title: Autoencoder

text: Alternatively, the sparsity regularization loss may be defined without reference to any "desired sparsity", but simply force as much sparsity as possible. In this case, one can sparsity regularization loss as formula_73where formula_74 is the activation vector in the formula_60-th layer of the autoencoder. The norm formula_76 is usually the L1 norm (giving the L1 sparse autoencoder) or the L2 norm (giving the L2 sparse autoencoder).


title: Autoencoder

text: Denoising autoencoders (DAE) try to achieve a "good" representation by changing the "reconstruction criterion".


title: Autoencoder

text: A DAE is defined by adding a noise process to the standard autoencoder. A noise process is defined by a probability distribution formula_77 over functions formula_78. That is, the function formula_79 takes a message formula_11, and corrupts it to a noisy version formula_81. The function formula_79 is selected randomly, with a probability distribution formula_77.


title: Autoencoder

text: Given a task formula_27, the problem of training a DAE is the optimization problem:formula_85That is, the optimal DAE should take any noisy message and attempt to recover the original message without noise, thus the name "denoising""."


title: Autoencoder

text: Usually, the noise process formula_79 is applied only during training and testing, not during downstream use.


title: Autoencoder

text: A contractive autoencoder adds the contractive regularization loss to the standard autoencoder loss:formula_87where formula_54 measures how much contractive-ness we want to enforce. The contractive regularization loss itself is defined as the expected Frobenius norm of the Jacobian matrix of the encoder activations with respect to the input:formula_89To understand what formula_90 measures, note the factformula_91for any message formula_11, and small variation formula_93 in it. Thus, if formula_94 is small, it means that a small neighborhood of the message maps to a small neighborhood of its code. This is a desired property, as it means small variation in the message leads to small, perhaps even zero, variation in its code, like how two pictures may look the same even if they are not exactly the same.


title: Autoencoder

text: The DAE can be understood as an infinitesimal limit of CAE: in the limit of small Gaussian input noise, DAEs make the reconstruction function resist small but finite-sized input perturbations, while CAEs make the extracted features resist infinitesimal input perturbations.


title: Autoencoder

text: The concrete autoencoder is designed for discrete feature selection. A concrete autoencoder forces the latent space to consist only of a user-specified number of features. The concrete autoencoder uses a continuous relaxation of the categorical distribution to allow gradients to pass through the feature selector layer, which makes it possible to use standard backpropagation to learn an optimal subset of input features that minimize reconstruction loss.


title: Autoencoder

text: Variational autoencoders (VAEs) belong to the families of variational Bayesian methods. Despite the architectural similarities with basic autoencoders, VAEs are architecture with different goals and with a completely different mathematical formulation. The latent space is in this case composed by a mixture of distributions instead of a fixed vector.


title: Autoencoder

text: Given an input dataset formula_25 characterized by an unknown probability function formula_96 and a multivariate latent encoding vector formula_36, the objective is to model the data as a distribution formula_98, with formula_10 defined as the set of the network parameters so that formula_100.


title: Autoencoder

text: Autoencoders are often trained with a single layer encoder and a single layer decoder, but using many-layered (deep) encoders and decoders offers many advantages.


title: Autoencoder

text: Geoffrey Hinton developed the deep belief network technique for training many-layered deep autoencoders. His method involves treating each neighbouring set of two layers as a restricted Boltzmann machine so that pretraining approximates a good solution, then using backpropagation to fine-tune the results.


title: Autoencoder

text: Researchers have debated whether joint training (i.e. training the whole architecture together with a single global reconstruction objective to optimize) would be better for deep auto-encoders. A 2015 study showed that joint training learns better data models along with more representative features for classification as compared to the layerwise method. However, their experiments showed that the success of joint training depends heavily on the regularization strategies adopted.


title: Autoencoder

text: The two main applications of autoencoders are dimensionality reduction and information retrieval, but modern variations have been applied to other tasks.


title: Autoencoder

text: For Hinton's 2006 study, he pretrained a multi-layer autoencoder with a stack of RBMs and then used their weights to initialize a deep autoencoder with gradually smaller hidden layers until hitting a bottleneck of 30 neurons. The resulting 30 dimensions of the code yielded a smaller reconstruction error compared to the first 30 components of a principal component analysis (PCA), and learned a representation that was qualitatively easier to interpret, clearly separating data clusters.


title: Autoencoder

text: Representing dimensions can improve performance on tasks such as classification. Indeed, the hallmark of dimensionality reduction is to place semantically related examples near each other.


title: Autoencoder

text: If linear activations are used, or only a single sigmoid hidden layer, then the optimal solution to an autoencoder is strongly related to principal component analysis (PCA). The weights of an autoencoder with a single hidden layer of size formula_101 (where formula_101 is less than the size of the input) span the same vector subspace as the one spanned by the first formula_101 principal components, and the output of the autoencoder is an orthogonal projection onto this subspace. The autoencoder weights are not equal to the principal components, and are generally not orthogonal, yet the principal components may be recovered from them using the singular value decomposition.


title: Autoencoder

text: However, the potential of autoencoders resides in their non-linearity, allowing the model to learn more powerful generalizations compared to PCA, and to reconstruct the input with significantly lower information loss.


title: Autoencoder

text: Information retrieval benefits particularly from dimensionality reduction in that search can become more efficient in certain kinds of low dimensional spaces. Autoencoders were indeed applied to semantic hashing, proposed by Salakhutdinov and Hinton in 2007. By training the algorithm to produce a low-dimensional binary code, all database entries could be stored in a hash table mapping binary code vectors to entries. This table would then support information retrieval by returning all entries with the same binary code as the query, or slightly less similar entries by flipping some bits from the query encoding.


title: Autoencoder

text: Another application for autoencoders is anomaly detection. By learning to replicate the most salient features in the training data under some of the constraints described previously, the model is encouraged to learn to precisely reproduce the most frequently observed characteristics. When facing anomalies, the model should worsen its reconstruction performance. In most cases, only data with normal instances are used to train the autoencoder; in others, the frequency of anomalies is small compared to the observation set so that its contribution to the learned representation could be ignored. After training, the autoencoder will accurately reconstruct "normal" data, while failing to do so with unfamiliar anomalous data. Reconstruction error (the error between the original data and its low dimensional reconstruction) is used as an anomaly score to detect anomalies.


title: Autoencoder

text: Recent literature has however shown that certain autoencoding models can, counterintuitively, be very good at reconstructing anomalous examples and consequently not able to reliably perform anomaly detection.


title: Autoencoder

text: One example can be found in lossy image compression, where autoencoders outperformed other approaches and proved competitive against JPEG 2000.


title: Autoencoder

text: Autoencoders found use in more demanding contexts such as medical imaging where they have been used for image denoising as well as super-resolution. In image-assisted diagnosis, experiments have applied autoencoders for breast cancer detection and for modelling the relation between the cognitive decline of Alzheimer's disease and the latent features of an autoencoder trained with MRI.


title: Autoencoder

text: Recently, a stacked autoencoder framework produced promising results in predicting popularity of social media posts, which is helpful for online advertising strategies.


title: Autoencoder

text: Autoencoders have been applied to machine translation, which is usually referred to as neural machine translation (NMT). Unlike traditional autoencoders, the output does not match the input - it is in another language. In NMT, texts are treated as sequences to be encoded into the learning procedure, while on the decoder side sequences in the target language(s) are generated. Language-specific autoencoders incorporate further linguistic features into the learning procedure, such as Chinese decomposition features. Machine translation is rarely still done with autoencoders, but rather transformer networks.


title: Where the Heart Is (2000 film)

text: Where the Heart Is is a 2000 American romantic drama film directed by Matt Williams and starring Natalie Portman, Stockard Channing, Ashley Judd, and Joan Cusack with supporting roles done by James Frain, Dylan Bruno, Keith David, and Sally Field. The screenplay, written by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, is based on the best-selling 1995 novel of the same name by Billie Letts. The film follows five years in the life of Novalee Nation, a pregnant 17-year-old, who is abandoned by her boyfriend at a Walmart in a small Oklahoma town. She secretly moves into the store, where she eventually gives birth to her baby, which attracts media attention. With the help of friends, she makes a new life for herself in the town.


title: Where the Heart Is (2000 film)

text: Pregnant, 17-year-old Novalee Nation and her boyfriend, Willy Jack Pickens, are moving from Tennessee to California. He abandons her at a Walmart in Sequoyah, Oklahoma when she enters to use the restroom and buy a pair of shoes. There, Sister Thelma Husband gives her a buckeye tree, and local photographer Moses Whitecotton suggests she give her baby a strong name.


title: Where the Heart Is (2000 film)

text: A sickly and homeless Novalee is forced to live in the Walmart undetected. She also becomes acquainted with curt librarian Forney Hull who cares for his alcoholic sister Mary Elizabeth.


title: Where the Heart Is (2000 film)

text: During a thunderstorm, Novalee is alone at Walmart and goes into labor. Forney, who had followed her there, smashes through the window to help deliver her child, whom she names Americus. Novalee instantly becomes a media darling and while in the hospital, is befriended by Nurse Lexie Coop. Her estranged mother, Mama Lil, whom Novalee has not seen in over 12 years, visits after seeing her on television but disappears with 500 dollars in donations. Sister Husband arrives and offers to take in Novalee and Americus.


title: Where the Heart Is (2000 film)

text: While Christmas tree shopping with Forney, Novalee is reminded that it is Americus' five-month birthday. Realizing this, Novalee races to Sister's to find that Americus has been kidnapped. A couple from Midnight, Mississippi, who had previously written an ugly letter to Novalee saying the illegitimate Americus was an abomination, kidnapped her, leaving her in the church nativity scene.


title: Where the Heart Is (2000 film)

text: Three years later, Novalee has become a photographer with Moses' help. Willy Jack has become a one-hit-wonder with a song he wrote in jail, and by meeting music agent, Ruth Meyers in Nashville, who gave him a makeover and the stage name "Billy Shadow."


title: Where the Heart Is (2000 film)

text: A tornado blows through Sequoyah, and Sister Husband is killed. In her memory, Novalee takes a picture of Americus and the still-standing buckeye tree amidst the damage from the storm. Sister leaves her everything, around $41,000, but Novalee feels Sister's companion Mr. Sprock deserves the estate. He insists he only wants the kitchen table.


title: Where the Heart Is (2000 film)

text: Novalee goes to Vegas, to accept an award for the post-tornado photo, narrowly missing Willy Jack, who is also at the hotel, but he does not recognize her. His manager Ruth informs him that he is being sued for the rights to "Beat of a Heart" by his old cellmate, Tommy. Willy Jack explains to her that Tommy had actually beaten him up over it, but she does not believe him and drops him. Willy Jack begs her not to leave him, but she does not relent.


title: Where the Heart Is (2000 film)

text: Returning to Sequoyah, Novalee finds Lexie has been nearly beaten to death by her most recent 'boyfriend,' who molested her two eldest children, then attacked her as she protected them. Lexie's injuries keep her from nursing, so she and her children move in with Novalee and Americus. Lexie breaks down, feeling guilty and angry, tearfully regretting her choice of men.


title: Where the Heart Is (2000 film)

text: When Forney's sister Mary Elizabeth passes away, and he does not appear at the funeral, Novalee finds him in a hotel and comforts him. They finally act on their hidden feelings, spending the night together. Forney confesses his love for her, but Novalee feels she is not good enough for him. So, when he says he will stay with her rather than resume his studies at Bowdoin College, Novalee struggles to lie to Forney. Not wanting to hold him back, she says she does not love him. Heartbroken, Forney returns to Bowdoin.


title: Where the Heart Is (2000 film)

text: Lexie begins seeing Ernie, an exterminator who is not her usual type. She falls in love with him when hearing he traded his restored 1967 Chevy Camaro in exchange for custody of his stepdaughter, whom he adopted as his own. They marry, and she becomes pregnant again.


title: Where the Heart Is (2000 film)

text: Severely depressed at his ruined career following the lawsuit, Willy Jack becomes an alcoholic. He wanders off drunk, collapses on a railroad track, and is hit by a train.


title: Where the Heart Is (2000 film)

text: On Americus' fifth birthday, Novalee sees a newspaper article about Willy Jack having lost his legs four months earlier and recently being robbed of his wheelchair. She visits him in the hospital, and he realizes his whole life would've been different if he had not abandoned her. Seeing Willy Jack is a changed man, Novalee is able to forgive and let go of him but warns him never to contact Americus.


title: Where the Heart Is (2000 film)

text: After driving Willy Jack home to Tennessee upon his hospital release, Novalee drives to Maine to find Forney at Bowdoin. She confesses she really does love him, and they return to Oklahoma and marry in the Walmart, where Lexie is seen carrying her newest baby.


title: Where the Heart Is (2000 film)

text: Original music for the film was produced by Mason Daring. A soundtrack of the original music was released by RCA Records, as well as a music compilation soundtrack featuring songs used in the film by artists such as Emmylou Harris, Lyle Lovett, Martina McBride, and John Hiatt.


title: Where the Heart Is (2000 film)

text: The song "That's the Beat of a Heart" was performed by The Warren Brothers and Sara Evans. A music video was made for the song, which is included as a bonus extra on the DVD release and features a number of scenes from the film.


title: Where the Heart Is (2000 film)

text: The film received mostly negative reviews. Metacritic gives it a score of 30% based on reviews from 28 critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 35% approval rating, based on reviews from 97 critics, with the site's consensus stating that the film's "poor script and messy plot undermines the decent cast."


title: Where the Heart Is (2000 film)

text: The film opened in theaters in the United States on April 28, 2000. "Where the Heart Is" accumulated (USD)$8,292,939 in its opening weekend, opening at number 4.


title: Where the Heart Is (2000 film)

text: The film went on to make $33,772,838 at the North American box office, and an additional $7,090,880 internationally for a worldwide total of $40,863,718.


title: Hot spring

text: A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a spring produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow bodies of magma (molten rock) or by circulation through faults to hot rock deep in the Earth's crust. In either case, the ultimate source of the heat is radioactive decay of naturally occurring radioactive elements in the Earth's mantle, the layer beneath the crust.


title: Hot spring

text: Hot spring water often contains large amounts of dissolved minerals. The chemistry of hot springs ranges from acid sulfate springs with a pH as low as 0.8, to alkaline chloride springs saturated with silica, to bicarbonate springs saturated with carbon dioxide and carbonate minerals. Some springs also contain abundant dissolved iron. The minerals brought to the surface in hot springs often feed communities of extremophiles, microorganisms adapted to extreme conditions, and it is possible that life on Earth had its origin in hot springs.


title: Hot spring

text: Humans have made use of hot springs for bathing, relaxation, or medical therapy for thousands of years. However, some are hot enough that immersion can be harmful, leading to scalding and, potentially, death.


title: Hot spring

text: There is no universally accepted definition of a hot spring. For example, one can find the phrase "hot spring" defined as


title: Hot spring

text: The related term "warm spring" is defined as a spring with water temperature less than a hot spring by many sources, although Pentecost et al. (2003) suggest that the phrase "warm spring" is not useful and should be avoided. The US NOAA Geophysical Data Center defines a "warm spring" as a spring with water between .


title: Hot spring

text: Water issuing from a hot spring is heated geothermally, that is, with heat produced from the Earth's mantle. This takes place in two ways. In areas of high volcanic activity, magma (molten rock) may be present at shallow depths in the Earth's crust. Groundwater is heated by these shallow magma bodies and rises to the surface to emerge at a hot spring. However, even in areas that do not experience volcanic activity, the temperature of rocks within the earth increases with depth. The rate of temperature increase with depth is known as the geothermal gradient. If water percolates deeply enough into the crust, it will be heated as it comes into contact with hot rock. This generally takes place along faults, where shattered rock beds provide easy paths for water to circulate to greater depths.


title: Hot spring

text: Much of the heat is created by decay of naturally radioactive elements. An estimated 45 to 90 percent of the heat escaping from the Earth originates from radioactive decay of elements mainly located in the mantle. The major heat-producing isotopes in the Earth are potassium-40, uranium-238, uranium-235, and thorium-232. In areas with no volcanic activity, this heat flows through the crust by a slow process of thermal conduction, but in volcanic areas, the heat is carried to the surface more rapidly by bodies of magma.


title: Hot spring

text: A hot spring that periodically jets water and steam is called a geyser. In active volcanic zones such as Yellowstone National Park, magma may be present at shallow depths. If a hot spring is connected to a large natural cistern close to such a magma body, the magma may superheat the water in the cistern, raising its temperature above the normal boiling point. The water will not immediately boil, because the weight of the water column above the cistern pressurizes the cistern and suppresses boiling. However, as the superheated water expands, some of the water will emerge at the surface, reducing pressure in the cistern. This allows some of the water in the cistern to flash into steam, which forces more water out of the hot spring. This leads to a runaway condition in which a sizable amount of water and steam are forcibly ejected from the hot spring as the cistern is emptied. The cistern then refills with cooler water, and the cycle repeats.


title: Hot spring

text: Geysers require both a natural cistern and an abundant source of cooler water to refill the cistern after each eruption of the geyser. If the water supply is less abundant, so that the water is boiled as fast as it can accumulate and only reaches the surface in the form of steam, the result is a fumarole. If the water is mixed with mud and clay, the result is a mud pot.


title: Hot spring

text: An example of a non-volcanic warm spring is Warm Springs, Georgia (frequented for its therapeutic effects by paraplegic U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who built the Little White House there). Here the groundwater originates as rain and snow (meteoric water) falling on the nearby mountains, which penetrates a particular formation (Hollis Quartzite) to a depth of and is heated by the normal geothermal gradient.


title: Hot spring

text: Because heated water can hold more dissolved solids than cold water, the water that issues from hot springs often has a very high mineral content, containing everything from calcium to lithium and even radium. The overall chemistry of hot springs varies from "alkaline chloride" to "acid sulfate" to "bicarbonate" to "iron-rich", each of which defines an end member of a range of possible hot spring chemistries.


title: Hot spring

text: Alkaline chloride hot springs are fed by hydrothermal fluids that form when groundwater containing dissolved chloride salts reacts with silicate rocks at high temperature. These springs have nearly neutral pH but are saturated with silica (). The solubility of silica depends strongly upon temperature, so upon cooling, the silica is deposited as geyserite, a form of opal (opal-A: ). This process is slow enough that geyserite is not all deposited immediately around the vent, but tends to build up a low, broad platform for some distance around the spring opening.


title: Hot spring

text: Acid sulfate hot springs are fed by hydrothermal fluids rich in hydrogen sulfide (), which is oxidized to form sulfuric acid, . The pH of the fluids is thereby lowered to values as low as 0.8. The acid reacts with rock to alter it to clay minerals, oxide minerals, and a residue of silica.


title: Hot spring

text: Bicarbonate hot springs are fed by hydrothermal fluids that form when carbon dioxide () and groundwater react with carbonate rocks. When the fluids reach the surface, is rapidly lost and carbonate minerals precipitate as travertine, so that bicarbonate hot springs tend to form high-relief structures around their openings.


title: Hot spring

text: Iron-rich springs are characterized by the presence of microbial communities that produce clumps of oxidized iron from iron in the hydrothermal fluids feeding the spring.


title: Hot spring

text: Some hot springs produce fluids that are intermediate in chemistry between these extremes. For example, mixed acid-sulfate-chloride hot springs are intermediate between acid sulfate and alkaline chloride springs and may form by mixing of acid sulfate and alkaline chloride fluids. They deposit geyserite, but in smaller quantities than alkaline chloride springs.


title: Hot spring

text: Hot springs range in flow rate from the tiniest "seeps" to veritable rivers of hot water. Sometimes there is enough pressure that the water shoots upward in a geyser, or fountain.


title: Hot spring

text: There are many claims in the literature about the flow rates of hot springs. There are many more high flow non-thermal springs than geothermal springs. Springs with high flow rates include:


title: Hot spring

text: Hot springs often host communities of microorganisms adapted to life in hot, mineral-laden water. These include thermophiles, which are a type of extremophile that thrives at high temperatures, between . Further from the vent, where the water has had time to cool and precipitate part of its mineral load, conditions favor organisms adapted to less extreme conditions. This produces a succession of microbial communities as one moves away from the vent, which in some respects resembles the successive stages in the evolution of early life.


title: Hot spring

text: For example, in a bicarbonate hot spring, the community of organisms immediately around the vent is dominated by filamentous thermophilic bacteria, such as "Aquifex" and other Aquificales, that oxidize sulfide and hydrogen to obtain energy for their life processes. Further from the vent, where water temperatures have dropped below , the surface is covered with microbial mats thick that are dominated by cyanobacteria, such as "Spirulina", "Oscillatoria", and "Synechococcus", and green sulfur bacteria such as "Chloroflexus". These organisms are all capable of photosynthesis, though green sulfur bacteria produce sulfur rather than oxygen during photosynthesis. Still further from the vent, where temperatures drop below , conditions are favorable for a complex community of microorganisms that includes "Spirulina", "Calothrix", diatoms and other single-celled eukaryotes, and grazing insects and protozoans. As temperatures drop close to those of the surroundings, higher plants appear.


title: Hot spring

text: Alkali chloride hot springs show a similar succession of communities of organisms, with various thermophilic bacteria and archaea in the hottest parts of the vent. Acid sulfate hot springs show a somewhat different succession of microorganisms, dominated by acid-tolerant algae (such as members of Cyanidiophyceae), fungi, and diatoms. Iron-rich hot springs contain communities of photosynthetic organisms that oxidize reduced (ferrous) iron to oxidized (ferric) iron.


title: Hot spring

text: Hot springs are a dependable source of water that provides a rich chemical environment. This includes reduced chemical species that microorganisms can oxidize as a source of energy.


title: Hot spring

text: In contrast with "black smokers" (hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor), hot springs similar to terrestrial hydrothermal fields at Kamchatka produce fluids having suitable pH and temperature for early cells and biochemical reactions. Dissolved organic compounds were found in hot springs at Kamchatka . Metal sulfides and silica minerals in these environments would act as photocatalysts. They experience cycles of wetting and drying which promote the formation of biopolymers which are then encapsulated in vesicles after rehydration. Solar UV exposure to the environment promotes synthesis to monomeric biomolecules. The ionic composition and concentration of hot springs (K, B, Zn, P, O, S, C, Mn, N, and H) are identical to the cytoplasm of modern cells and possibly to those of the LUCA or early cellular life according to phylogenomic analysis. For these reasons, it has been hypothesized that hot springs may be the place of origin of life on Earth. The evolutionary implications of the hypothesis imply a direct evolutionary pathway to land plants. Where continuous exposure to sunlight leads to the development of photosynthetic properties and later colonize on land and life at hydrothermal vents is suggested to be a later adaptation.


title: Hot spring

text: Recent experimental studies at hot springs support this hypothesis. They show that fatty acids self-assemble into membranous structures and encapsulate synthesized biomolecules during exposure to UV light and multiple wet-dry cycles at slightly alkaline or acidic hot springs, which would not happen at saltwater conditions as the high concentrations of ionic solutes there would inhibit the formation of membranous structures. David Deamer and Bruce Damer note that these hypothesized prebiotic environments resemble Charles Darwin's imagined "warm little pond". If life did not emerge at deep sea hydrothermal vents, rather at terrestrial pools, extraterrestrial quinones transported to the environment would generate redox reactions conducive to proton gradients. Without continuous wet-dry cycling to maintain stability of primitive proteins for membrane transport and other biological macromolecules, they would go through hydrolysis in an aquatic environment. Scientists discovered a 3.48 billion year old geyserite that seemingly preserved fossilized microbial life, stromatolites, and biosignatures. Researchers propose pyrophosphite to have been used by early cellular life for energy storage and it might have been a precursor to pyrophosphate. Phosphites, which are present at hot springs, would have bonded together into pyrophosphite within hot springs through wet-dry cycling. Like alkaline hydrothermal vents, the Hakuba Happo hot spring goes through serpentinization, suggesting methanogenic microbial life possibly originated in similar habitats.


title: Hot spring

text: A problem with the hot spring hypothesis for an origin of life is that phosphate has low solubility in water. Pyrophosphite could have been present within protocells, however all modern life forms use pyrophosphate for energy storage. Kee suggests that pyrophosphate could have been utilized after the emergence of enzymes. Dehydrated conditions would favor phosphorylation of organic compounds and condensation of phosphate to polyphosphate. Another problem is that solar ultraviolet radiation and frequent impacts would have inhibited habitability of early cellular life at hot springs, although biological macromolecules might have underwent selection during exposure to solar ultraviolet radiation and would have been catalyzed by photocatalytic silica minerals and metal sulfides. Carbonaceous meteors during the Late Heavy Bombardment would not have caused cratering on Earth as they would produce fragments upon atmospheric entry. The meteors are estimated to have been 40 to 80 meters in diameter however larger impactors would produce larger craters. Metabolic pathways have not yet been demonstrated at these environments, but the development of proton gradients might have been generated by redox reactions coupled to meteoric quinones or protocell growth. Metabolic reactions in the Wood-Ljungdahl pathway and reverse Krebs cycle have been produced in acidic conditions and thermophilic temperatures in the presence of metals which is consistent with observations of RNA mostly stable at acidic pH.


title: Hot spring

text: Hot springs have been enjoyed by humans for thousands of years. Even macaques, which are nonhuman primates, are known to have extended their northern range into Japan by making use of hot springs to protect themselves from cold stress. Hot spring baths ("onsen") have been in use in Japan for at least two thousand years, traditionally for cleanliness and relaxation, but increasingly for their therapeutic value. In the Homeric Age of Greece (ca. 1000 BCE), baths were primarily for hygiene, but by the time of Hippocrates (ca. 460 BCE), hot springs were credited with healing power. The popularity of hot springs has fluctuated over the centuries since, but they are now popular around the world.


title: Hot spring

text: Because of both the folklore and the claimed medical value attributed to some hot springs, they are often popular tourist destinations, and locations for rehabilitation clinics for those with disabilities. However, the scientific basis for therapeutic bathing in hot springs is uncertain. Hot bath therapy for lead poisoning was common and reportedly highly successful in the 18th and 19th centuries, and may have been due to diuresis (increased production of urine) from sitting in hot water, which increased excretion of lead; better food and isolation from lead sources; and increased intake of calcium and iron. Significant improvement in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis have been reported in studies of spa therapy, but these studies have methodological problems, such as the obvious impracticality of placebo-controlled studies (in which a patient does not know if they are receiving the therapy). As a result, the therapeutic effectiveness of hot spring therapy remains uncertain.


title: Hot spring

text: Hot springs in volcanic areas are often at or near the boiling point. People have been seriously scalded and even killed by accidentally or intentionally entering these springs.


title: Hot spring

text: The customs and practices observed differ depending on the hot spring. It is common practice that bathers should wash before entering the water so as not to contaminate the water (with/without soap). In many countries, like Japan, it is required to enter the hot spring with no clothes on, including swimwear. Often there are different facilities or times for men and women, but mixed "onsen" do exist. In some countries, if it is a public hot spring, swimwear is required.


title: Hot spring

text: There are hot springs in many places and on all continents of the world. Countries that are renowned for their hot springs include China, Costa Rica, Iceland, Iran, Japan, New Zealand, Brazil, Peru, Taiwan, Turkey, and the United States, but there are hot springs in many other places as well:


title: Death of Vincent van Gogh

text: The death of Vincent van Gogh, the Dutch post-Impressionist painter, occurred in the early morning of 29 July 1890, in his room at the Auberge Ravoux in the village of Auvers-sur-Oise in northern France. Two days earlier, Van Gogh shot himself or was intentionally or accidentally shot by someone else. While his death certificate states that he died as a result of suicide, at least two biographers have challenged that, saying he may have been intentionally or accidentally shot by someone else.


title: Death of Vincent van Gogh

text: As early as 1883, Vincent van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo: "... as to the time I still have ahead of me for work, I think I may safely presume that my body will hold up for a certain number of years... between 7-10, say", "... I should plan for a period of between 5 and 10 years..." Van Gogh authority Ronald de Leeuw interprets this as van Gogh "voic[ing] the presentiment that he himself had at most another ten years of life in which to realize his ideals."


title: Death of Vincent van Gogh

text: In 1889, van Gogh experienced a deterioration in his mental health. Vincent van Gogh, suffering from severe depression, cut off part of his left ear with a razor while staying in Arles, France. As a result of incidents in Arles leading to a public petition, he was admitted to a hospital. His condition improved and he was ready to be discharged by March 1889, coinciding with the wedding of his brother Theo to Johanna Bonger. However, at the last moment his resolution failed him and he confided to Frédéric Salles, who served as an unofficial chaplain to the hospital's Protestant patients, that he wanted to be confined to an asylum. At Salles' suggestion van Gogh chose an asylum in nearby Saint-Rémy. Theo originally resisted this choice, even suggesting that Vincent rejoin Paul Gauguin in Pont Aven, but was eventually won over, agreeing to pay the asylum fees (requesting the cheapest third-class accommodation). Vincent entered the asylum in early May 1889. His mental condition remained stable for a while and he was able to work "en plein air", producing many of his most iconic paintings, such as "The Starry Night", at this time. However at the end of July, following a trip to Arles, he suffered a serious relapse that lasted a month. He made a good recovery, only to suffer another relapse in late December 1889, and early the following January an acute relapse while delivering a portrait of Madame Ginoux to her in Arles. This last relapse, described by Jan Hulsker as his longest and saddest, lasted until March 1890. In May 1890 Vincent was discharged from the asylum (the last painting he produced at the asylum was "At Eternity's Gate", an image of desolation and despair), and after spending a few days with Theo and Jo in Paris, Vincent went to live in Auvers-sur-Oise, a commune north of Paris popular with artists.


title: Death of Vincent van Gogh

text: Shortly before leaving Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh told how he was suffering from his stay in the hospital: "The surroundings here are beginning to weigh me down more than I can say... I need some air, I feel overwhelmed by boredom and grief."


title: Death of Vincent van Gogh

text: On arriving at Auvers, van Gogh's health was still not very good. Writing on 21 May to Theo he comments: "I can do nothing about my illness. I am suffering a little just now—the thing is that after that long seclusion the days seem like weeks to me." But by 25 May, the artist was able to report to his mother that his health had improved and that the symptoms of his disease had disappeared. His letters to his sister Wilhelmina on 5 June and to Theo and his wife Jo on about 10 June indicate a continued improvement, his nightmares almost having disappeared.


title: Death of Vincent van Gogh

text: On about 12 June, he wrote to his friends Mr and Mrs Ginoux in Arles, telling them how his health had suffered at Saint-Rémy but had since improved: "But latterly I had contracted the other patients' disease to such an extent that I could not be cured of my own. The other patients' society had a bad influence on me, and in the end I was absolutely unable to understand it. Then I felt I had better try a change, and for that matter, the pleasure of seeing my brother, his family and my painter friends again has done me a lot of good, and I am feeling completely calm and normal."


title: Death of Vincent van Gogh

text: Furthermore, an unsent letter to Paul Gauguin which van Gogh wrote around 17 June is quite positive about his plans for the future. After describing his recent colourful wheat studies, he explains: "I would like to paint some portraits against a very vivid yet tranquil background. There are the greens of a different quality, but of the same value, so as to form a whole of green tones, which by its vibration will make you think of the gentle rustle of the ears swaying in the breeze: it is not at all easy as a colour scheme." On 2 July, writing to his brother, van Gogh comments: "I myself am also trying to do as well as I can, but I will not conceal from you that I hardly dare count on always being in good health. And if my disease returns, you would forgive me. I still love art and life very much..."


title: Death of Vincent van Gogh

text: The first sign of new problems was revealed in a letter van Gogh wrote to Theo on 10 July. He first states, "I am very well, I am working hard, have painted four studies and two drawings," but then goes on to say, "I think that we must not count on Dr Gachet at all. First of all, he is sicker than I am, I think, or shall we say just as much, so that's that... I don't know what to say. Certainly my last attack, which was terrible, was in a large measure due to the influence of the other patients." Later in the letter he adds, "For myself, I can only say at the moment that I think we all need rest—I feel like - a failure (in French "Je me sens - raté")." In an even more despairing tone he adds: "And the prospect grows darker, I see no happy future at all."


title: Death of Vincent van Gogh

text: In another letter to Theo on about 10 July, van Gogh explains: "I try to be fairly good-humoured in general, but my life too is threatened at its very root, and my step is unsteady too." He then comments on his current work: "I have painted three more large canvases. They are vast stretches of corn under troubled skies, and I did not have to go out of my way very much in order to try to express sadness and extreme loneliness." But he adds, "I'm fairly sure that these canvases will tell you what I cannot say in words, that is, how healthy and invigorating I find the countryside."


title: Death of Vincent van Gogh

text: In a letter to his mother and sister written around 12 July, van Gogh again appears to be in a far more positive frame of mind: "I myself am quite absorbed in that immense plain with wheat fields up as far as the hills, boundless as the ocean, delicate yellow, delicate soft green, the delicate purple of a tilled and weeded piece of ground, with the regular speckle of the green of flowering potato plants, everything under a sky of delicate tones of blue, white, pink and violet. I am in a mood of almost too much calm, just the mood needed for painting this."


title: Death of Vincent van Gogh

text: Theo recognised that Vincent was experiencing problems. In a letter dated 22 July 1890, he wrote, "I hope, my dear Vincent, that your health is good, and since you say that you write with difficulty, and don't talk about your work I am a little afraid that there is something troubling you or not going right." He went on to suggest that he consult his physician, Paul Gachet.


title: Death of Vincent van Gogh

text: On 23 July, van Gogh wrote to his brother, stressing his renewed involvement in painting: "I am giving my canvases my undivided attention. I am trying to do as well as certain painters whom I have greatly loved and admired... Perhaps you will take a look at this sketch of Daubigny's garden—it is one of my most carefully thought-out canvases. I am adding a sketch of some old thatched roofs and the sketches of two size 30 canvases representing vast fields of wheat after the rain."


title: Death of Vincent van Gogh

text: Adeline Ravoux, the innkeeper's daughter who was only 13 at the time, clearly recalled the incidents of July 1890. In an account written when she was 76, reinforced by her father's repeated reminders, she explains how on 27 July, Van Gogh left the inn after breakfast. When he had not returned by dusk, given the artist's regular habits, the family got worried. He finally arrived after nightfall, probably around 9 pm, holding his stomach. Adeline's mother asked whether there was a problem. Van Gogh started to answer with difficulty, "No, but I have..." as he climbed the stairs up to his room. Her father thought he could hear groans and found Van Gogh curled up in bed. When he asked whether he was ill, Van Gogh showed him a wound near his heart, admitting that during the night, he had set out for the wheat field where he had recently been painting, and attempted suicide by shooting himself.


title: Death of Vincent van Gogh

text: Adeline goes on to explain how her father sent Anton Hirschig, also a Dutch artist staying in the inn, to alert the local physician, who proved to be absent. He then called on Gachet, van Gogh's friend and physician, who dressed the wound but left immediately, considering it a hopeless case. Her father and Hirschig spent the night at van Gogh's bedside. The artist sometimes smoked, sometimes groaned but remained silent almost all night long, dozing off from time to time. The following morning, two gendarmes visited the inn, questioning van Gogh about his attempted suicide. In response, he simply replied: "My body is mine and I am free to do what I want with it. Do not accuse anybody, it is I that wished to commit suicide."


title: Death of Vincent van Gogh

text: As soon as the post office opened on Monday morning, Adeline's father sent a telegram to van Gogh's brother, Theo, who arrived by train during the afternoon. Adeline Ravoux explains how the two of them watched over van Gogh who fell into a coma and died at about one o'clock in the morning; his death certificate records the time of death as 1.30 am. In a letter to his sister Lies, Theo told of his brother's feelings just before his death: "He himself wanted to die. When I sat at his bedside and said that we would try to get him better and that we hoped that he would then be spared this kind of despair, he said, ""La tristesse durera toujours"" (The sadness will last forever). I understood what he wanted to say with those words."


title: Death of Vincent van Gogh

text: In her memoir of December 1913, Theo's wife Johanna refers first to a letter from her husband after his arrival at Vincent's bedside: "He was glad that I came and we are together all the time... Poor fellow, very little happiness fell to his share, and no illusions are left him. The burden grows too heavy at times, he feels so alone..." And after his death, he wrote: "One of his last words was, 'I wish I could pass away like this,' and his wish was fulfilled. A few moments and all was over. He had found the rest he could not find on earth..."


title: Death of Vincent van Gogh

text: Émile Bernard, an artist and friend of van Gogh, who arrived in Auvers on 30 July for the funeral, tells a slightly different story, explaining that van Gogh went out into the countryside on the Sunday evening, "left his easel against a haystack and went behind the château and fired a revolver shot at himself." He tells how van Gogh had carried out these acts deliberately and with absolute lucidity. When Dr Gachet told him that he still hoped to save his life, van Gogh replied, 'Then I'll have to do it over again.'"


title: Death of Vincent van Gogh

text: In addition to the account given by Adeline Ravoux, Émile Bernard's letter to Albert Aurier provides details of the funeral which was held in the afternoon of 30 July 1890. Van Gogh's body was set out in "the painter's room" where it was surrounded by the "halo" of his last canvases and masses of yellow flowers including dahlias, and sunflowers. His easel, folding stool and brushes stood before the coffin. Among those who arrived in the room were artists Lucien Pissarro and Auguste Lauzet. The coffin was carried to the hearse at three o'clock. The company climbed the hill outside Auvers in hot sunshine, Theo and several of the others sobbing pitifully. The little cemetery with new tombstones was on a little hill above fields that were ripe for harvest. Dr Gachet, trying to suppress his tears, stammered out a few words of praise, expressing his admiration for an "honest man and a great artist... who had only two aims, art and humanity."


title: Death of Vincent van Gogh

text: In 2011, authors Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith published a biography, "Van Gogh: The Life", in which they challenged the conventional account of the artist's death. In the book, Naifeh and Smith argue that it was unlikely for van Gogh to have killed himself, noting the upbeat disposition of the paintings he created immediately preceding his death; furthermore, in private correspondence, van Gogh described suicide as sinful and immoral. The authors also question how van Gogh could have travelled the mile-long (about 2 km) distance between the wheat field and the inn after sustaining the fatal stomach wound, how van Gogh could have possibly obtained a gun despite his well-known mental health problems, and why van Gogh's painting gear was never found by the police.


title: Death of Vincent van Gogh

text: Naifeh and Smith developed an alternative hypothesis in which van Gogh did not commit suicide, but rather was a possible victim of accidental manslaughter or foul play. Naifeh and Smith point out that the bullet entered van Gogh's abdomen at an oblique angle, not straight as might be expected from a suicide. They claim that van Gogh was acquainted with the boys who may have shot him, one of whom was in the habit of wearing a cowboy suit, and had gone drinking with them. Naifeh said: "So you have a couple of teenagers who have a malfunctioning gun, you have a boy who likes to play cowboy, you have three people probably all of whom had too much to drink." Naifeh concluded that "accidental homicide" was "far more likely". The authors contend that art historian John Rewald visited Auvers in the 1930s, and recorded the version of events that is widely believed. The authors postulate that after he was fatally wounded, van Gogh welcomed death and believed the boys had done him a favour, hence his widely quoted deathbed remark: "Do not accuse anyone... it is I who wanted to kill myself."


title: Death of Vincent van Gogh

text: On 16 October 2011, an episode of the TV news magazine "60 Minutes" aired a report exploring the contention of Naifeh and Smith's biography. Some credence has been given to the theory by van Gogh experts, who cite an interview with French businessman René Secrétan recorded in 1956, in which he admitted to tormenting—but not actually shooting—the artist. Nonetheless, this new biographical account has been greeted with some scepticism.


title: Death of Vincent van Gogh

text: Sceptic Joe Nickell also was not convinced and offered alternative explanations. In the July 2013 issue of the "Burlington Magazine", two of the research specialists from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Louis van Tilborgh and Teio Meedendorp, present a theory that at the time of his death, van Gogh was in a troubled state and in danger of suicide. They also present alternative explanations to the theories presented by Naifeh and Smith.


title: Death of Vincent van Gogh

text: In 2014, at Smith and Naifeh's request, handgun expert Vincent Di Maio reviewed the forensic evidence surrounding Van Gogh's shooting. Di Maio noted that to shoot himself in the left abdomen Van Gogh would have had to have held the gun at a very awkward angle, and that there would have been black powder burns on his hands and tattooing and other marks on the skin around the wound, none of which is noted in the contemporary report. Di Maio gave his conclusion that


title: Death of Vincent van Gogh

text: The 2017 film "Loving Vincent" drew heavily on Smith and Naifeh's theory; it is also the account presented in the 2018 film "At Eternity's Gate".


title: Death of Vincent van Gogh

text: Van Gogh was particularly productive during his last few weeks in Auvers, completing over 70 paintings as well as a number of drawings and sketches. They cover landscapes, portraits and still lifes. Some of them appear to reflect his increasing loneliness while many others, with their bright colours, convey a more positive attitude. The letters he wrote during his last two months offer a considerable amount of background on van Gogh's relentless will to paint coupled with frequent periods of despondency.


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: Carmen Sandiego (sometimes referred to as Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?) is a media franchise based on a series of computer games created by the American software company Broderbund. While the original 1985 "Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?" video game was classified as a "mystery exploration" series by creators and the media, the series would later be deemed edutainment when the games became unexpectedly popular in classrooms. The franchise centers around the fictional thieving villain of the same name, who is the ringleader of the criminal organization, V.I.L.E.; the protagonists (most often including the in-game character controlled by the computer user) are agents of the ACME Detective Agency who try to thwart the crooks' plans to steal treasures from around the world, while the later ultimate goal is to capture Carmen Sandiego herself.


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: The franchise primarily focuses on teaching children geography, but has also branched out into history, mathematics, language arts, and other subjects. An attempt was made to create a series of state-specific games in the 1980s, but the only prototype to be completed was "North Dakota". Beginning in 1988, Carmen Sandiego Days became popular across American public schools. In the 1990s, the franchise extended into three television shows, books and comics, board games, a concert series, two planetarium shows, and two music albums. By 1996, the Carmen Sandiego character and game concept had been licensed to over 20 companies including HarperCollins, University Games, Great American Puzzle Factory, DIC Entertainment, WGBH/WQED, Micro Games of America, Publications International and Troll Associates. Towards the turn of the 21st century, the "Carmen Sandiego" property passed through a series of five corporate hands: Broderbund (1985-1997), The Learning Company (1998), Mattel (1999), The Gores Group (2000), and Riverdeep (2001–present). Subsequent acquisitions and mergers of Riverdeep (licensed to Encore) led to the franchise currently being in the possession of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. For the next 15 years, the series would become mostly dormant despite a few licensed games. In 2017, soon after Netflix commissioned an animated show based on the property, HMH hired Brandginuity to reboot Carmen Sandiego through a licensing program built around the show and the franchise as a whole including toys, games, and apparel. HMH Productions, established in 2018, is currently the content incubator, production company, and brand manager of Carmen Sandiego. HMH Productions co-produced the animated Netflix TV series "Carmen Sandiego", which ran for four seasons from 2019 to 2021 (including a 2020 ), and is set to produce a live-action film as well. As of May 10, 2021, the franchise is owned by HarperCollins, which acquired HMH's trade division.


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: The franchise has become known for its ability to surreptitiously teach facts, breed empathy for other cultures, and develop logic skills, all behind a mask of highly entertaining detective mystery experiences. One aspect of the series that has received consistent praise by critics is its diverse representation of strong, independent, and intelligent minority women. Carmen Sandiego herself is Latina, and it has never been implied that her ethnicity is correlated to her thievery.


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: "Carmen Sandiego" has maintained a considerable popularity and commercial success over its history. "Carmen Sandiego" is one of the top 30 longest-running video game series, having existed for just over 30 years with the release of "Returns" in 2015. By 1997, "Carmen Sandiego" games had been translated into three different languages, and over 5 million copies had been sold into schools and homes worldwide. The three 1990s-airing television shows have together been nominated for 45 Daytime Emmy Awards (winning 8), while "World" also won a Peabody Award. They had a combined viewing audience of over 10 million viewers each week.


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: The original game idea started in 1983 from Broderbund programmer Dane Bigham, wanting to take the idea of text adventure games like "Colossal Cave Adventure", but create a menu-driven interface to be played on the Apple II computer. Initial work was done with Broderbund's "Rubber Room" artists, Gene Portwood and Lauren Elliott, creating a game where the player would chase down various crooks. Broderbund co-founder Gary Carlston suggested changing the concept to be focused on geography, anticipating shipping copies of "The World Almanac" to let players research clues and find the right answers for geography questions.


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: As Bigham was not thrilled with this direction, he focused more on the interface, and Carlston hired David Siefkin to write the game's story. Siefkin came up with the idea of the player tracking down numerous criminals, and developed several criminal personas, including Carmen Sandiego. The other staff found this name mysterious and exotic, in addition to being a female character they could use to attract younger women to the game. From Siefkin's script, they expanded out the idea of the criminal organization V.I.L.E. - Villains’ International League of Evil – and the ACME Detective Agency – with ACME jokingly considered an initialism for "A Company that Makes Everything". The core gameplay was then established, having the player as an ACME recruit to chase down underlings within V.I.L.E., following geography-based clues to complete their search, and working up their ranks in ACME until they were tasked to go after Carmen herself. The game proved successful, unexpected from the educational market, as it became a staple in many classrooms.


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: Portwood and Ellliot produced storyboards and initial graphics, while staff completed the software. They used a "Carmen bible" to maintain quality and consistency. Each design team consisted of 8-10 people. If a game idea became dull within a week, it was discarded. Games were play-tested in schools prior to release in order to identify problems. Prior to Carmen Sandiego, Broderbund had been involved in distributing and marketing software; therefore careful consideration was put into how to market the franchise. Awareness was built through editorials in magazines, placement on retailer shelves, and promotions. The launch price of $38 was chosen to suit cost-constrained teachers. Playing an entertaining game at schools led to children beginning to request the game from their parents, leading to a "pull-through effect" in the distribution chain. Brøderbund emphasized that the games were fun and labelled them 'explorations' rather than highlighting the educational aspect. The game play succeeded in this by giving the player a sense of agency while travelling through an adventure and chasing the villain. Broderbund included response cards in their games to gather information, which once in a database could be used via direct mail to sell upgrades or future products. According to "New Product Success Stories: Lessons from Leading Innovators", Broderbund had also built an "organisational capacity that supports creativity" and was customer focused on its game development.


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: From 1986 to 1998, Brøderbund followed the first "Carmen Sandiego" video game with "U.S.A.", "Europe", "Time", "America's Past", "Space", and "", reboots of "World", "U.S.A.", and "Great Chase Through Time", and finally released "Word Detective" and "Math Detective". The first seven games of the franchise were each awarded one or more SPA Excellence in Software Awards, particularly for their educational effort. In 1991, Brøderbund went public, trading on the NASDAQ stock exchange as BROD. At the time, the "Carmen Sandiego" games were Brøderbund's second-biggest revenue source, comprising 26% of total revenue; the biggest was "The Print Shop", which brought in 33% of revenue. By 1997, "Carmen Sandiego" games had been translated into three different languages and over 5 million copies had been sold into schools and homes, worldwide.


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: Carmen Sandiego also appeared in three television shows during this era. The "World" game show was broadcast on PBS from 1991 to 1996 and won six Daytime Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award. "World" was followed by "Time", which was cancelled in 1998 due to the geography-based premise having "run its entire course". It was acknowledged that history can be more subjective than geography, but the show hoped to tackle more challenging material like the infamous Japanese American internment camps during World War II in a straightforward and educational way. The "Earth" animated series was broadcast on FOX from 1994 to 1999. In 1996, President Bill Clinton stated: "When I met the co-leaders of San Marino at the Olympics, I knew where it was because of Carmen Sandiego".


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: After Brøderbund ceased to exist in 1998, The Learning Company apparently sought to redesign the series. The company determined that the brand was stagnating but thought it easier to revive an established brand than start a new one. Under The Learning Company, the series seems to take its premise more seriously and uses character-based humor. Since The Learning Company has only created two "Carmen Sandiego" games, one of which is no longer sold. This change is evident mainly through the marketing of select Brøderbund products.


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: The first title released by The Learning Company was "ThinkQuick Challenge", a quiz game with a similar tonality to "Word Detective" and "Math Detective", which included the reappearance of Chase Devineaux. The new structure of "Time" was apparently to The Learning Company's liking since their new version of "World", titled "Treasures of Knowledge", was similar. The Learning Company decided to return the series to its original focus on geography, discontinuing "Word Detective", "Math Detective", and "ThinkQuick Challenge".


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: In 2004, Bam! Entertainment released "" on the GameCube, Xbox, and PlayStation 2. It is so far the only game of the franchise to use real-time 3D computer graphics, although many previous games had used pre-rendered 3D graphics. It was also an action game and while geographical facts were included, learning them was not necessary to complete the game. Although The Learning Company evidently licensed the use of the series as well as some of their own characters from "Treasures of Knowledge", this game is not distributed by or sold under The Learning Company name. An animated Netflix series, "Carmen Sandiego", aired for four seasons from 2019 to 2021.


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: On March 29, 2021, The Wall Street Journal reported that HarperCollins, a division of American mass media and publishing company News Corp, had reached a deal to buy HMH Books & Media for US$349 million. The sale includes HMH's trade publishing division and computer game franchises such as "Carmen Sandiego" and "The Oregon Trail".


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: The "Carmen Sandiego" franchise began with the classic video game in 1985, "Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?". Each subsequent video game in the series has a particular theme and subject, where the player must use their knowledge to find Carmen Sandiego or any of her myriad henchmen. This series was originally owned and developed by Broderbund, but is now owned by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: This was the PBS game show designed for children ages 8–12. The "World" game show was staged in a slightly off-skew detective office, which was part of the ACME agency with Lynne Thigpen portraying "The Chief" and Greg Lee portraying himself as a special agent in charge of training new recruits. Greg was helped in this training by various live-action and animated characters. Among the show's most popular were the members of the a cappella house band and comedy troupe, Rockapella, who also sang the show's main theme song.


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: The game was played in three rounds: the first round was Q&A, where the two gumshoes with the highest scores proceeded to a second round. In the second round, the two remaining gumshoes had to find the loot, the warrant, and the cartoon crook in the correct order. The winning gumshoe captured the day's crook and later advanced to the third and final round to capture Carmen Sandiego. As Greg shouted the names or places in a region of the world, the gumshoe had to place a marker on the corresponding place on a giant map of that area within a 45-second time limit. A successful gumshoe who placed all the correct locations and captured Carmen Sandiego would win a trip to anywhere in the contiguous United States and later in North America.


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: The "Time" game show refocused the show on history, but was otherwise similar to "World" with Thigpen reprising her role as "The Chief". Kevin Shinick portrayed himself as a Time Pilot Squadron Leader and Rockapella was replaced by a different dance group, The Engine Crew. Gameplay for the first two rounds were much the same as "World"; whereas the third and final round involved the pilot answering six various history-related questions to open time gates. If the pilot answered correctly, he/she passed through the gate. Otherwise, the pilot had to turn a crank, pull a lever, or do some other task within the 90-second time limit. A successful pilot who passed through all six gates and captured Carmen Sandiego would win a personal computer.


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: The "Earth" animated series was a Saturday morning cartoon series produced by DIC Entertainment. The series features the adventures of Zack and Ivy, two teenage siblings who work as ACME agents in San Francisco and are aided by the Max Headroom-like Chief, who had to stop Carmen Sandiego and her henchmen from stealing artifacts from around the world. The series was the first Saturday-morning children's program ever to win the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Animated Program, in 1996. Its episodes have subsequently been aired on the Fox Family Channel, the Pax network, Hub TV, and Univision. The first season was released on DVD by Shout! Factory in 2006 and the complete series was later released by Mill Creek Entertainment in 2012.


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: The second animated series, "Carmen Sandiego", is co-produced by Netflix, where it aired for four seasons from 2019 to 2021. In this series, Carmen Sandiego is not a villain or antihero, but the heroine, who is recruited to V.I.L.E. in infancy and trained as a master thief, only to turn against them and seek to undo their thievery.


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: In the early 1990s, in response to the successful Carmen Sandiego franchise, "editor Sharon Shavers was tasked with turning the games into a book series". She gave the responsibility to John Peel. His research consisted of playing all the games, and this was followed by "Sharon and [him] work[ing] out a format for the series" before he commenced writing. While in the past his natural tendency to add jokes to his work had been looked down upon, "Sharon [actually] asked [him] to put more in". The art was done by Allan Neuwirth. The premise of each choose-your-own-adventure book is that "you are the detective", and each title features "four exciting detective adventures inside!". The books are written in the second person and in present tense, and have removable inserts that provided clues and the identities of the villains. The books are published by the Canadian branch of Golden Books Publishing. Western Publishing was planning a September 1991 debut. Inspired by the video games, Peel wrote 16 new cases in the original four-book series. The books came with insert cards which became important in solving the cases.


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: In 1997 a series of junior novels was written by various authors and illustrated by S. M. Taggart. Each book in the series was subtitled "A Carmen Sandiego Mystery" and featured child detectives Ben and Maya as the protagonists. Six books were released:


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: From mid 1996 to early 1997, four Carmen Sandiego comic books were published by DC in a series entitled "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?". They involved the exploits of Evan Sawyer, "Acme Detective Agency's newest and youngest gumshoe".


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: University Games published a number of board games, and at least one card game, based on Carmen Sandiego throughout the 1990s. To promote the first board game, Broderbund made a special offer around Christmas when any Carmen Sandiego video game was purchased in tandem.


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: "Where in the Universe Is Carmen Sandiego?" is a movie that was made to be played in a planetarium. It is less like a traditional movie, and more like one of the Carmen Sandiego game shows featured on PBS with the live audience as the detectives. This film also featured Lynne Thigpen as "The Chief" and was based on "Where in Space Is Carmen Sandiego?". This marked Thigpen's final appearance of the franchise before her death of a cerebral hemorrhage on March 12, 2003. A sequel was later created called "Where in the Universe is Carmen Sandiego? - II".


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: "Where in the World of Music is Carmen Sandiego?" is a concert series developed by Gary Sheldon. It consists of 3 concerts: The Case of the Missing Concert Hall, The Case of the Missing Bells, and The Case of the Missing Pyramids.


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: By 1991, rumours were swirling about a movie adaptation of Carmen Sandiego. In 1998, Walt Disney Pictures extended a first-look deal with DIC Entertainment subsidiary DIC Films. One such planned film involved Sandra Bullock as the title character.


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: In 2011, Walden Media announced its own plans to make a live action film with Jennifer Lopez as both Carmen Sandiego and producer of the film with her production company Nuyorican Productions. Writer Darren Lemke was attached to write the screenplay in July 2012.


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: In 2018, while the Netflix animated series "Carmen Sandiego" was still in production, Netflix announced plans to produce a related live action film adaptation, to star Gina Rodriguez, who also voiced the title character in the series. Rodriguez is set to co-produce the film, alongside Kevin Misher and the series' executive producer, Caroline Fraser. In September 2021, the official Twitter account for the Carmen Sandiego animated series confirmed that the live-action film was in the "early stages."


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: In the late 1990s, the Metro Washington Park Zoo in Portland, Oregon, (now the Oregon Zoo), in conjunction with Brøderbund, ran a summer-long event titled "Where in the Zoo Is Carmen Sandiego?", which functioned as a full-immersion live-action Carmen game in which zoo patrons were the investigating detectives. Actors were hired to play Carmen's henchmen, who could be found around the zoo, and on occasions a costumed Carmen appeared as well, but never in a location where patrons could interact with her. Clues were given out at various stations by members of the ZooTeens volunteer group. Campers aim to solve the mysteries and return the park to normal.


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: In 2016, NPR held an homage to the WinWiCS gameshow entitled "Where in the Mall is Carmen Sandiego?", in which incoming theft reports from ACME CrimeNet are relayed to contestants who must then work out which store in the mall is being referred to. It was part of the podcast "NPR Programs: Ask Me Another".


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: The Carmen Sandiego Licensing Program saw the Carmen Sandiego brand licensed to over 20 companies including HarperCollins, University Games, Great American Puzzle Factory, DIC Entertainment, WGBH/WQED, Micro Games of America, Publications International and Troll Associates.


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: The Carmen Sandiego Connection website allowed players and fans to discover more about the franchise.


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: By 1997, the franchise had received over 60 awards, including 12 Software Publishers Association Excellence Awards for Best Education Programs and 7 Parents' Choice Awards. By 2000, the franchise had won over 90 awards. They include:


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: The series as a whole has been met with critical acclaim, although most of the games released after Broderbund was sold to The Learning Company have received mixed to negative reviews.


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: A review by Mr. Bill & Lela for Mr. Bill's Adventureland Review says of the 1996 game "Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?" "It teaches knowledge of world geography and cultures, electronic database research skills, map reading and deductive reasoning. This game became so popular that there is a whole series of them out now: Where in the USA, Where in Time, etc. It's a great game and one that is often used in schools today." The 1991 document "Three Instructional Approaches to Carmen Sandiego Software Series" outlined three ways in which the Carmen Sandiego series could be utilized in an educational context: turning teacher instruction into a gamified cooperative/competitive experience, linking the previously discrete academic topics, and not playing it in its entirety but isolating segments for lessons on particular items. The 1994 journal article "The impact of a computer-based adventure game on achievement and attitudes in geography" by J. H. Wiebe and N. J. Martin found that there were no "significant differences in recall of geography facts or attitudes between the teaching methods" of the computer game "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" and a "non-computer-based board-style geography game". Kotaku explains the duality of the franchise thus: "In concept, it [is] a light edutainment game. In practice, it [is] a gateway to the rest of the world." Compute said of the series, "Although the gameplay varies only slightly from one title to the next, these games continue to be entertaining and, best of all, painlessly educational—a tough combination to beat".


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: "The Educational Technology Handbook" says that the series "engage[s] youth in tracking elusive villains across the earth". It suggest that the many games in the franchise "...hold your child's interest by putting them in touch with real-life places and events in a way no formal history or geography lesson can match". "From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games" suggests that software games like "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" challenge ideas of gender stereotypes in regard to games, due to it "hav[ing] equal appeal for boys and girls". In 2001, the Los Angeles Times said "even the most sophisticated recent titles have a hard time competing with Carmen Sandiego, the grand dame of teaching kids where in the world they are". The Stanford paper "Why in the World is Carmen Sandiego a Success?" by Todd Brown explained the long-lasting appeal of the series: "Ultimately, the keyfactor of success for the Carmen series has been cultural. The designers were able to appeal to all children, boys and girls, by developing an experience with something for everyone. Goals, conversations, intrigue, suspense, learning geography... it’s all there. Furthermore, they did it without just shoving a geography lesson down kids’ throats and without talking down to them either". He quoted Elliott, who said "We don’t use small words. Kids are short but not stupid", and concluded "By treating children as the intelligent little people they are, the designers had no need to hide from them the fact that they were playing and learning at the same time. Kids knew. The beauty of Carmen Sandiego is that they kept playing anyway."


title: Carmen Sandiego

text: PC Games deemed it the first product to "defy characterisation", being a game to some and an education tool to others.


title: Sans-culottes

text: The (, 'without breeches') were the common people of the lower classes in late 18th-century France, a great many of whom became radical and militant partisans of the French Revolution in response to their poor quality of life under the . The word , which is opposed to "aristocrat", seems to have been used for the first time on 28 February 1791 by Jean-Bernard Gauthier de Murnan in a derogatory sense, speaking about a " army". The word came into vogue during the demonstration of 20 June 1792.


title: Sans-culottes

text: The name refers to their clothing, and through that to their lower-class status: were the fashionable silk knee-breeches of the 18th-century nobility and bourgeoisie, and the working class wore "pantaloons", or long trousers, instead. The , most of them urban labourers, served as the driving popular force behind the revolution. They were judged by the other revolutionaries as "radicals" because they advocated a direct democracy, that is to say, without intermediaries such as members of parliament. Though ill-clad and ill-equipped, with little or no support from the middle and upper classes, they made up the bulk of the Revolutionary army and were responsible for many executions during the early years of the French Revolutionary Wars.


title: Sans-culottes

text: The most fundamental political ideals of the were social equality, economic equality, and popular democracy. They supported the abolition of all the authority and privileges of the monarchy, nobility, and Roman Catholic clergy, the establishment of fixed wages, the implementation of price controls to ensure affordable food and other essentials, and vigilance against counter-revolutionaries.


title: Sans-culottes

text: They expressed their demands through petitions of the sections presented to the assemblies (the Legislative, and Convention) by the delegates. The had a third way of applying pressure to achieve their demands: the police and the courts received thousands of denunciations of traitors and supposed conspirators. The height of their influence spanned roughly from the original overthrow of the monarchy in 1792 to the Thermidorian Reaction in 1794. Throughout the revolution, the provided the principal support behind the more radical and anti-bourgeoisie factions of the Paris Commune, such as the Enragés and the Hébertists, and were led by populist revolutionaries such as Jacques Roux and Jacques Hébert.


title: Sans-culottes

text: The also populated the ranks of paramilitary forces charged with physically enforcing the policies and legislation of the revolutionary government, a task that commonly included violence and the carrying out of executions against perceived enemies of the revolution.


title: Sans-culottes

text: During the peak of their influence, the were seen as the truest and most authentic sons of the French Revolution, held up as living representations of the revolutionary spirit. During the height of revolutionary fervor, such as during the Reign of Terror when it was dangerous to be associated with anything counter-revolutionary, even public functionaries and officials actually from middle or upper-class backgrounds adopted the clothing and label of the as a demonstration of solidarity with the working class and patriotism for the new French Republic.


title: Sans-culottes

text: But by early 1794, as the bourgeois and middle-class elements of the revolution began to gain more political influence, the fervent working-class radicalism of the rapidly began falling out of favour within the National Convention. It was not long before Maximilien de Robespierre and the now dominant Jacobin Club turned against the radical factions of the National Convention, including the , despite their having previously been the strongest supporters of the revolution and its government. Several important leaders of the and Hébertists were imprisoned and executed by the very revolutionary tribunals they had supported. The execution of radical leader Jacques Hébert spelled the decline of the , and with the successive rise of even more conservative governments, the Thermidorian Convention and the French Directory, they were definitively silenced as a political force. After the defeat of the 1795 popular revolt in Paris, the ceased to play any effective political role in France until the July Revolution of 1830.


title: Sans-culottes

text: On 27 April 1791, Robespierre opposed plans to reorganize the National Guard and restrict its membership to active citizens, largely property owners. He demanded the reconstitution of the army on a democratic basis to allow passive citizens. He felt that the army had to become the instrument of defence of the Revolution and no longer be a threat to it. On 28 April, despite Robespierre's intensive campaign, the principle of an armed bourgeois militia was definitively enacted in the Assembly.


title: Sans-culottes

text: Along with other Jacobins, he urged in his magazine the creation of a revolutionary army in Paris, consisting of 20,000 men, with the goal to defend "liberty" (the revolution), maintain order in the sections, and educate the members in democratic principles; an idea he borrowed from Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Machiavelli. According to Jean Jaures, he considered this even more important than the right to strike.


title: Sans-culottes

text: Following the king's veto of the Assembly's efforts to raise a militia of volunteers, the reinstatement of Brissotin ministers and suppression of non-juring priests, the monarchy faced an abortive Demonstration of 20 June 1792. Sergent-Marceau and , the administrators of police, urged the to lay down their weapons, telling them it was illegal to present a petition in arms, although their march to the Tuileries was not banned. They invited the officials to join the procession and march along with them.


title: Sans-culottes

text: Early in the morning (10 August 1792) 30,000 Fédérés, and militants from the sections led a successful assault upon the Tuileries; according to Robespierre a triumph for the "passive" (non-voting) citizens. , head of the in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, was appointed provisional president of the Insurrectionary Commune.


title: Sans-culottes

text: In Spring 1793, after the defection of Dumouriez, Robespierre urged the creation of a " army" to sweep away any conspirator.


title: Sans-culottes

text: On 1 May the crowds threatened armed insurrection if the emergency measures demanded (price control) were not adopted. On 8 and 12 May Robespierre repeated in the Jacobin club the necessity of founding a revolutionary army consisting of , paid by a tax on the rich, to beat the aristocrats inside France and the convention. Every public square should be used to produce arms and pikes. On 18 May Marguerite-Élie Guadet proposed to examine the "exactions" and to replace municipal authorities.


title: Sans-culottes

text: As rioting persisted a commission of inquiry of twelve members, with a very strong Girondin majority, was set up to investigate the anarchy in the communes and the activities of the . On 28 May the Paris Commune accepted the creation of a army to enforce revolutionary laws. Petitioners from the sections and the Commune appeared at the bar of the Convention at about five o'clock in the afternoon on 31 May. They demanded that a domestic revolutionary army should be raised and that the price of bread should be fixed at three a pound, that nobles holding senior rank in the army should be dismissed, that armouries should be created for arming the , the departments of State purged, suspects arrested, the right to vote provisionally reserved to only, and a fund set apart for the relatives of those defending their country and for the relief of aged and infirm. According to Hampson, the subject is quite extraordinarily complicated and obscure. The next day all Paris was in arms.


title: Sans-culottes

text: Hanriot was ordered to march his National Guard, by this time mostly consisting of , from the town hall to the Palais National. On 2 June 1793, a large force of supposedly 80,000 and National Guards led by Hanriot, surrounded the convention with 160–172 guns.


title: Sans-culottes

text: On 4 September, the again invaded the convention. They demanded tougher measures against rising prices and the setting up of a system of terror to root out the counter-revolution. The took an especially active interest in the revolutionary army.


title: Sans-culottes

text: Barère voiced the Committee of Public Safety's support for the measures desired by the assembly: he presented a decree that was passed immediately, establishing a paid armed force of 6,000 men and 1,000 gunners "designed to crush the counter-revolutionaries, to execute wherever the need arises the revolutionary laws and the measures of public safety that are decreed by the National Convention, and to protect provisions (A force of citizen-soldiers which could go into the countryside to supervise the requisition of grain, to prevent the manoeuvres of rich and deliver them up to the vengeance of the laws)".) For that reason, twelve travelling tribunals (with moveable guillotines) were set up.


title: Sans-culottes

text: Three months later, on 4 December the departmental revolutionary armies (except in Paris) were banned on proposal of Tallien. The sections lost all rights to control their delegates and officials.


title: Sans-culottes

text: On 4 March 1794, there were rumours of uprising in the Cordeliers club. The Hébertists hoped that the National Convention would expel Robespierre and his Montagnard supporters. The did not respond and Hanriot refused to cooperate. On 13 March Hébert, the voice of the , had been using the latest issue of to criticise Robespierre. On 18 March Bourdon attacked the Commune and the army. Jacques Hébert, Ronsin, Vincent, Momoro, Clootz, De Kock were arrested on charges of complicity with foreign powers (William Pitt the Younger) and guillotined on 24 March. On 27 March the infantry and cavalry of the revolutionary army, for eight months active in Paris and surroundings, was finally disbanded, except their artillery. (Hanriot was denounced by the Revolutionary Tribunal as an accomplice of Hébert, but seems to have been protected by Robespierre.)


title: Sans-culottes

text: The working class was especially hurt by a hail storm which damaged grain crops in 1788, which caused bread prices to skyrocket. While the peasants of rural France could sustain themselves with their farms, and the wealthy aristocracy could still afford bread, the urban workers of France, the group that comprised the "", suffered. In the city, the division grew between the and these wealthy aristocrats; the former had a particular hostility "towards those with large private incomes."


title: Sans-culottes

text: The faction known as the Montagnards expressed concern for the working classes of France. When the National Convention met to discuss the fate of the former king Louis XVI in 1792, the vehemently opposed a proper trial, instead opting for an immediate execution. The moderate Girondin faction voted for a trial, but the radical Montagnards sided with the "", deeming that a trial was not necessary, and won with a slim majority. Louis XVI was executed on January 21, 1793.


title: Sans-culottes

text: The demands of the did not stop with the execution of the King, and the Montagnards worked hard to fulfil their mounting orders. This increased pressure from the radical masses exacerbated the ideological split between the Montagnards and the Girondins, and tensions began to grow within the convention. Eventually, by May 1793, the Montagnards worked with the National Guard—which was, at this time, mostly '—to depose many of the Girondin deputies. Jeremy Popkin writes, "[the Montagnards and the "sans-culottes"] surrounded the Convention, and two days later the intimidated assembly suspended twenty-nine Girondin deputies. The defeated Girondin leaders fled to the provinces. The Montagnards were left in control of the Convention, which itself was clearly at the mercy of whoever could command the armed battalions." Now, whoever was in control of France's destiny had to answer to the ', who "effectively exercised legislative power" in situations of unrest. Otherwise, they would risk a similar uprising and their own exile, or possibly even execution. This political shift towards radicalism would soon turn into the Reign of Terror.


title: Sans-culottes

text: The mass violence of the created a lasting impact during the Reign of Terror. These revolutionaries allied themselves most readily with those in power who promised radical change. The believed in a complete upheaval of the government, pushing for the execution of any that were considered corrupt by the leaders, even going as far as wanting "the enemies of the republic [to] hang-main and the guillotine to stand like the first patriots, the finisher of the law." The support of the could be used as a political weapon to get rid of enemies of the Revolution. The key to Robespierre's Terror lay in their willingness and ability to mobilize. Thus, the Committee leaders used speeches to gain their support. In a speech "On the Principles of Political Morality." Robespierre proclaimed: "It has been said that terror was the mainspring of despotic government. Does your government, then, resemble a despotism? Yes, as the sword which glitters in the hands of liberty's heroes resembles the one with which tyranny's lackeys are armed." Robespierre expressed a desire for liberty that the admired. They pushed the committee for radical changes and often found a voice with Robespierre. Their desperate desire for immediate changes and their aptitude for violence made the a necessary group in implementing the Terror.


title: Sans-culottes

text: The popular image of the has gained currency as an enduring symbol for the passion, idealism and patriotism of the common man of the French Revolution. The term sans-culottism, in French, refers to this idealized image and the themes associated with it. Many public figures and revolutionaries who were not strictly working class styled themselves in solidarity and recognition. However, in the period immediately following the Thermidorian Reaction, the and other far-left political factions were heavily persecuted and repressed by the likes of the Muscadins.


title: Sans-culottes

text: The French Republican Calendar at first termed the complementary days at the end of the year "Sansculottides"; however, the National Convention suppressed the name when adopting the Constitution of the Year III (1795) and substituted the name ("additional days").


title: Sans-culottes

text: According to Sally Waller, part of the mantra was "permanent anticipation of betrayal and treachery". The members of the were constantly on edge and fearing betrayal, which can be attributed to their violent and radical rebellion tactics.


title: Sans-culottes

text: Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm observes that the were a "shapeless, mostly urban movement of the labouring poor, small craftsmen, shopkeepers, artisans, tiny entrepreneurs and the like". He further notes they were organised notably in the local political clubs of Paris and "provided the main striking-force of the revolution". Hobsbawm writes that these were the actual demonstrators, rioters and constructors of the street barricades. However, Hobsbawm maintains, "sans-culottism" provided no real alternative to the bourgeois radicalism of the Jacobins; from Hobsbawm's Marxist perspective, the ideal of the "", which sought to express the interests of the "little men" who existed between the poles of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, was contradictory and ultimately unrealizable.


title: Sans-culottes

text: The Marxist historian Albert Soboul emphasized the importance of the as a social class, a sort of proto-proletariat that played a central role in the French Revolution. That view has been sharply attacked by scholars who say the were not a class at all. Indeed, as one historian points out, Soboul's concept has not been used by scholars in any other period of French history.


title: Sans-culottes

text: Ironically, given its origin as a term to describe men's breeches, the term "culottes" in French was first used to describe women's underpants, an article of clothing that has little or no relation to the historical culottes, but now refers to apparent skirts that are actually split with two legs. The term has been used colloquially to mean not wearing underpants.


title: De Stijl

text: De Stijl (; ), Dutch for "The Style", also known as Neoplasticism, was a Dutch art movement founded in 1917 in Leiden. De Stijl consisted of artists and architects. In a more narrow sense, the term "De Stijl" is used to refer to a body of work from 1917 to 1931 founded in the Netherlands. Proponents of De Stijl advocated pure abstraction and universality by a reduction to the essentials of form and colour; they simplified visual compositions to vertical and horizontal, using only black, white and primary colors.


title: De Stijl

text: "De Stijl" is also the name of a journal that was published by the Dutch painter, designer, writer, and critic Theo van Doesburg that served to propagate the group's theories. Along with van Doesburg, the group's principal members were the painters Piet Mondrian, Vilmos Huszár, Bart van der Leck, and the architects Gerrit Rietveld, Robert van 't Hoff, and J. J. P. Oud. The artistic philosophy that formed a basis for the group's work is known as "Neoplasticism"—the new plastic art (or "Nieuwe Beelding" in Dutch).


title: De Stijl

text: According to Theo van Doesburg in the introduction of the magazine "De Stijl" 1917 no.1, the "De Stijl"-movement was a reaction to the "Modern Baroque" of the Amsterdam School movement (Dutch expressionist architecture) with the magazine "Wendingen" (1918–1931).


title: De Stijl

text: Mondrian sets forth the delimitations of Neoplasticism in his essay "Neo-Plasticism in Pictorial Art". He writes, "this new plastic idea will ignore the particulars of appearance, that is to say, natural form and colour. On the contrary, it should find its expression in the abstraction of form and colour, that is to say, in the straight line and the clearly defined primary colour". With these constraints, his art allows only primary colours and non-colours, only squares and rectangles, only straight and horizontal or vertical lines. The De Stijl movement posited the fundamental principle of the geometry of the straight line, the square, and the rectangle, combined with a strong asymmetricality; the predominant use of pure primary colors with black and white; and the relationship between positive and negative elements in an arrangement of non-objective forms and lines.


title: De Stijl

text: The name De Stijl is supposedly derived from Gottfried Semper's "Der Stil in den technischen und tektonischen Künsten oder Praktische Ästhetik" (1861–3), which Curl suggests was mistakenly believed to advocate materialism and functionalism. The "plastic vision" of De Stijl artists, also called Neo-Plasticism, saw itself as reaching beyond the changing appearance of natural things to bring an audience into intimate contact with an immutable core of reality, a reality that was not so much a visible fact as an underlying spiritual vision. In general, De Stijl proposed ultimate simplicity and abstraction, both in architecture and painting, by using only straight horizontal and vertical lines and rectangular forms. Furthermore, their formal vocabulary was limited to the primary colours, red, yellow, and blue, and the three primary values, black, white, and grey. The works avoided symmetry and attained aesthetic balance by the use of opposition. This element of the movement embodies the second meaning of "stijl": "a post, jamb or support"; this is best exemplified by the construction of crossing joints, most commonly seen in carpentry.


title: De Stijl

text: In many of the group's three-dimensional works, vertical and horizontal lines are positioned in layers or planes that do not intersect, thereby allowing each element to exist independently and unobstructed by other elements. This feature can be found in the Rietveld Schröder House and the Red and Blue Chair.


title: De Stijl

text: De Stijl was influenced by Cubist painting as well as by the mysticism and the ideas about "ideal" geometric forms (such as the "perfect straight line") in the neoplatonic philosophy of mathematician M. H. J. Schoenmaekers. The De Stijl movement was also influenced by Neopositivism. The works of De Stijl would influence the Bauhaus style and the international style of architecture as well as clothing and interior design. However, it did not follow the general guidelines of an "-ism" (e.g., Cubism, Futurism, Surrealism), nor did it adhere to the principles of art schools like the Bauhaus; it was a collective project, a joint enterprise.


title: De Stijl

text: In music, De Stijl was an influence only on the work of composer Jakob van Domselaer, a close friend of Mondrian. Between 1913 and 1916, he composed his "Proeven van Stijlkunst" ("Experiments in Artistic Style"), inspired mainly by Mondrian's paintings. This minimalistic—and, at the time, revolutionary—music defined "horizontal" and "vertical" musical elements and aimed at balancing those two principles. Van Domselaer was relatively unknown in his lifetime, and did not play a significant role within De Stijl.


title: De Stijl

text: From the flurry of new art movements that followed the Impressionist revolutionary new perception of painting, Cubism arose in the early 20th century as an important and influential new direction. In the Netherlands, too, there was interest in this "new art".


title: De Stijl

text: However, because the Netherlands remained neutral in World War I, Dutch artists were not able to leave the country after 1914 and were thus effectively isolated from the international art world—and in particular, from Paris, which was its centre then.


title: De Stijl

text: During that period, Theo van Doesburg started looking for other artists to set up a journal and start an art movement. Van Doesburg was also a writer, poet, and critic, who had been more successful writing about art than working as an independent artist. Quite adept at making new contacts due to his flamboyant personality and outgoing nature, he had many useful connections in the art world.


title: De Stijl

text: Around 1915, Van Doesburg started meeting the artists who would eventually become the founders of the journal. He first met Piet Mondrian at an exhibition in Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Mondrian, who had moved to Paris in 1912 (and there, changed his name from "Mondriaan"), had been visiting the Netherlands when war broke out. He could not return to Paris, and was staying in the artists' community of Laren, where he met Bart van der Leck and regularly saw M. H. J. Schoenmaekers. In 1915, Schoenmaekers published "Het nieuwe wereldbeeld" ("The New Image of the World"), followed in 1916 by "Beginselen der beeldende wiskunde" ("Principles of Plastic Mathematics"). These two publications would greatly influence Mondrian and other members of De Stijl.


title: De Stijl

text: Van Doesburg also knew J. J. P. Oud and the Hungarian artist Vilmos Huszár. In 1917 the cooperation of these artists, together with the poet Antony Kok, resulted in the founding of De Stijl. The young architect Gerrit Rietveld joined the group in 1918. At its height De Stijl had 100 members and the journal had a circulation of 300.


title: De Stijl

text: During those first few years, the group was still relatively homogeneous, although Van der Leck left in 1918 due to artistic differences of opinion. Manifestos were being published, signed by all members. The social and economic circumstances of the time formed an important source of inspiration for their theories, and their ideas about architecture were heavily influenced by Hendrik Petrus Berlage and Frank Lloyd Wright.