelomo Salem Shurrabi who served as a Hazzan (Reader) in the then newly formed synagogue of the Bene-Israel in Bombay for the trifling sum of 100 rupees per annum, although he worked also as a book-binder. While engaged in his avocation, he was at all times ready to explain any scriptural difficulty that might happen to be brought to him by any Bene Israel. He was a Reader, Preacher, Expounder of the Law, Mohel and Shochet. He died on 17 April 1856 in Bombay. Since 1947 India became independent from British rule in 1947 and Israel established itself as a nation in 1948. With the heightened emphasis on the Partition of India into a secular republic of India and a semi-theocratic Pakistan, most of the Cochin Jews emigrated from India. Generally they went to Israel (made aliyah).[citation needed] Many of the migrants joined the moshavim (agricultural settlements) of Nevatim, Shahar, Yuval, and Mesilat Zion. Others settled in the neighbourhood of Katamon in Jerusalem, and in Beersheba, Ramla, Dimona, and Yeruham, where many Bene Israel had settled. The story is told succinctly in the award winning children's book The Blue Butterfly of Cochin, published by Kalaniot Books, with art by the Indian-American artist, Siona Benjamin. The migrated Cochin Jews still continue to speak Malayalam. Since the late 20th century, former Cochin Jews have also immigrated to the United States. It is recorded that currently only 26 Jews live in Kerala, who is located in different parts of Kerala such as Cochin, Kottayam and Thiruvalla. In Cochin, the Paradesi Synagogue is still active as a place of worship, but the Jewish community is very small. The building also attracts visitors as a historic tourist site. February 3, 2005, the Cochin Royal Family Heritage Historical Society along with the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation and Dr. Kenneth X. Robbins M.D. presented a historical interpretive marker in the Kalikota Palace in Ernakulim. It is sited below the painting of His Highness, Rama Varma Pareekshith Thampuran, the Last Maharaja of Cochin. The text is written in English with Hebrew additions from the Prophet Jeremiah and the 72 Psalm of King David. ″1949"...A glorious chapter of unbroken love and affection on the one hand, and deep devotion and loyalty on the other, between the Maharajas of Cochin and their Jewish subjects.... The memory of your early association with this country has always been pleasant. Your people began to visit this coast as early as the days of King Solomon. In the early centuries of the Christian era, some of them left their hearts and homes and settled in Cochin. The people of Cochin welcomed you with open arms, and the Ruling Family protected you from plunder and persecution. My grandmother used to tell us of the very pleasant hours she and the other princesses of her age spent in the company of your womenfolk who usually gathered at the palace in the afternoon. This temple of historic importance is a standing monument of religious tolerance and hospitality that has prevailed here since time immemorial. I am glad to say no other people deserved such treatment better. You have, on occasions, more than one shown your unflinching loyalty to the King and country that adopted you and gave you shelter. I assure you that all legitimate interests of the minorities shall be scrupulously safeguarded..." After 1947, and particularly from the 1950s onward, the history of the Cochin Jews entered a post-communal phase marked not only by large-scale emigration to Israel but also by the gradual transfer of everyday Jewish heritage into the care of non-Jewish residents of Jew Town in Kochi. As the Jewish population declined from several hundred in the mid-20th century to a single resident in the early 21st century, domestic and artisanal traditions once central to communal life, such as kosher food preparation, synagogue textile work, and Sabbath observance, survived in fragmentary form through personal relationships rather than formal institutions. One example is the embroidery shop once run by Sarah Cohen, now maintained by Dinesh Madhavan Thaha Ibrahim, a Muslim craftsman who continues to observe the Jewish Sabbath by closing the shop on Saturdays. Genetic analysis Genetic testing into the origins of the Cochin Jewish and other Indian Jewish communities noted that until the present day the Indian Jews maintained in the range of 3%-20% Middle Eastern ancestry, confirming the traditional narrative of migration from the Middle East to India. The tests noted however that the communities had considerable Indian admixture, exhibiting the fact that the Indian Jewish people "inherited their ancestry from Middle Eastern and Indian populations". Traditions and way of life The 12th-century Jewish traveller Benjamin of Tudela wrote about the Malabari coast of Kerala: "They know the law of Moses and the prophets, and to a small extent the Talmud and Halacha." European Jews sent texts to the community of Cochin Jews to teach them about normative Judaism.[citation needed] Maimonides (1135–1204), the preeminent Jewish philosopher of his day, wrote, "Only lately, some well-to-do men came forward and purchased three copies of my code [the Mishneh Torah], which they distributed through messengers... Thus, the horizon of these Jews was widened, and the religious life in all communities as far as India revived." In a 1535 letter sent from Safed to Italy, David del Rossi wrote that a Jewish merchant from Tripoli had told him the India town of Shingly (Cranganore) had a large Jewish population who dabbled in yearly pepper trade with the Portuguese. As far as their religious life, he wrote that they "only recognize the Code of Maimonides, and possessed no other authority or traditional law". According to the contemporary historian Nathan Katz, Rabbi Nissim of Gerona (the Ran) visited the Cochini Jews. They preserve in their song books the poem he wrote about them. In the Kadavumbhagam synagogue, a Hebrew school was available for both "children's education and adult study of Torah and Mishnah". The Jewish Encyclopedia (1901-1906) said, "Though they neither eat nor drink together, nor intermarry, the Black and the White Jews of Cochin have almost the same social and religious customs. They hold the same doctrines, use the same ritual (Sephardic), observe the same feasts and fasts, dress alike, and have adopted the same language Malayalam. ... The two classes are equally strict in religious observances", According to Martine Chemana, the Jews of Cochin "coalesced around the religious fundamentals: devotion and strict obedience to Biblical Judaism, and to the Jewish customs and traditions ... Hebrew, taught through the Torah texts by rabbis and teachers who came especially from Yemen." The Jews of Cochin had a long tradition of singing piyyutim (devotionals) and songs on festive occasions such as Purim. Women used to sing Jews songs in Judeo-Malayalam. They did not adhere to the Talmudic prohibition against public singing by women (see: Tzniut#Female singing voice). Judeo-Malayalam Judeo-Malayalam (Malayalam: യെഹൂദ്യമലയാളം, romanized: yehūdyamalayāḷaṃ; Hebrew: מלאיאלאם יהודית, romanized: malayalam yəhūḏīṯ) is the traditional language of the Kochinim, spoken today by a few dozens of people in Israel and by probably fewer than 25 in India.[citation needed] In their antiquity, Malabar Jews may have used Judeo-Persian as evident from the Kollam Copper plates. Judeo-Malayalam is the only known Dravidian Jewish language. Since it does not differ substantially in grammar or syntax from other colloquial Malayalam dialects, it is not considered by many linguists to be a language in its own right, but a dialect, or simply a language variation. Judeo-Malayalam shares with other Jewish languages like Ladino, Judeo-Arabic, and Yiddish, common traits and features. For example, verbatim translations from Hebrew to Malayalam, archaic features of Old Malayalam, Hebrew components agglutinated to Dravidian verb and noun formations and special idiomatic usages based on its Hebrew loanwords. Due to the lack of long-term scholarship on this language variation, there is no separate designation for the language (if it can be so considered), for it to have its own language code (see also SIL and ISO 639). Unlike many Jewish languages, Judeo-Malayalam is not written using the Hebrew alphabet. It does, however, like most Jewish languages, contain many Hebrew loanwords, which are regularly transliterated, as much as possible, using the Malayalam script. Like many other Jewish languages, Judeo-Malayalam also contains a number of lexical, phonological and syntactic archaisms, in this case, from the days before Malayalam became fully distinguished from Tamil. Cochin Jewish synagogues A synagogue is called a bētu knēsētu in Judeo-Malayalam (ബേത് ക്നേസേത്), from Hebrew bet knesset, or a Jūtapalli (ജൂതപള്ളി), with Jūtaṉ meaning Jew and -palli a suffix added to prayer houses of the Abrahamic faiths. Throughout history, numerous synagogues have been constructed and lost to time. In their first settlement at Shingly (Kodungallur), there were 18 synagogues as per their oral traditions. Today, no archaeological evidence has been yet uncovered to validate these traditions. However, the custom of naming their synagogues as Tekkŭmbhagam (South-side) and Kaṭavumbhagam "Riverbank-side" is cited as a cultural memory of two such synagogues that once stood in Muziris. Several oral songs sung by Kochini women also contain references to these synagogues. In addition, numerous Syrian Christian churches of the Saint Thomas Christians community in Kerala are claimed to have been built on former synagogues, although archaeological evidence is scarce. Synagogues believed to have existed or speculated based on oral traditions include: Synagogues in recorded history whose location and/or remains have been lost in time: Extant synagogues in Kerala: Cochini synagogues in Israel: Cochin Jewish surnames Notable Cochin Jews Gallery See also Notes References Further reading External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_flow] | [TOKENS: 4979] |
Contents Control flow In software, control flow (or flow of control) describes how execution progresses from one command to the next. In many contexts, such as machine code and an imperative programming language, control progresses sequentially (to the command located immediately after the currently executing command) except when a command transfers control to another point – in which case the command is classified as a control flow command. Depending on context, other terms are used instead of command. For example, in machine code, the typical term is instruction and in an imperative language, the typical term is statement. Although an imperative language encodes control flow explicitly, languages of other programming paradigms are less focused on control flow. A declarative language specifies desired results without prescribing an order of operations. A functional language uses both language constructs and functions to control flow even though they are usually not called control flow statements. For a central processing unit instruction set, a control flow instruction often alters the program counter and is either an unconditional branch (a.k.a. jump) or a conditional branch. An alternative approach is predication which conditionally enables instructions instead of branching. An asynchronous control flow transfer such as an interrupt or a signal alters the normal flow of control to a handler before returning control to where it was interrupted. One way to attack software is to redirect the flow of execution. A variety of control-flow integrity techniques, including stack canaries, buffer overflow protection, shadow stacks, and vtable pointer verification, are used to defend against these attacks. Structure Control flow is closely related to code structure. Control flows along lines defined by structure and the execution rules of a language. This general concept of structure is not be confused with structured programming which limits structure to sequencing, selection and iteration based on block organization. Sequential execution is the most basic structure. Although not all code is sequential in nature, imperative code is. A label identifies a position in source code. Some control flow statements reference a label so that control jumps to the labeled line. Other than marking a position, a label has no other effect. Some languages limit a label to a number which is sometimes called a line number, although that implies the inherent index of the line, not a label. None-the-less, such numeric labels are typically required to increment from top to bottom in a file even if not be sequential. For example, in BASIC: In many languages, a label is an alphanumeric identifier, usually appearing at the start of a line and immediately followed by a colon. For example, the following C code defines a label Success on line 3 which identifies a jump target point at the first statement that follows it (line 4). Most languages provide for organizing sequences of code as a block. When used with a control statement, the beginning of a block provides a jump target. For example, in the following C code (which uses curly braces to delimit a block), control jumps from line 1 to 4 if done is false. Control Many control commands have been devised for programming languages. This section describes notable constructs; it is organized by functionality. A function provides for control flow in that when called, execution jumps to the start of the function's code and when it completes, control returns the calling point. In the following C code, control jumps from line 6 to 2 in order to call function foo(). Then, after completing the function body (printing "Hi"), control returns to after the call, line 7. A branch command moves the point of execution from the point in the code that contains the command to the point that the command specifies. A jump command unconditionally branches control to another point in the code, and is the most basic form of controlling the flow of code. In a high-level language, this is often provided as a goto statement. Although the keyword may be upper or lower case or one or two words depending on the language, it is like: goto label. When control reaches a goto statement, control then jumps to the statement that follows the indicated label. The goto statement has been considered harmful by many computer scientists, including Dijkstra. A conditional statement jumps control based on the value of a Boolean expression. Common variations include: The following Pascal code shows a simple if-then-else. The syntax is similar in Ada: In C: In bash: In Python: In Lisp: A multiway branch jumps control based on matching values. There is usually a provision for a default action if no match is found. A switch statement can allow compiler optimizations, such as lookup tables. In dynamic languages, the cases may not be limited to constant expressions, and might extend to pattern matching, as in the shell script example on the right, where the *) implements the default case as a glob matching any string. Case logic can also be implemented in functional form, as in SQL's decode statement. The following Pascal code shows a relatively simple switch statement. Pascal uses the case keyword instead of switch. In Ada: In C: In Bash: In Lisp: In Fortran: A loop is a sequence of statements, loop body, which is executed a number of times based on runtime state. The body is executed once for each item of a collection (definite iteration), until a condition is met (indefinite iteration), or infinitely. A loop inside the loop body is called a nested loop. Early exit from a loop may be supported via a break statement. In a functional programming language, such as Haskell and Scheme, both recursive and iterative processes are expressed with tail recursive procedures instead of looping constructs that are syntactic. A relatively simple yet useful loop iterates over a range of numeric values. A simple form starts at an integer value, ends at a larger integer value and iterates for each integer value between. Often, the increment can be any integer value (even negative, to loop from a larger to a smaller value). Example in BASIC: Example in Pascal: Example in Fortran: In many programming languages, only integers can be used at all or reliably. As a floating-point number is represented imprecisely due to hardware constraints, the following loop might iterate 9 or 10 times, depending on various factors such as rounding error, hardware, compiler. Furthermore, if the increment of X occurs by repeated addition, accumulated rounding errors may mean that the value of X in each iteration can differ quite significantly from the commonly expected sequence of 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, ..., 1.0. Some loop constructs iterate until a condition is true. Some variations test the condition at the start of the loop; others test at the end. If the test is at the start, the body may be skipped completely. At the end, the body is always executed at least once. Example in Visual Basic: Example in Pascal: Example in C family of pre-test: Example in C family of post-test: Although using the for keyword, the three-part C-style loop is a condition-based construct, not a numeric-based one. The second part, the condition, is evaluated before each loop, so the loop is pre-test. The first part is a place to initialize state, and the third part is for incrementing for the next iteration, but both aspects can be performed elsewhere. The following C code implements the logic of a numeric loop that iterates for i from 0 to n-1. Some loop constructs enumerate the items of a collection; iterating for each item. Example in Smalltalk: Example in Pascal: Example in Raku: Example in TCL: Example in PHP: Example in Java: Example in C#: Example in PowerShell where 'foreach' is an alias of 'ForEach-Object': Example in Fortran: Scala has for-expressions, which generalise collection-controlled loops, and also support other uses, such as asynchronous programming. Haskell has do-expressions and comprehensions, which together provide similar function to for-expressions in Scala. In computer programming, an infinite loop (or endless loop) is a sequence of instructions that, as written, will continue endlessly, unless an external intervention occurs, such as turning off power via a switch or pulling a plug. It may be intentional. There is no general algorithm to determine whether a computer program contains an infinite loop or not; this is the halting problem. Common loop structures sometimes result in duplicated code, either repeated statements or repeated conditions. This arises for various reasons and has various proposed solutions to eliminate or minimize code duplication. Other than the traditional unstructured solution of a goto statement, general structured solutions include having a conditional (if statement) inside the loop (possibly duplicating the condition but not the statements) or wrapping repeated logic in a function (so there is a duplicated function call, but the statements are not duplicated). A common case is where the start of the loop is always executed, but the end may be skipped on the last iteration. This was dubbed by Dijkstra a loop which is performed "n and a half times", and is now called the loop-and-a-half problem. Common cases include reading data in the first part, checking for end of data, and then processing the data in the second part; or processing, checking for end, and then preparing for the next iteration. In these cases, the first part of the loop is executed n {\displaystyle n} times, but the second part is only executed n − 1 {\displaystyle n-1} times. This problem has been recognized at least since 1967 by Knuth, with Wirth suggesting solving it via early loop exit. Since the 1990s this has been the most commonly taught solution, using a break statement, as in: A subtlety of this solution is that the condition is the opposite of a usual while condition: rewriting while condition ... repeat with an exit in the middle requires reversing the condition: loop ... if not condition exit ... repeat. The loop with test in the middle control structure explicitly supports the loop-an-a-half use case, without reversing the condition. A loop construct provides for structured completion criteria that either results in another iteration or continuing execution after the loop statement. But, various unstructured control flow constructs are supported by many languages. Early exit jumps control to after the loop body For example, when searching a list, can stop looping when the item is found. Some programming languages provide a statement such as break (most languages), Exit (Visual Basic), or last (Perl). In the following Ada code, the loop exits when X is 0. A more idiomatic style uses exit when: Python supports conditional execution of code depending on whether a loop was exited early (with a break statement) or not by using an else-clause with the loop. In the following Python code, the else clause is linked to the for statement, and not the inner if statement. Both Python's for and while loops support such an else clause, which is executed only if early exit of the loop has not occurred. Some languages support breaking out of nested loops; in theory circles, these are called multi-level breaks. One common use example is searching a multi-dimensional table. This can be done either via multilevel breaks (break out of N levels), as in bash and PHP, or via labeled breaks (break out and continue at given label), as in Ada, Go, Java, Rust and Perl. Alternatives to multilevel breaks include single breaks, together with a state variable which is tested to break out another level; exceptions, which are caught at the level being broken out to; placing the nested loops in a function and using return to effect termination of the entire nested loop; or using a label and a goto statement. Neither C nor C++ currently have multilevel break or named loops, and the usual alternative is to use a goto to implement a labeled break. However, the inclusion of this feature has been proposed, and was added to C2Y., following the Java syntax. Python does not have a multilevel break or continue – this was proposed in PEP 3136, and rejected on the basis that the added complexity was not worth the rare legitimate use. The notion of multi-level breaks is of some interest in theoretical computer science, because it gives rise to what is today called the Kosaraju hierarchy. In 1973 S. Rao Kosaraju refined the structured program theorem by proving that it is possible to avoid adding additional variables in structured programming, as long as arbitrary-depth, multi-level breaks from loops are allowed. Furthermore, Kosaraju proved that a strict hierarchy of programs exists: for every integer n, there exists a program containing a multi-level break of depth n that cannot be rewritten as a program with multi-level breaks of depth less than n without introducing added variables. In his 2004 textbook, David Watt uses Tennent's notion of sequencer to explain the similarity between multi-level breaks and return statements. Watt notes that a class of sequencers known as escape sequencers, defined as "sequencer that terminates execution of a textually enclosing command or procedure", encompasses both breaks from loops (including multi-level breaks) and return statements. As commonly implemented, however, return sequencers may also carry a (return) value, whereas the break sequencer as implemented in contemporary languages usually cannot. The following structure was proposed by Dahl in 1972: The construction here can be thought of as a do loop with the while check in the middle, which allows clear loop-and-a-half logic. Further, by omitting individual components, this single construction can replace several constructions in most programming languages. If xxx1 is omitted, we get a loop with the test at the top (a traditional while loop). If xxx2 is omitted, we get a loop with the test at the bottom, equivalent to a do while loop in many languages. If while is omitted, we get an infinite loop. This construction also allows keeping the same polarity of the condition even when in the middle, unlike early exit, which requires reversing the polarity (adding a not), functioning as until instead of while. This structure is not widely supported, with most languages instead using if ... break for conditional early exit. This is supported by some languages, such as Forth, where the syntax is BEGIN ... WHILE ... REPEAT, and the shell script languages Bourne shell (sh) and bash, where the syntax is while ... do ... done or until ... do ... done, as: The shell syntax works because the while (or until) loop accepts a list of commands as a condition, formally: The value (exit status) of the list of test-commands is the value of the last command, and these can be separated by newlines, resulting in the idiomatic form above. Similar constructions are possible in C and C++ with the comma operator, and other languages with similar constructs, which allow shoehorning a list of statements into the while condition: While legal, this is marginal, and it is primarily used, if at all, only for short modify-then-test cases, as in: Loop variants and loop invariants are used to express correctness of loops. In practical terms, a loop variant is an integer expression which has an initial non-negative value. The variant's value must decrease during each loop iteration but must never become negative during the correct execution of the loop. Loop variants are used to guarantee that loops will terminate. A loop invariant is an assertion which must be true before the first loop iteration and remain true after each iteration. This implies that when a loop terminates correctly, both the exit condition and the loop invariant are satisfied. Loop invariants are used to monitor specific properties of a loop during successive iterations. Some programming languages, such as Eiffel contain native support for loop variants and invariants. In other cases, support is an add-on, such as the Java Modeling Language's specification for loop statements in Java. Some Lisp dialects provide an extensive sublanguage for describing Loops. An early example can be found in Conversional Lisp of Interlisp. Common Lisp provides a Loop macro which implements such a sublanguage. Many programming languages, especially those favoring more dynamic styles of programming, offer constructs for non-local control flow which cause execution to jump from the current execution point to a predeclared point. Notable examples follow. The earliest Fortran compilers supported statements for handling exceptional conditions including IF ACCUMULATOR OVERFLOW, IF QUOTIENT OVERFLOW, and IF DIVIDE CHECK. In the interest of machine independence, they were not included in FORTRAN IV and the Fortran 66 Standard. However, since Fortran 2003 it is possible to test for numerical issues via calls to functions in the IEEE_EXCEPTIONS module. PL/I has some 22 standard conditions (e.g., ZERODIVIDE SUBSCRIPTRANGE ENDFILE) which can be raised and which can be intercepted by: ON condition action; Programmers can also define and use their own named conditions. Like the unstructured if, only one statement can be specified so in many cases a GOTO is needed to decide where flow of control should resume. Unfortunately, some implementations had a substantial overhead in both space and time (especially SUBSCRIPTRANGE), so many programmers tried to avoid using conditions. A typical example of syntax: Many modern languages natively support exception handling. Generally, exceptional control flow starts with an exception object being thrown (a.k.a. raised). Control then proceeds to the inner-most exception handler for the call stack. If the handler handles the exception, then flow control reverts to normal. Otherwise, control proceeds outward to containing handlers until one handles the exception or the program reaches the outermost scope and exits. As control flows to progressively outer handlers, aspects that would normally occur such as popping the call stack are handled automatically. The following C++ code demonstrates structured exception handling. If an exception propagates from the execution of doSomething() and the exception object type matches one of the types specified in a catch clause, then that clause is executed. For example, if an exception of type SomeException is propagated by doSomething(), then control jumps from line 2 to 4 and the message "Caught SomeException" is printed and then control jumps to after the try statement, line 8. If an exception of any other type is propagated, then control jumps from line 2 to 6. If no exception, then control jumps from 2 to 8. Many languages use the C++ keywords (throw, try and catch), but some languages use other keywords. For example, Ada uses exception to introduce an exception handler and when instead of catch. AppleScript incorporates placeholders in the syntax to extract information about the exception as shown in the following AppleScript code. In many languages (including Object Pascal, D, Java, C#, and Python) a finally clause at the end of a try statement is executed at the end of the try statement, whether an exception propagates from the rest of the try or not. The following C# code ensures that the stream stream is closed. Since this pattern is common, C# provides the using statement to ensure cleanup. In the following code, even if ProcessStuff() propagates an exception, the stream object is released. Python's with statement and Ruby's block argument to File.open are used to similar effect. In computer science, a continuation is an abstract representation of the control state of a computer program. A continuation implements (reifies) the program control state, i.e. the continuation is a data structure that represents the computational process at a given point in the process's execution; the created data structure can be accessed by the programming language, instead of being hidden in the runtime environment. Continuations are useful for encoding other control mechanisms in programming languages such as exceptions, generators, coroutines, and so on. The "current continuation" or "continuation of the computation step" is the continuation that, from the perspective of running code, would be derived from the current point in a program's execution. The term continuations can also be used to refer to first-class continuations, which are constructs that give a programming language the ability to save the execution state at any point and return to that point at a later point in the program, possibly multiple times. In computer science, a generator is a routine that can be used to control the iteration behaviour of a loop. All generators are also iterators. A generator is very similar to a function that returns an array, in that a generator has parameters, can be called, and generates a sequence of values. However, instead of building an array containing all the values and returning them all at once, a generator yields the values one at a time, which requires less memory and allows the caller to get started processing the first few values immediately. In short, a generator looks like a function but behaves like an iterator. Generators can be implemented in terms of more expressive control flow constructs, such as coroutines or first-class continuations. Generators, also known as semicoroutines, are a special case of (and weaker than) coroutines, in that they always yield control back to the caller (when passing a value back), rather than specifying a coroutine to jump to; see comparison of coroutines with generators. Coroutines are computer program components that allow execution to be suspended and resumed, generalizing subroutines for cooperative multitasking. Coroutines are well-suited for implementing familiar program components such as cooperative tasks, exceptions, event loops, iterators, infinite lists and pipes. They have been described as "functions whose execution you can pause". Melvin Conway coined the term coroutine in 1958 when he applied it to the construction of an assembly program. The first published explanation of the coroutine appeared later, in 1963. In computer programming, COMEFROM is a control flow statement that causes control flow to jump to the statement after it when control reaches the point specified by the COMEFROM argument. The statement is intended to be the opposite of goto and is considered to be more a joke than serious computer science. Often the specified jump point is identified as a label. For example, COMEFROM x specifies that when control reaches the label x, then control continues at the statement after the COMEFROM. A major difference with goto is that goto depends on the local structure of the code, while COMEFROM depends on the global structure. A goto statement transfers control when control reaches the statement, but COMEFROM requires the processor (i.e. interpreter) to scan for COMEFROM statements so that when control reaches any of the specified points, the processor can make the jump. The resulting logic tends to be difficult to understand since there is no indication near a jump point that control will in fact jump. One must study the entire program to see if any COMEFROM statements reference that point. The semantics of a COMEFROM statement varies by programming language. In some languages, the jump occurs before the statement at the specified point is executed and in others the jump occurs after. Depending on the language, multiple COMEFROM statements that reference the same point may be invalid, non-deterministic, executed in some order, or induce parallel or otherwise concurrent processing as seen in Threaded Intercal.[citation needed] COMEFROM was initially seen in lists of joke assembly language instructions (as 'CMFRM'). It was elaborated upon in a Datamation article by R. Lawrence Clark in 1973, written in response to Edsger Dijkstra's letter Go To Statement Considered Harmful. COMEFROM was eventually implemented in the C-INTERCAL variant of the esoteric programming language INTERCAL along with the even more obscure 'computed COMEFROM'. There were also Fortran proposals for 'assigned COME FROM' and a 'DONT' statement (to complement the existing 'DO' loop). Zahn's construct was proposed in 1974, and discussed in Knuth (1974). A modified version is presented here. exitwhen is used to specify the events which may occur within xxx, their occurrence is indicated by using the name of the event as a statement. When some event does occur, the relevant action is carried out, and then control passes just after endexit. This construction provides a very clear separation between determining that some situation applies, and the action to be taken for that situation. exitwhen is conceptually similar to exception handling, and exceptions or similar constructs are used for this purpose in many languages. The following simple example involves searching a two-dimensional table for a particular item. See also References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinosphere] | [TOKENS: 5690] |
Contents Sinosphere The Sinosphere, also known as the Chinese cultural sphere, East Asian cultural sphere, or the Sinic world, encompasses multiple countries in East Asia and Southeast Asia that were historically heavily influenced by Chinese culture. The Sinosphere comprises China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Vietnam and historically the Ryukyuans. Singapore might also be included due to modern-era overseas Chinese migration. The Sinosphere is different from the Sinophone world, which indicates regions where the Chinese language is spoken. Imperial China was a major regional power in Eastern Asia and exerted influence on tributary states and neighboring states, including Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.[a] These interactions brought ideological and cultural influences rooted in Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. The four cultures were ruled by their respective emperors under similar imperial systems, furthermore, the adoption of the Confucian-based imperial examination system deeply influenced the bureaucracy and social structure of Korea and Vietnam. Chinese inventions influenced, and were in turn influenced by, innovations of the other cultures in governance, philosophy, science, and the arts. Literary Chinese became the written lingua franca for bureaucracy and communications, and Chinese characters became locally adapted as kanji in Japan, hanja in Korea, and chữ Hán in Vietnam. In late classical history, the literary importance of classical Chinese diminished as Japan, Korea, and Vietnam each adopted their own writing systems. Japan developed the katakana and hiragana scripts, Korea created hangul, and Vietnam developed chữ Nôm (now rarely used in lieu of the modern Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet). Classical literature written in Chinese characters nonetheless remains an important legacy of Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese cultures. In the 21st century, ideological and cultural influences of Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism remain visible in high culture and social doctrines. Terminology Ancient China was one of the cradles of civilization, with the emergent cultures that arose from the migration of Han settlers from the Yellow River generally regarded as the origin of the East Asian world. Japanese historian Nishijima Sadao [ja] (1919–1998), professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, coined the term Tōa bunka-ken (東亜文化圏, 'East Asian Cultural Sphere') to refer to an East Asian cultural sphere distinct from the cultures of the West. According to Nishijima, this cultural sphere—which includes China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam—shared the philosophy of Confucianism, the religion of Buddhism, and similar political and social structures stemming from a background of historical Classical Chinese scholars. It has also been informally referred to as the "chopsticks sphere" due to perceived native use of these utensils across the region. The term Sinosphere is derived from Sino- 'China' (cf. Sinophone) + -sphere, in the sense of the sphere of influence under the influence of a country. The CJK languages—Chinese, Japanese, Korean—each use cognate terms to translate English sphere: Unlike with the other languages of the Sinosphere, the corresponding Vietnamese cognate khuyên 圈 is not used to mean 'sphere' or 'area'.[b] Instead, vùng ('region', 'area') is used. The Chinese 東亞文化圈 is translated in Vietnamese as Vùng văn hóa Á Đông (塳文化亞東). In the Ryukyuan languages, 圏 (ちん; chin) is not used to mean 'sphere', 'area', or 'domain' and only appears in kammun texts written by Ryukyuans. Instead, 世 (yu) is used to mean 'world' or 'sphere'. As such, 漢字文化圏 and 東亜文化圏 would be translated as kanjii tiigata nu yu (漢字一型ぬ世) and too-a tiigata nu yu (東亜一型ぬ世), respectively. Victor H. Mair discussed the origins of these 'culture sphere' terms. The Chinese wénhuà quān (文化圈) dates to a 1941 translation for the German term Kulturkreis, ('culture circle, field'), which the Austrian ethnologists Fritz Graebner and Wilhelm Schmidt proposed. Japanese historian Nishijima Sadao [ja] coined the expressions Kanji bunka ken (漢字文化圏; 'Chinese-character culture sphere') and Chuka bunka ken (中華文化圏; 'Chinese culture sphere'), which China later re-borrowed as loanwords. The Sinosphere may be taken to be synonymous to Ancient China and its descendant civilizations as well as the "Far Eastern civilizations" (the Mainland and the Japanese ones). In Toynbee's A Study of History (1934–1961), the Sinosphere is presented as among the major "units of study", along with the Western, Islamic, Eastern Orthodox, and Indic civilizations. British historian Arnold J. Toynbee lists the Far Eastern civilization as one of the main civilizations outlined in his book A Study of History. He proposes that the initial "Sinic civilization" originating in the Yellow River basin gradually grew into the subsequent "Far Eastern civilization", which extended to the Yangzi region and into Korea and Japan. Commonalities within the Far Eastern civilization were the result of developing from a "Sinic universal state". Toynbee contrasts this "affiliation" relationship between the Sinic and Far Eastern civilizations with the "apparentation-affiliation" relationship between the Hellenic and Western civilizations. American sinologist and historian Edwin O. Reischauer also groups China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam into a cultural sphere that he calls the "Sinic world", a group of centralized states that share a Confucian ethical philosophy. Reischauer states that this culture originated in northern China, and compares the relationship between northern China and East Asia to that of Greco-Roman civilization and Europe. The elites of East Asia were tied together through a common written language based on Chinese characters, much in the way that Latin functioned in Europe. In his book The Clash of Civilizations, American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington considers the Sinic world as one of the modern (post–Cold War) civilizations. He notes that "all scholars recognize the existence of either a single distinct Chinese civilization dating back to at least 1500 B.C. and perhaps a thousand years earlier, or of two Chinese civilizations, one succeeding the other, in the early centuries of the Christian epoch". Huntington's Sinic civilization includes China, North Korea, South Korea, Vietnam, and Chinese communities in Southeast Asia. Of the many civilizations that Huntington discusses, the Sinic world is the only one that is based on a cultural, rather than religious, identity. Huntington theorizes that in a post–Cold War world, humanity "[identifies] with cultural groups: tribes, ethnic groups, religious communities [and] at the broadest level, civilizations". One exception is Japan, which Huntington considers as a distinct civilization. Culture Cultural commonalities among the Sinosphere countries reflect their shared source of influence from Imperial China. The structure of personal names in the Sinosphere follows the surname-first order, also known as the Eastern name order. Additionally, Korean and Vietnamese personal name share a structure similar to Chinese one, in that they have some monosyllabic surnames in common (e.g. Lee, Chen,..), and full names typically consist of about two to four Chinese characters. The cuisine of East Asia shares many of the same ingredients and techniques. Chopsticks are used as an eating utensil in all of the core East Asian countries. The use of soy sauce, which is made from fermenting soybeans, is also widespread in the region. Rice is the staple food in all of East Asia and is a major focus of food security. People who have no rice are often seen as having no food. Moreover, in East Asian countries such as Japan (御飯; gohan), Korea (밥; bap), and Vietnam (cơm; 𩚵 or 粓), the word for "cooked rice" can embody the meaning of food in general. Popular terms associated with East Asian cuisine include boba, kimchi, sushi, hot pot, tea, dim sum, ramen, as well as phở, sashimi, udon, and chả giò. East Asian literary culture is based on the use of Literary Chinese, which became the medium of scholarship, administration, and government across the region. Although Vietnam, Korea, and Japan each developed vernacular writing systems for their languages, these were limited to popular literature. Literary Chinese remained the medium of formal writing until the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when it was swept away by rising nationalism and displaced by vernacular writing. Though they did not use Chinese for spoken communication, each country had its own tradition of reading texts aloud, the so-called Sino-Xenic pronunciations, which provide clues to the pronunciation of Middle Chinese. Chinese words with these pronunciations were also borrowed extensively by local vernaculars and today comprise over half their vocabularies. Vernacular or standard Chinese encompassing varieties of Chinese also developed alongside the use of Literary Chinese. Books in Literary Chinese were widely distributed. By the 7th century and possibly earlier, woodblock printing had been developed in China. At first, it was used only to copy Buddhist scriptures, but later secular works were also printed. By the 13th century, metal movable type was used by government printers in Korea but seems to have not been extensively used in China, Vietnam, or Japan. At the same time, manuscript reproduction remained important until the late 19th century. Japan's textual scholarship had Chinese origins, which made Japan one of the birthplaces of modern sinology. The Four Books and Five Classics are the authoritative books of Confucianism, which were used to study for civil service examinations in China, Korea, and Vietnam. Philosophy and religion The Art of War, Tao Te Ching, I Ching, and Analects are classic Chinese texts that have been influential in East Asian history. More generally, the philosophies and practices of Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism have had long-standing and deep-rooted influence in Sinosphere countries. Taoism has influenced countries throughout the Sinosphere. The Taoist school of thought emerged in China from the teachings of Lao Tse. It follows the search for the tao, a concept that is equivalent to a 'path' or 'course' and represents the cosmic force that creates the universe and all things. According to this belief, the wisdom of the tao is the only source of the universe and represents a natural path of life events. Thus, the adherents of Taoism follow the search for tao, which represents the strength of the universe. The most important text in Taoism, the Tao Te Ching ("Book of the Way and Virtue", c. 300 BC), declares that the tao is the "source" of the universe, thus considered a creative principle, but not as a deity. Nature manifests itself spontaneously, without a higher intention, and it is up to humans to integrate, through "non-action" (wu wei) and spontaneity (zi ran), to its flow and rhythms, in order to achieve happiness and a long life. Taoism is a combination of teachings from various sources; it manifests as a system that can be philosophical, religious, or ethical. The tradition can also be presented as a worldview and a way of life. Buddhist philosophy is guided by the teachings of the Buddha, which lead the individual to enlightenment through meditative practices, mindfulness, and reflection on their daily actions. The belief is that physical and spiritual awareness leads to a state of enlightenment called nirvana, which, according to Buddha, is the highest state of meditation. In this state the individual finds peace and tranquility above the oscillations of thoughts and emotions and is rid of the inherent suffering of the physical world. Buddhism in the Sinosphere is or derives from Mahayana Buddhism, a sect which is seen to be intertwined within Taoism and Confucianism. It advocates for altruism and compassion, as well as understanding and escaping from suffering in relation to karma. Vegetarianism or veganism is followed by more monastic or devout Buddhists of this sect, and even among lay Buddhists, as it leads to compassion for all living, sentient beings. The countries of China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam share a Confucian philosophical worldview. Confucianism is a humanistic philosophy that believes that human beings are teachable, improvable, and perfectible through personal and communal endeavor, especially including self-cultivation and self-creation. Confucianism focuses on the cultivation of virtue and maintenance of ethics, the most basic of which are: Mid-Imperial Chinese philosophy is primarily defined by the development of neo-Confucianism, which has its origins in the Tang dynasty. The Confucianist scholar Han Yu is seen as a forebear of the neo-Confucianists of the Song dynasty. The Song dynasty philosopher Zhou Dunyi is seen as the first true "pioneer" of neo-Confucianism, using Taoist metaphysics as a framework for his ethical philosophy. Elsewhere in East Asia, Japanese philosophy began to develop as indigenous Shinto beliefs fused with Buddhism, Confucianism, and other schools of Chinese philosophy. Similarly, in Korean philosophy, elements of shamanism were integrated into the neo-Confucianism imported from China. In Vietnam, neo-Confucianism, along with Taoism and Buddhism, were also developed into Vietnam's own Tam giáo, which together with Vietnamese folk religion shaped Vietnamese philosophy. Though not commonly identified with East Asia, the following religions have been influential in its history. Christianity is the most popular religion in South Korea, followed by Buddhism. Significant Christian communities are also found in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, and Vietnam. In recent years, various denominations of Christianity, mainly Protestantism and Catholicism, have gained popularity in these areas, due to its own version of spirituality and charitability. However, it is unlikely to supersede the more natively rooted Buddhism, except in places like South Korea where Protestantism is more popular. In Vietnam, Roman Catholicism is prominent, and early Christian missionaries played a historical role in romanizing the Vietnamese language prior to French colonial rule. Islam has been practiced in China since the 7th century CE. It is the most popular religion in Xinjiang and has significant communities in Ningxia. For Hinduism; see Hinduism in Vietnam, Hinduism in China. No specific religious affiliation may also be practiced, and is often the most cited in several aforementioned countries.[citation needed] However, regardless of religious affiliations, most people in the Sinosphere are entwined with traces of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism, or native religions and philosophies. Language The following language families are found in and around the East Asian cultural sphere. Some have historically contributed to the vocabulary or development of Sinitic languages, while others have been influenced by them to some degree. Only some of these languages are highly indebted to Literary Chinese and thus relevant to the East Asian cultural sphere. The core languages of the East Asian cultural sphere are predominantly Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese (CJKV), and their respective variants. These are well-documented to have historically used Chinese characters, with Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese each having roughly 60% of their vocabulary derived from Chinese. There is a small set of minor languages that are comparable to the core East Asian languages, such as Zhuang and Hmong-Mien. They are often overlooked, since neither have their own country nor heavily export their culture, but Zhuang has been written in Hanzi-inspired characters called Sawndip for over 1,000 years. Hmong, while having supposedly lacked a writing system until modern history, is also suggested to have a similar percentage of Chinese loans to the core CJKV languages. Due to the common usage of Chinese characters across East Asian nations, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese people traditionally can engage in written communication using Literary Chinese without knowing other people's spoken language, a method called Brushtalk. As a result, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese are also deemed Sino-Xenic languages that are highly influenced by ancient forms of Literary Chinese. Chinese characters are considered the common culture that unifies the languages and cultures of many East Asian nations. Today, mainland China, Malaysia, and Singapore use Simplified Chinese characters, whereas Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau use Traditional Chinese characters. Historically, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam have also used Chinese characters. Today, they are still used in Japan and South Korea, albeit in different forms. Japan still uses kanji but has also invented kana, inspired by the Chinese cursive script. Korea used to write in hanja but has invented an alphabetic system called hangul that is nowadays the majority script. However, hanja is still a required subject in South Korea schools. Most names are also written in hanja. Hanja is also studied and used in academia, newspapers, and law—areas where a lot of scholarly terms and Sino-Korean loanwords are used and necessary to distinguish between otherwise ambiguous homonyms. Vietnam used to write in chữ Hán (Chinese characters) in Classical Chinese texts (Hán văn). In the 8th century, the Vietnamese began inventing many of their own chữ Nôm characters. Since French colonization, they have switched to using a modified version of the Latin alphabet called chữ Quốc ngữ. Chinese characters had a long and great influence on Vietnamese history and literature, and thus still hold a special place in Vietnamese culture. In Vietnam (and North Korea), chữ Hán can be seen in temples, cemeteries, and monuments as well as serving as decorative motifs in art and design. Zhuang people are similar to the Vietnamese in that they used to write in Sawgun (Chinese characters) and have invented many of their own characters, called Sawndip. Sawndip is still used informally and in traditional settings, but the Chinese government officially promotes the use of an alphabetical script, which it introduced in 1957, for the language. Economy and trade The business cultures of East Asia are heavily influenced by Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. Common factors across the Sinosphere tend to place great emphasis and respect towards traits of humility and conformity. Japan often features hierarchically organized companies, and Japanese work environments place a high value on interpersonal relationships. A leader of a Japanese company is typically valued on their ability to maintain social harmony, and to unify or bring together their employees, rather than simply being the top decision maker. Korean businesses, adhering to Confucian values, are structured around a patriarchal family governed by filial piety (孝順) between management and employees, where knowing one's place within the hierarchy, and showing respect for a person's age and status, are very important in Korean society. It is not uncommon for people in a Korean office to refer to others as their seniors (seonbae) or their juniors (hubae). A person's position within a company usually reflects their age, and juniors tend to listen to their seniors without pause. Koreans value maintaining a social harmonious environment that allows a worker's kibun (mood or emotional feelings) to remain balanced. Maintaining face is usually how business and social relationships work in East Asia, whereas aggressively patronising others, or criticising them publicly in front of others, tend to be the ways to lose business relationships. In Chinese business culture, there is a high value on nurturing relationships using the social concept of guanxi, which refers to a state of having personal trust and a solid relationship with someone, and can involve exchanging favours and have moral obligations to one another. Vietnamese culture tends to be hierarchical by age and seniority. The Vietnamese prefer to work with those who they trust, extending this to business relations that often are maintained between peers and relatives. Women have an important role in Vietnamese culture (owing to their historical status as soldiers). Interpersonal relationships are also highly valued. Vietnamese businesspeople may take spoken word as fact. Maintaining face is highly important—anger or displaying temper will reduce trust. When there are disruptions in harmony, Vietnamese may use silence as a way of allowing any tension to simmer down. During the Industrial Revolution, East Asia modernized and became an area of economic power, starting with the Meiji Restoration in the late 19th century, when Japan rapidly transformed itself into the only industrial power outside the North Atlantic area. Hong Kong's successful post–WWII economy, based on developing strong textile and manufacturing industries, led to the territory's categorization as one of the Four Asian Tigers. South Korea followed a similar route, developing its textile industry. After the post–WWII US military occupation of the country, the Korean War, and the ultimate division of the peninsula, South Korea experienced what has become known as the Miracle on the Han River, with the rise of chaebols like Samsung and LG strongly driving its economy. As of 2023, South Korea had the 12th largest economy in the world by nominal GDP. Japanese economic growth stagnated in the 1990s; yet it currently remains the world's 3rd largest economy by nominal GDP.[as of?] Presently, higher growth in the region has been experienced by China and the Tiger Cub Economies of Southeast Asia, particularly Vietnam. The impact of the Vietnam War was devastating. Vietnam only started opening its economy through Đổi Mới reforms in 1986, and the US lifted its embargo on Vietnam only in 1995. Since then, the Vietnamese economy has been developing at a rapid pace. Up until the early 2010s, Vietnamese trade was heavily dependent on China. Most Chinese-Vietnamese people are from Cantonese background, and can speak Cantonese and Vietnamese, which share many linguistic similarities. Vietnam, one of the Next Eleven countries as of 2005[update], is regarded as a rising economic power in Southeast Asia. Since the reform and opening up, China's economy has grown rapidly. In 2020, the country had become the 2nd and 1st-largest economy in the world respectively by nominal GDP and GDP (PPP). Although Greater China, Japan, and Korea all have extensive links with the rest of ASEAN, Vietnam is the only Sinosphere country that is formally part of ASEAN as a Southeast Asian country. Singapore, a highly developed economy, is also a part of ASEAN with a population that is significantly overseas Chinese. The economies of China and Japan are respectively the world's second- and third-largest economies by nominal GDP, and both are highly influential globally in terms of cultural exportation. South Korea was the 13th largest in 2022 by nominal GDP and has been highly influential as well, with the popularity of the Korean wave since the 1990s. North Korea was the 107th largest, and Vietnam the 35th largest, by nominal GDP in 2023.[citation needed] Sinosphere countries are involved in various economic groups and initiatives, including: Relations Mutual relations stem from hundreds to thousands of years of history between each Sinosphere state, originating from trade, cultural flow, conquest, and the spread of Classical Chinese writing. Despite these long historical connections, racism and xenophobia stemming from deep-rooted historical, economic, political, or regional differences has also been a major concern. In addition to mutual relations, various forms of inheritance of Chinese civilisation or "Little China" ideologies have surfaced with Vietnam, Japan, and Korea, (the use of 中國 in self-reference) in various situations, conferring the "Chinese" label.[incomprehensible] China has had direct relations with its immediate neighbors since at least the first century BC. The Han dynasty conquered parts of northern Vietnam in 111 BC, and northern Korea in 109 BC (although Chinese influence there had begun earlier). Chinese rule and influence continued to impact Vietnam and Korea. China–Vietnam relations are tied to historical confrontations and the transfer of cultural and philosophical thoughts emanating from China to Vietnam. Although the countries are currently similar politically, their relations can also sometimes be fraught and unsound. The various Baiyue peoples (Vietnamese: Bách Việt, lit. 'Hundred Yue's') were vaguely but historically connected to the southern Chinese and Vietnamese. In the past, [粵] (Yue, Viet, Cantonese) was interchangeable with the homophonous character that today refers specifically to the Vietnamese [越] (Yue, Viet, Vietnamese). Cantonese scholars looked through earlier Chinese sources to find historical information about the Việt/Yue, whether recorded with [粵] or [越]. Vietnam and Korea had semi-official encounters when both countries' envoys met in China from the 16th to 19th centuries. Despite the geographical distance, the countries share parallels, such as colonial rule and political division. South Korea was involved with South Vietnam in the controversial Vietnam War. Today, Vietnam uniquely maintains good relations both with democratic states (like the US and South Korea) and with its historic communist allies (like China and North Korea). Although courteous, Vietnam's separate relations with North Korea and South Korea are made delicate by the tensions on the Korean peninsula. Vietnam was used as neutral ground for the 2019 North Korean–US summit. China has influenced Japan for around two millennia. Historically, Japan emulated many cultural and philosophical thoughts from China, with many Japanese undertaking studies that came from China or via Korea. Culture, trade, and military confrontation has been a major focal point between the two as well, and relations can become very fraught. Japan's links with Southeast Asia were mainly through maritime trade stemming from the 16th century. Japan's relations with Vietnam via China goes further back, to the 8th century. Although some residual grievances about Japan's historical colonization in Asia may remain, as well as existing political differences, the relation has mostly been of mutualism. However, instances of mistreatment, such as abuse towards Vietnamese laborers in Japan, has surfaced. Korea and Japan have had extensive links in terms of culture, trade, political contact, and military confrontations. The history of Japan–Korea relations extends for over 15 centuries, with many ideas from mainland Asia flowing into Japan via Korea in historical times. Although geographically close, the two countries are culturally distinct from one another and may harbor contrasting military and historical viewpoints, where relations can turn fraught, especially in the context of Japanese colonization. Korea and China relations are extensive and several millennia old. Much cultural and intellectual trade has transferred into Korea from China. The states have also partaken in several military confrontations, with parts of Korea being subsumed by Chinese rule since 109 BC. Much of the history between Korea and China focused on Northeast Asia, and played a role in transmitting knowledge to Japan. Korea has also shared relations with Manchuria and Northeast China, which themselves practiced a form of cultural assimilation with the Han Chinese. Modern relations between China and Korea can become fraught. See also Internal relations Notes References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-player_character#Other_usage] | [TOKENS: 1785] |
Contents Non-player character A non-player character (NPC) is a character in a game that is not controlled by a player. The term originated in traditional tabletop role-playing games where it applies to characters controlled by the gamemaster, or referee, rather than by another player. In video games, this usually means a computer-controlled character that has a predetermined set of behaviors that potentially will impact gameplay, but will not necessarily be the product of true artificial intelligence. Role-playing games In traditional tabletop role-playing games (RPG) such as Dungeons & Dragons, an NPC is a character portrayed by the gamemaster (GM). While the player characters (PCs) form the narrative's protagonists, non-player characters can be thought of as the "supporting cast" or "extras" of a roleplaying narrative. Non-player characters populate the fictional world of the game, and can fill any role not occupied by a player character. Non-player characters might be allies, bystanders, or competitors to the PCs. NPCs can also be traders who trade currency for things such as equipment or gear. NPCs thus vary in their level of detail. Some may be only a brief description ("You see a man in a corner of the tavern"), while others may have complete game statistics and backstories. There is some debate about how much work a gamemaster should put into an important NPC's statistics; some players prefer to have every NPC completely defined with stats, skills, and gear, while others define only what is immediately necessary and fill in the rest as the game proceeds. There is also some debate regarding the importance of fully defined NPCs in any given role-playing game, but there is consensus that the more "real" the NPCs feel, the more fun players will have interacting with them in character. In some games and in some circumstances, a player who is without a player character can temporarily take control of an NPC. Reasons for this vary, but often arise from the player not maintaining a PC within the group and playing the NPC for a session or from the player's PC being unable to act for some time (for example, because the PC is injured or in another location). Although these characters are still designed and normally controlled by the gamemaster, when players are allowed to temporarily control these non-player characters, it gives them another perspective on the plot of the game. Some systems, such as Nobilis, encourage this in their rules.[citation needed] Many game systems have rules for characters sustaining positive allies in the form of NPC followers, hired hands, or other dependents stature to the PC (player character). Characters may sometimes help in the design, recruitment, or development of NPCs. In the Champions game (and related games using the Hero System), a character may have a DNPC, or "dependent non-player character". This is a character controlled by the GM, but for which the player character is responsible in some way, and who may be put in harm's way by the PC's choices. Video games The term "non-player character" is also used in video games to describe entities not under the direct control of a player. The term carries a connotation that the character is not hostile towards players; hostile characters are referred to as enemies, mobs, or creeps. NPC behavior in computer games is usually scripted and automatic, triggered by certain actions or dialogue with the player characters. In certain multiplayer games (Neverwinter Nights and Vampire: The Masquerade series, for example) a player that acts as the GM can "possess" both player and non-player characters, controlling their actions to further the storyline. More complex games, such as the aforementioned Neverwinter Nights, allow the player to customize the NPCs' behavior by modifying their default scripts or creating entirely new ones. In some online games, such as massively multiplayer online role-playing games, NPCs may be entirely unscripted, and are essentially regular character avatars controlled by employees of the game company. These "non-players" are often distinguished from player characters by avatar appearance or other visual designation, and often serve as in-game support for new players. In other cases, these "live" NPCs are virtual actors, playing regular characters that drive a continuing storyline (as in Myst Online: Uru Live). In earlier RPGs, NPCs only had monologues. This is typically represented by a dialogue box, floating text, cutscene, or other means of displaying the NPCs' speech or reaction to the player. [citation needed] NPC speeches of this kind are often designed to give an instant impression of the character of the speaker, providing character vignettes, but they may also advance the story or illuminate the world around the PC. Similar to this is the most common form of storytelling, non-branching dialogue, in which the means of displaying NPC speech are the same as above, but the player character or avatar responds to or initiates speech with NPCs. In addition to the purposes listed above, this enables the development of the player character. More advanced RPGs feature interactive dialogue, or branching dialogue (dialogue trees). An example are the games produced by Black Isle Studios and White Wolf, Inc.; every one of their games is multiple-choice roleplaying. When talking to an NPC, the player is presented with a list of dialogue options and may choose between them. Each choice may result in a different response from the NPC. These choices may affect the course of the game, as well as the conversation. At the least, they provide a reference point to the player of their character's relationship with the game world. Ultima is an example of a game series that has advanced from non-branching (Ultima III: Exodus and earlier) to branching dialogue (from Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar and on). Other role-playing games with branching dialogues include Cosmic Soldier, Megami Tensei, Fire Emblem, Metal Max, Langrisser, SaGa, Ogre Battle, Chrono, Star Ocean, Sakura Wars, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Radiant Historia, and several Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy games. Certain video game genres revolve almost entirely around interactions with non-player characters, including visual novels such as Ace Attorney and dating sims such as Tokimeki Memorial, usually featuring complex branching dialogues and often presenting the player's possible responses word-for-word as the player character would say them. Games revolving around relationship-building, including visual novels, dating sims such as Tokimeki Memorial, and some role-playing games such as Persona, often give choices that have a different number of associated "mood points" that influence a player character's relationship and future conversations with a non-player character. These games often feature a day-night cycle with a time scheduling system that provides context and relevance to character interactions, allowing players to choose when and if to interact with certain characters, which in turn influences their responses during later conversations. In 2023, Replica Studios unveiled its AI-developed NPCs for the Unreal Engine 5, in cooperation with OpenAI, which enable players to have an interactive conversation with unplayable characters. "NPC streaming"—livestreaming while mimicking the behaviors of an NPC—became popular on TikTok in 2023 and was largely popularized by livestreamer Pinkydoll. Other usage From around 2018, the term NPC became an insult, primarily online, to suggest that a person is unable to form thoughts or opinions of their own. This is sometimes illustrated with a grey-faced, expressionless version of the Wojak meme. Monetization NPC streaming is a type of livestream that allows users to participate in and shape the content they are viewing in real time. It has become widely popular as influencers and users of social media platforms such as TikTok utilize livestreams to act as non-player characters. "Viewers in NPC live streams take on the role of puppeteers, influencing the creator's next move." This phenomenon has been on the rise as viewers are actively involved in what they are watching, by purchasing digital "gifts" and sending them directly to the streamer. In return, the streamer will briefly mimic a character or act. This phenomenon has become a trend starting from July 2023, as influencers make profits from this new internet character. Pinkydoll, a TikTok influencer, gained 400,000 followers the same month that she started NPC streaming, while her livestreams began to earn her as much as $7,000 in a day. NPC streaming gives creators a new avenue to earn money online. Despite this, certain creators are quitting due to certain stigmas that come with the strategy. For example, a pioneer of the NPC trend, Malik Ambersley has been robbed, accosted by police, and gotten into fights due to the controversial nature of his act. See also References |
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[SOURCE: https://github.com/resources/articles] | [TOKENS: 606] |
Navigation Menu Search code, repositories, users, issues, pull requests... Provide feedback We read every piece of feedback, and take your input very seriously. Saved searches Use saved searches to filter your results more quickly To see all available qualifiers, see our documentation. GitHub Articles Filters Topic Discover how software composition analysis (SCA) tools improve the security, quality, and efficiency of your open source software. Discover how software composition analysis (SCA) tools improve the security, quality, and efficiency of your open source software. Generative AI creates new content—text, code, images, audio, and video—from existing data. Generative AI creates new content—text, code, images, audio, and video—from existing data. Discover how risk-based vulnerability management (RBVM) helps organizations focus on the most critical security risks to optimize protection and allocate resources effectively. Discover how risk-based vulnerability management (RBVM) helps organizations focus on the most critical security risks to optimize protection and allocate resources effectively. Discover how data breaches occur, their impact on businesses, and the industries most at risk. Learn about common attack methods and tools and best practices for securing sensitive data. Discover how data breaches occur, their impact on businesses, and the industries most at risk. Learn about common attack methods and tools and best practices for securing sensitive data. SAST enables developers to uncover security threats earlier in the development process, thereby safeguarding an application’s successful deployment. SAST enables developers to uncover security threats earlier in the development process, thereby safeguarding an application’s successful deployment. Unsupervised learning finds patterns in unlabeled data, making sense of complex datasets. Unsupervised learning finds patterns in unlabeled data, making sense of complex datasets. Learn how software architecture helps developers build scalable, efficient systems using best practices, key components, and common styles and patterns. Learn how software architecture helps developers build scalable, efficient systems using best practices, key components, and common styles and patterns. Open source AI offers more control, clarity, and room to build the way you want. Open source AI offers more control, clarity, and room to build the way you want. Turn ideas into code faster with plain language prompts and agentic AI support. Turn ideas into code faster with plain language prompts and agentic AI support. Software is built in layers. An SBOM shows what’s inside—so you can secure it. Software is built in layers. An SBOM shows what’s inside—so you can secure it. AI often struggles with knowledge gaps and factual errors. Learn how retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) helps solve this. AI often struggles with knowledge gaps and factual errors. Learn how retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) helps solve this. Prompt engineering is the practice of crafting effective instructions that guide AI models to produce accurate, useful results. Prompt engineering is the practice of crafting effective instructions that guide AI models to produce accurate, useful results. Site-wide Links Get tips, technical guides, and best practices. Twice a month. |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultramarine_flycatcher] | [TOKENS: 500] |
Contents Ultramarine flycatcher The ultramarine flycatcher or the white-browed blue flycatcher (Ficedula superciliaris) is a small arboreal Old World flycatcher in the Ficedula genus. Its breeding range extends from eastern Afghanistan to the Hengduan Mountains; it winters in India and northwestern Indochina. Description Somewhat smaller in size than a sparrow (c. 10 cm) and with a stocky build. The male is deep blue above, sides of head and neck are deep blue, and a prominent white patch runs from centre of throat, through breast to belly. The amount of white on the brow and tail show clinal variation from West to East along the Himalayan foothills, which is sometimes taken to distinguish three subspecies: Usually singly, though sometimes in mixed hunting parties in the winter. Keeps largely to the low trees and bushes, feeding among the foliage canopy, not venturing much into the open. Constantly jerks up its tail, often accompanied by fluffing of head feathers and trrr note, especially in proximity of nest. Diet is mainly insects.[citation needed] Distribution Summer: Common breeding visitor to the western Himalayas, from Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh to Uttarakhand (western race), and intergrading within Nepal with the eastern race Ficedula superciliaris aestigma which continues in the eastern Himalayas through Bhutan to Arunachal Pradesh. Breeding between 2000 and 2700 m, occasionally as low as 1800 m and as high as 3200 m. Also in the lower hills of Meghalaya and Nagaland, Khasi and Cachar hills, sometimes considered a third race; winter movements of this population are not known. Habitat: Open, mixed forests of oak, rhododendron, pine, fir, etc., occasionally orchards. Winter: Central India from Delhi south to northern Maharashtra, Goa, and eastward to Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. Wintering populations in the eastern states, possibly from Nepal/Sikkim, are mixed: a good part of this population also have a white supercilium and basal tail patches (see description below). Also sometimes found as a vagrant in the northern part of Bangladesh. Nesting Foraging behavior Typically they respond to indirect cues more than direct cues in relation to risk management when foraging for food. Gallery References |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bene_Israel] | [TOKENS: 2120] |
Contents Bene Israel The Bene Israel (lit. 'Sons of Israel'), also referred to as the "Shanivar Teli" (lit. 'Saturday oil-presser') or "Native Jew" caste, are a community of Jews in India. It has been suggested that they are the descendants of one of the Ten Lost Tribes via their ancestors who had settled there centuries ago. Starting in the second half of the 18th century, after they were taught about normative Sephardi Judaism, they migrated from villages in the Konkan region where they had previously lived to nearby cities throughout British India—primarily to Mumbai where their first synagogue opened in 1796 but also to Pune, Ahmedabad, and Karachi (now in Pakistan), where they gained prominent positions in the British colonial government and the Indian Army. In the early part of the 20th century, many Bene Israel became active in the Indian film industry as actresses/actors, producers, and directors. With Indian independence in 1947 followed by the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948, many Bene Israel, including those who had arrived in India after their exodus from newly-independent Pakistan, soon emigrated to the State of Israel, the United States, as well as Canada and other Commonwealth countries. Emigration from India reduced the approximate population there from a peak of 20,000 in 1951 to 16,000 in 1961 and 5,500 in 1971, after which the emigration greatly declined. History The Bene Israel community believes that their ancestors fled Judea during the persecution under Antiochus Epiphanes and are descended from fourteen Jews, seven men and seven women, who came to India as the only survivors of a shipwreck near the village of Navagaon on the coast about 20 miles (32 km) south of Mumbai. Some historians have thought their ancestors may have belonged to one of the Lost Tribes of Israel. They took up the work of oil pressing and running grocery shops but abstained from working on the Sabbath, and hence were called Shanivar Teli. Genetic evidence as of 2005 suggests that the Bene Israel appear to carry a haplotype which points to a Middle Eastern origin, and Jews may have formed part of the founding group. They gradually assimilated to the people around them, while retaining customs that are considered Jewish. The medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides may have been referring to the Bene Israel when he wrote in a letter: "The Jews of India know nothing of the Torah, save for the Sabbath and circumcision." At a point in history which is uncertain, an Indian Jew from Cochin named David Rahabi discovered the Bene Israel in their villages and recognized their vestigial Jewish customs. Rahabi taught the people about normative Judaism. He trained some young men among them to be the religious preceptors of the community. Known as Kajis, these men held a position that became hereditary, similar to the Cohanim. They became recognized as judges and settlers of disputes within the community. Bene Israel tradition places Rahabi's arrival at either 1000 or 1400, although some historians have dated his arrival to the 18th century. They suggest that the "David Rahabi" of Bene Israel folklore was a man named David Ezekiel Rahabi, who lived from 1694 to 1772, and resided in Cochin, then the centre of the wealthy Malabar Jewish community. Others suggest that the reference is to David Baruch Rahabi, who arrived in Bombay from Cochin in 1825. It is estimated that there were 6,000 Bene Israel in the 1830s; 10,000 at the turn of the 20th century; and in 1948—their peak in India—they numbered 20,000. Since that time, most of the population has emigrated to Israel. In 2020, the Jewish population in Mumbai numbered about 3,500, out of which 99% were from the Bene Israel community. Mumbai and surrounding regions, like Raigad, house several synagogues, most of which belong to the Bene Israel community. Under British colonial rule, many Bene Israel rose to prominence in India; they were less affected by discriminatory legislation and gained prominent positions within the colonial government and the Indian Army, at a higher rate overall than their non-Jewish counterparts. Some of these enlistees with their families later immigrated to the British protectorate of Aden. In the 19th century, the Bene Israel did however meet with hostility from the newly anglicized Baghdadi Jews who considered the Bene Israel to be "Indian". They also questioned the Jewishness of the community. In response, the Bene Israel educator and historian, Haeem Samuel Kehimkar, spearheaded the defence of the Jewishness of the Bene Israel in the late 1800s. In his writings, he tried to portray the Bene Israel as a totally foreign community in India. He also divided the community into two endogamous groups: white (gora) and black (kala). He claimed the whites had pure blood, while the blacks were the progeny of Indian women and therefore impure. In the early twentieth century, numerous Bene Israel became leaders in the new film industry in India. In addition, men worked as producers and actors: Ezra Mir (alias Edwin Myers) (1903–1993) became the first chief of Films Division of India, and Solomon Moses was head of the Bombay Film Lab Pvt Ltd from the 1940s to 1990s. Ennoch Isaac Satamkar was a film actor and assistant director to Mehboob Khan, a director of Hindi films. Given the relatively privileged position they had held under British colonial rule, many Bene Israel prepared to leave India at independence in 1947. They believed that nationalism and the emphasis on indigenous religions would mean fewer opportunities for them. Most immigrated to the state of Israel, which was newly established in 1948 as a Jewish homeland. Gallery Life in Israel Between 1948 and 1952, some 2,300 Bene Israel immigrated to Israel. In India, the Bene Israel and other Jews lived in urban areas, however in Israel they were settled into development towns. Members of the Bene Israel faced discrimination from other Jewish groups—one reason being their darker skin colour. Several rabbis refused to marry Bene Israel to other Jews, on grounds that they were not legitimate Jews under Orthodox law. Between 1952 and 1954, following sit-down protests and hunger strikes by Bene Israel demanding to be sent back to India, the Jewish Agency repatriated 337 members of the Bene Israel community to India, though most eventually returned to Israel years later. In 1962, authorities in Israel were accused of racism towards the Bene Israel. In the case that caused the controversy, the Council of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel ruled that before registering a marriage between Indian Jews and Jews not belonging to that community, the registering rabbi should investigate the lineage of the Indian applicant for possible non-Jewish descent, and in case of doubt, require the applicant to perform conversion or immersion. This discrimination may be related to the fact that some religious authorities believed that the Bene Israel were not fully Jewish because of intermarriage during their long separation. Between 1962 and 1964, the Bene Israel community staged protests against this policy. In 1964, the Israeli Rabbinate at last ruled that the Bene Israel are "full Jews in every respect". The Report of the High Level Commission on the Indian Diaspora (2012) reviewed life in Israel for the Bene Israel community. It noted that the city of Beersheba in Southern Israel has the largest community of Bene Israel, with a sizable one in Ramla. They have a new kind of transnational family.[clarification needed] Generally the Bene Israel have not been politically active and have been of modest means.[citation needed] They have not formed continuing economic connections to India and have limited political status in Israel. Jews of Indian origin are generally regarded as Sephardic; they have become well integrated religiously within the Sephardic community in Israel. Abbink[who?], on the other hand, states that the Bene Israel have become a distinct ethnic minority in Israel.[citation needed] The community, despite having been in Israel for many generations, has maintained many of their traditions from India. For example, traditional wedding rituals such as mehndi remain in practice. The Malida ceremony—a thanksgiving ritual commemorating the Jewish prophet Elijah, who has become a kind of patron saint for Bene Israel—is also still practiced. This ceremony is regarded as unique to the Bene Israel Jewish community. It is also called Eliahu HaNabi[citation needed] (the Hebrew name for Elijah) and is performed at weddings and other celebratory events. The ceremony features the malida food—a tray of flattened rice, grated coconut, raisins, spices, and fruit of two or more different kinds. The Community also observes Tashlich, the ceremony of taking a ritual bath at Rosh Hashanah[clarification needed]. The Bene Israel like to attend their own synagogues to maintain group life. Their group lifestyle can be seen through their higher levels of endogamy compared to other Jewish groups. Religiously, the Bene Israel adopted the devotional singing style Kirtan from their Marathi Hindu neighbors. A popular Kirtan is one based on the Story of Joseph. Their main traditional musical instruments are the Indian Harmonium and the Bulbul tarang. The Central Organisation of Indian Jews in Israel (COIJI) was founded by Noah Massil.[citation needed]The organization has twenty chapters around Israel. Maiboli, the newsletter for the Bene Israel community is edited by Noah Masil.[citation needed] There is also a website called Indian Jewish Community in Israel which coordinates various cultural activities organized by the community. The community in Israel opened the museum of Indian Jewish Heritage in the town of Dimona in 2012. The museum is currently run by volunteers. At present, the museum has a small collection of items donated by the community. It also holds cultural and cooking classes for all communities. Migration to other countries Members of Bene Israel also settled in Britain and North America, mostly in Canada. Notable people See also References Further reading External links |
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[SOURCE: https://github.com/customer-stories] | [TOKENS: 574] |
Navigation Menu Search code, repositories, users, issues, pull requests... Provide feedback We read every piece of feedback, and take your input very seriously. Saved searches Use saved searches to filter your results more quickly To see all available qualifiers, see our documentation. Meet the companies who build with GitHub How GM accelerated software delivery and strengthened engineering culture with GitHub. How AstraZeneca accelerates medicine discovery with GitHub and AI. Cathay embraces AI-powered development to deliver securely at scale. The world's largest developer platform Leading organizations choose GitHub to plan, build, secure and ship software. GitHub Enterprise provides an end-to-end developer platform to accelerate businesses. ZibaSec achieves great feats with a small team to protect federal organizations from phishing attacks. Read story Zendesk and GitHub: Building best-in-class tools for a decade—and counting. Read story Zalando uses GitHub to facilitate collaboration and prioritize open source contributions. Read story XING integrates open and closed source code to build collaborative workflows everyone can use—from project planning to QA. Read story The world’s third largest retailer partners with GitHub to drive innovation through open source best practices. Read story By balancing cloud and on-premises management, Wayfair creates a customer experience that edges out the competition. Read story Inconsistent standards and workflows limited developer mobility and efficiency, limiting Duolingo’s ability to expand its content and deliver on its core mission. GitHub Copilot, Codespaces, and custom API integrations enforce code consistency, accelerate developer speed, and remove the barriers to using engineering as a force multiplier for expertise. Discover how high-growth companies innovate faster with GitHub Team. Global review platform Trustpilot uses GitHub Team to build a better product, faster, with 300 releases per week. Read story GitHub Team helps the general automation platform build, package, and deploy code faster than ever. Read story Sketch streamlines their workflows to provide teams with a comprehensive digital design editor. Read story Peak Money collaborates across tools, teams, and time zones with GitHub Team. Read story Netdata accelerates their developer workflow with built-in security and open source. Read story Modsy leverages GitHub Team to make interior design easy and accessible for all. Read story 1 / 4 1 of 4 Ali-Reza Adl-Tabatabai Senior Director of Engineering @ Uber Jen Peck Senior Director of Engineering @ Redfin Santosh Lolyeker VP, Engineering Fellow @ Veritas Avdesh Rai Enterprise Solutions Engineer @ Costco What will your story be? Start collaborating with your team on GitHub The basics for individuals and organizations $0 USD per month Advanced collaboration for individuals and organizations $4 USD per month Security, compliance, and flexible deployment $21 USD per month Want to use GitHub on your own? Check out our plans for individuals Site-wide Links Get tips, technical guides, and best practices. Twice a month. |
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[SOURCE: https://techcrunch.com/code-of-conduct/] | [TOKENS: 329] |
Save up to $680 on your pass with Super Early Bird rates. REGISTER NOW. Save up to $680 on your Disrupt 2026 pass. Ends February 27. REGISTER NOW. Latest AI Amazon Apps Biotech & Health Climate Cloud Computing Commerce Crypto Enterprise EVs Fintech Fundraising Gadgets Gaming Google Government & Policy Hardware Instagram Layoffs Media & Entertainment Meta Microsoft Privacy Robotics Security Social Space Startups TikTok Transportation Venture Staff Events Startup Battlefield StrictlyVC Newsletters Podcasts Videos Partner Content TechCrunch Brand Studio Crunchboard Contact Us Code of Conduct TechCrunch will not tolerate any type of harassment of attendees, including the following but not limited to: Because of the following but not limited to: As an attendee, you are expected to abide by the guidelines set above. At TechCrunch’s discretion, those deemed in violation will be removed from the venue immediately without a refund and barred from future TechCrunch events. If you experience or witness a Code of Conduct violation, report it to TechCrunch staff by calling +1 (707) 873-0061, texting TCSF to that same number, or emailing codeofconduct@techcrunch.com. You may also report it directly to: We base the TechCrunch Code of Conduct on the principles of inclusion, equality, diversity and respect. These guidelines are necessary to ensure that everyone can safely enjoy TechCrunch events. By purchasing a ticket to, working for, vending at or sponsoring any TechCrunch event, conference and conference-related social event, you agree to the policies set forth above. © 2025 TechCrunch Media LLC. |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_graph] | [TOKENS: 2560] |
Contents Random graph In mathematics, random graph is the general term to refer to probability distributions over graphs. Random graphs may be described simply by a probability distribution, or by a random process which generates them. The theory of random graphs lies at the intersection between graph theory and probability theory. From a mathematical perspective, random graphs are used to answer questions about the properties of typical graphs. Its practical applications are found in all areas in which complex networks need to be modeled – many random graph models are thus known, mirroring the diverse types of complex networks encountered in different areas. In a mathematical context, random graph refers almost exclusively to the Erdős–Rényi random graph model. In other contexts, any graph model may be referred to as a random graph. Models A random graph is obtained by starting with a set of n isolated vertices and adding successive edges between them at random. The aim of the study in this field is to determine at what stage a particular property of the graph is likely to arise. Different random graph models produce different probability distributions on graphs. Most commonly studied is the one proposed by Edgar Gilbert but often called the Erdős–Rényi model, denoted G(n,p). In it, every possible edge occurs independently with probability 0 < p < 1. The probability of obtaining any one particular random graph with m edges is p m ( 1 − p ) N − m {\displaystyle p^{m}(1-p)^{N-m}} with the notation N = ( n 2 ) {\displaystyle N={\tbinom {n}{2}}} . A closely related model, also called the Erdős–Rényi model and denoted G(n,M), assigns equal probability to all graphs with exactly M edges. With 0 ≤ M ≤ N, G(n,M) has ( N M ) {\displaystyle {\tbinom {N}{M}}} elements and every element occurs with probability 1 / ( N M ) {\displaystyle 1/{\tbinom {N}{M}}} . The G(n,M) model can be viewed as a snapshot at a particular time (M) of the random graph process G ~ n {\displaystyle {\tilde {G}}_{n}} , a stochastic process that starts with n vertices and no edges, and at each step adds one new edge chosen uniformly from the set of missing edges. If instead we start with an infinite set of vertices, and again let every possible edge occur independently with probability 0 < p < 1, then we get an object G called an infinite random graph. Except in the trivial cases when p is 0 or 1, such a G almost surely has the following property: Given any n + m elements a 1 , … , a n , b 1 , … , b m ∈ V {\displaystyle a_{1},\ldots ,a_{n},b_{1},\ldots ,b_{m}\in V} , there is a vertex c in V that is adjacent to each of a 1 , … , a n {\displaystyle a_{1},\ldots ,a_{n}} and is not adjacent to any of b 1 , … , b m {\displaystyle b_{1},\ldots ,b_{m}} . It turns out that if the vertex set is countable then there is, up to isomorphism, only a single graph with this property, namely the Rado graph. Thus any countably infinite random graph is almost surely the Rado graph, which for this reason is sometimes called simply the random graph. However, the analogous result is not true for uncountable graphs, of which there are many (nonisomorphic) graphs satisfying the above property. Another model, which generalizes Gilbert's random graph model, is the random dot-product model. A random dot-product graph associates with each vertex a real vector. The probability of an edge uv between any vertices u and v is some function of the dot product u • v of their respective vectors. The network probability matrix models random graphs through edge probabilities, which represent the probability p i , j {\displaystyle p_{i,j}} that a given edge e i , j {\displaystyle e_{i,j}} exists for a specified time period. This model is extensible to directed and undirected; weighted and unweighted; and static or dynamic graphs structure. For M ≃ pN, where N is the maximal number of edges possible, the two most widely used models, G(n,M) and G(n,p), are almost interchangeable. Random regular graphs form a special case, with properties that may differ from random graphs in general. Once we have a model of random graphs, every function on graphs, becomes a random variable. The study of this model is to determine if, or at least estimate the probability that, a property may occur. Terminology The term 'almost every' in the context of random graphs refers to a sequence of spaces and probabilities, such that the error probabilities tend to zero. Properties The theory of random graphs studies typical properties of random graphs, those that hold with high probability for graphs drawn from a particular distribution. For example, we might ask for a given value of n {\displaystyle n} and p {\displaystyle p} what the probability is that G ( n , p ) {\displaystyle G(n,p)} is connected. In studying such questions, researchers often concentrate on the asymptotic behavior of random graphs—the values that various probabilities converge to as n {\displaystyle n} grows very large. Percolation theory characterizes the connectedness of random graphs, especially infinitely large ones. Percolation is related to the robustness of the graph (called also network). Given a random graph of n {\displaystyle n} nodes and an average degree ⟨ k ⟩ {\displaystyle \langle k\rangle } . Next we remove randomly a fraction 1 − p {\displaystyle 1-p} of nodes and leave only a fraction p {\displaystyle p} . There exists a critical percolation threshold p c = 1 ⟨ k ⟩ {\displaystyle p_{c}={\tfrac {1}{\langle k\rangle }}} below which the network becomes fragmented while above p c {\displaystyle p_{c}} a giant connected component exists. Localized percolation refers to removing a node its neighbors, next nearest neighbors etc. until a fraction of 1 − p {\displaystyle 1-p} of nodes from the network is removed. It was shown that for random graph with Poisson distribution of degrees p c = 1 ⟨ k ⟩ {\displaystyle p_{c}={\tfrac {1}{\langle k\rangle }}} exactly as for random removal. Random graphs are widely used in the probabilistic method, where one tries to prove the existence of graphs with certain properties. The existence of a property on a random graph can often imply, via the Szemerédi regularity lemma, the existence of that property on almost all graphs. In random regular graphs, G ( n , r − r e g ) {\displaystyle G(n,r-reg)} are the set of r {\displaystyle r} -regular graphs with r = r ( n ) {\displaystyle r=r(n)} such that n {\displaystyle n} and m {\displaystyle m} are the natural numbers, 3 ≤ r < n {\displaystyle 3\leq r<n} , and r n = 2 m {\displaystyle rn=2m} is even. The degree sequence of a graph G {\displaystyle G} in G n {\displaystyle G^{n}} depends only on the number of edges in the sets If edges, M {\displaystyle M} in a random graph, G M {\displaystyle G_{M}} is large enough to ensure that almost every G M {\displaystyle G_{M}} has minimum degree at least 1, then almost every G M {\displaystyle G_{M}} is connected and, if n {\displaystyle n} is even, almost every G M {\displaystyle G_{M}} has a perfect matching. In particular, the moment the last isolated vertex vanishes in almost every random graph, the graph becomes connected. Almost every graph process on an even number of vertices with the edge raising the minimum degree to 1 or a random graph with slightly more than n 4 log ( n ) {\displaystyle {\tfrac {n}{4}}\log(n)} edges and with probability close to 1 ensures that the graph has a complete matching, with exception of at most one vertex. For some constant c {\displaystyle c} , almost every labeled graph with n {\displaystyle n} vertices and at least c n log ( n ) {\displaystyle cn\log(n)} edges is Hamiltonian. With the probability tending to 1, the particular edge that increases the minimum degree to 2 makes the graph Hamiltonian. Properties of random graph may change or remain invariant under graph transformations. Mashaghi A. et al., for example, demonstrated that a transformation which converts random graphs to their edge-dual graphs (or line graphs) produces an ensemble of graphs with nearly the same degree distribution, but with degree correlations and a significantly higher clustering coefficient. Colouring Given a random graph G of order n with the vertex V(G) = {1, ..., n}, by the greedy algorithm on the number of colors, the vertices can be colored with colors 1, 2, ... (vertex 1 is colored 1, vertex 2 is colored 1 if it is not adjacent to vertex 1, otherwise it is colored 2, etc.). The number of proper colorings of random graphs given a number of q colors, called its chromatic polynomial, remains unknown so far. The scaling of zeros of the chromatic polynomial of random graphs with parameters n and the number of edges m or the connection probability p has been studied empirically using an algorithm based on symbolic pattern matching. Random trees A random tree is a tree or arborescence that is formed by a stochastic process. In a large range of random graphs of order n and size M(n) the distribution of the number of tree components of order k is asymptotically Poisson. Types of random trees include uniform spanning tree, random minimum spanning tree, random binary tree, treap, rapidly exploring random tree, Brownian tree, and random forest. Conditional random graphs Consider a given random graph model defined on the probability space ( Ω , F , P ) {\displaystyle (\Omega ,{\mathcal {F}},P)} and let P ( G ) : Ω → R m {\displaystyle {\mathcal {P}}(G):\Omega \rightarrow R^{m}} be a real valued function which assigns to each graph in Ω {\displaystyle \Omega } a vector of m properties. For a fixed p ∈ R m {\displaystyle \mathbf {p} \in R^{m}} , conditional random graphs are models in which the probability measure P {\displaystyle P} assigns zero probability to all graphs such that P ( G ) ≠ p {\displaystyle {\mathcal {P}}(G)\neq \mathbf {p} } . Special cases are conditionally uniform random graphs, where P {\displaystyle P} assigns equal probability to all the graphs having specified properties. They can be seen as a generalization of the Erdős–Rényi model G(n,M), when the conditioning information is not necessarily the number of edges M, but whatever other arbitrary graph property P ( G ) {\displaystyle {\mathcal {P}}(G)} . In this case very few analytical results are available and simulation is required to obtain empirical distributions of average properties. History The earliest use of a random graph model was by Helen Hall Jennings and Jacob Moreno in 1938 where a "chance sociogram" (a directed Erdős-Rényi model) was considered in studying comparing the fraction of reciprocated links in their network data with the random model. Another use, under the name "random net", was by Ray Solomonoff and Anatol Rapoport in 1951, using a model of directed graphs with fixed out-degree and randomly chosen attachments to other vertices. The Erdős–Rényi model of random graphs was first defined by Paul Erdős and Alfréd Rényi in their 1959 paper "On Random Graphs" and independently by Gilbert in his paper "Random graphs". See also References |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_public_offering] | [TOKENS: 3627] |
Contents Initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment banks, who also arrange for the shares to be listed on one or more stock exchanges. Through this process, colloquially known as floating or going public, a privately held company is transformed into a public company. IPOs can be used to raise new equity capital for companies, to monetize the investments of private shareholders such as company founders or private equity investors, and to enable easy trading of existing holdings or future capital raising by becoming publicly traded. After the IPO, shares are traded freely in the open market at what is known as the free float. Stock exchanges stipulate a minimum free float both in absolute terms (the total value as determined by the share price multiplied by the number of shares sold to the public) and as a proportion of the total share capital (i.e., the number of shares sold to the public divided by the total shares outstanding). Although IPO offers many benefits, there are also significant costs involved, chiefly those associated with the process such as banking and legal fees, and the ongoing requirement to disclose important and sometimes sensitive information. Details of the proposed offering are disclosed to potential purchasers in the form of a lengthy document known as a prospectus. Most companies undertake an IPO with the assistance of an investment banking firm acting in the capacity of an underwriter. Underwriters provide several services, including help with correctly assessing the value of shares (share price) and establishing a public market for shares (initial sale). Alternative methods such as the Dutch auction have also been explored and applied for several IPOs. History The earliest form of a company which issued public shares was the case of the publicani during the Roman Republic, although this claim is not shared by all modern scholars. Like modern joint-stock companies, the publicani were legal bodies independent of their members whose ownership was divided into shares, or parts. There is evidence that these shares were sold to public investors and traded in a type of over-the-counter market in the Forum, near the Temple of Castor and Pollux. The shares fluctuated in value, encouraging the activity of speculators, or quaestors. Mere evidence remains of the prices for which parts were sold, the nature of initial public offerings, or a description of stock market behavior. Publicani lost favor with the fall of the Republic and the rise of the Empire. In the United States, the first IPO was the public offering of Bank of North America around 1783. Procedure IPO procedures are governed by different laws in different countries. In the United States, IPOs are regulated by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission under the Securities Act of 1933. In the United Kingdom, the UK Listing Authority reviews and approves prospectuses and operates the listing regime. Planning is crucial to a successful IPO. Following highlights some general steps to planning (simplified, may have more steps): IPOs generally involve one or more investment banks known as "underwriters". The company offering its shares, called the "issuer", enters into a contract with a lead underwriter to sell its shares to the public. The underwriter then approaches investors with offers to sell those shares. A large IPO is usually underwritten by a "syndicate" of investment banks, the largest of which take the position of "lead underwriter". Upon selling the shares, the underwriters retain a portion of the proceeds as their fee. This fee is called an underwriting spread. The spread is calculated as a discount from the price of the shares sold (called the gross spread). Components of an underwriting spread in an initial public offering (IPO) typically include the following (on a per-share basis): manager's fee, underwriting fee—earned by members of the syndicate, and the concession—earned by the broker-dealer selling the shares. The manager would be entitled to the entire underwriting spread. A member of the syndicate is entitled to the underwriting fee and the concession. A broker-dealer who is not a member of the syndicate but sells shares would receive only the concession, while the member of the syndicate who provided the shares to that broker-dealer would retain the underwriting fee. Usually, the managing/lead underwriter, also known as the bookrunner, typically the underwriter selling the largest proportions of the IPO, takes the highest portion of the gross spread, up to 8% in some cases. Multinational IPOs may have many syndicates to deal with differing legal requirements in both the issuer's domestic market and other regions. For example, an issuer based in the E.U. may be represented by the major selling syndicate in its domestic market, Europe, in addition to separate group corporations or selling them for US/Canada and Asia. Usually, the lead underwriter in the head selling group is also the lead bank in the other selling groups. Because of the wide array of legal requirements and because it is an expensive process, IPOs also typically involve one or more law firms with major practices in securities law, such as the Magic Circle firms of London and the white-shoe firms of New York City. Financial historians Richard Sylla and Robert E. Wright have shown that before 1860 most early U.S. corporations sold shares in themselves directly to the public without the aid of intermediaries like investment banks. The direct public offering (DPO), as they term it, was not done by auction but rather at a share price set by the issuing corporation. In this sense, it is the same as the fixed price public offers that were the traditional IPO method in most non-US countries in the early 1990s. The DPO eliminated the agency problem associated with offerings intermediated by investment banks. The sale (allocation and pricing) of shares in an IPO may take several forms. Common methods include: Public offerings are sold to both institutional investors and retail clients of the underwriters. A licensed securities salesperson (Registered Representative in the US and Canada) selling shares of a public offering to his clients is paid a portion of the selling concession (the fee paid by the issuer to the underwriter) rather than by his client. In some situations, when the IPO is not a "hot" issue (undersubscribed), and where the salesperson is the client's advisor, it is possible that the financial incentives of the advisor and client may not be aligned. The issuer usually allows the underwriters an option to increase the size of the offering by up to 15% under a specific circumstance known as the greenshoe or overallotment option. This option is always exercised when the offering is considered a "hot" issue, by virtue of being oversubscribed. In the US, clients are given a preliminary prospectus, known as a red herring prospectus, during the initial quiet period. The red herring prospectus is so named because of a bold red warning statement printed on its front cover. The warning states that the offering information is incomplete, and may be changed. The actual wording can vary, although most roughly follow the format exhibited on the Facebook IPO red herring. During the quiet period, the shares cannot be offered for sale. Brokers can, however, take indications of interest from their clients. At the time of the stock launch, after the Registration Statement has become effective, indications of interest can be converted to buy orders, at the discretion of the buyer. Sales can only be made through a final prospectus cleared by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The final step in preparing and filing the final IPO prospectus is for the issuer to retain one of the major financial "printers", who print (and today, also electronically file with the SEC) the registration statement on Form S-1. Typically, preparation of the final prospectus is actually performed at the printer, wherein one of their multiple conference rooms the issuer, issuer's counsel (attorneys), underwriter's counsel (attorneys), the lead underwriter(s), and the issuer's accountants/auditors make final edits and proofreading, concluding with the filing of the final prospectus by the financial printer with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Before legal actions initiated by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, which later became known as the Global Settlement enforcement agreement, some large investment firms had initiated favorable research coverage of companies in an effort to aid corporate finance departments and retail divisions engaged in the marketing of new issues. The central issue in that enforcement agreement had been judged in court previously. It involved the conflict of interest between the investment banking and analysis departments of ten of the largest investment firms in the United States. The investment firms involved in the settlement had all engaged in actions and practices that had allowed the inappropriate influence of their research analysts by their investment bankers seeking lucrative fees. A typical violation addressed by the settlement was the case of CSFB and Salomon Smith Barney, which were alleged to have engaged in the inappropriate spinning of "hot" IPOs and issued fraudulent research reports in violation of various sections within the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. A company planning an IPO typically appoints a lead manager, known as a bookrunner, to help it arrive at an appropriate price at which the shares should be offered. There are two primary ways in which the price of an IPO can be determined. Either the company, with the help of its lead managers, fixes a price ("fixed price method"), or the price can be determined through analysis of confidential investor demand data compiled by the bookrunner ("book building"). Historically, many IPOs have been underpriced. The effect of underpricing an IPO is to generate additional interest in the stock and a rapid rise in share price when it first becomes publicly traded (known as an "IPO pop"). Flipping, or quickly selling shares for a profit, can lead to significant gains for investors who were allocated shares of the IPO at the offering price. However, underpricing an IPO results in lost potential capital for the issuer. One extreme example is theglobe.com IPO which helped fuel the IPO "mania" of the late 1990s internet era. Underwritten by Bear Stearns on 13 November 1998, the IPO was priced at $9 per share. The share price quickly increased 1,000% on the opening day of trading, to a high of $97. Selling pressure from institutional flipping eventually drove the stock back down, and it closed the day at $63. Although the company did raise about $30 million from the offering, it is estimated that with the level of demand for the offering and the volume of trading that took place they might have left upwards of $200 million on the table. The danger of overpricing is also an important consideration. If a stock is offered to the public at a higher price than the market will pay, the underwriters may have trouble meeting their commitments to sell shares. Even if they sell all of the issued shares, the stock may fall in value on the first day of trading. If so, the stock may lose its marketability and hence even more of its value. This could result in losses for investors, many of whom being the most favored clients of the underwriters. Perhaps the best-known example of this is the Facebook IPO in 2012. Underwriters, therefore, take many factors into consideration when pricing an IPO, and attempt to reach an offering price that is low enough to stimulate interest in the stock but high enough to raise an adequate amount of capital for the company. When pricing an IPO, underwriters use a variety of key performance indicators and non-GAAP measures. The process of determining an optimal price usually involves the underwriters ("syndicate") arranging share purchase commitments from leading institutional investors. Some researchers (Friesen & Swift, 2009) believe that the underpricing of IPOs is less a deliberate act on the part of issuers and/or underwriters, and more the result of an over-reaction on the part of investors (Friesen & Swift, 2009). One potential method for determining to underprice is through the use of IPO underpricing algorithms. Other researchers have discovered that firms with higher revenues from licensing-based technology commercialization exhibit greater IPO underpricing, while a firm's stock of patents mitigates this effect. A Dutch auction allows shares of an initial public offering to be allocated based only on price aggressiveness, with all successful bidders paying the same price per share. One version of the Dutch auction is OpenIPO, which is based on an auction system designed by economist William Vickrey. This auction method ranks bids from highest to lowest, then accepts the highest bids that allow all shares to be sold, with all winning bidders paying the same price. It is similar to the model used to auction Treasury bills, notes, and bonds since the 1990s. Before this, Treasury bills were auctioned through a discriminatory or pay-what-you-bid auction, in which the various winning bidders each paid the price (or yield) they bid, and thus the various winning bidders did not all pay the same price. Both discriminatory and uniform price or "Dutch" auctions have been used for IPOs in many countries, although only uniform price auctions have been used so far in the US. Large IPO auctions include Japan Tobacco, Singapore Telecom, BAA Plc and Google (ordered by size of proceeds). A variation of the Dutch auction has been used to take a number of U.S. companies public including Morningstar, Interactive Brokers Group, Overstock.com, Ravenswood Winery, Clean Energy Fuels, and Boston Beer Company. In 2004, Google used the Dutch auction system for its initial public offering. Traditional U.S. investment banks have shown resistance to the idea of using an auction process to engage in public securities offerings. The auction method allows for equal access to the allocation of shares and eliminates the favorable treatment accorded important clients by the underwriters in conventional IPOs. In the face of this resistance, the Dutch auction is still a little used method in U.S. public offerings, although there have been hundreds of auction IPOs in other countries. In determining the success or failure of a Dutch auction, one must consider competing objectives. If the objective is to reduce risk, a traditional IPO may be more effective because the underwriter manages the process, rather than leaving the outcome in part to random chance in terms of who chooses to bid or what strategy each bidder chooses to follow. From the viewpoint of the investor, the Dutch auction allows everyone equal access. Moreover, some forms of the Dutch auction allow the underwriter to be more active in coordinating bids and even communicating general auction trends to some bidders during the bidding period. Some have also argued that a uniform price auction is more effective at price discovery, although the theory behind this is based on the assumption of independent private values (that the value of IPO shares to each bidder is entirely independent of their value to others, even though the shares will shortly be traded on the aftermarket). Theory that incorporates assumptions more appropriate to IPOs does not find that sealed bid auctions are an effective form of price discovery, although possibly some modified form of auction might give a better result. In addition to the extensive international evidence that auctions have not been popular for IPOs, there is no U.S. evidence to indicate that the Dutch auction fares any better than the traditional IPO in an unwelcoming market environment. A Dutch auction IPO by WhiteGlove Health, Inc., announced in May 2011 was postponed in September of that year, after several failed attempts to price. An article in the Wall Street Journal cited the reasons as "broader stock-market volatility and uncertainty about the global economy have made investors wary of investing in new stocks". Under American securities law, there are two-time windows commonly referred to as "quiet periods" during an IPO's history. The first and the one linked above is the period of time following the filing of the company's S-1 but before SEC staff declare the registration statement effective. During this time, issuers, company insiders, analysts, and other parties are legally restricted in their ability to discuss or promote the upcoming IPO (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 2005). The other "quiet period" refers to a period of 10 calendar days following an IPO's first day of public trading. During this time, insiders and any underwriters involved in the IPO are restricted from issuing any earnings forecasts or research reports for the company. When the quiet period is over, generally the underwriters will initiate research coverage on the firm. A three-day waiting period exists for any member that has acted as a manager or co-manager in a secondary offering. Not all IPOs are eligible for delivery settlement through the DTC system, which would then either require the physical delivery of the stock certificates to the clearing agent bank's custodian or a delivery versus payment (DVP) arrangement with the selling group firm. "Stag profit" is a situation in the stock market before and immediately after a company's initial public offering (or any new issue of shares). A "stag" is a party or individual who subscribes to the new issue expecting the price of the stock to rise immediately upon the start of trading. Thus, stag profit is the financial gain accumulated by the party or individual resulting from the value of the shares rising. This term is more popular in the United Kingdom than in the United States. In the US, such investors are usually called flippers, because they get shares in the offering and then immediately turn around "flipping" or selling them on the first day of trading. Largest IPOs Largest IPO markets Prior to 2009, the United States was the leading issuer of IPOs in terms of total value. See also References Further reading External links |
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