title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: The highest scoring individual player in the Open event was David Howell, playing for England on board three, who scored 7½ out of a possible 8 points (7/8, seven wins and one draw) with a performance rating of 2898. Individual gold medals were also awarded to Gukesh D of India-2 who scored 9/11 with a performance rating of 2867 on board one, Nihal Sarin also of India-2 who scored 7½/10 with a performance rating of 2774 on board two, Jahongir Vakhidov of Uzbekistan who scored 6½/8 with a performance rating of 2813 on board four, and Mateusz Bartel of Poland who played the tournament as a reserve player and scored 8½/10 points with a performance rating of 2778.


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: All board medals were given out according to performance ratings for players who played at least eight games at the tournament. David Howell on the third board had the best performance of all players in the tournament with a rating of 2898.


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: The women's tournament featured three of the ten top players according to the FIDE rating list published in July 2022: sisters Mariya Muzychuk and Anna Muzychuk plus Nana Dzagnidze.


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: Since China withdrew and Russia was suspended the other six players of the top ten were missing: Hou Yifan, highest rated woman player in the world; Ju Wenjun, current Women's World Champion and Tan Zhongyi from China, and Alexandra Kosteniuk, Alexandra Goryachkina and Kateryna Lagno from Russia. Between them, Russia and China had won the gold medal at nine of the eleven previous Olympiads.


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: Their absence made India the first seed, with an average rating of 2486. Ukraine, with Former Women's World Champion Anna Ushenina, were the second highest rated team averaging 2478, while Georgia were seeded third with 2475. Other medal contenders were expected to be Poland France, Azerbaijan, the United States and Germany.


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: Ukraine won the gold medal with 18 match points from seven wins and four draws, making them the only unbeaten team. It was their second title, having previously won in 2006. Silver medallists Georgia also finished with 18 match points but had a worse tie-breaker. The bronze medal went to the first India team, who were leading the tournament by two points after seven rounds, before losing to Poland in the ninth round and the United States in the eleventh round, finishing on 17 match points. The United States and Kazakhstan had the same score as India but due to weaker tie-breakers finished in fourth and fifth place, respectively.


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: Oliwia Kiołbasa had the highest individual score in the Women's event, playing for Poland on board three, who scored 9½/11 (nine wins, one draw and one loss) and a performance rating of 2565. Individual gold medals were also won by Pia Cramling of Sweden with 9½/11 and a rating performance of 2532 on board one, Nino Batsiashvili of Georgia with 7½/10 and a rating performance of 2504 on board two, Bat-Erdene Mungunzul of Mongolia who scored 7½/10 with a rating performance of 2460 on board four, and Jana Schneider of Germany who played as a reserve player before scoring 9/10 points with a rating performance of 2414.


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: All board medals were given out according to performance ratings for players who played at least eight games at the tournament. Oliwia Kiołbasa on the third board had the best performance of all players in the tournament with a rating of 2565.


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: The Nona Gaprindashvili Trophy, created by FIDE in 1997 and named after former women's World Champion Nona Gaprindashvili (1961–78), is given to the teams with the best combined performance in the Open and Women's tournaments (sum of their positions in both results tables). It was won by the first teams of India, with the United States being runners up.


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: The 93rd FIDE Congress was held during the Olympiad, from 31 July to 9 August, with its General Assembly on 7 and 8 August.


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: The FIDE presidential election took place on 7 August 2022. Four sets of candidates were approved by the FIDE Electoral Commission, each consisting of a joint ticket for president and deputy president:


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: Each ticket had to meet several requirements in order to be approved: it had to be submitted two months before the General Assembly; the candidates for president and deputy president could not be from the same member federation; and the ticket required endorsements from five member federations including one from each of the four FIDE continents, but no more than eight federations in total, with each federation being entitled to endorse only one ticket. A candidate ticket of Enyonam Sewa Fumey (president) and Stuart Fancy (deputy president) was rejected by FIDE because it had received support from member federations of Africa (Burkina Faso, Egypt, Togo and Senegal), Asia (Papua New Guinea) and America (Haiti) but not from Europe.


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: Inalbek Cheripov withdrew a few days before the election. On election day, each of the remaining candidates was allowed to speak to delegates for 15 minutes before the voting, in an order determined by drawing lots. Kouatly withdrew during his speech. Dvorkovich & Anand won in a landslide, winning 157 of the 179 federations who voted. Baryshpolets & Nielsen came second with 16 votes.


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: The official mascot was named "Thambi" (), a chess knight dressed in the traditional Tamil male attire vēṭṭi with a white shirt. He was depicted with folded hands, extending the Tamil greeting "Vanakkam". The mascot appeared on billboards, statues and posters. Commentators compared Thambi to 'Appu', the mascot for the 1982 Asian Games.


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: Buses in Chennai were branded with the promotional slogan "Namma Chess, Namma Pride" (trans. "Our Chess, Our Pride"). Buses in Coimbatore and Tiruchirappalli also carried marketing for the event. The mascot Thambi was put at the "Namma Chennai" selfie point on the East Coast Road; a contest was held for images with the mascot posted on social media, with prizes of free tickets to the opening ceremony. Billboards were installed at major bus stops, and the event was also promoted at Chennai Metro stations. A private school in Perambur erected a giant chessboard, with students playing the pieces and statues of the Thambi mascot, opened by P. K. Sekar Babu, Tamil Nadu's Minister of Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: India Post issued a postage stamp featuring the Olympiad. It was unveiled during a ceremony on International Chess Day.


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: Chennai's Napier Bridge was painted with a chessboard pattern, which divided opinion. While some commentators liked the artwork, others raised concerns that the pattern was disorienting, especially for people with anxiety disorder. The chessboard pattern also led to traffic congestion as people thronged to the bridge to take selfies and record videos for social media.


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: FIDE held an online event in May 2020 titled 'Checkmate Coronavirus'. This consisted of 2,762 tournaments held simultaneously over a 30-day period, played by 120,000 unique participants from over 140 countries. The various winners of the event were awarded masterclasses with current Grandmasters, free tickets to the Olympiad, and/or souvenirs and memorabilia.


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: Immediately prior to the Olympiad, on 24 July, a rapid chess tournament was held in Hall 1 and Hall 2, with 1,414 participants. All games from 707 boards were broadcast live online. The winner of the event was Indian grandmaster Vishnu Prasanna, who scored a perfect 9 points from a possible 9. First prize was and the total prize fund was .


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: The Olympiad was broadcast live on an official YouTube channel, with commentary by grandmasters Judit Polgár and Mihail Marin. In India, television broadcast was on the Doordarshan channel. Chess24 provided online streaming commentary by grandmasters Peter Leko and Peter Svidler. Chess.com streamed the event through their ChessTV, Twitch and YouTube channels. ChessBase India also streamed the event live on their YouTube channel.


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: During the 2010s, Russian international teams in multiple sports engaged in widespread doping (illegal use of performance enhancing drugs), with the complicit inaction of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency. An investigation by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) led to a November 2019 recommendation that Russia should be banned from hosting all major events for a period of four years. As part of their position that chess is a sport, FIDE is affiliated with WADA and implements drug testing at Chess Olympiads following WADA guidelines.


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: The Russian Chess Federation denied that WADA's recommendations applied to the Chess Olympiad. FIDE officially responded to WADA that the contracts for the two affected tournaments—Candidates Tournament 2020–2021 and the 44th Chess Olympiad—had already been signed and therefore they could not be moved. FIDE also argued that the events qualified for an exemption specified by WADA because they were the only valid bids to organise each event.


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: With the COVID-19 pandemic spreading around the world in early 2020, FIDE announced in March 2020 that the Chess Olympiad would be postponed. They planned to reschedule it in the summer of 2021 at the same host. In December 2020 with the pandemic still ongoing, FIDE formally cancelled the event and planned to reorganise it for 2022.


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: Even after a two-year delay, the pandemic still affected participation in the Olympiad. The Chinese team, which won gold medals in both events at the 2018 Chess Olympiad, withdrew due to the pandemic. Azerbaijan's Teimour Radjabov, the winner of the Chess World Cup 2019, did not play, due to the after-effects of a COVID-19 infection that he contracted after competing in the Candidates Tournament 2022.


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, with some troops entering via Belarus. Within days, FIDE announced that the Olympiad would no longer take place in Russia. In March 2022, FIDE followed a recommendation by the International Olympic Committee to suspend Russia and Belarus from participation in international tournaments, including the Olympiad. Although their teams were not allowed to compete, the Russian and Belarusian national federations were permitted to take part in the FIDE Congress, submit candidates and vote in the FIDE presidential election held during the Olympiad.


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: Many Russian chess players disapproved of the invasion. Some decided to leave the country, switch federations, or play under the FIDE flag instead of the Russian flag. Forty-four top Russian players signed an open letter addressed to Russian president Vladimir Putin, stating their opposition to the war. Signatories included Ian Nepomniachtchi, Alexandra Kosteniuk, Peter Svidler, Andrey Esipenko and Daniil Dubov. Dmitry Andreikin, Alexandr Predke and Vladimir Fedoseev, who all played in the FIDE Grand Prix 2022 held in February and March, did not return to Russia and moved to North Macedonia, Uzbekistan and Spain, respectively. Daniil Yuffa, Kirill Alekseenko and Nikita Vitiugov also moved to Spain, while Alexey Sarana stayed in Belgrade after participating in a tournament there. Alina Kashlinskaya transferred her affiliation to Poland, playing for them at the Olympiad.


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: Competitors representing Afghanistan used the flag used by the Taliban militant group, which took control of the country in 2021, instead of the flag of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan which was still officially recognised by FIDE. Images of the Taliban flag at the 2022 Chess Olympiad were widely circulated by Taliban officials and supporters on social media.


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, and the Kosovo Chess Federation has been a full member of FIDE since 2016. However, India does not recognise the nation, so the hosts banned the flag of Kosovo at the Olympiad. The Kosovo team were therefore forced to play under the FIDE flag.


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: The torch relay passed through parts of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, in the disputed region of Kashmir. The route stuck to locations administered by India as union territories, but those locations are also claimed by Pakistan (see Kashmir conflict). The Pakistan team had already arrived in India for the Olympiad. Nevertheless, the Pakistani federation withdrew from the event in protest, describing the torch route as "provocative".


title: 44th Chess Olympiad

text: A dispute over the financial management and governance at the Rwandan Chess Federation led to Rwanda's Ministry of Sport blocking the Rwandan team's participation in the Olympiad. The ministry and the country's Olympic committee have refused to recognise the chess federation since December 2021.


title: Argentina at the FIFA World Cup

text: This is a record of Argentina's results at the FIFA World Cup. Argentina won three World Cups: in 1978, 1986 and 2022. Argentina have also been runners up three times: in 1930, 1990 and 2014. In 18 World Cup tournaments, Argentina have 47 victories in 88 matches. The team was present in all but four of the World Cups, being behind only Brazil and Germany in number of appearances.


title: Argentina at the FIFA World Cup

text: The inaugural FIFA World Cup tournament culminated with Argentina facing hosts and current Olympic champions Uruguay. The match was turned twice: Argentina went into half-time with a 2–1 lead in spite of an early goal for Uruguay, but the hosts ultimately won 4–2. Guillermo Stábile, one of Argentina's scorers, became the tournament's top striker with 8 goals total.


title: Argentina at the FIFA World Cup

text: Argentina hosted the 1978 edition of the World Cup and reached the final. The Netherlands had already played the previous final in West Germany 1974 - and also lost to the hosts.


title: Argentina at the FIFA World Cup

text: Diego Maradona was 17 years old at this point and already a star in his home country, but did not make the squad as coach César Luis Menotti felt he was too inexperienced to handle the pressure of this major tournament. The playmaker position was instead filled by Mario Kempes, who ended up becoming the first Argentinian to win the Golden Ball in addition to being the tournament's top scorer with 6 goals.


title: Argentina at the FIFA World Cup

text: The Dutch side was missing a superstar of their own: Johan Cruyff did not join the 1978 World Cup squads due to the aftermath of a kidnapping attempt which occurred in 1977. He only disclosed this information 30 years later.


title: Argentina at the FIFA World Cup

text: The closely contested match was influenced by a hostile atmosphere and ended with the Dutch players refusing to attend the award ceremony after Argentina grabbed the title in extra time.


title: Argentina at the FIFA World Cup

text: Eight years after the victory on home soil, Argentina won the World Cup title for the second time. Diego Maradona was voted Best Player of the tournament after scoring five goals and assisting the decisive 3-2 by Jorge Burruchaga in the 84th minute of the final. The match was played in front of a record attendance of 114,600 people.


title: Argentina at the FIFA World Cup

text: In 1990, Argentina faced West Germany in a repeat of the 1986 edition. Pedro Monzón became the first player ever to be sent off in a World Cup final, but was later joined by teammate Gustavo Dezotti. The match was decided by a penalty kick in favour of Germany.


title: Argentina at the FIFA World Cup

text: In 2014, Argentina reached the final for the fifth time and for a third time had to face the German team, making it the most recurrent meeting for a final. In spite of a number of chances on both sides, regular time finished goalless. In the second half of extra time, substitute striker Mario Götze scored the decisive goal for Germany.


title: Argentina at the FIFA World Cup

text: Argentina opened up the scoring when Messi scored a penalty kick, and doubled their lead with a Di Maria goal in the 38th minute. France made two substitutions in the first half, but went into half-time trailing 0–2. Despite not having a shot until after the 70th minute, France were awarded a penalty as Randal Kolo Muani was brought down in the penalty area. Mbappé scored the penalty, and added a second goal less than two minutes later to equalise the scores. With the scores tied, the match went to extra time. Messi scored again for Argentina in the second extra time half. Mbappé was awarded a second penalty in the 115th minute after his initial shot hit the arm of Gonzalo Montiel. Mbappé scored his third goal, becoming the second player to score a hat-trick in the final of a World Cup. With the scores tied at 3–3, the match was completed by a penalty shootout. Argentina won the final after scoring all of their penalties, winning 4–2.


title: Argentina at the FIFA World Cup

text: Teams in bold denote world cup winners, teams in "italics" show teams which played its first match ever in a World Cup against Argentina.<br>


title: Argentina at the FIFA World Cup

text: Teams with a * mark no longer exist. East Germany was annexed to Germany. Soviet Union now plays as Russia.<br>


title: Argentina at the FIFA World Cup

text: Through Argentinian team history, several coaches had trained it with different football styles from offensive to defensive tactics. There are two predominant 'football schools' about world champions coaches César Menotti who propagates possession and well-look play and Carlos Bilardo who prioritize results and tactical order. These head coaches divides Argentine fans kindly. Other managers such as Marcelo Bielsa has got his own football style. In another way this list shows records in World Cups and in qualifying stages excluding friendlies.


title: Argentina at the FIFA World Cup

text: FIFA delegates regional qualification and other organization affairs to continental conferences, so it divides into six differents of them grouped by geographical location. Argentina plays in CONMEBOL conference in South America. Due to World Cup rules that two teams of same confederation can not play in the same group in first round except for UEFA, it commonly faces teams which plays outside its continent most recently from Africa and Asia. Argentine national has never played versus an Oceanian (OFC) squad.


title: Argentina at the FIFA World Cup

text: 'Albiceleste' has played against first-world-cup teams more than other, doing so 17 times, 7 of them being the first World Cup match ever. This list shows records versus those selections including all-debutants 1930 edition. Curiously, Argentina's debut was versus France which previously had played before.


title: Argentina at the FIFA World Cup

text: Sweden, Bulgaria, Greece, Japan, Ivory Coast, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Iceland played its first time against Argentina.<br>France, Mexico, Chile, United States, Uruguay, Northern Ireland, Haiti, East Germany, Jamaica and Croatia played in its first world cup but after first game.


title: Argentina at the FIFA World Cup

text: Lionel Messi's total of 26 matches is a record for the side and the most for a player at the FIFA World Cup.


title: Argentina at the FIFA World Cup

text: Argentina's game versus West Germany in 1958 featured a yellow jersey instead of the traditional light blue and white colors or blue as alternate. This was because both teams wore white jerseys, creating confusion. As the South American side forgot to bring an alternate one, they decided to borrow jerseys from local team club Malmö. Germany won 3–1.


title: Argentina at the FIFA World Cup

text: In the 1978 France - Hungary match something similar occurred. Both teams arrived to the match with white jerseys, so France was forced to borrow jerseys from Mar del Plata's local club Kimberley. France wore striped green and white keeping the traditional blue shorts and red socks. France won 3–1.


title: Argentina at the FIFA World Cup

text: The stadium José María Minella is the southernmost World Cup venue located at . Including France vs. Hungary, several matches of the 1978 World Cup were played in this stadium. Mar del Plata is in the south of Buenos Aires Province.


title: Argentina at the FIFA World Cup

text: In addition, Argentina played against Nigeria at Krestovsky Stadium, Saint Petersburg in 2018 making it the northernmost game along other six matches. The Russian city is at .


title: Argentina at the FIFA World Cup

text: As a major CONMEBOL member, Argentina has been represented by match officials in nearly every tournament. In 2006, Horacio Elizondo refereed the final between France and Italy, where he sent off Zinedine Zidane after a headbutt to an opponent. In 2018, Néstor Pitana did it when France played versus Croatia. They are also the only two who refereed the opening game in the same tournament.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr (1 July 1914 – 4 October 1982) was the fourth president of Iraq, from 17 July 1968 to 16 July 1979. He was a leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party and later the Baghdad-based Ba'ath Party and its regional organisation Ba'ath Party – Iraq Region (the Ba'ath Party's Iraqi branch), which espoused Ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: Al-Bakr first rose to prominence after the 14 July Revolution, which overthrew the monarchy. In the newly established government, he was involved in improving Iraqi–Soviet relations. In 1959 al-Bakr was forced to resign from the Iraqi military; the then Iraqi government accused him of anti-government activities. Following his forced retirement, he became the chairman of the Ba'ath Party's Iraqi branch's Military Bureau. Through this office he recruited members to the Ba'athist cause through patronage and cronyism. Prime Minister Abd al-Karim Qasim was overthrown in the Ramadan (8 February) Revolution; al-Bakr was appointed Prime Minister, and later, Vice President of Iraq in a Ba'ath-Nasserist coalition government. The government lasted for less than a year, and was ousted in November 1963.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: Al-Bakr and the party then pursued underground activities and became vocal critics of the government. During this period, al-Bakr was elected the Ba'ath Party's Iraqi branch's Secretary General (the head), and appointed his cousin, Saddam Hussein, the party cell's deputy leader. Al-Bakr and the Ba'ath Party regained power in the coup of 1968, later called the 17 July Revolution. In the coup's aftermath, he was elected the chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council and the president; he was later appointed the prime minister. Saddam, the Ba'ath Party's deputy, became the deputy chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council and vice president, and was responsible for Iraq's security services.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: Under al-Bakr's rule, Iraq grew economically due to high international oil prices, which strengthened its position in the Arab world and increased Iraqis' standard of living. Land reforms were introduced, and wealth was distributed more equally. A sort of socialist economy was established in the late 1970s under Saddam's direction. Al-Bakr gradually lost power to Saddam in the 1970s, as the latter strengthened his position within the party and the state through security services. In 1979, al-Bakr resigned from all public offices for "health reasons". He died in 1982 of unreported causes.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: Al-Bakr was born 1 July 1914 in Tikrit, Ottoman Iraq. He belonged to the Abu Bakr clan of the al-Bejat branch of the Nasir tribe. His father Hassan Bakr Omar passed away in 1938. That same year he entered the Iraqi Military Academy after spending six years as a primary-school teacher. During his early military career, he took part in the Rashid Ali al-Gaylani's failed revolt against the British in 1941, and was imprisoned and expelled from the army. After 15 years of trying to rehabilitate himself al-Bakr was reinstated in the Iraqi Army in 1956, the same year he became a member of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party's Iraqi branch. In 1957, he was promoted to brigadier. Around this time al-Bakr got into contact with the Free Officers and Civilians Movement.<ref name="Tucker, Spencer 2010 https://books.google.com/books?id=U05OvsOPeKMC&pg=PA191 191"></ref> He helped bring down the Hashemite Monarchy and bring Abd al-Karim Qasim to power during the 14 July Revolution. He had a short stint in the public limelight during Qasim's rule, and withdrew Iraq from the Baghdad Pact and was a key player in improving Iraq's bilateral relations with the Soviet Union. In 1959, a year following the coup, al-Bakr was again forced to retire from the military under allegations that he led an anti-government rebellion in Mosul by officers who favoured closer ties with the United Arab Republic. During this period he became a member of the Ba'ath Party. Even so, al-Bakr retained his prominence within the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party's Iraqi branch.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: In the late 1950s, when Saddam became a member of the Ba'ath Party, the two established a bond. Their future close relationship became possible because of Saddam's uncle, Khairallah Talfah. At the very beginning, Saddam was only a Ba'ath Party member, not a party activist.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: Because of Qasim's government's repressive policy towards the opposition, Ali Salih al-Sa'di, Secretary (leader) of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party's Iraqi branch, reorganised the party's rank and file, and on 24 December 1962 launched a nationwide protest against Qasim's government. The government's treatment of dissent did not soften and by 1963 several leading Iraqi Ba'athists had travelled to Beirut to plan a coup against Qasim. The plan was simple: to build a support network in the military. A Military Bureau was established to set these plans in motion. Al-Bakr was elected its chairman. The bureau managed to recruit increasing numbers of officers, most often through personal attachments to certain people; for instance, some officers attached themselves to the bureau because of their relationship with al-Bakr. Al-Bakr led the 1963 Iraqi coup d'état, later called the Ramadan Revolution, and overthrew Qasim's government.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: In the coup's aftermath, Abdul Salam Arif, an independent, was installed as President, al-Bakr was installed as Prime Minister and Vice President, al-Sadi was chosen as Deputy Prime Minister, and Minister of Interior and Tahir Yahya was chosen as Chief of Staff. Soon after taking power, two factions were established; the radicals, mostly military men, who wished for socialist policies, and the moderates, led by Talib Shabib, who wanted to broaden the government's traditional base of support by including non-Ba'athists in government. Al-Bakr was a moderate and spent much of his time trying to seeks a compromise between the two factions, but to no avail.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: To solve the ideological differences between the party factions, al-Bakr called a meeting of the National Command, the leading organ of the Ba'ath Party. The meeting did not go as al-Bakr planned, and Michel Aflaq, the Secretary General of the National Command (the Ba'ath Party leader), suggested that the National Command should take over the Iraqi Ba'ath Party cell. The meeting led Arif, the President, to lead the November 1963 Iraqi coup d'état.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: Following his and the party's ouster, al-Bakr was jailed. The November coup had the effect of strengthening al-Bakr's position within the party as well as that of his close associates. After a couple of years, al-Bakr was elected as the Iraqi branch's Secretary General of the Regional Command. Simultaneously with al-Bakr's rise to power, Saddam's position within the party also strengthened. During this time period, Saddam became one of al-Bakr's closest associates, and he was trusted with important tasks. Saddam was tasked with establishing the party's security apparatus. Al-Bakr consolidated his hold on the Ba'ath Party's Iraqi branch by appointing supporters to important offices. By appointing fellow Tikritis and by appointing family members to top offices, al-Bakr was ensuing a policy of nepotism.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: Ali Salih al-Sadi, the Secretary General of the Iraqi branch's Regional Command, was expelled from the party in 1964, and al-Bakr succeeded him in office. The remaining members of the Military Bureau were given high offices within the Regional Command. The Ba'ath Party tried unsuccessfully to oust the Arif government in 1964. In the failed coup's aftermath, both al-Bakr and Saddam, were sentenced to jail for two years. In 1966, when Saddam was released from prison, al-Bakr appointed him Deputy Secretary of the Regional Command. Saddam, who would prove to be a skilled organiser, revitalised the party. In 1967, al-Bakr called for the establishment of a national unity government between ba'athist and nasserist forces. Al-Bakr's call for a unity government should be taken with a grain of salt; by this time the Military Bureau and the Regional Command were already planning a coup to oust the government.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: Following the 1966 Syrian coup d'état against the leadership of Michel Aflaq, the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party split in two; a Damascus-based (Syrian-led) Ba'ath Party and a Baghdad-based (Iraqi-led) Ba'ath Party. In February 1968, the Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party convened the Ninth National Congress and elected Aflaq as the Secretary General of the National Command of the Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party. This decision worsened the already bad relations with the Syrian-led Ba'ath Party. Al-Bakr was elected to the National Command as a member at the Ninth National Congress.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: The coup of 1968, later referred to as the 17 July Revolution, brought al-Bakr and the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party to power in Iraq. Saddam and Salah Omar al-Ali led the coup on the ground, but it was al-Bakr who masterminded it. From his military headquarters, al-Bakr contacted Abdul Rahman Arif, the President, and asked him to surrender. Arif asked for time to consider; he wanted to find out if he had any loyal troops left. He phoned al-Bakr back later that evening and surrendered. Al-Bakr, in return, guaranteed his safety. Later, when the situation was secure, the Ba'ath Party announced it had taken power. Before taking power, the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party tried successfully to recruit military officers for the cause; some, such as Hardan al-Tikriti were already Ba'ath Party members, others, such as Abd ar-Razzaq an-Naif, the deputy head of the military intelligence and Ibrahim Daud, the commander of the Republican Guard, were not members.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: Immediately after the coup, a power struggle broke out between Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party led by al-Bakr and the military wing, led predominantly by an-Naif and Daud. an-Naif and Daud had been appointed Prime Minister and Minister of Defence respectively, while al-Bakr was appointed President and Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, which had been established the morning after the coup and had become the highest executive and legislative branch of government. While an-Naif and Daud, according to Con Coughlin, should have had the upper hand because of their support within the military, they lost the power struggle to al-Bakr due to his political skills and the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party's organisational structure. An-Naif was removed from office on 30 July 1968, and Daud lost his position shortly after. They were both exiled. Their removal was later referred to by the government as the "correctional coup". Al-Bakr consolidated his position in government by appointing himself Prime Minister and by appointing his close associate, Hardan al-Tikriti, as Minister of Defence in the aftermath of the "corrective coup".


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: Despite al-Bakr's and the Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party's radical rhetoric, their economic policies were neither radical nor very socialist. Al-Bakr's policy can be divided into two parts: the first being a largely populist economic policy, and the second, an economic policy based on cronyism, patronage and nepotism. By the late-1970s, Saddam had "de facto" control over Iraq's economic development by being chairman of the most important economic committees. A shift happened under Saddam's command; a socialist economy, according to Con Coughlin, with government ownership of natural resources and the means of production was established. Saddam also started a diversification programme to ensure that Iraq would not be dependent on its oil revenues in the future. Even before the ba'ath takeover, The Iraqi government set economic growth target through economic planning. The Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), the highest legislative and executive organ of party and state, implemented and decided the goals of the plan. It was the political elite, and not the economic elite, which decided the content of an economic plan; before ba'ath took power it was the other way around. The RCC convened every year to set up a budget for each year to come.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: From the very beginning, al-Bakr's handling of Iraqi agriculture was handled with a populist touch. For instance, in 1969 the government cancelled all compensation for sequestered lands. This decree relieved the beneficiaries of the reform by removing the financial burden. Investments in agriculture increased, and by May 1970 the government had introduced a new land reform. This land reform tried to revitalise Iraqi agriculture by resolving some of the issues of the previous land reforms, such as by paying more attention to the relationship to the type of land and irrigation system, and limits on how much land could be owned. Co-operatives were established, and cultivators were obliged to join them if they wanted to benefit from government subsidies and investments. At around this time, the government also established several collective farms to placate the party's left-wing faction; the establishment of collective farms soon halted. Other measures were also introduced which benefited the landholding peasants, but these reforms were never able to counter the decline in agricultural production. Because of this, and the high population growth at the time, Iraq became a net importer of food grains; imports of food grain increased twelvefold from the early 1960s.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: The introduction of subsidies and the removal of financial burdens from the peasantry were populist, but were also part of al-Bakr's plan of creating a patrimonial system with himself at the top. This system gave the economic levers of powers to the political elite, which it used to confiscate the properties of its political opponents. The continued sequestration of land increased the strength of the patrimonial system; members of the political elite could bestow lands to people to increase the support for the government. The government could do this because the government was Iraq's biggest landowner. The co-operatives which had been established provided a means of social control through their regulation. Corruption also proved to be a problem, and the acquisition of land of people close to the political leadership was repeated on a scale not seen since the time of the monarchy. This patrimonial system also favoured those who already owned land; roughly one-third of agricultural land was owned by the estimated 3 percent of landowners. Instead of confiscating their property, and evening out the distribution of land, the government kept the system in place.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: By the mid-to-late 1970s, the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party's land reform was beginning to have an effect. By 1976, 71 percent of state-owned land was given 222,000 new farmers. These farmers were also given up-to-date agricultural equipment. Co-operatives increased from a low 473 in 1968 to 1,852 in 1976.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: The government, which was still embroiled in a conflict with the Iraqi Petroleum Company (IPC), a private enterprise, on Law 80 of 1961. Iraq was later able to negotiate a treaty with the Soviet Union, whereby the later built an oil pipeline to an oil refinery and oil export facility at al-Faw, in the Persian Gulf, to improve Iraq's oil producing capabilities. This agreement would signal the end of the IPC's dominance over Iraq's oil resources; it also reinforced al-Bakr's belief that the company needed to be nationalised. Negotiations between the Iraqi government and the IPC began in December 1971 and ended in March 1972 when the government was given shares in the IPC's equity. However, relations soon soured; the IPC cut its own production at the Kirkuk Field by half. The government saw this as proof of the company's arrogance, and the government also began to see the danger of a private company controlling such a vital source of the government's revenues. The IPC was nationalised in June 1972.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: The nationalisation of the IPC proved to be the last important element of foreign control over Iraq's control, and Iraq as a whole. Austerity measures were introduced in anticipation of the loss of revenue. Even so, the nationalisation proved highly popular with the people. In addition, al-Bakr and Saddam had taken steps to make the anticipated loss less severe on the people and the economy; Saddam visited Moscow and negotiated a treaty whereby the Soviet Union would buy some of Iraq's oil, and second, the government did not nationalise the IPC subsidiaries and gave French members "special treatment". These French members bought nearly a quarter of Iraq's oil production. This policy proved highly successful, and there was a massive increase in the price of oil in the aftermath of the 1973 Arab–Israeli War. The oil revenues strengthened the political elite's patrimonial system; the means of patronage exceeded "anything available to" previous rulers.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: After the nationalisation of the IPC, Iraq's oil revenue increased from 219 million ID in 1972 1.7 billion ID in 1974 to 3.7 billion ID in 1978 to 8.9 billion ID in 1980. In short, Iraq increased its oil revenue by over 40 times in less than a decade. With the success of the Iranian revolution, Iraq became the second largest oil exporter in the world. The increase in oil export rejuvenated the country's economy; nearly all economic indexes increased to unprecedented levels. From 1970 to 1980 Iraq's economy grew by 11.7 percent. The growth rates of the 1970s were not sustainable; economic growth depended on high oil prices and Iraq's oil exporting capabilities, and once oil was cut out of the picture, Iraq's growth would decrease dramatically.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: On taking power, the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party promised wealth distribution and a more equal society; the government's effort to implement this was hampered by the government's lack of revenue. The government was able to fulfill this promise with the increase in oil revenues in the 1970s. Immediately after taking power, Al-Bakr introduced subsidies on basic commodities, and introduced tax relief and a limited social welfare programme. These programmes were not properly developed until the mid-1970s, when increasing oil revenue allowed the government to invest more in such areas. According to Con Coughlin, the author of "Saddam: His Rise and Fall", one of the Ba'ath Party's main goals was the elimination of both the Iraqi upper and middle classes. The standard of living increased due to the nationalisation of the IPC. The country's electricity grid was expanded, and for the first time in Iraq's history, it reached the countryside.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: Under Bakr conflicts intensified between the government and the Kurds. In early 1974 heavy fighting erupted in northern Iraq between government forces and Kurdish nationalists, who rejected as inadequate a new Kurdish autonomy law based on a 1970 agreement. The Kurds, led by Mustafa al-Barzani, received arms and support from Iran. Around this same time he founded the National Progressive Front in an effort to broaden the support base for his government.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: In July 1978 a decree was passed which made all non-Ba'thist political activity illegal and membership of any other political party punishable by death for all those who were members or former members of the Armed Forces.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: His government initially supported closer ties with Nasser, and under his rule Iraq almost joined the United Arab Republic. The flag of Iraq was modified in preparation for this goal. However, the relationship with Nasser deteriorated and the Iraqi media led a campaign to counteract and reverse the wide Iraqi street support of Nasser with some regular comedy based radio shows famously known as "G'ood's program". The program was suddenly terminated when Nasser died.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: Bakr's government also strengthened Iraq's ties with the Soviet Union. On 9 April 1972, Iraq and the Soviet Union signed a treaty of friendship. The two countries agreed to cooperate in political, economic, and military affairs. The Soviet Union also agreed to supply Iraq with arms.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: According to historian Charles R. H. Tripp, the Ba'athist coup of 1968 upset "the US-sponsored security system established as part of the Cold War in the Middle East. It appeared that any enemy of the Baghdad government was a potential ally of the United States." From 1973 to 1975, the Central Intelligence Agency colluded with Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran to finance and arm Kurdish rebels in the Second Iraqi–Kurdish War in an attempt to weaken al-Bakr. When Iran and Iraq signed the Algiers Agreement in 1975, the support ceased.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: Al-Bakr appointed Saddam Hussein as Vice President upon attaining power in 1968. In 1976, Saddam (who had never served in the armed forces) took the title of general in the Ba'ath party's Popular Army and rapidly became the strongman of the government. As the weak and elderly al-Bakr became unable to execute his duties, Saddam took on an increasingly prominent role as the face of the government both internally and externally, eventually becoming de facto leader of Iraq some years before he formally became president.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: On 16 July 1979, he stepped down, ostensibly on health grounds, and Saddam assumed the presidency in a move that was widely regarded as a formality. It is commonly believed, based on accounts of witnesses, that Saddam forced the president to step down under threat of being removed by force. Immediately thereafter, Saddam had several top members of the Ba'ath party arrested and later executed under the allegations of espionage.


title: Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr

text: Al-Bakr died in October 1982 of unreported causes. He was given a state funeral, attended by Michel Aflaq (father of the Ba'athist ideology), who was reported to have led his funeral procession, and King Hussein of Jordan. He was buried in Baghdad's Al Karkh cemetery.


title: Cyrene, Libya

text: Cyrene ( ) or Kyrene ( ; , ), was an ancient Greek and later Roman city near present-day Shahhat, Libya. It was the oldest and most important of the five Greek cities, known as the pentapoleis, in the region. It gave eastern Libya the classical name "Cyrenaica" that it has retained to modern times. Located nearby is the ancient Necropolis of Cyrene. The traditional founder of the city was Battus the Lacedemonian, though the exact relationship between the fledgling city and other cities has led historians to question that narrative. Particularly, the idea that Thera was the sole "mother city" is disputed; and the relationship with other cities, such as Sparta and Samnium merchants, is unclear.


title: Cyrene, Libya

text: Cyrene lies in a lush valley in the Jebel Akhdar uplands. The city was named after a spring, Kyre, which the Greeks consecrated to Apollo. It became the seat of the Cyrenaics, a famous school of philosophy in the fourth century BC, founded by Aristippus, a disciple of Socrates.


title: Cyrene, Libya

text: Grinus, son of Aesanius a descendant of Theras, and king of the island of Thera, had visited the oracle of Delphi, which advised him to found a new city in Libya.


title: Cyrene, Libya

text: Many years passed without the advice being taken. Thera succumbed to a horrific drought, and all of the crops and trees had perished. The Therans again sent to Delphi and were reminded that the oracle had said several years before to settle in the country of Libya, but this time she specifically said to found a settlement in the land of Cyrenaica.


title: Cyrene, Libya

text: Not knowing how to get to Libya, they sent a messenger to Crete to find someone to lead them on their journey. They found a dealer in purple dye named Corobius. He had once traveled to an island near Libya called Platea [or Plataea, modern Jazirat Barda`ah]. Grinus and Corobius sailed to Platea and left Corobius there with months of supplies. Grinus returned to Thera to collect men to settle the new colony. Following two years of little success, they returned to Delphi, where the oracle repeated her advice to move directly to Libya rather than the island. So they moved to a place called Aziris. They settled there for six years, and were very successful. Then they were persuaded by Libyans to move further inland, to the location that is now Cyrene. Battus, the king of that time, reigned for 40 years, until he died, and his son, Arcesilaus, reigned for 16 years. The Oracle told the third king, another Battus, to bring Greek citizens to the settlement, and that expansion occupied much surrounding land previously owned by the Libyans.


title: Cyrene, Libya

text: According to Greek tradition, Cyrene was founded in 631 BC as a settlement of Greeks from the island of Thera, traditionally led by Battus I, at a site from its associated port, Apollonia (Marsa Sousa). Traditional details concerning the founding of the city are contained in Herodotus' "Histories" IV. Cyrene promptly became the chief town of Libya and established commercial relations with all the Greek cities, reaching the height of its prosperity under its own kings in the 5th century BC. Soon after 460 BC it became a republic. In 413 BC, during the Peloponnesian War, Cyrene supplied Spartan forces with two triremes and pilots. After the death of Alexander the Great (323 BC), the Cyrenian republic became subject to the Ptolemaic dynasty.


title: Cyrene, Libya

text: Ophellas, the general who occupied the city in the name of Ptolemy I Soter, ruled the city almost independently until his death, when Ptolemy's son-in-law Magas became its governor. In 276 BC Magas crowned himself king and declared "de facto" independence, marrying the daughter of the Seleucid emperor and forming an alliance with him in order to invade the Ptolemaic Kingdom.


title: Cyrene, Libya

text: The invasion was unsuccessful, and in 250 BC, after Magas' death, Cyrenaica became part of the Ptolemaic empire controlled from Alexandria. It became Roman territory in 96 BC when Ptolemy Apion bequeathed Cyrenaica to Rome. In 74 BC the territory was formally transformed into a Roman province.


title: Cyrene, Libya

text: In 74 BC Cyrene was created a Roman province; but, whereas under the Ptolemies the Jewish inhabitants had enjoyed equal rights, they were allegedly increasingly oppressed by the now autonomous and much larger Greek population. Tensions came to a head in the insurrection of the Jews of Cyrene under Vespasian (73 AD, the First Jewish–Roman War). This supposedly included many "Sicari" (lit. "dagger men"). This precipitated further Jewish insurrection under Trajan (117 AD, the Kitos War). This revolt was quelled by Marcius Turbo, but not before huge numbers of civilians had been brutally massacred by the Jewish rebels. According to Eusebius of Caesarea, the Jewish rebellion left Libya depopulated to such an extent that a few years later new colonies had to be established there by the emperor Hadrian to maintain the viability of continued settlement.


title: Cyrene, Libya

text: Plutarch in his work "De mulierum virtutibus" ("On the Virtues of Women") describes how the tyrant of Cyrene, Nicocrates, was deposed by his wife Aretaphila of Cyrene around the year 50 BC


title: Cyrene, Libya

text: The famous "Venus of Cyrene", a headless marble statue representing the goddess Venus, a Roman copy of a Greek original, was discovered by Italian soldiers here in 1913. It was transported to Rome, where it remained until 2008, when it was returned to Libya. A large number of Roman sculptures and inscriptions were excavated at Cyrene by Captain Robert Murdoch Smith and Commander Edwin A. Porcher during the mid nineteenth century and can now be seen in the British Museum. They include the Apollo of Cyrene and a unique bronze head of an African man.


title: Cyrene, Libya

text: Cyrene is referred to in the deuterocanonical book 2 Maccabees. The book of 2 Maccabees itself is said by its author to be an abridgment of a five-volume work by a Hellenized Jew by the name of Jason of Cyrene who lived around 100 BC.


title: Cyrene, Libya

text: Cyrene is also mentioned in the New Testament. A Cyrenian named Simon carried the cross of Christ (Mark 15:21 and parallels). In Acts, 2:10 describes Jews from Cyrene hearing the disciples speaking in their own language in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost; 6:9 mentions some Cyrenian Jews who disputed with a disciple named Stephen; 11:20 tells of Jewish Christians originally from Cyrene who (along with believers from Cyprus) first preached the Gospel to non-Jews; 13:1 names Lucius of Cyrene as one of several to whom the Holy Spirit spoke, instructing them to appoint Barnabas and Saul (later Paul) for missionary service.


title: Cyrene, Libya

text: According to the tradition of the Coptic Orthodox Church, its founder, Saint Mark was a native of Cyrene and ordained the first bishop of Cyrene. The Roman Martyrology mentions under 4 July a tradition that in the persecution of Diocletian a bishop Theodorus of Cyrene was scourged and had his tongue cut out. Earlier editions of the Martyrology mentioned what may be the same person also under 26 March. Letter 67 of Synesius tells of an irregular episcopal ordination carried out by a bishop Philo of Cyrene, which was condoned by Athanasius. The same letter mentions that a nephew of this Philo, who bore the same name, also became bishop of Cyrene. Although Cyrene was by then ruined, a bishop of Cyrene name Rufus attended the Robber Council of Ephesus in 449. And there was still a bishop of Cyrene, named Leontius, at the time of Greek Patriarch Eulogius of Alexandria (580–607).


title: Cyrene, Libya

text: No longer a residential bishopric, Cyrene is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see. The Greek Orthodox Church has also treated it as a titular see.


title: Cyrene, Libya

text: Cyrene's chief local export through much of its early history was the medicinal herb silphium, used as an abortifacient; the herb was pictured on most Cyrenian coins. Silphium was in such demand that it was harvested to extinction. This, in conjunction with commercial competition from Carthage and Alexandria, resulted in a reduction in the city's trade. Cyrene, with its port of Apollonia (Marsa Susa), remained an important urban center until the earthquake of 262, which damaged the Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone in Cyrene. After the disaster, the emperor Claudius Gothicus restored Cyrene, naming it "Claudiopolis", but the restorations were poor and precarious. Natural catastrophes and a profound economic decline dictated its death, and in 365 another particularly devastating earthquake destroyed its already meager hopes of recovery. Ammianus Marcellinus described it in the 4th century as a deserted city, and Synesius, a native of Cyrene, described it in the following century as a vast ruin at the mercy of the nomads. Ultimately, the city fell under Arab conquest in 643, by which time little was left of the opulent Roman cities of Northern Africa.


title: Cyrene, Libya

text: Cyrene contributed to the intellectual life of the Greeks, through renowned philosophers and mathematicians. The School of Cyrene, known as the Cyrenaics, developed here as a minor Socratic school founded by Aristippus (perhaps the friend of Socrates, though according to some accounts a grandson of Aristippus with the same name). French Neo-Epicurean philosopher Michel Onfray has called Cyrene "a philosophical Atlantis" thanks to its huge importance in the birth and initial development of the ethics of pleasure.


title: Cyrene, Libya

text: Cyrene was the birthplace of Eratosthenes, who later went to Alexandria. Statues of philosophers, poets, and The Nine Muses, and a bust of Demosthenes were found in Cyrene.


title: Cyrene, Libya

text: Others included Aristippus successor and daughter Arete, Callimachus, Carneades, Ptolemais of Cyrene, and Synesius, a bishop of Ptolemais in the 4th century AD.


title: Cyrene, Libya

text: Cyrene is now an archeological site near the village of Shahhat east of Bayda. One of its more significant features is the temple of Apollo, which was originally constructed as early as 7th century BC. Other ancient structures include a temple to Demeter and a partially unexcavated temple to Zeus. There is a large necropolis approximately 10 km between Cyrene and its ancient port of Apollonia. The Temple of Zeus, originally built in the 6th century BC, has been destroyed and rebuilt many times, being rebuilt in the 2nd century AD after the Jewish revolt in 115 AD and damaged during earthquakes in the 4th century AD. Since 1982, it has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.


title: Cyrene, Libya

text: In 2005, Italian archaeologists from the University of Urbino discovered 76 intact Roman statues at Cyrene from the 2nd century AD. The statues remained undiscovered for so long because "during the earthquake of 375 AD, a supporting wall of the temple fell on its side, burying all the statues. They remained hidden under stone, rubble and earth for 1,630 years. The other walls sheltered the statues, so we were able to recover all the pieces, even works that had been broken."


title: Cyrene, Libya

text: Beginning in 2006, the Global Heritage Fund, in partnership with the Second University of Naples (SUN, Italy), the Libyan Department of Antiquities, and the Libyan Ministry of Culture, has worked to preserve the ancient site through a combination of holistic conservation practices and training of local skilled and unskilled labor. Apart from conducting ongoing emergency conservation on a theater inside the Sanctuary of Apollo through the process of anastylosis, the GHF-led team is developing a comprehensive master site management plan.


title: Cyrene, Libya

text: In 2007 Muammar Gaddafi's son planned safeguarding Libya's archaeological sites and preventing over-development of Mediterranean coastlines.


title: Cyrene, Libya

text: In May 2011, a number of objects excavated from Cyrene in 1917 and held in the vault of the National Commercial Bank in Benghazi were stolen. Looters tunnelled into the vault and broke into two safes that held the artefacts, which were part of the so-called "Benghazi Treasure". The whereabouts of these objects are currently unknown.


title: Relational model

text: The relational model (RM) is an approach to managing data using a structure and language consistent with first-order predicate logic, first described in 1969 by English computer scientist Edgar F. Codd, where all data is represented in terms of tuples, grouped into relations. A database organized in terms of the relational model is a relational database.


title: Relational model

text: The purpose of the relational model is to provide a declarative method for specifying data and queries: users directly state what information the database contains and what information they want from it, and let the database management system software take care of describing data structures for storing the data and retrieval procedures for answering queries.


title: Relational model

text: Most relational databases use the SQL data definition and query language; these systems implement what can be regarded as an engineering approximation to the relational model. A "table" in a SQL database schema corresponds to a predicate variable; the contents of a table to a relation; key constraints, other constraints, and SQL queries correspond to predicates. However, SQL databases deviate from the relational model in many details, and Codd fiercely argued against deviations that compromise the original principles.


title: Relational model

text: The central idea of a relational model is to describe a database as a collection of predicates over a finite set of predicate variables, describing constraints on the possible values and combinations of values. The content of the database at any given time is a finite (logical) model of the database, i.e. a set of relations, one per predicate variable, such that all predicates are satisfied. A request for information from the database (a database query) is also a predicate.


title: Relational model

text: Other models include the hierarchical model and network model. Some systems using these older architectures are still in use today in data centers with high data volume needs, or where existing systems are so complex and abstract that it would be cost-prohibitive to migrate to systems employing the relational model. Also of note are newer object-oriented databases.


title: Relational model

text: Several attempts have been made to produce a true implementation of the relational database model as originally defined by Codd and explained by Date, Darwen and others, but none have popular successes so far. , Rel is one of the more recent attempts to do this.


title: Relational model

text: The relational model was the first database model to be described in formal mathematical terms. Hierarchical and network databases existed before relational databases, but their specifications were relatively informal. After the relational model was defined, there were many attempts to compare and contrast the different models, and this led to the emergence of more rigorous descriptions of the earlier models; though the procedural nature of the data manipulation interfaces for hierarchical and network databases limited the scope for formalization.


title: Relational model

text: Structural database analytics employing relational modality protocols frequently employ data sequence differentials to maintain hierarchical architecture designations with incorporation of new input. These systems are functionally similar in concept to alternative relay algorithms, which form the foundation of cloud database infrastructure.


title: Relational model

text: The relational model was developed by Edgar F. Codd as a general model of data, and subsequently promoted by Chris Date and Hugh Darwen among others. In their 1995 "The Third Manifesto", Date and Darwen try to demonstrate how the relational model can accommodate certain "desired" object-oriented features.


title: Relational model

text: Some years after publication of his 1970 model, Codd proposed a three-valued logic (True, False, Missing/NULL) version of it to deal with missing information, and in his "The Relational Model for Database Management Version 2" (1990) he went a step further with a four-valued logic (True, False, Missing but Applicable, Missing but Inapplicable) version. These have never been implemented, presumably because of their inherent complexity. SQL's NULL construct was intended to be part of a three-valued logic system, but fell short of that due to logical errors in the standard and in its implementations.


title: Relational model

text: The fundamental assumption behind a relational model is that all data is represented as mathematical "n"-ary relations, an "n"-ary relation being a subset of the Cartesian product of "n" domains. In the mathematical model, reasoning about such data is done in two-valued predicate logic, meaning there are two possible evaluations for each proposition: either "true" or "false" (and in particular no third value such as "unknown", or "not applicable", either of which are often associated with the concept of NULL). Data are operated upon by means of a relational calculus or relational algebra, these being equivalent in expressive power.


title: Relational model

text: The relational model of data permits the database designer to create a consistent, logical representation of information. Consistency is achieved by including declared constraints in the database design, which is usually referred to as the "logical schema". The theory includes a process of database normalization whereby a design with certain desirable properties can be selected from a set of logically equivalent alternatives. The access plans and other implementation and operation details are handled by the DBMS engine, and are not reflected in the logical model. This contrasts with common practice for SQL DBMSs in which performance tuning often requires changes to the logical model.


title: Relational model

text: The basic relational building block is the domain or data type, usually abbreviated nowadays to type. A "tuple" is an unordered set of attribute values. An attribute is an unordered pair of attribute name and type name. An attribute value is a specific valid value for the type of the attribute. This can be either a scalar value or a more complex type.


title: Relational model

text: A relation consists of a heading and a body. A heading is a set of attributes. A body (of an "n"-ary relation) is a set of "n"-tuples. The heading of the relation is also the heading of each of its tuples.


title: Relational model

text: A relation is defined as a set of "n"-tuples. In both mathematics and the relational database model, a set is an "unordered" collection of unique, non-duplicated items, although some DBMSs impose an order to their data. In mathematics, a tuple has an order, and allows for duplication. E.F. Codd originally defined tuples using this mathematical definition. Later, it was one of E.F. Codd's great insights that using attribute names instead of an ordering would be more convenient (in general) in a computer language based on relations . This insight is still being used today. Though the concept has changed, the name "tuple" has not. An immediate and important consequence of this distinguishing feature is that in the relational model the Cartesian product becomes commutative.


title: Relational model

text: A table is an accepted visual representation of a relation; a tuple is similar to the concept of a "row".


title: Relational model

text: A "relvar" is a named variable of some specific relation type, to which at all times some relation of that type is assigned, though the relation may contain zero tuples.


title: Relational model

text: The basic principle of the relational model is the Information Principle: all information is represented by data values in relations. In accordance with this Principle, a relational database is a set of relvars and the result of every query is presented as a relation.


title: Relational model

text: The consistency of a relational database is enforced, not by rules built into the applications that use it, but rather by "constraints", declared as part of the logical schema and enforced by the DBMS for all applications. In general, constraints are expressed using relational comparison operators, of which just one, "is subset of" (⊆), is theoretically sufficient. In practice, several useful shorthands are expected to be available, of which the most important are candidate key (really, superkey) and foreign key constraints.


title: Relational model

text: To fully appreciate the relational model of data it is essential to understand the intended "interpretation" of a relation.


title: Relational model

text: The body of a relation is sometimes called its extension. This is because it is to be interpreted as a representation of the extension of some predicate, this being the set of true propositions that can be formed by replacing each free variable in that predicate by a name (a term that designates something).


title: Relational model

text: There is a one-to-one correspondence between the free variables of the predicate and the attribute names of the relation heading. Each tuple of the relation body provides attribute values to instantiate the predicate by substituting each of its free variables. The result is a proposition that is deemed, on account of the appearance of the tuple in the relation body, to be true. Contrariwise, every tuple whose heading conforms to that of the relation, but which does not appear in the body is deemed to be false. This assumption is known as the closed world assumption: it is often violated in practical databases, where the absence of a tuple might mean that the truth of the corresponding proposition is unknown. For example, the absence of the tuple ('John', 'Spanish') from a table of language skills cannot necessarily be taken as evidence that John does not speak Spanish.


title: Relational model

text: A data type as used in a typical relational database might be the set of integers, the set of character strings, the set of dates, or the two boolean values "true" and "false", and so on. The corresponding type names for these types might be the strings "int", "char", "date", "boolean", etc. It is important to understand, though, that relational theory does not dictate what types are to be supported; indeed, nowadays provisions are expected to be available for "user-defined" types in addition to the "built-in" ones provided by the system.


title: Relational model

text: Attribute is the term used in the theory for what is commonly referred to as a column. Similarly, table is commonly used in place of the theoretical term relation (though in SQL the term is by no means synonymous with relation). A table data structure is specified as a list of column definitions, each of which specifies a unique column name and the type of the values that are permitted for that column. An attribute "value" is the entry in a specific column and row, such as "John Doe" or "35".


title: Relational model

text: A tuple is basically the same thing as a row, except in an SQL DBMS, where the column values in a row are ordered. (Tuples are not ordered; instead, each attribute value is identified solely by the attribute name and never by its ordinal position within the tuple.) An attribute name might be "name" or "age".


title: Relational model

text: A relation is a table structure definition (a set of column definitions) along with the data appearing in that structure. The structure definition is the heading and the data appearing in it is the body, a set of rows. A database relvar (relation variable) is commonly known as a base table. The heading of its assigned value at any time is as specified in the table declaration and its body is that most recently assigned to it by invoking some update operator (typically, INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE). The heading and body of the table resulting from evaluation of some query are determined by the definitions of the operators used in the expression of that query. (Note that in SQL the heading is not always a set of column definitions as described above, because it is possible for a column to have no name and also for two or more columns to have the same name. Also, the body is not always a set of rows because in SQL it is possible for the same row to appear more than once in the same body.)


title: Relational model

text: SQL, initially pushed as the standard language for relational databases, deviates from the relational model in several places. The current ISO SQL standard doesn't mention the relational model or use relational terms or concepts. However, it is possible to create a database conforming to the relational model using SQL if one does not use certain SQL features.


title: Relational model

text: The following deviations from the relational model have been noted in SQL. Note that few database servers implement the entire SQL standard and in particular do not allow some of these deviations. Whereas NULL is ubiquitous, for example, allowing duplicate column names within a table or anonymous columns is uncommon.


title: Relational model

text: Users (or programs) request data from a relational database by sending it a query that is written in a special language, usually a dialect of SQL. Although SQL was originally intended for end-users, it is much more common for SQL queries to be embedded into software that provides an easier user interface. Many Web sites, such as Wikipedia, perform SQL queries when generating pages.


title: Relational model

text: In response to a query, the database returns a result set, which is just a list of rows containing the answers. The simplest query is just to return all the rows from a table, but more often, the rows are filtered in some way to return just the answer wanted.


title: Relational model

text: Often, data from multiple tables are combined into one, by doing a join. Conceptually, this is done by taking all possible combinations of rows (the Cartesian product), and then filtering out everything except the answer. In practice, relational database management systems rewrite ("optimize") queries to perform faster, using a variety of techniques.


title: Relational model

text: There are a number of relational operations in addition to join. These include project (the process of eliminating some of the columns), restrict (the process of eliminating some of the rows), union (a way of combining two tables with similar structures), difference (that lists the rows in one table that are not found in the other), intersect (that lists the rows found in both tables), and product (mentioned above, which combines each row of one table with each row of the other). Depending on which other sources you consult, there are a number of other operators – many of which can be defined in terms of those listed above. These include semi-join, outer operators such as outer join and outer union, and various forms of division. Then there are operators to rename columns, and summarizing or aggregating operators, and if you permit relation values as attributes (relation-valued attribute), then operators such as group and ungroup. The SELECT statement in SQL serves to handle all of these except for the group and ungroup operators.


title: Relational model

text: The flexibility of relational databases allows programmers to write queries that were not anticipated by the database designers. As a result, relational databases can be used by multiple applications in ways the original designers did not foresee, which is especially important for databases that might be used for a long time (perhaps several decades). This has made the idea and implementation of relational databases very popular with businesses.


title: Relational model

text: Relations are classified based upon the types of anomalies to which they're vulnerable. A database that is in the first normal form is vulnerable to all types of anomalies, while a database that is in the domain/key normal form has no modification anomalies. Normal forms are hierarchical in nature. That is, the lowest level is the first normal form, and the database cannot meet the requirements for higher level normal forms without first having met all the requirements of the lesser normal forms.


title: Relational model

text: An idealized, very simple example of a description of some relvars (relation variables) and their attributes:


title: Relational model

text: In this design we have six relvars: Customer, Order, Order Line, Invoice, Invoice Line and Product. The bold, underlined attributes are "candidate keys". The non-bold, underlined attributes are "foreign keys".


title: Relational model

text: Usually one candidate key is chosen to be called the primary key and used in preference over the other candidate keys, which are then called alternate keys.


title: Relational model

text: A "candidate key" is a unique identifier enforcing that no tuple will be duplicated; this would make the relation into something else, namely a bag, by violating the basic definition of a set. Both foreign keys and superkeys (that includes candidate keys) can be composite, that is, can be composed of several attributes. Below is a tabular depiction of a relation of our example Customer relvar; a relation can be thought of as a value that can be attributed to a relvar.


title: Relational model

text: If we attempted to "insert" a new customer with the ID "1234567890", this would violate the design of the relvar since Customer ID is a "primary key" and we already have a customer "1234567890". The DBMS must reject a transaction such as this that would render the database inconsistent by a violation of an integrity constraint.


title: Relational model

text: "Foreign keys" are integrity constraints enforcing that the value of the attribute set is drawn from a "candidate key" in another relation. For example, in the Order relation the attribute Customer ID is a foreign key. A "join" is the operation that draws on information from several relations at once. By joining relvars from the example above we could "query" the database for all of the Customers, Orders, and Invoices. If we only wanted the tuples for a specific customer, we would specify this using a restriction condition.


title: Relational model

text: If we wanted to retrieve all of the Orders for Customer "1234567890", we could query the database to return every row in the Order table with Customer ID "1234567890" and join the Order table to the Order Line table based on Order No.


title: Relational model

text: There is a flaw in our database design above. The Invoice relvar contains an Order No attribute. So, each tuple in the Invoice relvar will have one Order No, which implies that there is precisely one Order for each Invoice. But in reality an invoice can be created against many orders, or indeed for no particular order. Additionally the Order relvar contains an Invoice No attribute, implying that each Order has a corresponding Invoice. But again this is not always true in the real world. An order is sometimes paid through several invoices, and sometimes paid without an invoice. In other words, there can be many Invoices per Order and many Orders per Invoice. This is a many-to-many relationship between Order and Invoice (also called a "non-specific relationship"). To represent this relationship in the database a new relvar should be introduced whose role is to specify the correspondence between Orders and Invoices:


title: Relational model

text: Now, the Order relvar has a "one-to-many relationship" to the OrderInvoice table, as does the Invoice relvar. If we want to retrieve every Invoice for a particular Order, we can query for all orders where Order No in the Order relation equals the Order No in OrderInvoice, and where Invoice No in OrderInvoice equals the Invoice No in Invoice.


title: Relational model

text: Basic notions in the relational model are "relation names" and "attribute names". We will represent these as strings such as "Person" and "name" and we will usually use the variables formula_1 and formula_2 to range over them. Another basic notion is the set of "atomic values" that contains values such as numbers and strings.


title: Relational model

text: Our first definition concerns the notion of "tuple", which formalizes the notion of row or record in a table:


title: Relational model

text: The next definition defines "relation" that formalizes the contents of a table as it is defined in the relational model.


title: Relational model

text: Such a relation closely corresponds to what is usually called the extension of a predicate in first-order logic except that here we identify the places in the predicate with attribute names. Usually in the relational model a database schema is said to consist of a set of relation names, the headers that are associated with these names and the constraints that should hold for every instance of the database schema.


title: Relational model

text: One of the simplest and most important types of relation constraints is the "key constraint". It tells us that in every instance of a certain relational schema the tuples can be identified by their values for certain attributes.


title: Relational model

text: A superkey is a set of column headers for which the values of those columns concatenated are unique across all rows. Formally:


title: Relational model

text: Functional dependency is the property that a value in a tuple may be derived from another value in that tuple.


title: Asian koel

text: The Asian koel (Eudynamys scolopaceus) is a member of the cuckoo order of birds, the Cuculiformes. It is found in the Indian Subcontinent, China, and Southeast Asia. It forms a superspecies with the closely related black-billed koels, and Pacific koels which are sometimes treated as subspecies. The Asian koel like many of its related cuckoo kin is a brood parasite that lays its eggs in the nests of crows and other hosts, who raise its young. They are unusual among the cuckoos in being largely frugivorous as adults. The name "koel" is echoic in origin with several language variants. The bird is a widely used symbol in Indian and Nepali poetry.


title: Asian koel

text: In 1747 the English naturalist George Edwards included an illustration and a description of the Asian koel in the second volume of his "A Natural History of Uncommon Birds". He used the English name "The Brown and Spotted Indian Cuckow". Edwards based his hand-coloured etching on a specimen from Bengal that belonged to the London silk-pattern designer and naturalist Joseph Dandridge. When in 1758 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his "Systema Naturae" for the tenth edition, he placed the Asian koel with the other cuckoos in the genus "Cuculus". Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name "Cuculus scolopaceus" and cited Edwards' work. The Asian koel is now placed in the genus "Eudynamys" that was introduced in 1827 by the English naturalists Nicholas Vigors and Thomas Horsfield. The genus name "Eudynamys" combines the Ancient Greek "eu" meaning "fine" with "dunamis" meaning "power" or "strength". The specific epithet "scolopaceus" is Modern Latin meaning "snipe-like" from Latin "scolopax" meaning "snipe" or "woodcock".


title: Asian koel

text: The species has variations within its wide range with several island populations and a number of taxonomic variations have been suggested. The black-billed koel ("E. melanorhynchus") of the Sulawesi region and the Pacific koel of Australasia are sometimes considered conspecific with the Asian koel in which case the "combined" species is known as the common koel. Due to differences in plumage, colour of bill and voice, the three are increasingly treated as separate species. Alternatively, only the black-billed koel has been considered as a separate species, or the Asian koel has included all subspecies otherwise included in the Pacific koel, except for the subspecies breeding in Australia, which then has the name Australian koel ("E. cyanocephalus").


title: Asian koel

text: The Asian koel has several geographic forms that have well marked plumage differences or have been geographically isolated with little gene flow. The following is a list of named subspecies with their distributions and synonyms as given by Payne:


title: Asian koel

text: The Asian koel is a large and long-tailed cuckoo measuring and weighing . The male of the nominate race is glossy bluish-black, with a pale greenish grey bill, the iris is crimson, and it has grey legs and feet. The female of the nominate race is brownish on the crown and has rufous streaks on the head. The back, rump and wing coverts are dark brown with white and buff spots. The underparts are whitish, but is heavily striped. The other subspecies differ in colouration and size. The upper plumage of young birds is more like that of the male and they have a black beak.


title: Asian koel

text: They are very vocal during the breeding season (March to August in the Indian Subcontinent), with a range of different calls. The familiar song of the male is a repeated "koo-Ooo". The female makes a shrill "kik-kik-kik..." call. Calls vary across populations.


title: Asian koel

text: They show a pattern of moult that differs from those of other parasitic cuckoos. The outer primaries show a transilient (alternating) ascending moult (P9-7-5-10-8-6) while the inner primaries are moulted in stepwise descending order (1-2-3-4).(Payne citing Stresemann and Stresemann 1961)


title: Asian koel

text: The Asian koel is a bird of light woodland and cultivation. It is a mainly resident breeder in tropical southern Asia from Iran, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to southern China and the Greater Sundas. They have great potential in colonizing new areas, and were among the pioneer birds to colonize the volcanic island of Krakatau. They first arrived in Singapore in the 1980s and became very common birds.


title: Asian koel

text: The Asian koel is a brood parasite, and lays its single egg in the nests of a variety of birds, including the jungle crow, and house crow. In Sri Lanka before 1880 it was only known to parasitize the jungle crow, later shifting to the house crow. A study in India found 5% of "Corvus splendens" and 0.5% of "Corvus macrorhynchos" nests parasitized.


title: Asian koel

text: In Bangladesh, they parasitise long-tailed shrike ("Lanius schach"), common myna ("Acridotheres tristis") and house crows ("Corvus splendens") at about 35.7, 31.2 and 10.8% rates respectively. Host nests at low heights and nearer to fruit trees tended to be preferred by koels. In southern Thailand and the Malay Peninsula, koels have shifted host from crows to mynas ("Acridotheres" sp.) as the latter became more common in the late 1900s. In the Indian Subcontinent they have sometimes been found to parasitize the black drongo, the European magpie and possibly the black-headed oriole. Males may distract the hosts so that the female gets a chance to lay an egg in the nest. More often however, the female visits the nest of the host alone. The koel is not known to lay eggs in an empty host nest and a study in Pakistan found that the first koel eggs were laid, on average, within one and half days of the laying of the host's first egg. The chicks of the koel hatched about 3 days ahead of the host chicks. Koels usually lay only an egg or two in a single nest but as many as seven to eleven eggs have been reported from some host nests. A female may remove a host egg before laying. Eggs hatch in 12 to 14 days. The young koel does not always push out eggs or evict the host chicks, and initially calls like a crow. The young fledge in 20 to 28 days. Unlike some other cuckoos, the young do not attempt to kill the host chicks, a trait that is shared with the channel-billed cuckoos which are also largely frugivorous as adults. It has been suggested that koels, like some other brood parasites do not evict the host chicks due presumably due to the higher cost of evicting nestmates. A small parasite may not be able to evict large host eggs or chicks from a deep Corvid nest without risking starvation and possibly accidental self-eviction. An alternative hypothesis that retaining host chicks might benefit the koel chicks did not gain much support. Adult female parents have been known to feed young koels in the nests of the hosts, a behaviour seen in some other brood parasitic species as well. Adult males have however not been noted to feed fledglings.


title: Asian koel

text: The Asian koel is omnivorous, consuming a variety of insects, caterpillars, eggs and small vertebrates. Adults feed mainly on fruit. They will sometimes defend fruiting trees that they forage in and chase away other frugivores. They have been noted to be especially important in the dispersal of the sandalwood tree ("Santalum album") in India. Large seeded fruits are sometimes quickly regurgitated near the parent tree while small seeded fruits are ingested and are likely to be deposited at greater distances from the parent tree. They have a large gape and are capable of swallowing large fruits including the hard fruit of palms such as "Arenga" and "Livistona". They have been known to occasionally take eggs of small birds.


title: Asian koel

text: A number of parasites of the species have been described, including malaria-like protozoa, lice and nematodes.


title: Asian koel

text: The word "koel" is onomatopoeic in origin. The Sanskrit name of "Kokila" and words in several Indian languages are similarly echoic. Being familiar birds with loud calls, references to them are common in folklore, myth and poetry. It is traditionally held in high regard for its song and revered in the Manusmriti, with a decree protecting them from harm. The Vedas, Sanskrit literature dated to about 2000 BC referred to it as "Anya-Vapa" which has been translated as "that which was raised by others" (or "sown for others to reap"). This has been interpreted as the earliest knowledge of brood parasitism. It has been chosen as the state bird by the Indian union territory of Puducherry.


title: Asian koel

text: These birds were once very popular in India as cagebirds. Feeding even on boiled rice, these hardy birds lived in captivity for as long as 14 years.


title: Full metal jacket (ammunition)

text: A full metal jacket (FMJ) bullet is a small-arms projectile consisting of a soft core (often lead) encased in an outer shell ("jacket") of harder metal, such as gilding metal, cupronickel, or, less commonly, a steel alloy. A bullet jacket usually allows higher muzzle velocities than bare lead without depositing significant amounts of metal in the bore. It also prevents damage to bores from hard steel or armor-piercing core materials.


title: Full metal jacket (ammunition)

text: The bullet was invented in 1882 by Swiss Colonel Eduard Rubin while he was working for the Swiss Federal Ammunition Factory and Research Center, which developed ammunition for the Swiss military.


title: Full metal jacket (ammunition)

text: The use of full metal jacketing in military ammunition came about in part because of the need for improved feeding characteristics in small arms that used internal mechanical manipulation of the cartridge in order to chamber rounds as opposed to externally hand-reloading single-shot firearms. The harder metal used in bullet jackets was less prone to deformation than softer exposed lead, which improved feeding. That also allowed bullets to withstand much higher velocities caused by the decrease of the caliber.


title: Full metal jacket (ammunition)

text: It is sometimes thought that military use of FMJ ammunition was the result of The Hague Convention of 1899, Declaration III, prohibiting the use in international warfare of bullets that easily expand or flatten in the body. However, jacketed bullets were adopted by most European militaries during the late 1880s and early 1890s, about a decade prior to the Hague Convention.


title: Full metal jacket (ammunition)

text: By design, fully jacketed projectiles have less capacity to expand after contact with the target than a hollow-point projectile. While this can be an advantage when engaging targets behind cover, it can also be a disadvantage as an FMJ bullet may pierce completely through a target, leading to less severe wounding, and possibly failing to disable the target. Furthermore, a projectile that goes completely through a target can cause unintentional collateral damage behind the target.


title: Scott Menville

text: Scott David Menville (born February 12, 1971) is an American actor who is known for his voice work in animated films, television series and video games.


title: Scott Menville

text: Menville was born on February 12, 1971, to television animator and writer Chuck Menville (1940–1992).


title: Scott Menville

text: His first role came in 1979 in an episode of "Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo". He is perhaps best known for providing the voice of Robin on the "Teen Titans" animated series, Lloyd Irving on "Tales of Symphonia", taking over the role of Freddy Flintstone from Lennie Weinrib on "The Flintstone Kids", and Ma-Ti on "Captain Planet and the Planeteers".


title: Scott Menville

text: He also voiced Jonny Quest on "The New Adventures of Jonny Quest", Quicksilver on "The Super Hero Squad Show", and Kevin French on "Mission Hill".


title: Scott Menville

text: Menville is also a musician. He was the bassist for the Southern California rock band Boy Hits Car, which released three albums before he left the band in 2006; he had been a founding member of the band. Menville has also participated in non-voice acting roles. He appeared in "Ernest Goes to Camp" as Crutchfield and had recurring roles on "Full House" as Kimmy Gibbler's boyfriend Duane, and on "The Wonder Years" as Wayne's best friend Wart.


title: Scott Menville

text: He did the voices of Metamorpho in "", JT and Jimmy Jones on "Ben 10", and reprises his role as Robin in "Teen Titans Go!".


title: Scott Menville

text: In 2016, he played Arthur, the Goodwin twins' computer in the TV series "Second Chance" and Sneezy in the Disney XD animated TV series "The 7D". Later that same year, he also reprised his role as Duane on "Fuller House".


title: Mycology

text: Mycology is the branch of biology concerned with the study of fungi, including their genetic and biochemical properties, their taxonomy and their use to humans, including as a source for tinder, traditional medicine, food, and entheogens, as well as their dangers, such as toxicity or infection.


title: Mycology

text: Mycology branches into the field of phytopathology, the study of plant diseases, and the two disciplines remain closely related because the vast majority of plant pathogens are fungi.


title: Mycology

text: Historically, mycology was a branch of botany because, although fungi are evolutionarily more closely related to animals than to plants, this was not recognized until a few decades ago. Pioneer mycologists included Elias Magnus Fries, Christian Hendrik Persoon, Anton de Bary, Elizabeth Eaton Morse, and Lewis David von Schweinitz. Beatrix Potter, author of "The Tale of Peter Rabbit", also made significant contributions to the field.


title: Mycology

text: Pier Andrea Saccardo developed a system for classifying the imperfect fungi by spore color and form, which became the primary system used before classification by DNA analysis. He is most famous for his Sylloge, which was a comprehensive list of all of the names that had been used for mushrooms.  Sylloge is still the only work of this kind that was both comprehensive for the botanical kingdom Fungi and reasonably modern.


title: Mycology

text: Many fungi produce toxins, antibiotics, and other secondary metabolites. For example, the cosmopolitan (worldwide) genus "Fusarium" and their toxins associated with fatal outbreaks of alimentary toxic aleukia in humans were extensively studied by Abraham Joffe.


title: Mycology

text: Fungi are fundamental for life on earth in their roles as symbionts, e.g. in the form of mycorrhizae, insect symbionts, and lichens. Many fungi are able to break down complex organic biomolecules such as lignin, the more durable component of wood, and pollutants such as xenobiotics, petroleum, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. By decomposing these molecules, fungi play a critical role in the global carbon cycle.


title: Mycology

text: Fungi and other organisms traditionally recognized as fungi, such as oomycetes and myxomycetes (slime molds), often are economically and socially important, as some cause diseases of animals (including humans) and of plants.


title: Mycology

text: Apart from pathogenic fungi, many fungal species are very important in controlling the plant diseases caused by different pathogens. For example, species of the filamentous fungal genus "Trichoderma" are considered one of the most important biological control agents as an alternative to chemical-based products for effective crop diseases management.


title: Mycology

text: Field meetings to find interesting species of fungi are known as 'forays', after the first such meeting organized by the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club in 1868 and entitled "A foray among the funguses".


title: Mycology

text: Some fungi can cause disease in humans and other animals - The study of pathogenic fungi that infect animals is referred to as medical mycology.


title: Mycology

text: It is believed that humans started collecting mushrooms as food in prehistoric times. Mushrooms were first written about in the works of Euripides (480-406 BC). The Greek philosopher Theophrastos of Eresos (371-288 BC) was perhaps the first to try to systematically classify plants; mushrooms were considered to be plants missing certain organs. It was later Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD), who wrote about truffles in his encyclopedia "Naturalis historia". The word "mycology" comes from the Ancient Greek: μύκης ("mukēs"), meaning "fungus" and the suffix ("-logia"), meaning "study".


title: Mycology

text: The Middle Ages saw little advancement in the body of knowledge about fungi. However, the invention of the printing press allowed authors to dispel superstitions and misconceptions about the fungi that had been perpetuated by the classical authors.


title: Mycology

text: The start of the modern age of mycology begins with Pier Antonio Micheli's 1737 publication of "Nova plantarum genera". Published in Florence, this seminal work laid the foundations for the systematic classification of grasses, mosses and fungi. He originated the still current genus names "Polyporus" and "Tuber", both dated 1729 (though the descriptions were later amended as invalid by modern rules).


title: Mycology

text: The founding nomenclaturist Carl Linnaeus included fungi in his binomial naming system in 1753, where each type of organism has a two-word name consisting of a genus and species (whereas up to then organisms were often designated with Latin phrases containing many words). He originated the scientific names of numerous well-known mushroom taxa, such as "Boletus" and "Agaricus", which are still in use today. During this period, fungi were still considered to belong to the plant kingdom, so they were categorized in his "Species Plantarum". Linnaeus' fungal taxa were not nearly as comprehensive as his plant taxa, however, grouping together all gilled mushrooms with a stem in genus "Agaricus". Thousands of gilled species exist, which were later divided into dozens of diverse genera; in its modern usage, "Agaricus" only refers to mushrooms closely related to the common shop mushroom, "Agaricus bisporus". For example, Linnaeus gave the name "Agaricus deliciosus" to the saffron milk-cap, but its current name is "Lactarius deliciosus". On the other hand, the field mushroom "Agaricus campestris" has kept the same name ever since Linnaeus's publication. The English word "agaric" is still used for any gilled mushroom, which corresponds to Linnaeus's use of the word.


title: Mycology

text: The term "mycology" and the complementary term "mycologist" are traditionally attributed to M.J. Berkeley in 1836. However, "mycologist" appeared in writings by English botanist Robert Kaye Greville as early as 1823 in reference to Schweinitz.


title: Mycology

text: For centuries, certain mushrooms have been documented as a folk medicine in China, Japan, and Russia. Although the use of mushrooms in folk medicine is centered largely on the Asian continent, people in other parts of the world like the Middle East, Poland, and Belarus have been documented using mushrooms for medicinal purposes.


title: Mycology

text: Mushrooms produce large amounts of vitamin D when exposed to ultraviolet (UV) light. Penicillin, ciclosporin, griseofulvin, cephalosporin and psilocybin are examples of drugs that have been isolated from molds or other fungi.


title: Fandom

text: A fandom is a subculture composed of fans characterized by a feeling of empathy and camaraderie with others who share a common interest. Fans typically are interested in even minor details of the objects of their fandom and spend a significant portion of their time and energy involved with their interest, often as a part of a social network with particular practices, differentiating fandom-affiliated people from those with only a casual interest.


title: Fandom

text: A fandom can grow around any area of human interest or activity. The subject of fan interest can be narrowly defined, focused on something like an individual celebrity, or encompassing entire hobbies, genres or fashions. While it is now used to apply to groups of people fascinated with any subject, the term has its roots in those with an enthusiastic appreciation for sports. Merriam-Webster's dictionary traces the usage of the term back as far as 1903.


title: Fandom

text: Many fandoms overlap. There are a number of large conventions that cater to fandom such as film, comics, anime, television shows, cosplay, and the opportunity to buy and sell related merchandise. Annual conventions such as Comic Con International, Wondercon, Dragon Con and New York Comic Con are some of the more well known and highly attended events that cater to overlapping fandoms.


title: Fandom

text: Fans of the literary detective Sherlock Holmes are widely considered to have comprised the first modern fandom, holding public demonstrations of mourning after Holmes was "killed off" in 1893, and creating some of the first fan fiction as early as about 1897 to 1902. Outside the scope of media, railway enthusiasts are another early fandom with its roots in the late 19th century that began to gain in popularity and increasingly organize in the first decades of the early 20th century.