Systematics.

This family has undergone a large amount of systematic and taxonomic change. More recent revision has moved many former members of the family into their own related but distinct families – the pencilfishes of the genus "Nannostomus" are a typical example, having now been moved into the Lebiasinidae, the assorted predatory species belonging to "Hoplias" and "Hoplerythrinus" have now been moved into the Erythrinidae, and the sabre-toothed fishes of the genus "Hydrolycus" have been moved into the Cynodontidae. The former subfamily Alestiinae was promoted to family level (Alestiidae) and the subfamilies Crenuchinae and Characidiinae were moved to the family Crenuchidae. Other fish families that were formerly classified as members of the Characidae, but which were moved into separate families of their own during recent taxonomic revisions (after 1994) include Acestrorhynchidae, Anostomidae, Chilodontidae, Citharinidae, Ctenoluciidae, Curimatidae, Distichodontidae, Gasteropelecidae, Hemiodontidae, Hepsetidae, Parodontidae, Prochilodontidae, Serrasalmidae, and Triporthidae.  The larger piranhas were originally classified as belonging to the Characidae, but various revisions place them in their own related family, the Serrasalmidae. This reassignment has yet to enjoy universal acceptance, but is gaining in popularity among taxonomists working with these fishes. Given the current state of flux of the Characidae, a number of other changes will doubtless take place, reassigning once-familiar species to other families. Indeed, the entire phylogeny of the Ostariophysi – fishes possessing a Weberian apparatus – has yet to be settled conclusively. Until that phylogeny is settled, the opportunity for yet more upheavals within the taxonomy of the characoid fishes is considerable.

Classification.

Taxonomy.

The subfamilies and tribes currently recognized by most if not all authors, and their respective genera, are:

Former members.

The Chalceidae, Iguanodectidae, Bryconidae and Heterocharacinae are the most recent clades to be removed in order to maintain a monophyletic Characidae.

Genera "incertae sedis".

A large number of taxa in this family are "incertae sedis". The relationships of many fish in this family – in particular species traditionally placed in the Tetragonopterinae, which had become something of a "wastebin taxon" – are poorly known, a comprehensive phylogenetic study for the entire family is needed. The genera "Hyphessobrycon", "Astyanax", "Hemigrammus", "Moenkhausia", and "Bryconamericus" include the largest number of currently recognized species among characid fishes that are in need of revision; "Astyanax" and "Hyphessobrycon" in the usual delimitation are among the largest genera in this family. These genera were originally proposed between 1854 and 1908 and are still more or less defined as by Carl H. Eigenmann in 1917, though diverse species have been added to each genus since that time. The anatomical diversity within each genus, the fact that each of these generic groups at the present time cannot be well-defined, and the high number of species involved are the major reasons for the lack of phylogenetic analyses dealing with the relationships of the species within these generic "groups".

Characidae, the characids or characins is a family of freshwater subtropical and tropical fish, belonging to the order Characiformes. The name "characins" is the historical one, but scientists today tend to prefer "characids" to reflect their status as a by and large monophyletic group at family rank. To arrive there, this family has undergone much systematic and taxonomic change. Among those fishes that remain in the Characidae for the time being are the tetras, comprising the very similar genera "Hemigrammus" and "Hyphessobrycon", as well as a few related forms such as the cave and neon tetras. Fish of this family are important as food and also include popular aquarium fish species.


History.

In 1976 the Chandra X-ray Observatory (called AXAF at the time) was proposed to NASA by Riccardo Giacconi and Harvey Tananbaum. Preliminary work began the following year at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO). In the meantime, in 1978, NASA launched the first imaging X-ray telescope, Einstein (HEAO-2), into orbit. Work continued on the AXAF project throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In 1992, to reduce costs, the spacecraft was redesigned. Four of the twelve planned mirrors were eliminated, as were two of the six scientific instruments. AXAF's planned orbit was changed to an elliptical one, reaching one third of the way to the Moon's at its farthest point. This eliminated the possibility of improvement or repair by the space shuttle but put the observatory above the Earth's radiation belts for most of its orbit. AXAF was assembled and tested by TRW (now Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems) in Redondo Beach, California.  AXAF was renamed Chandra as part of a contest held by NASA in 1998, which drew more than 6,000 submissions worldwide. The contest winners, Jatila van der Veen and Tyrel Johnson (then a high school teacher and high school student, respectively), suggested the name in honor of Nobel Prize–winning Indian-American astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. He is known for his work in determining the maximum mass of white dwarf stars, leading to greater understanding of high energy astronomical phenomena such as neutron stars and black holes. Fittingly, the name Chandra means "moon" in Sanskrit.  Originally scheduled to be launched in December 1998, the spacecraft was delayed several months, eventually being launched in July 23, 1999, at 04:31 UTC by during STS-93. Chandra was deployed from "Columbia" at 11:47 UTC. The Inertial Upper Stage's first stage motor ignited at 12:48 UTC, and after burning for 125 seconds and separating, the second stage ignited at 12:51 UTC and burned for 117 seconds. At, it was the heaviest payload ever launched by the shuttle, a consequence of the two-stage Inertial Upper Stage booster rocket system needed to transport the spacecraft to its high orbit.  Chandra has been returning data since the month after it launched. It is operated by the SAO at the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with assistance from MIT and Northrop Grumman Space Technology. The ACIS CCDs suffered particle damage during early radiation belt passages. To prevent further damage, the instrument is now removed from the telescope's focal plane during passages.  Although Chandra was initially given an expected lifetime of 5 years, on September 4, 2001, NASA extended its lifetime to 10 years "based on the observatory's outstanding results." Physically Chandra could last much longer. A 2004 study performed at the Chandra X-ray Center indicated that the observatory could last at least 15 years.  In July 2008, the International X-ray Observatory, a joint project between ESA, NASA and JAXA, was proposed as the next major X-ray observatory but was later cancelled. ESA later resurrected a downsized version of the project as the Advanced Telescope for High Energy Astrophysics (ATHENA), with a proposed launch in 2028.  On October 10, 2018, Chandra entered safe mode operations, due to a gyroscope glitch. NASA reported that all science instruments were safe. Within days, the 3-second error in data from one gyro was understood, and plans were made to return Chandra to full service. The gyroscope that experienced the glitch was placed in reserve and is otherwise healthy.

Example discoveries.

The data gathered by Chandra has greatly advanced the field of X-ray astronomy. Here are some examples of discoveries supported by observations from Chandra:

Technical description.

Unlike optical telescopes which possess simple aluminized parabolic surfaces (mirrors), X-ray telescopes generally use a Wolter telescope consisting of nested cylindrical paraboloid and hyperboloid surfaces coated with iridium or gold. X-ray photons would be absorbed by normal mirror surfaces, so mirrors with a low grazing angle are necessary to reflect them. Chandra uses four pairs of nested mirrors, together with their support structure, called the High Resolution Mirror Assembly (HRMA); the mirror substrate is 2 cm-thick glass, with the reflecting surface a 33 nm iridium coating, and the diameters are 65 cm, 87 cm, 99 cm and 123 cm. The thick substrate and particularly careful polishing allowed a very precise optical surface, which is responsible for Chandra's unmatched resolution: between 80% and 95% of the incoming X-ray energy is focused into a one-arcsecond circle. However, the thickness of the substrate limits the proportion of the aperture which is filled, leading to the low collecting area compared to XMM-Newton.  Chandra's highly elliptical orbit allows it to observe continuously for up to 55 hours of its 65-hour orbital period. At its furthest orbital point from Earth, Chandra is one of the most distant Earth-orbiting satellites. This orbit takes it beyond the geostationary satellites and beyond the outer Van Allen belt.  With an angular resolution of 0.5 arcsecond (2.4 μrad), Chandra possesses a resolution over 1000 times better than that of the first orbiting X-ray telescope.  CXO uses mechanical gyroscopes, which are sensors that help determine what direction the telescope is pointed. Other navigation and orientation systems on board CXO include an aspect camera, Earth and Sun sensors, and reaction wheels. It also has two sets of thrusters, one for movement and another for offloading momentum.

Instruments.

The Science Instrument Module (SIM) holds the two focal plane instruments, the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS) and the High Resolution Camera (HRC), moving whichever is called for into position during an observation.  ACIS consists of 10 CCD chips and provides images as well as spectral information of the object observed. It operates in the photon energy range of 0.2–10 keV. HRC has two micro-channel plate components and images over the range of 0.1–10 keV. It also has a time resolution of 16 microseconds. Both of these instruments can be used on their own or in conjunction with one of the observatory's two transmission gratings.  The transmission gratings, which swing into the optical path behind the mirrors, provide Chandra with high resolution spectroscopy. The High Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer (HETGS) works over 0.4–10 keV and has a spectral resolution of 60–1000. The Low Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer (LETGS) has a range of 0.09–3 keV and a resolution of 40–2000.  Summary:

The Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO), previously known as the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF), is a Flagship-class space telescope launched aboard the during STS-93 by NASA on July 23, 1999. Chandra is sensitive to X-ray sources 100 times fainter than any previous X-ray telescope, enabled by the high angular resolution of its mirrors. Since the Earth's atmosphere absorbs the vast majority of X-rays, they are not detectable from Earth-based telescopes; therefore space-based telescopes are required to make these observations. Chandra is an Earth satellite in a 64-hour orbit, and its mission is ongoing.


Early life and accession.

According to the "Liber Pontificalis", Fabian was a noble Roman by birth, and his father's name was Fabius. Nothing more is known about his background. The legend concerning the circumstances of his election is preserved by the fourth-century writer Eusebius of Caesarea ("Church History", VI. 29).  After the short reign of Pope Anterus, Fabian had come to Rome from the countryside when the new papal election began. "Although present," says Eusebius, Fabian "was in the mind of none." While the names of several illustrious and noble churchmen were being considered over the course of thirteen days, a dove suddenly descended upon the head of Fabian. To the assembled electors, this strange sight recalled the gospel scene of the descent of the Holy Spirit on Jesus at the time of his baptism by John the Baptist. The congregation took this as a sign that he was marked out for this dignity, and Fabian was at once proclaimed bishop by acclamation.

Papacy.

During Fabian's reign of 14 years, there was a lull in the storm of persecution which had resulted in the exile of both Anterus' predecessor Pontian and the antipope (and later saint) Hippolytus. Fabian had enough influence at court to effect the return of the bodies of both of these martyrs from Sardinia, where they had died at hard labor in the mines. The report that he baptized the emperor Philip the Arab and his son, however, is probably a legend, although he did seem to enjoy some connections at court, since the bodies of Pontian and Hippolytus could not have been exhumed without the emperor's approval.  According to the sixth-century historian Gregory of Tours Fabian sent out the "apostles to the Gauls" to Christianise Gaul in A.D. 245. Fabian sent seven bishops from Rome to Gaul to preach the Gospel: Gatianus of Tours to Tours, Trophimus of Arles to Arles, Paul of Narbonne to Narbonne, Saturnin to Toulouse, Denis to Paris, Austromoine to Clermont, and Martial to Limoges. He also condemned Privatus, the originator of a new heresy in Africa. The "Liber Pontificalis" says that Fabian divided the Christian communities of Rome into seven districts, each supervised by a deacon. Eusebius (VI §43) adds that he appointed seven subdeacons to help collect the "acta" of the martyrs—the reports of the court proceedings on the occasion of their trials. There is also a tradition that he instituted the four minor clerical orders: porter, lector, exorcist, and acolyte. However most scholars believe these offices evolved gradually and were formally instituted at a later date.  His deeds are thus described in the "Liber Pontificalis": "Hic regiones dividit diaconibus et fecit vii subdiacones, qui vii notariis imminerent, Ut gestas martyrum integro fideliter colligerent, et multas fabricas per cymiteria fieri praecepit". ("He divided the "regiones" into deaconships and made seven sub-deaconships which seven secretaries oversaw, so that they brought together the deeds of the martyrs faithfully made whole, and he brought forth many works in the cemeteries.")  The "Liberian Catalogue" of the popes also reports that Fabian initiated considerable work on the catacombs, where honored Christians were buried, and where he also caused the body of Pope Pontian to be entombed at the catacomb of Callixtus.  With the advent of Emperor Decius, the Roman government's tolerant policy toward Christianity temporarily ended. Decius ordered leading Christians to demonstrate their loyalty to Rome by offering incense to the cult images of deities which represented the Roman state. This was unacceptable to many Christians, who, while no longer holding most of the laws of the Old Testament to apply to them, took the commandment against idolatry with deadly seriousness. Fabian was thus one of the earliest victims of Decius, dying as a martyr on 20 January 250, at the beginning of the Decian persecution, probably in prison rather than by execution.  Fabian was buried in the catacomb of Callixtus in Rome. The Greek inscription on his tomb has survived, and bears the words:  His remains were later reinterred at San Sebastiano fuori le mura by Pope Clement XI where the Albani Chapel is dedicated in his honour.  The Coptic Orthodox Church teaches that Fabianus was martyred twice in the same week.

Pope Fabian () was the bishop of Rome from 10 January 236 to his death on 20 January 250, succeeding Anterus. He is famous for the miraculous nature of his election, in which a dove is said to have descended on his head to mark him as the Holy Spirit's unexpected choice to become the next pope. He was succeeded by Cornelius.


Early life.

Stephen was born in Rome but had Greek ancestry. He served archdeacon of Pope Lucius I, who appointed Stephen his successor.

Pontificate.

Following the Decian persecution of 250–251, there was disagreement about how to treat those who had lapsed from the faith. Stephen was urged by Bishop Faustinus of Lyon to take action against Marcian, the Novatianist bishop of Arles, who denied penance and communion to the lapsed who repented. The controversy arose in the context of a broad pastoral problem. During the Decian persecution some Christians had purchased certificates attesting that they had made the requisite sacrifices to the Roman gods. Others had denied they were Christians while yet others had in fact taken part in pagan sacrifices. These people were called "lapsi". The question arose that if they later repented, could they be readmitted to communion with the church, and if so, under what conditions.  Stephen held that converts who had been baptized by splinter groups did not need re-baptism, while Cyprian and certain bishops of the Roman province of Africa held rebaptism necessary for admission to the Eucharist. Stephen's view eventually won broad acceptance in the Latin Church. However, in the Eastern Churches this issue is still debated. He is also mentioned as having insisted on the restoration of the bishops of León and Astorga, who had been deposed for unfaithfulness during the persecution but afterwards had repented.

Legacy.

The "Depositio episcoporum" of 354 does not speak of Pope Stephen I as a martyr and he is not celebrated as such by the Catholic Church, in spite of the account in the "Golden Legend" that in 257 Emperor Valerian resumed the persecution of Christians, and Stephen was sitting on his pontifical throne celebrating Mass for his when the emperor's men came and beheaded him on 2 August 257. As late as the 18th century, what was said to be the chair was preserved, still stained with blood.  Stephen I's feast day in the Catholic Church is celebrated on 2 August. In 1839, when the new feast of St Alphonsus Mary de Liguori was assigned to 2 August, Stephen I was mentioned only as a commemoration within the Mass of Saint Alphonsus. The revision of the calendar in 1969 removed the mention of Stephen I from the General Roman Calendar, but, according to the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, the 2 August Mass may now everywhere be that of Stephen I, unless in some locality an obligatory celebration is assigned to that day, and some continue to use pre-1969 calendars that mention a commemoration of Saint Stephen I on that day.  Pope Stephen I is the patron of Hvar and of Modigliana Cathedral.

Pope Stephen I () was the bishop of Rome from 12 May 254 to his death on 2 August 257.


Structure.

ZnS exists in two main crystalline forms, and this dualism is often a salient example of polymorphism. In each form, the coordination geometry at Zn and S is tetrahedral. The more stable cubic form is known also as zinc blende or sphalerite. The hexagonal form is known as the mineral wurtzite, although it also can be produced synthetically. The transition from the sphalerite form to the wurtzite form occurs at around 1020 °C. A tetragonal form is also known as the very rare mineral called polhemusite, with the formula (Zn,Hg)S.

Applications.

Luminescent material.

Zinc sulfide, with addition of few ppm of suitable activator, exhibits strong phosphorescence (described by Nikola Tesla in 1893), and is currently used in many applications, from cathode ray tubes through X-ray screens to glow in the dark products. When silver is used as activator, the resulting color is bright blue, with maximum at 450 nanometers. Using manganese yields an orange-red color at around 590 nanometers. Copper gives long-time glow, and it has the familiar greenish glow-in-the-dark. Copper-doped zinc sulfide ("ZnS plus Cu") is used also in electroluminescent panels. It also exhibits phosphorescence due to impurities on illumination with blue or ultraviolet light.

Optical material.

Zinc sulfide is also used as an infrared optical material, transmitting from visible wavelengths to just over 12 micrometers. It can be used planar as an optical window or shaped into a lens. It is made as microcrystalline sheets by the synthesis from hydrogen sulfide gas and zinc vapour, and this is sold as FLIR-grade (Forward Looking Infrared), where the zinc sulfide is in a milky-yellow, opaque form. This material when hot isostatically pressed (HIPed) can be converted to a water-clear form known as Cleartran (trademark). Early commercial forms were marketed as Irtran-2 but this designation is now obsolete.

Pigment.

Zinc sulfide is a common pigment, sometimes called sachtolith. When combined with barium sulfate, zinc sulfide forms lithopone.

Catalyst.

Fine ZnS powder is an efficient photocatalyst, which produces hydrogen gas from water upon illumination. Sulfur vacancies can be introduced in ZnS during its synthesis; this gradually turns the white-yellowish ZnS into a brown powder, and boosts the photocatalytic activity through enhanced light absorption.

Semiconductor properties.

Both sphalerite and wurtzite are intrinsic, wide-bandgap semiconductors. These are prototypical II-VI semiconductors, and they adopt structures related to many of the other semiconductors, such as gallium arsenide. The cubic form of ZnS has a band gap of about 3.54 electron volts at 300 kelvins, but the hexagonal form has a band gap of about 3.91 electron volts. ZnS can be doped as either an n-type semiconductor or a p-type semiconductor.

History.

The phosphorescence of ZnS was first reported by the French chemist Théodore Sidot in 1866. His findings were presented by A. E. Becquerel, who was renowned for the research on luminescence. ZnS was used by Ernest Rutherford and others in the early years of nuclear physics as a scintillation detector, because it emits light upon excitation by x-rays or electron beam, making it useful for X-ray screens and cathode ray tubes. This property made zinc sulfide useful in the dials of radium watches.

Production.

Zinc sulfide is usually produced from waste materials from other applications. Typical sources include smelter, slag, and pickle liquors. It is also a by-product of the synthesis of ammonia from methane where zinc oxide is used to scavenge hydrogen sulfide impurities in the natural gas:

Laboratory preparation.

It is easily produced by igniting a mixture of zinc and sulfur. Since zinc sulfide is insoluble in water, it can also be produced in a precipitation reaction. Solutions containing Zn salts readily form a precipitate ZnS in the presence of sulfide ions (e.g., from HS). This reaction is the basis of a gravimetric analysis for zinc.

Zinc sulfide (or zinc sulphide) is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula of ZnS. This is the main form of zinc found in nature, where it mainly occurs as the mineral sphalerite. Although this mineral is usually black because of various impurities, the pure material is white, and it is widely used as a pigment. In its dense synthetic form, zinc sulfide can be transparent, and it is used as a window for visible optics and infrared optics.


Taxonomy.

A closely related plant in North America, sometimes regarded as the variety "Rubus idaeus" var. "strigosus", is more commonly treated as a distinct species, "Rubus strigosus" (American red raspberry), as is done here. Red-fruited cultivated raspberries, even in North America, are generally "Rubus idaeus" or horticultural derivatives of hybrids of "R. idaeus" and "R. strigosus;" these plants are all addressed in the present article.

Description.

Plants of "Rubus idaeus" are generally perennials which bear biennial stems ("canes") from a perennial root system. In its first year, a new, unbranched stem ("primocane") grows vigorously to its full height of 1.5–2.5 m (5.0–8.3 feet), bearing large pinnately compound leaves with five or seven leaflets, but usually no flowers. In its second year (as a "floricane"), a stem does not grow taller, but produces several side shoots, which bear smaller leaves with three or five leaflets. The flowers are produced in late spring on short racemes on the tips of these side shoots, each flower about 1 cm (0.4 inches) diameter with five white petals. The fruit is red, edible, and sweet but tart-flavoured, produced in summer or early autumn; in botanical terminology, it is not a berry at all, but an aggregate fruit of numerous drupelets around a central core. In raspberries (various species of "Rubus" subgenus "Idaeobatus"), the drupelets separate from the core when picked, leaving a hollow fruit, whereas in blackberries and most other species of "Rubus," the drupelets stay attached to the core.

Biotope.

As a wild plant, "R. idaeus" typically grows in forests, forming open stands under a tree canopy, and denser stands in clearings. In the south of its range (southern Europe and central Asia), it only occurs at high altitudes in mountains. The species name "idaeus" refers to its occurrence on Mount Ida near Troy in northwest Turkey, where the ancient Greeks were most familiar with it.

Cultivation and uses.

"R. idaeus" is grown primarily for its fruits, but occasionally for its leaves, roots, or other parts.

Fruits.

The fruit of "R. idaeus" is an important food crop, though most modern commercial raspberry cultivars derive from hybrids between "R. idaeus" and "R. strigosus". The fruits of wild plants have a sweet taste and are very aromatic.

Leaves and other parts.

Red raspberries contains 31 μg/100 g of folate. Red raspberries have antioxidant effects that play a minor role in the killing of stomach and colon cancer cells.  Young roots of "Rubus idaeus" prevented kidney stone formation in a mouse model of hyperoxaluria. Tiliroside from raspberry is a potent tyrosinase inhibitor and might be used as a skin-whitening agent and pigmentation medicine.  Raspberry fruit may protect the liver.

Chemistry.

Vitamin C and phenolics are present in red raspberries. Most notably, the anthocyanins cyanidin-3-sophoroside, cyanidin-3-(2(G)-glucosylrutinoside) and cyanidin-3-glucoside, the two ellagitannins sanguiin H-6 and lambertianin C are present together with trace levels of flavonols, ellagic acid and hydroxycinnamate.  Polyphenolic compounds from raspberry seeds have antioxidant effects in vitro, but have no proven antioxidant effect in humans. Raspberry ketones are derived from various fruits and plants, not raspberries, and are marketed as having weight loss benefits. There is no clinical evidence for this effect in humans.

Rubus idaeus (raspberry, also called red raspberry or occasionally as European raspberry to distinguish it from other raspberries) is a red-fruited species of "Rubus" native to Europe and northern Asia and commonly cultivated in other temperate regions.


Career.

Foé was born on 1 May 1975 in Yaoundé. He started as a junior with Second Division Union Garoua. Moving to Canon Yaoundé, one of the biggest clubs in Cameroon, he won the Cameroonian Cup in 1993. Foé began representing Cameroon at under-20s when he was called up to the squad of 18 players for the 1993 FIFA World Youth Championship in Australia, under the management of Jean Manga-Onguéné. He played in all of their three group stage matches, scoring one goal in a 3–2 defeat to Colombia in their second match on 8 March 1993, as Cameroon were eventually eliminated from the competition after finishing third. Foé later made his senior debut against Mexico on 22 September 1993 at the Memorial Coliseum, a match which Cameroon lost 1–0.  The following year, he was included in the Cameroon squad for the 1994 World Cup, starting all three of their matches. Marred by financial and disciplinary disputes, the 1994 Cameroon squad was a shadow compared to the quarter-finals in 1990. Cameroon mustered just one point from three matches, and finished with a 6–1 defeat to Russia. However, Foé's performances (including a goal assist) prompted interest from European clubs.  After turning down Auxerre for a trainee position, he signed for another French club, RC Lens of Ligue 1. His debut on 13 August 1994 was a 2–1 win against Montpellier. In five seasons at Lens, he won the 1998 French league title.  In 1998, he was targeted by Manchester United, but Lens refused a £3 million offer. Further negotiations were curtailed abruptly after he broke a leg at Cameroon's pre-World Cup training camp, and missed the 1998 World Cup.  Shortly after his recovery, he moved to English Premier League club West Ham United, for a club record £4.2 million in January 1999. He played 38 league matches for West Ham, scoring one goal against Sheffield Wednesday. He also scored a goal in West Ham's 3–1 win against NK Osijek in the UEFA Cup.  In May 2000, he moved back to France, joining Lyon on a £6 million transfer. He missed much of the season from malaria. After recovery, he won the Coupe de la Ligue in 2001, and the Division 1 league title a year later.  He was on the Cameroon squad in the 2002 World Cup. As in 1994, he played in all of Cameroon's matches. Though the team performed better since 1994, they were again eliminated. At the group stage, they beat Saudi Arabia, drew with Ireland and lost to Germany.  Foé returned to the Premier League, loaned to Manchester City in the 2002–03 season for £550,000. His debut on the opening day of the season was a 3–0 loss to Leeds United. Foé was a first team regular for Kevin Keegan's team, starting 38 of 41 matches. His first goal for the club came against Sunderland at the Stadium of Light on 9 December 2002, and he scored five more goals in the next month. His second goal in a 3–0 victory against Sunderland on 21 April 2003 was the club's final goal at their Maine Road stadium.

Death.

Foé was part of the Cameroon squad for the 2003 FIFA Confederations Cup. He played in wins against Brazil and Turkey, and was rested for the match against the United States, with Cameroon having already qualified. On 26 June 2003, Cameroon faced Colombia in the semi-final, held at the Stade de Gerland in Lyon, France. In the 72nd minute of the match Foé collapsed in the centre circle with no other players near him. After attempts to resuscitate him on the pitch, he was stretchered off the field, where he received mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and oxygen. Medics spent 45 minutes attempting to restart his heart, and although he was still alive upon arrival at the stadium's medical centre, he died shortly afterwards. A first autopsy did not determine an exact cause of death, but a second autopsy concluded that Foé's death was heart-related as it discovered evidence of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a hereditary condition known to increase the risk of sudden death during physical exercise.  Foé's widow Marie-Louise stated that he had been ill with gastric problems and dysentery before his final match, but he was adamant to play in his adopted hometown of Lyon. Cameroon manager Winfried Schäfer wanted to substitute him minutes before his collapse, observing that the player seemed fatigued, but he signalled that he wanted to continue.

Personal life.

Foé was a practising Roman Catholic and gave money to charity.

Tributes.

Foé's death caused a profound shock. Numerous tributes to his joyous personality and infectious humour were expressed in the media. Also Thierry Henry and other players pointed to the sky in tribute to Foé after Henry had opened the scoring against Turkey in France's Confederations Cup semi-final that evening.  It was suggested that the Confederations Cup and the Stade Gerland could have been renamed after him, and Manchester City manager Kevin Keegan announced that the club would no longer use the number 23 shirt Foé wore during his successful season there. At Manchester City's former ground, Maine Road, there is a small memorial to him in the stadium's memorial garden, and on the walls of the players' tunnel are plaques paid for by supporters, with their names, dubbed the Walk of Pride. The first plaque on the wall is for Marc and reads "Marc Vivien Foé – 1975–2003". His first club Lens gave his name to an avenue near the Stade Félix Bollaert. Foé was given a state funeral in Cameroon. Lens decided to withdraw the number 17 shirt that Foé wore for five years.  Lyon also decided to withdraw the number 17 shirt that Foé wore a year before when he played at the Stade de Gerland with the Lyon team. People in Lyon were shocked as he had received a warm welcome on his return to the stadium. However, when fellow Cameroonian Jean II Makoun was transferred to Lyon, Makoun took up the number 17 shirt, explaining that he wore the number: "In memory of Marc, for me and for the whole Cameroon, this will be for something."  Prior to the kick-off of the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup final between the United States and Brazil, his son, then fourteen years old, gave a brief speech in memory of his father.

Marc-Vivien Foé (1 May 1975 – 26 June 2003) was a Cameroonian professional footballer, who played as a midfielder for both club and country. Foé had success in France's Division 1 and England's Premier League, before his sudden death during an international competitive match which shocked the football community worldwide. He was posthumously decorated with the Commander of the National Order of Valour.


Biography.

Amedeo Avogadro was born in Turin to a noble family of the Kingdom of Sardinia (now part of Italy) in the year 1776. He graduated in ecclesiastical law at the late age of 20 and began to practice. Soon after, he dedicated himself to physics and mathematics (then called "positive philosophy"), and in 1809 started teaching them at a "liceo" (high school) in Vercelli, where his family lived and had some property.  In 1811, he published an article with the title "Essai d'une manière de déterminer les masses relatives des molécules élémentaires des corps, et les proportions selon lesquelles elles entrent dans ces combinaisons" ("Essay on a manner of Determining the Relative Masses of the Elementary Molecules of Bodies and the Proportions by Which They Enter These Combinations"), which contains Avogadro's hypothesis. Avogadro submitted this essay to Jean-Claude Delamétherie's "Journal de Physique, de Chimie et d'Histoire naturelle" ("Journal of Physics, Chemistry and Natural History").  In 1820, he became a professor of physics at the University of Turin. Turin was now the capital of the restored Savoyard Kingdom of Sardinia under Victor Emmanuel I. Avogadro was active in the revolutionary movement of March 1821. As a result, he lost his chair in 1823 (or, as the university officially declared, it was "very glad to allow this interesting scientist to take a rest from heavy teaching duties, in order to be able to give better attention to his researches"). Eventually, King Charles Albert granted a Constitution ("Statuto Albertino") in 1848. Well before this, Avogadro had been recalled to the university in Turin in 1833, where he taught for another twenty years.  Little is known about Avogadro's private life, which appears to have been sober and religious. He married Felicita Mazzé and had six children. Avogadro held posts dealing with statistics, meteorology, and weights and measures (he introduced the metric system into Piedmont) and was a member of the Royal Superior Council on Public Instruction.  He died on 9 July 1856.

Accomplishments.

In honor of Avogadro's contributions to molecular theory, the number of molecules per mole of substance is named the "Avogadro constant", "N". It is exactly The Avogadro constant is used to compute the results of chemical reactions. It allows chemists to determine the amounts of substances produced in a given reaction to a great degree of accuracy.  Johann Josef Loschmidt first calculated the value of the Avogadro constant, the number of particles in one mole, sometimes referred to as the Loschmidt number in German-speaking countries (Loschmidt constant now has another meaning).  Avogadro's Law states that the relationship between the masses of the same volume of all gases (at the same temperature and pressure) corresponds to the relationship between their respective molecular weights. Hence, the relative molecular mass of a gas can be calculated from the mass of a sample of known volume.  Avogadro developed this hypothesis after Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac published his law on volumes (and combining gases) in 1808. The greatest problem Avogadro had to resolve was the confusion at that time regarding atoms and molecules. One of his most important contributions was clearly distinguishing one from the other, stating that gases are composed of molecules, and these molecules are composed of atoms. (For instance, John Dalton did not consider this possibility.) Avogadro did not actually use the word "atom" as the words "atom" and "molecule" were used almost without difference. He believed that there were three kinds of "molecules," including an "elementary molecule" (our "atom"). Also, he gave more attention to the definition of mass, as distinguished from weight. In 1815, he published "Mémoire sur les masses relatives des molécules des corps simples, ou densités présumées de leur gaz, et sur la constitution de quelques-uns de leur composés, pour servir de suite à l'Essai sur le même sujet, publié dans le Journal de Physique, juillet 1811" ("Note on the Relative Masses of Elementary Molecules, or Suggested Densities of Their Gases, and on the Constituents of Some of Their Compounds, As a Follow-up to the Essay on the Same Subject, Published in the Journal of Physics, July 1811") about gas densities.  In 1821 he published another paper, "Nouvelles considérations sur la théorie des proportions déterminées dans les combinaisons, et sur la détermination des masses des molécules des corps" ("New Considerations on the Theory of Proportions Determined in Combinations, and on Determination of the Masses of Atoms") and shortly afterwards, "Mémoire sur la manière de ramener les composès organiques aux lois ordinaires des proportions déterminées" ("Note on the Manner of Finding the Organic Composition by the Ordinary Laws of Determined Proportions").  In 1841, he published his work in "Fisica dei corpi ponderabili, ossia Trattato della costituzione materiale de' corpi", 4 volumes.

Response to the theory.

The scientific community did not give great attention to Avogadro's theory, and it was not immediately accepted. André-Marie Ampère proposed a very similar theory three years later (in his ""; "On the Determination of Proportions in which Bodies Combine According to the Number and the Respective Disposition of the Molecules by Which Their Integral Particles Are Made"), but the same indifference was shown to his theory as well.  Only through studies by Charles Frédéric Gerhardt and Auguste Laurent on organic chemistry was it possible to demonstrate that Avogadro's law explained why the same quantities of molecules in a gas have the same volume.  Unfortunately, related experiments with some inorganic substances showed seeming contradictions. This was finally resolved by Stanislao Cannizzaro, as announced at Karlsruhe Congress in 1860, four years after Avogadro's death. He explained that these exceptions were due to molecular dissociations at certain temperatures, and that Avogadro's law determined not only molecular masses, but atomic masses as well.  In 1911, a meeting in Turin commemorated the hundredth anniversary of the publication of Avogadro's classic 1811 paper. King Victor Emmanuel III attended, and Avogadro's great contribution to chemistry was recognized.  Rudolf Clausius, with his kinetic theory on gases proposed in 1857, provided further evidence for Avogadro's Law. Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff showed that Avogadro's theory also held in dilute solutions.  Avogadro is hailed as a founder of the atomic-molecular theory.

Lorenzo Romano Amedeo Carlo Avogadro (,, ; 9 August 17769 July 1856), Count of Quaregna and Cerreto, was an Italian scientist, most noted for his contribution to molecular theory now known as Avogadro's law, which states that equal volumes of gases under the same conditions of temperature and pressure will contain equal numbers of molecules. In tribute to him, the number of elementary entities (atoms, molecules, ions or other particles) in 1 mole of a substance,, is known as the Avogadro constant, one of the seven SI base units and represented by "N".


Mission types.

The name "Luna" was used to designate a variety of spacecraft designs, to achieve several types of missions:

Impactors.

Impactor spacecraft are designed to hit the near side of the Moon, transmitting photographs back to Earth until their destruction on impact. Luna 1 (January 1959) missed its intended impact with the Moon and became the first spacecraft to escape the Earth-Moon system. Luna 2 (September 1959) mission successfully hit the Moon's surface, becoming the first man-made object to reach the Moon. This was Luna's only impact success out of six tries from September 1958 to September 1959.  The United States competed with the Luna impactors via the Ranger programme, which performed four successful impacts in nine attempts from August 1961 to March 1965.

Flybys.

A flyby is the simplest lunar spacecraft, requiring neither a propulsion device for slowing, nor a guidance system sensitive enough to hit the Moon. Its function is to transmit photographs back to Earth. Luna 3 (October 1959) rounded the Moon later that year, and returned the first photographs of its far side, which can never be seen from Earth. This was Luna's only successful flyby, out of three tries from October 1959 to April 1960.  The United States launched two lunar flyby probes as part of its Pioneer program. Pioneer 3, launched on 6 December 1958, failed to reach the Moon. Pioneer 4 succeeded in flying by the Moon on 6 March 1959 and achieved a heliocentric orbit.

Soft landers.

Soft landers require rocket propulsion to slow their speed sufficiently to prevent the craft's destruction. It can continue to transmit pictures from the surface, and possibly dig into the lunar soil or return other information about the lunar environment. Luna 9 (February 1966) became the first probe to achieve a soft landing on another planetary body. It transmitted five black and white stereoscopic circular panoramas, which were the first close-up shots of the lunar surface. Two successful soft landings were achieved out of thirteen attempts from January 1963 to December 1966.  The United States competed with the Luna landers by the Surveyor programme, which performed five successful landings out of seven attempts from June 1966 to January 1968.

Orbiters.

Orbiter spacecraft require less thrust and propellant than landers, but still, require enough to achieve lunar orbit insertion. Luna 10 (March 1966) became the first artificial satellite of the Moon. Luna flew six successful orbiters out of eight attempts from March 1966 to May 1974.  The United States attempted a series of seven lunar orbiter probes as part of its Pioneer program from August 1958 to December 1960; all (Pioneer 0, Pioneer 1, Pioneer 2, Pioneer P-1, Pioneer P-3, Pioneer P-30, and Pioneer P-31) were failures. Later, the US successfully flew five Lunar Orbiter spacecraft from August 1966 to August 1967, to map 99% of the lunar surface and help select landing sites for the Apollo crewed landing programme.

Rovers.

More sophisticated soft lander craft can deploy wheeled vehicles to explore a wider area of the lunar surface than the immediate landing site. The first attempted Lunokhod failed in February 1969. Luna 17 (November 1970) and Luna 21 (January 1973) carried Lunokhod vehicles, which were the first robotic wheeled vehicles to explore the Moon's terrain. Lunokhod 1 travelled in 322 days and returned more than 20,000 television images and 206 high-resolution panoramas. Lunokhod 2 operated for about four months, covered of terrain, A third Lunokhod was built and intended for launch in 1977, but never flew due to lack of launchers and funding.  The United States landed crewed rovers (Lunar Roving Vehicles) on Apollo 15 (July–August 1971), Apollo 16 (April 1972), and Apollo 17 (December 1972). Apollo 15 covered ; Apollo 16 covered, and Apollo 17 covered.

Sample return.

More complex soft lander craft can robotically scoop up a small amount of lunar material, lift off from the surface, and return the material to Earth. Luna 16 (September 1970), Luna 20 (February 1972) and Luna 24 (August 1976), returned samples of lunar soil to Earth. A total of of soil sample was returned from the three missions.  The United States achieved lunar sample return with crewed lunar landings on the Apollo programme, which successfully landed six two-man crews out of seven attempts from July 1969 to December 1972. A total of of human-selected rocks and soil was returned to Earth.  Luna 15 (July 1969) flew at the same time as the Apollo 11 mission. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had already performed the first crewed lunar landing when Luna 15 began its descent, and the spacecraft crashed into a mountain minutes later.

Failed missions.

While the programme was active, it was Soviet practice not to release any details of missions that had failed to achieve orbit. This resulted in Western observers assigning their own designations to the missions. For example, Luna E-1 No.1, the first failure of 1958 which NASA believed was associated with the Luna programme, was known as Luna 1958A.

The Luna programme (from the Russian word Луна "Luna" meaning "Lunar" or "Moon"), occasionally called "Lunik" by western media, was a series of robotic spacecraft missions sent to the Moon by the Soviet Union between 1959 and 1976. Fifteen were successful, each designed as either an orbiter or lander, and accomplished many firsts in space exploration. They also performed many experiments, studying the Moon's chemical composition, gravity, temperature, and radiation.


Overview.

Molecular biophysics typically addresses biological questions similar to those in biochemistry and molecular biology, seeking to find the physical underpinnings of biomolecular phenomena. Scientists in this field conduct research concerned with understanding the interactions between the various systems of a cell, including the interactions between DNA, RNA and protein biosynthesis, as well as how these interactions are regulated. A great variety of techniques are used to answer these questions.  Fluorescent imaging techniques, as well as electron microscopy, x-ray crystallography, NMR spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM) and small-angle scattering (SAS) both with X-rays and neutrons (SAXS/SANS) are often used to visualize structures of biological significance. Protein dynamics can be observed by neutron spin echo spectroscopy. Conformational change in structure can be measured using techniques such as dual polarisation interferometry, circular dichroism, SAXS and SANS. Direct manipulation of molecules using optical tweezers or AFM, can also be used to monitor biological events where forces and distances are at the nanoscale. Molecular biophysicists often consider complex biological events as systems of interacting entities which can be understood e.g. through statistical mechanics, thermodynamics and chemical kinetics. By drawing knowledge and experimental techniques from a wide variety of disciplines, biophysicists are often able to directly observe, model or even manipulate the structures and interactions of individual molecules or complexes of molecules.  In addition to traditional (i.e. molecular and cellular) biophysical topics like structural biology or enzyme kinetics, modern biophysics encompasses an extraordinarily broad range of research, from bioelectronics to quantum biology involving both experimental and theoretical tools. It is becoming increasingly common for biophysicists to apply the models and experimental techniques derived from physics, as well as mathematics and statistics, to larger systems such as tissues, organs, populations and ecosystems. Biophysical models are used extensively in the study of electrical conduction in single neurons, as well as neural circuit analysis in both tissue and whole brain.  Medical physics, a branch of biophysics, is any application of physics to medicine or healthcare, ranging from radiology to microscopy and nanomedicine. For example, physicist Richard Feynman theorized about the future of nanomedicine. He wrote about the idea of a "medical" use for biological machines (see nanomachines). Feynman and Albert Hibbs suggested that certain repair machines might one day be reduced in size to the point that it would be possible to (as Feynman put it) "swallow the doctor". The idea was discussed in Feynman's 1959 essay "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom.

History.

Some of the earlier studies in biophysics were conducted in the 1840s by a group known as the Berlin school of physiologists. Among its members were pioneers such as Hermann von Helmholtz, Ernst Heinrich Weber, Carl F. W. Ludwig, and Johannes Peter Müller. Biophysics might even be seen as dating back to the studies of Luigi Galvani.  The popularity of the field rose when the book "What Is Life?" by Erwin Schrödinger was published. Since 1957, biophysicists have organized themselves into the Biophysical Society which now has about 9,000 members over the world.  Some authors such as Robert Rosen criticize biophysics on the ground that the biophysical method does not take into account the specificity of biological phenomena.

Focus as a subfield.

While some colleges and universities have dedicated departments of biophysics, usually at the graduate level, many do not have university-level biophysics departments, instead having groups in related departments such as biochemistry, cell biology, chemistry, computer science, engineering, mathematics, medicine, molecular biology, neuroscience, pharmacology, physics, and physiology. Depending on the strengths of a department at a university differing emphasis will be given to fields of biophysics. What follows is a list of examples of how each department applies its efforts toward the study of biophysics. This list is hardly all inclusive. Nor does each subject of study belong exclusively to any particular department. Each academic institution makes its own rules and there is much overlap between departments.  Many biophysical techniques are unique to this field. Research efforts in biophysics are often initiated by scientists who were biologists, chemists or physicists by training.

Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations. Biophysical research shares significant overlap with biochemistry, molecular biology, physical chemistry, physiology, nanotechnology, bioengineering, computational biology, biomechanics, developmental biology and systems biology.


Terms.

The Treaty of Lunéville declared that "there shall be, henceforth and forever, peace, amity, and good understanding" among the parties. The treaty required Austria to enforce the conditions of the earlier Treaty of Campo Formio (concluded on 17 October 1797). Certain Austrian holdings within the borders of the Holy Roman Empire were relinquished, and French control was extended to the left bank of the Rhine, "in complete sovereignty" but France renounced any claim to territories east of the Rhine. Contested boundaries in Italy were set.  The Grand Duchy of Tuscany was awarded to the French, but the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand III, was promised territorial compensations in Germany. In a secret article, the compensations were tentatively set to be the Archbishopric of Salzburg and Berchtesgaden. The two parties agreed to respect the independence of the Batavian, Cisalpine, Helvetic and Ligurian Republics. On the other hand, Austria's possession of Venetia and Dalmatian coast was confirmed.

Consequences for the Holy Roman Empire.

The Treaty of Lunéville in Article 6 reaffirmed the cession of all territory of the Empire to France on the left bank of the river Rhine. Article 7 stipulated that the princes, whose territories were partly or wholly ceded, were to be compensated with lands from within the new borders of the Empire. The territories lost included the Austrian Netherlands, Savoy, and imperial Italy. The task of compensation was left to an Imperial Deportation (German: "Reichsdeputation"). France and Russia greatly influenced the negotiations, with France urging for larger new territories to be formed, which it hoped would later ally with them, while Russia favoured "a more traditional balance". Eventually, the "Reichsdeputationshauptschluss" (Imperial Recess), the final document which reorganised the Empire, was signed on 25 February 1803. The Recess did far more than simply satisfy the need to compensate the princes, but fundamentally restructured the Empire by secularising all ecclesiastical states except for the Electorate of Mainz. Almost all free imperial cities lost their sovereignty. The "Reichsdeputationshauptschluss" was the last major law in the history of the Holy Roman Empire before its dissolution in 1806.

End of peace.

The Austrians resumed war against France in 1805.

The Treaty of Lunéville was signed in the Treaty House of Lunéville on 9 February 1801. The signatory parties were the French Republic and Holy Roman Emperor Francis II. The latter was negotiating both on his own behalf as ruler of the hereditary domains of the Habsburg Monarchy and on behalf of other rulers who controlled territories in the Holy Roman Empire. The signatories were Joseph Bonaparte and Count Ludwig von Cobenzl, the Austrian foreign minister.


Description.

The leaves are alternate, ovate to lanceolate, often with a toothed or lobed margin. The flowers are large, conspicuous, trumpet-shaped, with five or more petals, colour from white to pink, red, orange, peach, yellow or purple, and from 4–18 cm broad.  Flower colour in certain species, such as "H. mutabilis" and "H. tiliaceus", changes with age. The fruit is a dry five-lobed capsule, containing several seeds in each lobe, which are released when the capsule dehisces (splits open) at maturity. It is of red and white colours. It is an example of complete flowers.

Species.

In temperate zones, probably the most commonly grown ornamental species is "Hibiscus syriacus", the common garden hibiscus, also known in some areas as the "rose of Althea" or "rose of Sharon" (but not to be confused with the unrelated "Hypericum calycinum", also called "rose of Sharon"). In tropical and subtropical areas, the Chinese hibiscus ("H. rosa-sinensis"), with its many showy hybrids, is the most popular hibiscus.  Several hundred species are known, including:

Uses.

Symbolism and culture.

The red hibiscus is the flower of the Hindu goddess Kali, and appears frequently in depictions of her in the art of Bengal, India, often with the goddess and the flower merging in form. The hibiscus is used as an offering to goddess Kali and Lord Ganesha in Hindu worship.  In the Philippines, the "gumamela" (local name for hibiscus) is used by children as part of a bubble-making pastime. The flowers and leaves are crushed until the sticky juices come out. Hollow papaya stalks are then dipped into this and used as straws for blowing bubbles. Together with soap, hibiscus juices produce more bubbles. Also called "Tarukanga" in waray particularly in eastern samar province.  The hibiscus flower is traditionally worn by Tahitian and Hawaiian girls. If the flower is worn behind the left ear, the woman is married or has a boyfriend. If the flower is worn on the right, she is single or openly available for a relationship. The yellow hibiscus is Hawaii's state flower.  Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie named her first novel "Purple Hibiscus" after the delicate flower.  The bark of the hibiscus contains strong bast fibres that can be obtained by letting the stripped bark set in the sea to let the organic material rot away.

As a national and state symbol.

The hibiscus is a national symbol of Haiti, and the national flower of nations including the Solomon Islands and Niue. "Hibiscus syriacus" is the national flower of South Korea, and "Hibiscus rosa-sinensis" is the national flower of Malaysia. "Hibiscus brackenridgei" is the state flower of Hawaii.

Landscaping.

Many species are grown for their showy flowers or used as landscape shrubs, and are used to attract butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds.  Hibiscus is a very hardy, versatile plant and in tropical conditions it can enhance the beauty of any garden. Being versatile it adapts itself easily to balcony gardens in crammed urban spaces and can be easily grown in pots as a creeper or even in hanging pots. It is a perennial and flowers through the year. As it comes in a variety of colors, it's a plant which can add vibrancy to any garden.  The only infestation that gardeners need to be vigilant about is mealybug. Mealybug infestations are easy to spot as it is clearly visible as a distinct white cottony infestation on buds, leaves or even stems. To protect the plant you need to trim away the infected part, spray with water, and apply an appropriate pesticide.

Paper.

One species of "Hibiscus", known as kenaf ("Hibiscus cannabinus"), is extensively used in paper-making.

Rope and construction.

The inner bark of the sea hibiscus ("Hibiscus tiliaceus"), also called 'hau', is used in Polynesia for making rope, and the wood for making canoe floats. The ropes on the missionary ship "Messenger of Peace" were made of fibres from hibiscus trees.

Beverage.

The tea made of the calyces of Hibiscus sabdariffa is known by many names in many countries around the world and is served both hot and cold. The beverage is well known for its red colour, tartness and unique flavour. Additionally, it is highly nutritious because of its vitamin C content.  It is known as "bissap" in West Africa, "Gul e Khatmi" in Urdu & Persian, "agua de jamaica" in Mexico and Central America (the flower being" flor de jamaica") and "Orhul" in India. Some refer to it as "roselle", a common name for the hibiscus flower. In Jamaica, Trinidad and many other islands in the Caribbean, the drink is known as "sorrel" ("Hibiscus sabdariffa"; not to be confused with "Rumex acetosa", a species sharing the common name "sorrel"). In Ghana, the drink is known as "soobolo" in one of the local languages.  In Cambodia, a cold beverage can be prepared by first steeping the petals in hot water until the colors are leached from the petals, then adding lime juice (which turns the beverage from dark brown/red to a bright red), sweeteners (sugar/honey) and finally cold water/ice cubes.  In the Arab world, hibiscus tea is known as "karkadé" (كركديه), and is served as both a hot and a cold drink.

Food.

Dried hibiscus is edible, and it is often a delicacy in Mexico. It can also be candied and used as a garnish, usually for desserts.  The roselle ("Hibiscus sabdariffa") is used as a vegetable. The species "Hibiscus suratensis" Linn synonymous to "Hibiscus aculeatus" G. Don is noted in Visayas in the Philippines as being a souring ingredient for almost all local vegetables and menus. Known as labog in the Visayan area, (or labuag/sapinit in Tagalog), the species is an ingredient in cooking native chicken soup.  "Hibiscus" species are used as food plants by the larvae of some lepidopteran species, including "Chionodes hibiscella", "Hypercompe hambletoni", the nutmeg moth, and the turnip moth.

Folk medicine.

"Hibiscus rosa-sinensis" is described as having a number of medical uses in Indian Ayurveda.

Claimed effects on blood pressure.

It has been claimed that sour teas derived from "Hibiscus sabdariffa" may lower blood pressure.

Precautions and contraindications.

Pregnancy and lactation.

While the mechanism is not well understood, previous animal studies have demonstrated both an inhibitory effect of "H. sabdariffa" on muscle tone and the anti-fertility effects of "Hibiscus rosa-sinensis", respectively. The extract of "H. sabdariffa" has been shown to stimulate contraction of the rat bladder and uterus; the "H.rosa-sinensis" extract has exhibited contraceptive effects in the form of estrogen activity in rats. These findings have not been observed in humans. The "Hibiscus rosa-sinensis" is also thought to have emmenagogue effects which can stimulate menstruation and, in some women, cause an abortion. Due to the documented adverse effects in animal studies and the reported pharmacological properties, the "H. sabdariffa" and "H.rosa-sinensis" are not recommended for use during pregnancy.

Drug interactions.

It is postulated that "H. sabdariffa" interacts with diclofenac, chloroquine and acetaminophen by altering the pharmacokinetics. In healthy human volunteers, the "H. sabdariffa" extract was found to reduce the excretion of diclofenac upon co-administration. Additionally, co-administration of Karkade ("H. sabdariffa"), a common Sudanese beverage, was found to reduce chloroquine bioavailability. However, no statistically significant changes were observed in the pharmacokinetics of acetaminophen when administered with the Zobo ("H.sabdariffa") drink. Further studies are needed to demonstrate clinical significance.

Hibiscus is a genus of flowering plants in the mallow family, Malvaceae. The genus is quite large, comprising several hundred species that are native to warm temperate, subtropical and tropical regions throughout the world. Member species are renowned for their large, showy flowers and those species are commonly known simply as "hibiscus", or less widely known as rose mallow. Other names include hardy hibiscus, rose of sharon, and tropical hibiscus.


Biography.

Born in Kortrijk, Belgium, Maurice DeBevere attended the well-known Jesuit college in Aalst. His math teacher told his parents the youth would unfortunately never succeed in life, as he passed math classes doodling in the margin of his math books. The student uniforms required there inspired his choices for those of the undertakers in his "Lucky Luke" cartoon series.  Morris started his career after college drawing in the Compagnie Belge d'Actualités (CBA) animation studios. This was a small and short-lived Belgian animation studio, where he met fellow artists Peyo and André Franquin.  After World War II, the company folded. Morris worked as an illustrator for "Het Laatste Nieuws", a Flemish newspaper, and "Le Moustique", a French-language weekly magazine published by Dupuis. He made some 250 covers and numerous other illustrations for the latter magazine, mainly caricatures of movie stars.  Morris died in 2001 of a pulmonary embolism.

"Lucky Luke".

In 1946, Morris created "Lucky Luke" for "Spirou" magazine, the Franco-Belgian comics magazine published by Dupuis. Lucky Luke is a solitary cowboy who travels across the Wild West of the United States, helping those in need and aided by his faithful horse, Jolly Jumper. The first adventure, "Arizona 1880", was published in "L'Almanach Spirou 1947", released on 7 December 1946.  Morris became one of the central artists of the magazine. He was one of the so-called "La bande des quatre" (Gang of 4), with Jijé, André Franquin, and Will. He did not work at Jijé's studio, unlike the other two, but all four became very good friends, stimulating each other artistically.  In 1948, Morris, Jijé and Franquin travelled to the United States (Will was still too young and had to remain in Belgium). They wanted to get to know the country, see what was left of the Wild West, and meet some American comic artists. Morris stayed the longest of the three, for six years. During his six-year stay in the U.S. Morris met Jack Davis and Harvey Kurtzman, and assisted them with founding their "Mad" magazine at EC Comics. In the U.S. he also met René Goscinny, a French comic artist and writer.  They developed a long collaboration, and Goscinny wrote all the "Lucky Luke" stories between 1955 and his death in 1977. In the 1950s, Goscinny was still fairly unknown, but he became the most successful comic writer in Europe, first with "Lucky Luke" and a few years later with his "Asterix" series.  Morris's time in the USA were integral to his development, not only because of his collaboration with Goscinny, but because he gathered a great deal of documentation for his later work. He also became familiar with the Hollywood films of the time. In the following years, Morris introduced many cinematic techniques in his comics, such as freeze-frames and close-ups. Walt Disney's style influenced him, which can be seen in the very round lines that characterize the early Lucky Luke albums. Many characters in his comics are also clearly based on famous American actors, such as Jack Palance, Gary Cooper, W.C. Fields, and William Hart. He also caricatured unexpected figures, such as Louis de Funès and French singer Serge Gainsbourg.  The first 31 Lucky Luke adventures were published by Dupuis. In the late 1960s, Morris left Dupuis and "Spirou" and went to Dargaud and "Pilote" magazine. This was started by his friend and collaborator Goscinny.  In 1984, Hanna-Barbera made a series of 52 cartoons of "Lucky Luke", increasing the popularity of the series. 52 more animated cartoons were made in the early 1990s, and three live action movies followed. A few videogames based on the series were also made, e.g. for PlayStation and Game Boy Color. "Lucky Luke" is the best-selling European comics series ever, with more than 300 million copies sold, and published in more than thirty languages.  Unlike many of his contemporaries, Morris never worked on several series. He made numerous illustrations for stories in the forties and fifties. In the nineties, he did make "Rantanplan", a spin-off from "Lucky Luke", starring the dumbest dog in the West.  In 2005 Morris was ranked as 79th for The Greatest Belgian in the French-speaking community.

Maurice De Bevere (; 1 December 1923 – 16 July 2001), better known as Morris, was a Belgian cartoonist, comics artist, illustrator and the creator of "Lucky Luke," a bestselling comic series about a gunslinger in the American Wild West. He was inspired by the adventures of the historic Dalton Gang and other outlaws. It was a bestselling series for more than 20 years that was translated into 23 languages and published internationally. He collaborated for two decades with French writer René Goscinny on the series. Morris's pen name is an Anglicized version of his first name.


Applications of motion blur.

Photography.

When a camera creates an image, that image does not represent a single instant of time. Because of technological constraints or artistic requirements, the image may represent the scene over a period of time. Most often this exposure time is brief enough that the image captured by the camera appears to capture an instantaneous moment, but this is not always so, and a fast moving object or a longer exposure time may result in blurring artifacts which make this apparent. As objects in a scene move, an image of that scene must represent an integration of all positions of those objects, as well as the camera's viewpoint, over the period of exposure determined by the shutter speed. In such an image, any object moving with respect to the camera will look blurred or smeared along the direction of relative motion. This smearing may occur on an object that is moving or on a static background if the camera is moving. In a film or television image, this looks natural because the human eye behaves in much the same way.  Because the effect is caused by the relative motion between the camera, and the objects and scene, motion blur may be manipulated by panning the camera to track those moving objects. In this case, even with long exposure times, the moving objects will appear sharper while the background will become more blurred, with the resulting image conveying a sense of movement and speed.

Animation.

In computer animation this effect must be simulated as a virtual camera actually does capture a discrete moment in time. This simulated motion blur is typically applied when either the camera or objects in the scene move rapidly.  Without this simulated effect each frame shows a perfect instant in time (analogous to a camera with an infinitely fast shutter), with zero motion blur. This is why a video game with a frame rate of 25-30 frames per second will seem staggered, while natural motion filmed at the same frame rate appears rather more continuous. Many modern video games feature motion blur, especially vehicle simulation games.  Some of the better-known games that utilise this are the recent Need for Speed titles, Unreal Tournament III,, among many others. There are two main methods used in video games to achieve motion blur: cheaper full-screen effects, which typically only take camera movement (and sometimes how fast the camera is moving in 3-D Space to create a radial blur) into mind, and more "selective" or "per-object" motion blur, which typically uses a shader to create a velocity buffer to mark motion intensity for a motion blurring effect to be applied to or uses a shader to perform geometry extrusion. Classic "motion blur" effects prior to modern per-pixel shading pipelines often simply drew successive frames on top of each other with slight transparency, which is strictly speaking a form of video feedback.  In pre-rendered computer animation, such as CGI movies, realistic motion blur can be drawn because the renderer has more time to draw each frame. Temporal anti-aliasing produces frames as a composite of many instants. Frames are not points in time, they are periods of time. If an object makes a trip at a linear speed along a path from 0% to 100% in four time periods, and if those time periods are considered frames, then the object would exhibit motion blur streaks in each frame that are 25% of the path length. If the shutter speed is shortened to less than the duration of a frame, and it may be so shortened as to approach zero time in duration, then the computer animator must choose which portion of the quarter paths (in our 4 frame example) they wish to feature as "open shutter" times. They may choose to render the beginnings of each frame, in which case they will never see the arrival of the object at the end of the path, or they may choose to render the ends of each frame, in which case they will miss the starting point of the trip. Most computer animations systems make the classic "fence-post error" in the way they handle time, confusing the periods of time of an animation with the instantaneous moments that delimit them. Thus most computer animation systems will incorrectly place an object on a four frame trip along a path at 0%, 0.33%, 0.66%, and 1.0% and when called upon to render motion blur will have to cut one or more frames short, or look beyond the boundaries of the animation, compromises that real cameras don't do and synthetic cameras needn't do.  Motion lines in cel animation are drawn in the same direction as motion blur and perform much the same duty. Go motion is a variant of stop motion animation that moves the models during the exposure to create a less staggered effect.

Computer graphics.

In 2D computer graphics, motion blur is an artistic filter that converts the digital image/bitmap/raster image in order to simulate the effect. Many graphical software products (e.g. Adobe Photoshop or GIMP) offer simple motion blur filters. However, for advanced motion blur filtering including curves or non-uniform speed adjustment, specialized software products (e.g. VirtualRig Studio) are necessary.

Biology.

When an animal's eye is in motion, the image will suffer from motion blur, resulting in an inability to resolve details. To cope with this, humans generally alternate between saccades (quick eye movements) and fixation (focusing on a single point). Saccadic masking makes motion blur during a saccade invisible. Similarly, smooth pursuit allows the eye to track a target in rapid motion, eliminating motion blur of that target instead of the scene.

Negative effects of motion blur.

In televised sports, where conventional cameras expose pictures 25 or 30 times per second, motion blur can be inconvenient because it obscures the exact position of a projectile or athlete in slow motion. For this reason special cameras are often used which eliminate motion blurring by taking rapid exposures on the order of 1 millisecond, and then transmitting them over the course of the next 30 to 40 milliseconds. Although this gives sharper slow motion replays it can look strange at normal speed because the eye expects to see motion blurring and is not provided with blurred images.  Conversely, extra motion blur can unavoidably occur on displays when it is not desired. This occurs with some video displays (especially LCD) that exhibits motion blur during fast motion. This can lead to more perceived motion blurring above and beyond the preexisting motion blur in the video material. See display motion blur.  Sometimes, motion blur can be removed from images with the help of deconvolution.  In video games the use or not of motion blur is somewhat controversial. Some gamers claim that the blur actually makes gaming worse since it does blur images, making more difficult to recognize objects, especially in fast-paced moments. This does become noticeable the lower the frame rate is. Improvements in the visual quality of modern post-process motion blur shaders as well as a tendency towards high frame rate video games has lessened the visual detriment of undersampled motion blur effects.

Restoration.

An example of blurred image restoration with Wiener deconvolution:

Motion blur is the apparent streaking of moving objects in a photograph or a sequence of frames, such as a film or animation. It results when the image being recorded changes during the recording of a single exposure, due to rapid movement or long exposure.


Early life.

Pedro Julião was born in Lisbon between 1210 and 1220. He started his studies at the episcopal school of Lisbon Cathedral and later joined the University of Paris, although some historians claim that he was educated at Montpellier. Wherever he studied, he concentrated on medicine, theology, logic, physics, metaphysics, and Aristotle's dialectic. He is traditionally and usually identified with the medical author Peter of Spain, an important figure in the development of logic and pharmacology. Peter of Spain taught at the University of Siena in the 1240s and his "" was used as a university textbook on Aristotelian logic for the next three centuries. At the court in Lisbon, he was the councilor and spokesman for King Afonso III in church matters. Later, he became prior of Guimarães.  He was Archdeacon of Vermoim (Vermuy) in the Archdiocese of Braga. He tried to become bishop of Lisbon but was defeated. Instead, he became the Master of the school of Lisbon. Peter became the physician of Pope Gregory X (1271–76) early in his reign. In March 1273 he was elected Archbishop of Braga, but did not assume that post; instead, on 3 June 1273, Pope Gregory X created him Cardinal Bishop of Tusculum (Frascati).

Papacy.

After the death of Pope Adrian V on 18 August 1276, Peter was elected Pope on 8 September. He was crowned a week later on 20 September. One of John XXI's few acts during his brief reign was the reversal of a decree recently passed at the Second Council of Lyon (1274); the decree had not only confined cardinals in solitude until they elected a successor Pope, but also progressively restricted their supplies of food and wine if their deliberations took too long. Though much of John XXI's brief papacy was dominated by the powerful Cardinal Giovanni Gaetano Orsini, who succeeded him as Pope Nicholas III, John attempted to launch a crusade for the Holy Land, pushed for a union with the Eastern church, and did what he could to maintain peace between the Christian nations. He also launched a mission to convert the Tatars, but he died before it could start. To secure the necessary quiet for his medical studies, he had an apartment added to the papal palace at Viterbo, to which he could retire when he wished to work undisturbed. On 14 May 1277, while the pope was alone in this apartment, it collapsed; John was buried under the ruins and died on 20 May in consequence of the serious injuries he had received. He was buried in the Duomo di Viterbo, where his tomb can still be seen.

Legacy.

After his death, it was rumored that John XXI had actually been a necromancer, a suspicion frequently directed towards the few scholars among medieval popes (see, e.g., Sylvester II). It was also said that his death had been an act of God, stopping him from completing a heretical treatise. Since the works of "Peter of Spain" continued to be studied and appreciated, however, Dante Alighieri placed "Pietro Spano" in his "Paradiso's" with the spirits of other great religious scholars.

Pope John XXI (; – 20 May 1277), born Peter Juliani (; ), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 September 1276 to his death. Apart from Damasus I (from Roman Lusitania), he has been the only Portuguese pope. He is sometimes identified with the logician and herbalist Peter of Spain (; ), which would make him the only pope to have been a physician.


Origins.

Douglas Engelbart first envisioned collaborative computing in 1951 and documented his vision in 1962, with working prototypes in full operational use by his research team by the mid-1960s, and held the first public demonstration of his work in 1968 in what is now referred to as "The Mother of All Demos." The following year, Engelbart's lab was hooked into the ARPANET, the first computer network, enabling them to extend services to a broader userbase.  Online collaborative gaming software began between early networked computer users. In 1975, Will Crowther created Colossal Cave Adventure on a DEC PDP-10 computer. As internet connections grew, so did the numbers of users and multi-user games. In 1978 Roy Trubshaw, a student at University of Essex in the United Kingdom, created the game MUD (Multi-User Dungeon).  The US Government began using truly collaborative applications in the early 1990s. One of the first robust applications was the Navy's Common Operational Modeling, Planning and Simulation Strategy (COMPASS). The COMPASS system allowed up to 6 users to create point-to-point connections with one another; the collaborative session only remained while at least one user stayed active, and would have to be recreated if all six logged out. MITRE improved on that model by hosting the collaborative session on a server that each user logged into. Called the Collaborative Virtual Workstation (CVW), this allowed the session to be set up in a virtual file cabinet and virtual rooms, and left as a persistent session that could be joined later.  In 1996, Pavel Curtis, who had built MUDs at PARC, created PlaceWare, a server that simulated a one-to-many auditorium, with side chat between "seat-mates", and the ability to invite a limited number of audience members to speak. In 1997, engineers at GTE used the PlaceWare engine in a commercial version of MITRE's CVW, calling it InfoWorkSpace (IWS). In 1998, IWS was chosen as the military standard for the standardized Air Operations Center. The IWS product was sold to General Dynamics and then later to Ezenia.

Groupware.

Collaborative software was originally designated as "groupware" and this term can be traced as far back as the late 1980s, when Richman and Slovak (1987) wrote: "Like an electronic sinew that binds teams together, the new "groupware" aims to place the computer squarely in the middle of communications among managers, technicians, and anyone else who interacts in groups, revolutionizing the way they work."  Even further back, in 1978 Peter and Trudy Johnson-Lenz coined the term groupware; their initial 1978 definition of groupware was, "intentional group processes plus software to support them." Later in their article they went on to explain groupware as "computer-mediated culture... an embodiment of social organization in hyperspace." Groupware integrates co-evolving human and tool systems, yet is simply a single system.  In the early 1990s the first commercial groupware products were delivered, and big companies such as Boeing and IBM started using electronic meeting systems for key internal projects. Lotus Notes appeared as a major example of that product category, allowing remote group collaboration when the internet was still in its infancy. Kirkpatrick and Losee (1992) wrote then: "If really makes a difference in productivity long term, the very definition of an office may change. You will be able to work efficiently as a member of a group wherever you have your computer. As computers become smaller and more powerful, that will mean anywhere." In 1999, Achacoso created and introduced the first wireless groupware.

Design and implementation issues.

The complexity of groupware development is still an issue. One reason for this is the socio-technical dimension of groupware. Groupware designers do not only have to address technical issues (as in traditional software development) but also consider the organizational aspects and the social group processes that should be supported with the groupware application. Some examples for issues in groupware development are:  One approach for addressing these issues is the use of design patterns for groupware design. The patterns identify recurring groupware design issues and discuss design choices in a way that all stakeholders can participate in the groupware development process.

Groupware and levels of collaboration.

Groupware can be divided into three categories depending on the level of collaboration:

Collaborative management (coordination) tools.

Collaborative management tools facilitate and manage group activities. Examples include:

Collaborative software and human interaction.

The design intent of collaborative software (groupware) is to transform the way documents and rich media are shared in order to enable more effective team collaboration.  Collaboration, with respect to information technology, seems to have several definitions. Some are defensible but others are so broad they lose any meaningful application. Understanding the differences in human interactions is necessary to ensure the appropriate technologies are employed to meet interaction needs.  There are three primary ways in which humans interact: conversations, transactions, and collaborations.  "Conversational interaction" is an exchange of information between two or more participants where the primary purpose of the interaction is discovery or relationship building. There is no central entity around which the interaction revolves but is a free exchange of information with no defined constraints, generally focused on personal experiences. Communication technology such as telephones, instant messaging, and e-mail are generally sufficient for conversational interactions.  "Transactional interaction" involves the exchange of transaction entities where a major function of the transaction entity is to alter the relationship between participants.  In "collaborative interactions" the main function of the participants' relationship is to alter a collaboration entity (i.e., the converse of transactional). When teams collaborate on projects it is called Collaborative project management.

Collaborative software or groupware is application software designed to help people working on a common task to attain their goals. One of the earliest definitions of groupware is "intentional group processes plus software to support them".


Early life and education.

Mohr was born in Salzburg on 11 December 1792, to an unmarried embroiderer, Anna Schoiberin, and Franz Mohr, a mercenary soldier and deserter, who abandoned Joseph's mother before the birth. The ancestors on his father's side came from the town of Mariapfarr in the mountainous Lungau region south of Salzburg, while his mother's family was from the salt-mining city of Hallein. At his baptism shortly after birth, the godfather was recorded as Joseph Wohlmuth, the last official executioner of Salzburg, who did not personally attend but had himself represented by one Franziska Zachin. As the parents were unmarried, Joseph received the name of his father, according to custom.  Johann Nepomuk Hiernle, vicar and leader of music at Salzburg Cathedral, enabled Mohr to have an education and encouraged him in music. As a boy, Mohr would serve simultaneously as a singer and violinist in the choirs of the University Church and at the Benedictine monastery church of St. Peter. From 1808 to 1810, Mohr studied at the Benedictine monastery of Kremsmünster in the province of Upper Austria. He then returned to Salzburg to attend the Lyceum school, and in 1811, he entered the seminary. Since he was of illegitimate birth, a special dispensation was required in those days for him to attend seminary. On 21 August 1815, Mohr graduated and was ordained as a priest.

Father Mohr.

In the fall of 1815, Mohr was asked to provide temporary help in the village of Ramsau near Berchtesgaden. Mohr then served as assistant priest in Mariapfarr (1815–1817). It was during this time, in 1816, that he penned the words to "Silent Night" in Mariapfarr. Poor health forced him to return to Salzburg in the summer of 1817. After a short recuperation he began serving as an assistant priest at St. Nicholas in Oberndorf, where he made the acquaintance of Franz Gruber, schoolteacher in neighbouring Arnsdorf.

"Stille Nacht".

On a cold Christmas Eve in 1818, Mohr walked the three kilometres from his home in Oberndorf bei Salzburg to visit his friend Franz Xaver Gruber in the neighbouring town of Arnsdorf bei Laufen. Mohr brought with him a poem he had written some two years earlier. He needed a carol for the Christmas Eve midnight Mass that was only a few hours away, and hoped his friend, a school teacher who also served as the church's choir master and organist, could set his poem to music. Gruber composed the melody for Mohr's "Stille Nacht" in just a few hours.  The song was sung at Midnight Mass in a simple arrangement for guitar and choir. Various legends have sprung up over the years concerning the genesis of "Silent Night", but the simplest and likeliest explanation seems to have been that Mohr simply wanted an original song that he could play on his favourite instrument, the guitar. Within a few years, arrangements of the carol appeared in churches in the Salzburg Archdiocese and folk singers from the Ziller Valley were taking the composition on tours around Europe.

Later life.

Mohr, a generous man who donated most of his salary to charity, was moved from place to place, and remained in Oberndorf only until 1819. After Oberndorf he was sent to Kuchl, followed by stays in Golling an der Salzach, Bad Vigaun, Adnet and Anthering. In 1827 he was made pastor of Hintersee, and in 1837 of the Alpine village of Wagrain. Here he created a fund to allow children from poor families to attend school and set up a system for the care of the elderly. Mohr died of respiratory disease on 4 December 1848, at the age of 55.

Legacy.

Mohr's final resting place is in the tiny Alpine ski resort of Wagrain, where he died in 1848. The Joseph Mohr School stands as a fitting memorial, and close to the grave of the man who wrote the words heard around the world. The village school is named after him and his grave has been kept in a place of honour in the nearby churchyard cemetery. An outdoor exhibit detailing the life of Joseph Mohr is situated on the walkway between the church and the parish house where he once lived. In 2006, the town's Waggerl Museum set up a permanent exhibit – "Joseph Mohr – Vicar of Wagrain".  In Austria, "Stille Nacht" is considered a national treasure. Traditionally, the song may not be played publicly before Christmas Eve.  Until 2006, it was thought that Mohr and Gruber had collaborated on just one composition, but another was located in the Wagrain parish archive by the Salzburg Archdiocesan authorities. The "Te Deum" with text by Joseph Mohr and melody by Franz Xaver Gruber can be heard in an audio exhibit at the Waggerl Museum in Wagrain.

Josephus Franciscus Mohr, sometimes spelled Josef (11 December 1792 – 4 December 1848) was an Austrian Roman Catholic priest and writer, who wrote the words to the Christmas carol "Silent Night."


History.

Starting in 1983, Frederic Friedel and his colleagues put out a magazine "Computer-schach und Spiele" covering the emerging hobby of computer chess. In 1985, he invited then world chess champion Garry Kasparov to his house, and Kasparov mused about how a chess database would make it easier for him to prepare for specific opponents. Friedel began working with Bonn physicist Matthias Wüllenweber who created the first such database ChessBase 1.0, software for the Atari ST. The February 1987 issue of "Computerschach & Spiele" introduced the database program as well as Chessbase magazine, a floppy disk containing chess games edited by GM John Nunn.  The August 1991 issue of Computerschach & Spiele announced that Dutch programmer Frans Morsch's Fritz program would soon be available, sold as software for PCs unlike all of the dedicated chess computers which at the time dominated the ratings lists. This program was marketed initially as Knightstalker in the U.S., and Fritz in the rest of the world. Mathias Feist joined ChessBase, and ported Fritz to DOS and then Microsoft Windows.  In 1994, German GM Rainer Knaak joined ChessBase as a full-time employee, annotating games for Chessbase magazine, and soon authoring game database CD-ROMs on topics such as the Trompowsky Attack or Mating Attacks against 0-0. British GM Daniel King was another early author of such CD-ROMs which eventually grew into the Fritztrainer series of multimedia DVDs.  In the mid-1990s, R&D Publishing in the U.S. released a series of print books in the Chessbase University Opening Series, including Anatoly Karpov and Alexander Beliavsky's "The Caro-Kann in Black and White".  In December 1996, ChessBase added Mark Uniacke's Hiarcs 6 chess engine to its product line up, selling it inside the existing Fritz graphical user interface (GUI). In March 1998, ChessBase added Junior 4.6 and Dr. Christian Donninger's Nimzo99. Also that year, ChessBase released Fritz 5 including a 'friend mode' which would automatically scale its strength of play down to the level that it assessed the player was playing. This remains a feature of all of ChessBase's Graphical User Interfaces even now.  In 1998, Chessbase took their database of chess games online. In November, Chessbase started offering trainer CD-ROMs by such GMs as Robert Hübner, Rainer Knaak and Daniel King.  In 1999, Stefan Meyer-Kahlen's Shredder had won the world computer chess championship. In April, Meyer-Kahlen and Huber released the Universal Chess Interface (UCI) protocol for engines to communicate with GUIs, to compete with Winboard and Chessbase's. Meyer-Kahlen's contract with Millennium 2000 expired in June, and ChessBase immediately snapped him up, adding Shredder to their product line under a Fritz style GUI, and giving their new GUIs the ability to import UCI engines.  In April 2000, ChessBase released a Young Talents CD featuring the engines Anmon, Goliath Light, Gromit, Ikarus, Patzer, Phalanx and Rudolf Huber's SOS. Christophe Theron's engines Chess Tiger and Gambit Tiger were also released as Chessbase engines that month.  In the early 2000s matches were held pitting world champions Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik against versions of the Fritz or Junior engines.  In 2003, ChessBase introduced the Chess Media System, allowing players to produce videos with them playing out moves that can be seen on the user's chessboard within a Chessbase program. Eventually, ChessBase commissioned world champions Garry Kasparov, Viswanathan Anand, Vladimir Kramnik and Rustam Kasimdzhanov to produce DVDs using the new format. Chessbase also produced Fritztrainer Opening DVDs by the likes of grandmasters Alexei Shirov and Viktor Bologan and a Power Play series by British GM Daniel King for lower level players.  In April 2006, following its victory at the World Computer Chess Championship, Anthony Cozzie's Zappa chess engine was published by ChessBase as "Zap!Chess".  In 2008, Vasik Rajlich's Rybka engine was added to the ChessBase product line, followed by Robert Houdart's Houdini and Don Dailey and Larry Kaufman's Komodo engines.  Recent versions of ChessBase and the engine GUIs such as Fritz offer access to cloud engines. ChessBase/Playchess had long had a downloadable client, but they had a web interface by 2013. ChessBase added a tactics trainer web app in 2015. In 2015, ChessBase added a play Fritz web app, as well as My Games for storing one's games.

The company.

The company is located in Hamburg, Germany. ChessBaseUSA markets their products in the United States, and some of the most popular programs are sold by licensee Viva Media, now a division of Encore, Inc. In 1998, the German company Data Becker released the program 3D Schach Genie, containing the Shredder engine and Fritz interface. Chessbase India markets their products in India and surrounding countries.

The database.

Chessbase the program was originally designed for the Atari ST by Matthias Wüllenweber, the physicist/co-founder of the company. Mathias Feist helped port the program to DOS, and has been a key developer ever since. In more recent years, Lutz Nebe, Wolfgang Haar and Jeroen van den Belt have also been involved in program development. ChessBase uses a proprietary format for storing games (CBH), but can also handle games in portable game notation (PGN). The proprietary format uses less hard drive space and manages information that is not possible in PGN. The software converts files from PGN to ChessBase format, or from ChessBase to PGN.  The program permits searches for games, and positions in games, based on player names, openings, some tactical and strategic motifs, material imbalance, and features of the position. Chessbase can import engines either those such as Fritz or Shredder in native Chessbase format or Universal Chess Interface (UCI) engines such as Stockfish. , Chessbase's database contained 7.8 million games. The online database can be accessed directly through their database programs.

News site.

Chessbase also maintains ChessBase News, a web site containing chess news, as well as information on their products. The site is available in English, German, Spanish and Hindi.

Other publications.

ChessBase produces many CDs and DVDs, including monographs on famous players, tactical training exercises, and training for specific opening systems. They publish "ChessBase Magazine" six times per year, which comes on DVD with video clip interviews, articles on opening novelties, database updates (including annotated games), and other articles. All these are designed for viewing within their database software or the free ChessBase Reader.

Related computer programs.

A database-only version of ChessBase for the BBC Micro, called "BBChessBase", was published by Peter Tate in 1991.  Gerritt Reubold's Der Bringer chess program is a rare example of a Chessbase format engine not released by Chessbase itself.

ChessBase GmbH is a German company that makes and sells chess software, maintains a chess news site, and operates internet chess server for online chess. Founded in 1986, it maintains and sells massive databases, containing the moves of recorded chess games. Databases organise data from prior games; engines provide analyses of games while endgame tablebases offer perfect play in some endgames.