title: Xiangqi

text: Elephants (or bishops) are labeled "xiàng" ("elephant") for Black and 相 "xiàng" ("minister") for Red. They are located next to the advisors. These pieces move and capture exactly two points diagonally and may not jump over intervening pieces; the move is described as being like the character 田 "Tián" ("field"), in reference to the board's squares. If an elephant cannot move due to a diagonally adjacent piece, it is known as "blocking the elephant's eye" ().


title: Xiangqi

text: Elephants may not cross the river to attack the enemy general, and serve as defensive pieces. Because an elephant's movement is restricted to just seven board positions, it can be easily trapped or threatened. The two elephants are often used to defend each other.


title: Xiangqi

text: The Chinese characters for "minister" and "elephant" are homophones in Mandarin () and both have alternative meanings as "appearance" or "image". However, in English, both are referred to as elephants, and less commonly as "bishops", due to their similar movements.


title: Xiangqi

text: Horses (or knights) are labelled 馬 for Black and 傌 "mǎ" for Red in sets marked with Traditional Chinese characters and 马 "mǎ" for both Black and Red in sets marked with Simplified Chinese characters. Some sets use 馬 for both colours. Horses begin the game next to the elephants, on their outside flanks. A horse moves and captures one point orthogonally and then one point diagonally away from its former position, a move which is traditionally described as being like the character 日 "Rì". The horse does not jump as the knight does in Western chess, and can be blocked by a piece of either colour located one point horizontally or vertically adjacent to it. Blocking a horse is called "hobbling the horse's leg" (蹩馬腿). The diagram on the left illustrates the horse's movement.


title: Xiangqi

text: Since horses can be blocked, it is sometimes possible to trap the opponent's horse. It is possible for one player's horse to have an asymmetric attack advantage if an opponent's horse is blocked, as seen in the diagram on the right.


title: Xiangqi

text: The horse is sometimes called the "knight" by English-speaking players, due to their similar movements.


title: Xiangqi

text: Chariots (or rooks) are labelled 車 for Black and 俥 for Red in sets marked with Traditional Chinese characters and 车 for both Black and Red in sets marked with Simplified Chinese characters. Some traditional sets use 車 for both colours. In the context of Chinese Chess, all of these characters are pronounced as (instead of the common pronunciation "chē"). The chariot moves and captures any distance orthogonally, but may not jump over intervening pieces. The chariots begin the game on the points at the corners of the board. The chariot is often considered to be the strongest piece in the game due to its freedom of movement and lack of restrictions.


title: Xiangqi

text: The chariot is sometimes called the "rook" by English-speaking players, since it moves identically to the rook in Western chess. Chinese players (and others) often call this piece a car, since that is one modern meaning of the character 車.


title: Xiangqi

text: Cannons are labelled 砲 ("catapult") for Black and "pào" ("cannon") for Red. The names are homophones, though sometimes 炮 is used for both Red and Black. The 石 "shí" radical of 砲 means "stone", and the 火 "huǒ" radical of 炮 means "fire". Both colours' pieces are normally referred to as cannons in English. The black piece is sometimes labelled bāo.


title: Xiangqi

text: Each player has two cannons, which start on the row behind the soldiers, two points in front of the horses. Cannons move like chariots, any distance orthogonally without jumping, but can only capture by jumping a single piece of either colour along the path of attack. The piece over which the cannon jumps is called the 炮臺 (trad.) / 炮台 (simp.) "pào tái" ("cannon platform" or "screen"). Any number of unoccupied spaces, including none, may exist between the cannon, screen, and the piece to be captured. Cannons can be exchanged for horses immediately from their starting positions.


title: Xiangqi

text: Soldiers (or pawns) are labelled 卒 ("pawn" or "private") for Black and 兵 ("soldier") for Red. Each side starts with five soldiers. Soldiers begin the game located on every other point one row back from the edge of the river. They move and capture by advancing one point. Once they have crossed the river, they may also move and capture one point horizontally. Soldiers cannot move backward, and therefore cannot retreat; after advancing to the last rank of the board, however, a soldier may still move sideways at the enemy's edge. The soldier is sometimes called the "pawn" by English-speaking players, due to the pieces' similar movements.


title: Xiangqi

text: These approximate values do not take into account the position of the piece in question (except the soldier in a general sense), the positions of other pieces on the board, or the number of pieces remaining.


title: Xiangqi

text: There are several types of notation used to record xiangqi games. In each case the moves are numbered and written with the same general pattern.


title: Xiangqi

text: The book "The Chess of China" describes a move notation method in which the ranks of the board are numbered 1 to 10 from closest to farthest away, followed by a digit 1 to 9 for files from right to left. Both values are relative to the moving player. Moves are then indicated as follows:


title: Xiangqi

text: A notation system partially described in "A Manual of Chinese Chess" and used by several computer software implementations describes moves in relative terms as follows:


title: Xiangqi

text: In case there are two identical pieces in one file, symbols + (front) and – (rear) are used instead of former file number.


title: Xiangqi

text: Direction of movement is indicated via an operator symbol. A plus sign is used to indicate forward movement. A minus sign is used to indicate backward movement. A dot or period or equals sign is used to indicate horizontal or lateral movement. For a piece that moves diagonally (such as the horse or elephant), the plus or minus sign is used rather than the period.


title: Xiangqi

text: According to World Xiangqi Federation (WXF) notations for tandem pawns case when there are (tandem pawns) >=3 in a file, there is no need to specify the P for pawn. Instead, the position of the pawn in the tandem line is used as the first integer (with the front most pawn designated as 1). The second integer would be the file on which it was on. This would also solve the problem of two set of tandem pawns on two different files nicely.


title: Xiangqi

text: Thus the notation to move the middle pawn (3 tandem pawns in a file) on the 5th file to the 4th file would be:


title: Xiangqi

text: This system is unofficial and principally used by Western players. It is similar to algebraic notation for Western chess. Letters are used for files and numbers for ranks. File "a" is on Red's left and rank "1" is nearest to Red. A point's designation does not depend on which player moves; for both sides "a1" is the lowest left point from Red's side.


title: Xiangqi

text: Former position is only indicated if necessary to distinguish between two identical pieces that could have made the move. If they share the same file, indicate which rank moves; if they share the same rank, indicate which file moves. If they share neither rank nor file, then the file is indicated.


title: Xiangqi

text: Check is indicated by "+", double check by "++", triple check by "+++", and quadruple check by "++++". Checkmate is indicated by "#".


title: Xiangqi

text: For analysis purposes, bad moves are indicated by "?" and good moves by "!". These can be combined if the analysis is uncertain ("!?" might be either but is probably good; "?!" is probably bad) or repeated for emphasis ("??" is a disaster).


title: Xiangqi

text: Because of the size of the board and the low number of long-range pieces, there is a tendency for the battle to focus on a particular area of the board.


title: Xiangqi

text: Xiangqi involves several tactics common to games in the chess family. Some common ones are briefly discussed here.


title: Xiangqi

text: Usually, soldiers do not support each other until the endgame, because from the initial position it takes a minimum of five moves of a soldier to allow mutual protection between two of them, and they are often prone to capture by other pieces.


title: Xiangqi

text: Soldiers, horses, cannons and chariots can form up formations that protect each other. However, lining up chariots must be done with caution, as this risks losing one chariot to an enemy's inferior piece. Horses that support each other are called Linked Horses(Chinese: 連環馬), which is a relatively safe formation of the horses, though it can still be threatened with a soldier, a chariot plus another minor piece, or a piece blocking one of the horses thus making the protection one-sided.


title: Xiangqi

text: It is common to use cannons independently to control particular ranks and files. Using a cannon to control the middle file is often considered vital strategy, because it pins pieces such as the advisors and elephants. The two files adjacent to the middle file are also considered important and horses and chariots can be used to push for checkmate there.


title: Xiangqi

text: Since the general is usually safest in his original position before the endgame phase, attacking the general commonly involves forcing the general out of his original position with check or with threats. Thus, specific points and formations are very important in xiangqi.


title: Xiangqi

text: For an attacking (Red) horse, the most fatal points are c9 and g9 (Chinese: 臥槽馬), especially since without proper defence a quick mate can follow with an extra chariot or cannon.


title: Xiangqi

text: For a cannon, one of the most fatal formations is the exposed cannon (Chinese: 空心炮), where the cannon directly controls the middle file with no other pieces between the cannon and the general. This formation is particularly dangerous since the defensive side cannot move any piece in front of the cannon; while with an extra cannon joining the attack, mate can follow on the spot, and with an extra rook, the defensive side can mount a double check (with the rook in front of the cannon) followed by a windmill, often winning at least a piece afterwards. If the defensive side cannot chase the cannon away or capture it, it must move the general forward to avoid these threats, leaving the general vulnerable to attacks.


title: Xiangqi

text: Another fatal formation, called the "cannon-controlled centroid horse" (Chinese: 炮鎮窩心馬, diagram at right), also requires particularly bad coordination of the enemy pieces. In the diagram, Black's "centroid horse" occupies the centre of the palace, blocking Black's own general and advisors, and being pinned to the general by the red cannon, cannot move. Black's cannon at e8 is also pinned to its own general; it too is unable to move and restricts the movement of Black's two elephants, making them unable to protect each other. Such a formation in the middlegame often produces deadly threats of smothered mates, while in the endgame, as in the diagram, Red's cannon cannot be chased away, rendering Black's general, advisors, cannon on e8, and horse all permanently unable to move. Even though Black is up a minor piece, Red has a clear win: The game concluded 41.Hg7 (forking the elephant and pinned cannon and creating a mating threat) Eg10 42.Hh9 Ci9 43.Hf8+ Cf9 (if not for the other black cannon, it is instant mate) 44.Hxg6, and Black resigned: Black's only active piece (the cannon on f9) is absolutely helpless to stop Red's horse and soldiers, which will soon invade the palace.


title: Xiangqi

text: A common defensive configuration is to leave the general at its starting position, deploy one advisor and one elephant on the two points directly in front of the general, and to leave the other advisor and elephant in their starting positions, to the side of the general. In this setup, the advisor-elephant pairs support each other, and the general is immune from attacks by cannons. Losing any of the pieces makes the general vulnerable to cannon, and the setup may need to be abandoned. The defender may move advisors or elephants away from the general, or even sacrifice them intentionally, to ward off attack by a cannon.


title: Xiangqi

text: Long sequences of checks leading to mate or gain of material are common both in chess compositions and in actual play. A skilled xiangqi player would often have to calculate several steps, or even tens of steps ahead for a forced sequence. In the diagram on the right, Black has an immediate mating threat which cannot be parried, forcing Red to check Black on every move. Although it requires 11 moves to mate, its general idea is clear: Induce a smothered check by sacrificing a chariot at the centre of the palace (e9), then force Black to open the centre file, enabling the Red general to assist the attack, and finally mate by facing generals.


title: Xiangqi

text: Since the left and right flanks of the starting setup are symmetrical, it is customary to make the first move on the right flank. Starting on the left flank is considered needlessly confusing.


title: Xiangqi

text: The most common opening is to move the cannon to the central column, an opening known as 當頭炮 (trad.) / 当头炮 (simp.) "dāng tóu pào" or "Central Cannon". The most common reply is to advance the horse on the same flank. Together, this move-and-response is known by the rhyme 當頭炮，馬來跳 (trad.) / 当头炮，马来跳 (simp.) . The notation for this is "1. 炮 (32)–35, 馬 (18)–37", "1. C2.5 H8+7", or "1. Che3 Hg8" (diagram at right). After Black's 1. ...H8+7 (Hg8) response, the game can develop into a variety of openings, the most common being the 屏風馬 (trad.) / 屏风马 (simp.) or "Screen Horses (Defence)" in which Black develops the other horse to further protect his middle pawn (...H2+3 or ...Hc8) either immediately on his second move, or later when Black transposes the game into this opening.


title: Xiangqi

text: Alternative common first moves by Black are developing either cannons (1. ...C8.5/1. ...Che8, or 1. ...C2.5/1. ...Cbe8); note that after either of these moves, taking the central soldier with the cannon (2. C5+4 or 2. Cxe7+) is a beginner's trap that impedes development and coordination of Red's pieces if Black plays correctly (for example, 1. Che3 Che8 2. Cxe7+?? Ade9 3. Hg3 Hg8 4. Ce5 Rh10 when Black develops the rook first, and the loss of Black's middle pawn actually enabled Black's horses to occupy the centre on the next moves).


title: Xiangqi

text: Other common first moves by Red include moving an elephant to the central column (1. Ege3), advancing the soldier on the third or seventh file (1. c5), moving a horse forward (1. Hg3), and moving either cannon to the 4th or 6th (d- or f-) file (1. Chd3 or 1. Chf3). Compared to the Central Cannon openings, these openings are generally less restricted by theory.


title: Xiangqi

text: General advice for the opening includes rapid development of at least one chariot and putting it on open files and ranks, as it is the most powerful piece with a long attack range. There is a saying that only a poor player does not move a chariot in the first three moves (Chinese: 三步不出車，必定要輸棋); however this is not to be taken literally, and is in fact often violated in modern Xiangqi games. Attacking and defending the centre, especially the central soldiers / central pawns, are common themes in the opening, hence the Central Cannon openings. Usually, at least one horse should be moved to the middle in order to defend the central soldier; however undefended central soldiers can also become "poisoned pawns" in the early moves, especially if the attacking side does not have an immediate follow-up to retain the pressure on the central file.


title: Xiangqi

text: Though xiangqi endgames require remarkable skill to be played well, there are a number of widely known book wins and book draws. Without a counterpart to pawn promotion, xiangqi endgames instead focus more directly on forcing checkmate or stalemate, and in this regard resemble pawnless chess endgames. Since stalemate is a loss for the stalemated player instead of a draw, most book draws in xiangqi are due to fortresses, with a few draws due to insufficient material.


title: Xiangqi

text: A general rule in xiangqi endgames for the advantageous side is that, when there's less material on the board, do not trade pieces easily, as with fewer attacking pieces on the board, defending is easier (in contrast to Western chess, where it is almost always advantageous to trade pieces when up on material). Hence, if a certain type of endgame can transpose, by trading pieces, into another type of endgame which is a book win, then this endgame itself is a book win.


title: Xiangqi

text: Inducing zugzwang is a crucial theme in winning simple endgames, and almost exclusively in simple endgames. In the general + soldier vs general endgame shown on the right, Red's first main goal is to occupy the middle file. Red wins with 1. Gd1, a waiting move, and Black is in zugzwang. Black must proceed with 1. ...Ge8, as 1. ...Ge10 instantly loses after 2. f9#. After 1. ...Ge8 2. f9 Gf8 3. e9 Ge8 4. d9 Gf8 5. Ge1, Red's general successfully occupies the middle file. The game would conclude with 5. ...Gf9 6. e9+, and regardless of Black's reply, 7. Ge2# (stale)mates Black and thus winning the game.


title: Xiangqi

text: Reciprocal zugzwang is possible, but very rare and usually seen in endgame compositions. In this endgame shown on the right, whoever moves loses, since when any of the two generals moves to an open d- or f- file, a mate in 1 is threatened with this move, while the player to move only helps the enemy general occupy one of the files. For instance, Red can only move his two soldiers if he is to move. Moving the f-(or d-)soldier allows the enemy general to occupy the f-file(d-file). Even if 1. fe9+ Gf10 2. d10, when Red threatens mate in 1, Black still mates immediately with either 2. ...fe2# or 2. ...f1#.


title: Xiangqi

text: This type of endgame is considered one of the more complex endgames. Commonly known book wins and book draws are:


title: Xiangqi

text: A game called "xiangqi" was mentioned as dating to the Warring States period; according to the first-century-BC text "Shuo Yuan" (說苑/说苑), it was one of Lord Mengchang of Qi's interests. However, the rules of that game are not described, and it was not necessarily related to the present-day game. Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou wrote a book in AD 569 called "Xiang Jing". It described the rules of an astronomically themed game called "xiangqi" or "xiangxi" (). The word "xiàngqí" 象棋 is usually translated as "elephant game" or "figure game", because the Chinese character 象 means "elephant" and "figure"; it originated as a stylized drawing of an elephant, and was used to write a word meaning "figure", likely because the two words were pronounced the same.


title: Xiangqi

text: For these reasons, Murray theorized that "in China [chess] took over the board and name of a game called 象棋 in the sense of 'Astronomical Game', which represented the apparent movements of naked-eye-visible astronomical objects in the night sky, and that the earliest Chinese references to 象棋 meant the Astronomical Game and not Chinese chess". Previous games called xiàngqí may have been based on the movements of sky objects. However, the connection between 象 and astronomy is marginal, and arose from constellations being called "figures" in astronomical contexts where other meanings of "figure" were less likely; this usage may have led some ancient Chinese authors to theorize that the game 象棋 started as a simulation of astronomy.


title: Xiangqi

text: To support his argument, Murray quoted an old Chinese source that says that in the older xiangqi (which modern xiangqi may have taken some of its rules from) the game pieces could be shuffled, which does not happen in the modern chess-style xiangqi. Murray also wrote that in ancient China there was more than one game called xiangqi. Murray also even supposed that chaturanga from India influenced the formation of present-day xiangqi.


title: Xiangqi

text: An alternative hypothesis to Murray's is that xiangqi was patterned after the array of troops in the Warring States period. David H. Li, for example, argues that the game was developed by Han Xin in the winter of 204 BC-203 BC to prepare for an upcoming battle. His theories have been questioned by other chess researchers, however. The earliest description of the game's rules appears in the story "Cén Shùn" (岑順) in the collection "Xuanguai lu" (玄怪錄), written in the middle part of the Tang dynasty.


title: Xiangqi

text: With the popularization of xiangqi, many different schools of circles and players came into prominence, many books and manuals on the techniques of playing the game were also published, they played an important role in popularizing xiangqi and improving the techniques of play in modern times. With the economic and cultural development during the Qing dynasty, xiangqi entered a new stage. A Western-style "Encyclopedia of Chinese Chess Openings" was written in 2004.


title: Xiangqi

text: Although xiangqi has its origin in Asia, there are xiangqi leagues and clubs all over the world. Each European nation generally has its own governing league; for example, in Britain, xiangqi is regulated by the United Kingdom Chinese Chess Association. Asian countries also have nationwide leagues, such as the Malaysia Chinese Chess Association.


title: Xiangqi

text: In addition, there are several international federations and tournaments. The Chinese Xiangqi Association hosts several tournaments every year, including the Yin Li and Ram Cup Tournaments. Other organizations include the Asian Xiangqi Federation and a World Xiangqi Federation, which hosts tournaments and competitions bi-annually, with most limited to players from member nations.


title: Xiangqi

text: The Asian Xiangqi Federation (AXF) and its corresponding member associations rank players in a format similar to the Elo rating system of chess. According to the XiangQi DataBase, the top-ranking female and male players in China, as of June 2012, were Tang Dan and Jiang Chuan, with ratings of 2529 and 2667, respectively. Other strong players include Zhao GuanFang (female), Xu Yinchuan (male), Lu Qin (male), and Wang LinNa (female).


title: Xiangqi

text: The Asian Xiangqi Federation also bestows the title of grandmaster to select individuals around the world who have excelled at xiangqi or made special contributions to the game. There are no specific criteria for becoming a grandmaster and there are only approximately 100 grandmasters as of 2020. The titles of grandmaster is bestowed by bodies such as the AXF and the Chinese Xiangqi Association (CXA).


title: Xiangqi

text: The game-tree complexity of xiangqi is approximately 10; in 2004 it was projected that a human top player would be defeated before 2010. Xiangqi is one of the more popular computer-versus-computer competitions at the Computer Olympiads.


title: Xiangqi

text: Computer programs for playing xiangqi show the same development trend as has occurred for international chess: they are usually console applications (called engines) which communicate their moves in text form through some standard protocol. For displaying the board graphically, they then rely on a separate graphical user interface (GUI). Through such standardization, many different engines can be used through the same GUI, which can also be used for automated play of different engines against each other. Popular protocols are UCI (Universal Chess Interface), UCCI (Universal Chinese Chess Interface), Qianhong (QH) protocol, and WinBoard/XBoard (WB) protocol (the latter two named after the GUIs that implemented them). There now exist many dozens of xiangqi engines supporting one or more of these protocols, including some commercial engines.


title: Xiangqi

text: Manchu chess<br>Invented during the Manchu-led Qing dynasty. Red horses, cannons, and one of the chariots are absent, but the remaining chariot can be played as horses and cannons as well.


title: Xiangqi

text: Supply chess Similar to the Western chess variant Bughouse chess, this variant features the ability to re-deploy captured pieces, similar to a rule in shogi. Four players play as two-person teams in two side-by-side games. One teammate plays Black and other plays Red. Any piece obtained by capturing the opponent's piece is given to the teammate for use in the other game. These pieces can be deployed by the teammate to give him an advantage over the other player, so long as the piece starts on the player's own side of the board and does not cause the opponent to be in check.


title: Xiangqi

text: Formation Similar to Fischer Random Chess, one player's pieces are placed randomly on one side of the river, except for the generals and advisors, which must be at their usual positions, and the elephants, which must start at two of the seven points they can normally reach. The other player's pieces are set up to mirror the first's. All other rules are the same.


title: Xiangqi

text: Banqi This variation is more well known in Hong Kong than in mainland China. It uses the xiangqi pieces and board, but does not follow any of its rules, bearing more of a resemblance to the Western game Stratego as well as the Chinese game Luzhanqi.


title: Xiangqi

text: San Guo Qi "Game of the Three Kingdoms" is played on a special hexagonal board with three xiangqi armies (red, blue, and green) vying for dominance. A Y-shaped river divides the board into three gem-shaped territories, each containing the grid found on one side of a xiangqi board, but distorted to make the game playable by three people. Each player has eighteen pieces: the sixteen of regular xiangqi, plus two new ones that stand on the same rank as the cannons. The new pieces have different names depending on their side: "huo" ("fire") for Red, "qi" ("flag") for Blue, and "feng" ("wind") for Green. They move two spaces orthogonally, then one space diagonally. The generals each bear the name of a historical Chinese kingdom—Shu for Red, Wei for Blue, and Wu for Green—from China's Three Kingdoms period. It is likely that San Guo Qi first appeared under the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279).


title: Xiangqi

text: San You Qi "Three Friends Chess" was invented by Zheng Jinde from Shexian in the Anhui province during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor of the Qing dynasty (1661–1722). It is played on a Y-shaped board with a full army of xiangqi pieces set up at the end of each of the board's three wide radii. In the centre of the board sits a triangular zone with certain features, such as ocean, mountain, or city walls, each of which is impassable by certain pieces. Two of an army's five soldiers are replaced by new pieces called "huo" ("fire") pieces, which move one space diagonally forward. Two "qi" ("flag") pieces are positioned on the front corners of the palace; they move two spaces forward inside their own camp, and then one space in any direction inside an enemy camp.


title: Xiangqi

text: Sanrenqi "Three Men Chess" is a riverless, commercial variant played on a cross-shaped board with some special rules, including a fourth, neutral country called "Han." Han has three Chariots, one Cannon, and one General named "Emperor Xian of Han", but these pieces do not move and do not belong to any of the players until a certain point in the game when two players team up against the third player. At that point the third player gets to also control Han.


title: Xiangqi

text: Si Guo Qi "Four Kingdoms Chess" is also played on a riverless, cross-shaped board, but with four players. Because there are no rivers, elephants may move about the board freely.


title: Xiangqi

text: In Season 1, Episode 21 of "Person of Interest", the protagonist John Reese plays the game with an older Chinese man.


title: Xiangqi

text: In the Soviet-North Vietnamese 1959 cartoon ""/Trời sắp mưa ("Soon There Will Be Rain"), the plot is centered around the Lord of Heaven losing all the water on Earth to the Draught goddess in chess. The board seen appears to be Xiangqi.


title: Nagarjuna filmography

text: Nagarjuna is an Indian actor and producer who works in the Telugu cinema. He has acted in over 100 films as a lead actor as well as playing supporting and cameo roles, including Hindi and Tamil cinema. He has received nine state Nandi Awards, three Filmfare Awards South, and one Special Mention at the National Film Awards. The 1996 film "Ninne Pelladata" which he produced, was declared the Best Telugu film of the year at the National Film Awards.


title: Nagarjuna filmography

text: Nagarjuna enacted the role of 15th century composer Annamacharya in the 1997 film "Annamayya"; as Yavakri (the son of the ascetic Bharadwaja) in the 2002 film "Agni Varsha"; as Major Padmapani Acharya in the 2003 war film, "LOC Kargil"; as 17th-century composer Kancherla Gopanna in the 2006 film "Sri Ramadasu"; as Sai Baba of Shirdi in the 2012 film "Shirdi Sai"; and as Chandaludu (Lord Siva in disguise) in the 2013 film "Jagadguru Adi Sankara".


title: Nagarjuna filmography

text: In 1989, Nagarjuna acted in the Maniratnam directed Romantic drama film, "Geetanjali", which won the National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment. In the same year, he acted in "Siva", an action blockbuster directed by Ram Gopal Varma, premiered at the 13th International Film Festival of India. In 1990, he subsequently made his Bollywood debut with the Hindi remake of the same film titled "Shiva", and tasted success. In 1997, he received the National Film Award for producing "Ninne Pelladata". In 1998, he received the National Film Award-Special Mention for his performance in the historical film "Annamayya".


title: Nagarjuna filmography

text: In 2013, Nagarjuna represented Cinema of South India at the Delhi Film Festival's 100 Years of Indian Cinema's celebration, alongside Ramesh Sippy and Vishal Bharadwaj from Bollywood. In 1995, he ventured into film production, with a production unit operating in Seychelles, and was a co-director of an Emmy Award-winning film animation company in Michigan, U.S. Along with his brother, Venkat Akkineni, Nagarjuna is the co-owner of the production company, Annapurna Studios and is the president of the non-profit film school Annapurna International School of Film and Media based in Hyderabad.


title: Operations research

text: Operations research () (U.S. Air Force Specialty Code: Operations Analysis), often shortened to the initialism OR, is a discipline that deals with the development and application of analytical methods to improve decision-making. It is considered to be a subfield of mathematical sciences. The term management science is occasionally used as a synonym.


title: Operations research

text: Employing techniques from other mathematical sciences, such as modeling, statistics, and optimization, operations research arrives at optimal or near-optimal solutions to decision-making problems. Because of its emphasis on practical applications, operations research has overlap with many other disciplines, notably industrial engineering. Operations research is often concerned with determining the extreme values of some real-world objective: the maximum (of profit, performance, or yield) or minimum (of loss, risk, or cost). Originating in military efforts before World War II, its techniques have grown to concern problems in a variety of industries.


title: Operations research

text: Operational research (OR) encompasses the development and the use of a wide range of problem-solving techniques and methods applied in the pursuit of improved decision-making and efficiency, such as simulation, mathematical optimization, queueing theory and other stochastic-process models, Markov decision processes, econometric methods, data envelopment analysis, ordinal priority approach, neural networks, expert systems, decision analysis, and the analytic hierarchy process. Nearly all of these techniques involve the construction of mathematical models that attempt to describe the system. Because of the computational and statistical nature of most of these fields, OR also has strong ties to computer science and analytics. Operational researchers faced with a new problem must determine which of these techniques are most appropriate given the nature of the system, the goals for improvement, and constraints on time and computing power, or develop a new technique specific to the problem at hand (and, afterwards, to that type of problem).


title: Operations research

text: The major sub-disciplines in modern operational research, as identified by the journal "Operations Research", are:


title: Operations research

text: In the decades after the two world wars, the tools of operations research were more widely applied to problems in business, industry, and society. Since that time, operational research has expanded into a field widely used in industries ranging from petrochemicals to airlines, finance, logistics, and government, moving to a focus on the development of mathematical models that can be used to analyse and optimize sometimes complex systems, and has become an area of active academic and industrial research.


title: Operations research

text: In the 17th century, mathematicians Blaise Pascal and Christiaan Huygens solved problems involving sometimes complex decisions (problem of points) by using game-theoretic ideas and expected values; others, such as Pierre de Fermat and Jacob Bernoulli, solved these types of problems using combinatorial reasoning instead. Charles Babbage's research into the cost of transportation and sorting of mail led to England's universal "Penny Post" in 1840, and to studies into the dynamical behaviour of railway vehicles in defence of the GWR's broad gauge. Beginning in the 20th century, study of inventory management could be considered the origin of modern operations research with economic order quantity developed by Ford W. Harris in 1913. Operational research may have originated in the efforts of military planners during World War I (convoy theory and Lanchester's laws). Percy Bridgman brought operational research to bear on problems in physics in the 1920s and would later attempt to extend these to the social sciences.


title: Operations research

text: Modern operational research originated at the Bawdsey Research Station in the UK in 1937 as the result of an initiative of the station's superintendent, A. P. Rowe and Robert Watson-Watt. Rowe conceived the idea as a means to analyse and improve the working of the UK's early-warning radar system, code-named "Chain Home" (CH). Initially, Rowe analysed the operating of the radar equipment and its communication networks, expanding later to include the operating personnel's behaviour. This revealed unappreciated limitations of the CH network and allowed remedial action to be taken.


title: Operations research

text: Scientists in the United Kingdom (including Patrick Blackett (later Lord Blackett OM PRS), Cecil Gordon, Solly Zuckerman, (later Baron Zuckerman OM, KCB, FRS), C. H. Waddington, Owen Wansbrough-Jones, Frank Yates, Jacob Bronowski and Freeman Dyson), and in the United States (George Dantzig) looked for ways to make better decisions in such areas as logistics and training schedules.


title: Operations research

text: The modern field of operational research arose during World War II. In the World War II era, operational research was defined as "a scientific method of providing executive departments with a quantitative basis for decisions regarding the operations under their control". Other names for it included operational analysis (UK Ministry of Defence from 1962) and quantitative management.


title: Operations research

text: During the Second World War close to 1,000 men and women in Britain were engaged in operational research. About 200 operational research scientists worked for the British Army.


title: Operations research

text: Patrick Blackett worked for several different organizations during the war. Early in the war while working for the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) he set up a team known as the "Circus" which helped to reduce the number of anti-aircraft artillery rounds needed to shoot down an enemy aircraft from an average of over 20,000 at the start of the Battle of Britain to 4,000 in 1941.


title: Operations research

text: In 1941, Blackett moved from the RAE to the Navy, after first working with RAF Coastal Command, in 1941 and then early in 1942 to the Admiralty. Blackett's team at Coastal Command's Operational Research Section (CC-ORS) included two future Nobel prize winners and many other people who went on to be pre-eminent in their fields. They undertook a number of crucial analyses that aided the war effort. Britain introduced the convoy system to reduce shipping losses, but while the principle of using warships to accompany merchant ships was generally accepted, it was unclear whether it was better for convoys to be small or large. Convoys travel at the speed of the slowest member, so small convoys can travel faster. It was also argued that small convoys would be harder for German U-boats to detect. On the other hand, large convoys could deploy more warships against an attacker. Blackett's staff showed that the losses suffered by convoys depended largely on the number of escort vessels present, rather than the size of the convoy. Their conclusion was that a few large convoys are more defensible than many small ones.


title: Operations research

text: While performing an analysis of the methods used by RAF Coastal Command to hunt and destroy submarines, one of the analysts asked what colour the aircraft were. As most of them were from Bomber Command they were painted black for night-time operations. At the suggestion of CC-ORS a test was run to see if that was the best colour to camouflage the aircraft for daytime operations in the grey North Atlantic skies. Tests showed that aircraft painted white were on average not spotted until they were 20% closer than those painted black. This change indicated that 30% more submarines would be attacked and sunk for the same number of sightings. As a result of these findings Coastal Command changed their aircraft to using white undersurfaces.


title: Operations research

text: Other work by the CC-ORS indicated that on average if the trigger depth of aerial-delivered depth charges were changed from 100 to 25 feet, the kill ratios would go up. The reason was that if a U-boat saw an aircraft only shortly before it arrived over the target then at 100 feet the charges would do no damage (because the U-boat wouldn't have had time to descend as far as 100 feet), and if it saw the aircraft a long way from the target it had time to alter course under water so the chances of it being within the 20-foot kill zone of the charges was small. It was more efficient to attack those submarines close to the surface when the targets' locations were better known than to attempt their destruction at greater depths when their positions could only be guessed. Before the change of settings from 100 to 25 feet, 1% of submerged U-boats were sunk and 14% damaged. After the change, 7% were sunk and 11% damaged; if submarines were caught on the surface but had time to submerge just before being attacked, the numbers rose to 11% sunk and 15% damaged. Blackett observed "there can be few cases where such a great operational gain had been obtained by such a small and simple change of tactics".


title: Operations research

text: Bomber Command's Operational Research Section (BC-ORS), analyzed a report of a survey carried out by RAF Bomber Command. For the survey, Bomber Command inspected all bombers returning from bombing raids over Germany over a particular period. All damage inflicted by German air defences was noted and the recommendation was given that armour be added in the most heavily damaged areas. This recommendation was not adopted because the fact that the aircraft were able to return with these areas damaged indicated the areas were not vital, and adding armour to non-vital areas where damage is acceptable reduces aircraft performance. Their suggestion to remove some of the crew so that an aircraft loss would result in fewer personnel losses, was also rejected by RAF command. Blackett's team made the logical recommendation that the armour be placed in the areas which were completely untouched by damage in the bombers which returned. They reasoned that the survey was biased, since it only included aircraft that returned to Britain. The areas untouched in returning aircraft were probably vital areas, which, if hit, would result in the loss of the aircraft. This story has been disputed, with a similar damage assessment study completed in the US by the Statistical Research Group at Columbia University, the result of work done by Abraham Wald.


title: Operations research

text: When Germany organized its air defences into the Kammhuber Line, it was realized by the British that if the RAF bombers were to fly in a bomber stream they could overwhelm the night fighters who flew in individual cells directed to their targets by ground controllers. It was then a matter of calculating the statistical loss from collisions against the statistical loss from night fighters to calculate how close the bombers should fly to minimize RAF losses.


title: Operations research

text: The "exchange rate" ratio of output to input was a characteristic feature of operational research. By comparing the number of flying hours put in by Allied aircraft to the number of U-boat sightings in a given area, it was possible to redistribute aircraft to more productive patrol areas. Comparison of exchange rates established "effectiveness ratios" useful in planning. The ratio of 60 mines laid per ship sunk was common to several campaigns: German mines in British ports, British mines on German routes, and United States mines in Japanese routes.


title: Operations research

text: Operational research doubled the on-target bomb rate of B-29s bombing Japan from the Marianas Islands by increasing the training ratio from 4 to 10 percent of flying hours; revealed that wolf-packs of three United States submarines were the most effective number to enable all members of the pack to engage targets discovered on their individual patrol stations; revealed that glossy enamel paint was more effective camouflage for night fighters than traditional dull camouflage paint finish, and a smooth paint finish increased airspeed by reducing skin friction.


title: Operations research

text: On land, the operational research sections of the Army Operational Research Group (AORG) of the Ministry of Supply (MoS) were landed in Normandy in 1944, and they followed British forces in the advance across Europe. They analyzed, among other topics, the effectiveness of artillery, aerial bombing and anti-tank shooting.


title: Operations research

text: In 1947 under the auspices of the British Association, a symposium was organised in Dundee. In his opening address Watson-Watts offered a definition of the aims of OR:


title: Operations research

text: With expanded techniques and growing awareness of the field at the close of the war, operational research was no longer limited to only operational, but was extended to encompass equipment procurement, training, logistics and infrastructure. Operations Research also grew in many areas other than the military once scientists learned to apply its principles to the civilian sector. With the development of the simplex algorithm for linear programming in 1947 and the development of computers over the next three decades, Operations Research can now solve problems with hundreds of thousands of variables and constraints. Moreover, the large volumes of data required for such problems can be stored and manipulated very efficiently." Much of operations research (modernly known as 'analytics') relies upon stochastic variables and a therefore access to truly random numbers. Fortunately the cybernetics field also required the same level of randomness. The development of increasingly better random number generators has been a boon to both disciplines. Modern applications of operations research include city planning, football strategies, emergency planning, optimizing all facets of industry and economy, and undoubtedly with the likelihood of the inclusion of terrorist attack planning and definitely counter-terrorist attack planning. More recently, the research approach of operations research, which dates back to the 1950s, has been criticized for being collections of mathematical models but lacking an empirical basis of data collection for applications. How to collect data is not presented in the textbooks. Because of the lack of data, there are also no computer applications in the textbooks.


title: Operations research

text: In 1967 Stafford Beer characterized the field of management science as "the business use of operations research". Like operational research itself, management science (MS) is an interdisciplinary branch of applied mathematics devoted to optimal decision planning, with strong links with economics, business, engineering, and other sciences. It uses various scientific research-based principles, strategies, and analytical methods including mathematical modeling, statistics and numerical algorithms to improve an organization's ability to enact rational and meaningful management decisions by arriving at optimal or near optimal solutions to sometimes complex decision problems. Management scientists help businesses to achieve their goals using the scientific methods of operational research.


title: Operations research

text: The management scientist's mandate is to use rational, systematic, science-based techniques to inform and improve decisions of all kinds. Of course, the techniques of management science are not restricted to business applications but may be applied to military, medical, public administration, charitable groups, political groups or community groups.


title: Operations research

text: Management science is concerned with developing and applying models and concepts that may prove useful in helping to illuminate management issues and solve managerial problems, as well as designing and developing new and better models of organizational excellence.


title: Operations research

text: Some of the fields that have considerable overlap with Operations Research and Management Science include:


title: Operations research

text: Applications are abundant such as in airlines, manufacturing companies, service organizations, military branches, and government. The range of problems and issues to which it has contributed insights and solutions is vast. It includes:


title: Operations research

text: Management is also concerned with so-called 'soft-operational analysis' which concerns methods for strategic planning, strategic decision support, problem structuring methods.


title: Operations research

text: In dealing with these sorts of challenges, mathematical modeling and simulation may not be appropriate or may not suffice. Therefore, during the past 30 years, a number of non-quantified modeling methods have been developed. These include:


title: Operations research

text: The International Federation of Operational Research Societies (IFORS) is an umbrella organization for operational research societies worldwide, representing approximately 50 national societies including those in the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, India, Japan and South Africa. The constituent members of IFORS form regional groups, such as that in Europe, the Association of European Operational Research Societies (EURO). Other important operational research organizations are Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization (SISO) and Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC)


title: Operations research

text: In 2004 the US-based organization INFORMS began an initiative to market the OR profession better, including a website entitled "The Science of Better" which provides an introduction to OR and examples of successful applications of OR to industrial problems. This initiative has been adopted by the Operational Research Society in the UK, including a website entitled "Learn about OR".


title: Operations research

text: The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) publishes thirteen scholarly journals about operations research, including the top two journals in their class, according to 2005 Journal Citation Reports. They are:


title: 2022 Argentine Primera División

text: The 2022 Argentine Primera División - Liga Profesional (officially the Torneo Binance 2022 for sponsorship reasons) was the 132nd season of top-flight professional football in Argentina. The league season began on 3 June and ended on 25 October 2022.


title: 2022 Argentine Primera División

text: Twenty-eight teams competed in the league: the 26 teams that took part in the previous Primera División season as well as two promoted teams from the 2021 Primera Nacional (Tigre and Barracas Central). River Plate were the defending champions.


title: 2022 Argentine Primera División

text: On 23 October 2022, Boca Juniors won their 35th national league championship in the last round after they and Independiente drew 2–2 and, simultaneously, River Plate defeated Racing 1–2.


title: 2022 Argentine Primera División

text: The competition was run under a single round-robin, contested by 28 teams (26 from the previous edition plus 2 promoted from Primera Nacional). The champions qualified for the 2023 Copa Libertadores as "Argentina 1". The qualification for international tournaments was determined by an aggregate table of the 2022 Primera División and 2022 Copa de la Liga Profesional first stage tournaments.


title: 2022 Argentine Primera División

text: The 2022 Argentine Primera División champions, 2022 Copa de la Liga Profesional champions and 2021–22 Copa Argentina champions earned a berth to the 2023 Copa Libertadores. The remaining berths to the 2023 Copa Libertadores as well as the ones to the 2023 Copa Sudamericana were determined by an aggregate table of the 2022 Argentine Primera División and 2022 Copa de la Liga Profesional first stage tournaments. The top three teams in the aggregate table not already qualified for any international tournament qualified for the Copa Libertadores, while the next six teams qualified for the Copa Sudamericana.


title: 2022 Argentine Primera División

text: Relegation at the end of the season was based on coefficients, which take into consideration the points obtained by the clubs during the present season (aggregate table points) and the two previous seasons (only seasons at the top flight are counted). The total tally was then divided by the number of games played in the top flight over those three seasons and an average was calculated. The two teams with the worst average at the end of the season were relegated to Primera Nacional. Relegation was reinstated starting from this season after it was suspended by AFA at the end of the 2019–20 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Lager

text: Lager () is beer which has been brewed and conditioned at low temperature. Lagers can be pale, amber, or dark. Pale lager is the most widely consumed and commercially available style of beer. The term "lager" comes from the German for "storage", as the beer was stored before drinking, traditionally in the same cool caves in which it was fermented.


title: Lager

text: As well as maturation in cold storage, most lagers are distinguished by the use of "Saccharomyces pastorianus", a "bottom-fermenting" yeast that ferments at relatively cold temperatures.


title: Lager

text: Until the 19th century, the German word "Lagerbier" () referred to all types of bottom-fermented, cool-conditioned beer in normal strengths. In Germany today, it mainly refers to beers from southern Germany,<ref name="Willkommen beim Deutschen Brauer-Bund: Helles Lager/Export"></ref> either "Helles" (pale) or "Dunkel" (dark). Pilsner, a more heavily hopped pale lager, is most often known as "Pilsner", "Pilsener", or "Pils". Other lagers are Bock, Märzen, and Schwarzbier. In the United Kingdom, the term commonly refers to pale lagers derived from the Pilsner style.


title: Lager

text: While cold storage of beer, "lagering", in caves for example, was a common practice throughout the medieval period, bottom-fermenting yeast seems to have emerged from a hybridization in the early fifteenth century. In 2011, a team of researchers claimed to have discovered that "Saccharomyces eubayanus" is responsible for creating the hybrid yeast used to make lager.


title: Lager

text: Based on the numbers of breweries, lager brewing became the main form of brewing in the Kingdom of Bohemia between 1860 and 1870, as shown in the following table:


title: Lager

text: In the 19th century, prior to the advent of refrigeration, German brewers would dig cellars for lagering and fill them with ice from nearby lakes and rivers, which would cool the beer during the summer months. To further protect the cellars from the summer heat, they would plant chestnut trees, which have spreading, dense canopies but shallow roots which would not intrude on the caverns. The practice of serving beer at these sites evolved into the modern beer garden.


title: Lager

text: The rise of lager was entwined with the development of refrigeration, as it made it possible to brew lager year-round (brewing in the summer had previously been banned in many locations across Germany), and efficient refrigeration also made it possible to brew lager in more places and keep it cold until serving. The first large-scale refrigerated lagering tanks were developed for Gabriel Sedelmayr's Spaten Brewery in Munich by Carl von Linde in 1870.


title: Lager

text: Lager uses a process of cool fermentation, followed by maturation in cold storage. The German word "Lager" means storeroom or warehouse. The yeast generally used with lager brewing is "Saccharomyces pastorianus". It is a close relative of the "Saccharomyces cerevisiae" yeast used for warm fermented ales.


title: Lager

text: While prohibited by the German Reinheitsgebot tradition, lagers in some countries may include a proportion of adjuncts, usually rice or maize. Adjuncts entered United States brewing as a means of thinning out the body of beers, balancing the large quantities of protein introduced by six-row barley. Adjuncts are often used now in beermaking to introduce a large quantity of sugar, and thereby increase ABV, at a lower price than a formulation using an all-malt grain bill. There are, however, cases in which adjunct usage actually increases the cost of manufacture.


title: Lager

text: It is possible to use lager yeast in a warm fermentation process, such as with American steam beer; while German Altbier and Kölsch are brewed with "Saccharomyces cerevisiae" top-fermenting yeast at a warm temperature, but with a cold-storage finishing stage, and classified as "obergäriges lagerbier" (top-fermented lager beer).


title: Lager

text: Lagers range in colour from extremely pale, through amber beers such as Vienna lager, to dark brown and black Dunkel and Schwarzbier. The depth of colour comes from the specific grain bill used in the beers; paler lagers use unroasted barley and may even add other grains such as rice or corn to lighten the color and provide a crisp, bright finish to the flavour. Darker lagers use roasted grains and malts to produce a more roasted, even slightly burnt, flavour profile. Styles commonly classified as lagers include:


title: Lager

text: The most common lagers in worldwide production are pale lagers. The flavour of these lighter lagers is usually mild, and the producers often recommend that the beers be served refrigerated.


title: Lager

text: Pale lager is a very pale to golden-coloured lager with a well attenuated body and noble hop bitterness. The brewing process for this beer developed in the mid 19th century when Gabriel Sedlmayr took pale ale brewing techniques back to the Spaten Brewery in Germany and applied it to existing lagering brewing methods.


title: Lager

text: This approach was picked up by other breweries, most notably Pilsner Urquell Brewery in Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic) where Josef Groll produced the first Pilsner beer. The resulting pale coloured, lean and stable beers were very successful and gradually spread around the globe to become the most common form of beer consumed in the world today.


title: Lager

text: The Vienna lager style was developed by Anton Dreher in the late 1830s. While on a trip to England and Scotland in 1833 with Sedlmayr, Dreher gained knowledge of the pale malt making process. Dreher combined the pale malt making techniques with cold bottom fermentation, using yeast given to him by Sedlmayr. In late 1840, Anton Dreher started renting a cellar to mature his beer under cold conditions, a process that is called "lagering". The resulting beer was clean-tasting and relatively pale for the time thanks to the use of smoke-free "English" hot air kilns, resulting in a pale amber colour.


title: Lager

text: The beer style became well-known internationally, in particular due to the Dreher brewery's restaurant and beer hall at the International Exposition of 1867 in Paris, and started getting copied by many of the US-American lager breweries founded by German immigrants. The first amber-coloured Oktoberfest-Märzen brewed by Franziskaner-Leistbräu in 1872 was also a Vienna-style beer brewed to a higher strength.


title: Lager

text: The Vienna lager style has survived to this day, mostly thanks to the emerging microbrewing, home-brewing and craft beer scene in the United States of the 1980s and 1990s. Due to the influence of the American craft beer movement, Vienna lager can again be found in Europe, including traditional Austrian breweries like Ottakringer and Schwechater who have made this pale amber beer style part of their range of beers again.


title: Lager

text: Notable examples of Vienna Lager in the US include Brooklyn Lager, Samuel Adams Boston Lager, Great Lakes Eliot Ness, Dovetail Vienna-style Lager, Devils Backbone Vienna Lager, Abita Amber, Yuengling Traditional Lager, Dos Equis Ámbar, and August Schell Brewing Company Firebrick. In Norway, the style has retained some of its former popularity, and is still brewed by most major breweries.


title: Lager

text: A Vienna lager typically has a copper to reddish-brown colour, low bitterness, low hop profile, a malty aroma, and 4.8-5.4% alcohol by volume.


title: Lager

text: Pale lagers were not common until the later part of the 19th century when technological advances made them easier to produce. Dark lagers may be called Dunkel, tmavé or Schwarzbier depending on region, colour or brewing method.


title: Lager

text: "Tmavé" is Czech for "dark" - beers which are so dark as to be black are termed "černé pivo", "black beer". "Dunkel" is German for "dark". At 4.5% to 6% abv, Dunkel is weaker than Doppelbock, a stronger dark Bavarian beer. Dunkel was the original style of the Bavarian villages and countryside. Schwarzbier, a much darker, almost black beer with a chocolate or licorice-like flavour, similar to stout, is brewed in Saxony and Thuringia.


title: 2003–04 UEFA Champions League

text: The 2003–04 UEFA Champions League was the 12th season of UEFA's premier European club football tournament, the UEFA Champions League, since its rebranding from the European Cup in 1992, and the 49th tournament overall. The competition was won by Portugal's Porto, who defeated Monaco of France 3–0 at the Arena AufSchalke in Gelsenkirchen, Germany for Portugal's first win since 1987. This was Porto's second European trophy in two years, following their UEFA Cup success from the previous season. This was the first UEFA Champions League competition to feature a 16-team knockout round instead of a second group stage.


title: 2003–04 UEFA Champions League

text: After eliminating (in order) Manchester United, Lyon and Deportivo La Coruña, Porto met AS Monaco in the final. Monaco had previously knocked out Lokomotiv Moscow, Real Madrid and Chelsea.


title: 2003–04 UEFA Champions League

text: Milan were the defending champions, but were eliminated by Deportivo La Coruña in the quarter-finals.


title: 2003–04 UEFA Champions League

text: A total of 72 teams from 48 UEFA member associations participated in the 2003–04 UEFA Champions League. Liechtenstein (who don't have their own domestic league) as well as Andorra and San Marino are not participating. Also not admitted was Azerbaijan, which was suspended by UEFA. Each association enters a certain number of clubs to the Champions League based on its league coefficient; associations with a higher league coefficients may enter more clubs than associations with a lower league coefficient, but no association may enter more than four teams.


title: 2003–04 UEFA Champions League

text: For the 2003–04 UEFA Champions League, the associations are allocated places according to their 2002 UEFA country coefficients, which takes into account their performance in European competitions from 1997–98 to 2001–02.


title: 2003–04 UEFA Champions League

text: Since the title holders (Milan) also qualified for the Champions League Third qualifying round through their domestic league, one Third qualifying round spot was vacated. Due to this, as well as due to suspension of Azerbaijan, the following changes to the default access list are made:


title: 2003–04 UEFA Champions League

text: The schedule of the competition is as follows (all draws are held at UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, unless stated otherwise).


title: 2003–04 UEFA Champions League

text: Title holders, 16 winners from the third qualifying round, 9 champions from countries ranked 1–10, and six second-placed teams from countries ranked 1–6 were drawn into eight groups of four teams each. The top two teams in each group advanced to the Champions League play-offs, while the third-placed teams advanced to the Third Round of the UEFA Cup.


title: 2003–04 UEFA Champions League

text: Real Sociedad, Celta Vigo, Stuttgart and Partizan made their debut appearance in the group stage. This season became the first in the history of the Champions League in which three Greek clubs will play in the group stage


title: Eli (2019 film)

text: Eli is a 2019 American horror film directed by Ciarán Foy from a screenplay by David Chirchirillo, Ian Goldberg, and Richard Naing, based on a story by Chirchirillo. It stars Kelly Reilly, Sadie Sink, Lili Taylor, Max Martini, and Charlie Shotwell. The film follows a boy with a rare autoimmune disease who is taken by his parents to a private medical facility to be cured and suddenly begins to experience paranormal occurrences.


title: Eli (2019 film)

text: "Eli" was produced by Paramount Pictures, Paramount Players, MTV Films, Intrepid Pictures and Bellevue Productions and was released on October 18, 2019, by Netflix, making it the first film from Paramount Players to not receive a theatrical release. It received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for its performances and atmosphere, and criticism for its slow pacing and tone.


title: Eli (2019 film)

text: Eli Miller is a young boy suffering from a rare disease that causes severe allergic reactions to the outdoors, forcing him to live his life in protective gear. His parents, Rose and Paul, have taken him to Dr. Isabella Horn's secluded medical facility, a large, old house that has been modernized and quarantined. Eli is initially overjoyed that the facility allows him to remove his "bubble suit", embrace his parents, and enjoy comforts previously denied to him. His joy is short-lived, however, as he begins to experience supernatural phenomena in the house. He also begins his treatments, which are excruciatingly painful. The spectres repeatedly leave him the message "lie", and Eli begins to wonder if they are trying to warn him about Horn's treatments.


title: Eli (2019 film)

text: Eli befriends Haley, a young girl with whom he speaks through a large window in the house's first floor. She is the only person who believes his claims that the house is haunted. She tells him none of the other patients Horn treated left the facility, implying that they died. Eli discovers the word "LIE" is actually the inverted number 317, the passcode to Horn's office. When he investigates the office, he finds Horn's records of past patients, showing that all of them were killed by the third and final treatment.


title: Eli (2019 film)

text: Eli unsuccessfully tries to persuade his parents that they need to leave the facility but Paul tries to drug him into unconsciousness. Hurt and confused, Eli barricades himself in Horn's office. He finds a photograph of Horn and her assistants dressed as nuns, and a hidden passageway to an underground room with religious paraphernalia. Horn locks him inside and he experiences an allergic reaction and passes out. When he awakes, he finds he can breathe fine, and he actually has no disease. Rose, feeling guilty for deceiving Eli, goes to him. Eli pretends he's still unconscious. When she opens the gate, he knocks her unconscious with a crucifix and flees but is recaptured by Horn and his father.


title: Eli (2019 film)

text: His mother regains consciousness and finds a dagger in the crucifix. She also discovers that the stone monument in the room conceals the bodies of Horn's previous patients, bound and adorned with religious symbols. Horrified and enraged, she forces her way into the treatment room but Paul subdues her. It is then revealed that Eli is actually an illegitimate child of Satan himself, and his "allergic reactions" were actually manifestations of his developing demonic abilities. Horn begins the third "treatment:" a religious ritual meant to end Eli's life. When she tries to stab him with the sacrificial dagger, Eli displays very strong bursts of telekinetic energy to levitate Horn and her assistants in the air, spin upside-down (resembling the Cross of St. Peter), then bursts into flames. He also sets the house on fire. Eli's mother reveals that she wanted a son so badly, she turned to Satan, who lied that Eli would be a normal child. Eli's stepfather advances with the sacrificial dagger, but Eli kills him by crushing his face telekinetically.


title: Eli (2019 film)

text: Eli and his mother leave the burning house. Haley greets them in front of a car, again telling Eli he is stronger than the others, who were his sadly departed paternal half-brothers and half-sister, and were also devil/human hybrids. She reveals that she, too, is an illegitimate child of Satan, and that she was unable to tell him, as he had to find and prove his own strength in order to "earn his place." She offers to take Eli to his biological father. When he accepts, Haley wonders if Eli can trust his mother. He indicates that she can, and the film ends with Rose driving the two children away from the burning facility.


title: Eli (2019 film)

text: David Chirchirillo's screenplay was mentioned in the 2015 Black List, compiling the best scripts of the year. In March 2017, it was announced that Ciarán Foy would direct the film, with Ian Goldberg and Richard Naing contributing to Chirchirillo's screenplay.


title: Eli (2019 film)

text: Trevor Macy and John Zaozirny produced the film, while Melinda Nishioka served as a co-producer. Daniel Hammond and Gabriel Hammond executive produced the film under their Broad Green Pictures, Intrepid Pictures and Bellevue Productions banners, respectively.


title: Eli (2019 film)

text: In October 2017, Charlie Shotwell was cast to star in the film. In December 2017, Sadie Sink and Kelly Reilly also joined the cast. In January 2018, Lili Taylor and Max Martini were also added.


title: Eli (2019 film)

text: In October 2017, Paramount Players acquired distribution rights to the project, and set it for a January 4, 2019, release. However, Netflix bought distribution rights to the film from Paramount after Paramount reportedly could not figure out how to market the film. Netflix released it on their service on October 18, 2019.


title: Eli (2019 film)

text: On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average of . The site's critical consensus states, "Intermittently effective if not wholly successful, "Eli" offers horror fans a handful of jump scares in search of a truly terrifying story."


title: Aoi Yūki

text: , better known by her stage name , is a Japanese actress, voice actress and singer represented by Aoni Production. She voiced Komachi Hikigaya in "My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, As I Expected", Rita Rossweisse in "Honkai Impact 3rd", Tanya von Degurechaff in "The Saga of Tanya the Evil", Lucy in "Ninjala", Lumine in "Genshin Impact", Nodoka Hanadera/Cure Grace in "Healin' Good PreCure", Krul Tepes in "Seraph of the End", Madoka Kaname in "Puella Magi Madoka Magica", Hibiki Tachibana in "Senki Zesshou Symphogear", Diane in "The Seven Deadly Sins", Tamaki Kotatsu in "Fire Force", Mami Nanami in "Rent-A-Girlfriend", the young Murasaki Kuhōin in "Kure-nai", Kumoko/Shiraori in "So I'm a Spider, So What?", and Lucy in "".


title: Aoi Yūki

text: Yūki was born in Chiba Prefecture. She entered the entertainment industry at the age of four. As a child, she acted in films and dramas. From 1999 to 2002, she made regular appearances on the variety shows "Appare Sanma Dai-sensei" and "Yappari Sanma Dai-sensei" which aired on Fuji TV. When she was in fifth grade, she made her debut as a voice actress.


title: Aoi Yūki

text: In late 2006, she was affiliated with the theater company Central. After her admission to high school in August 2007, she joined the agency Breath, changing her stage name to Aoi Yūki. She got her first major role in 2008 in "Kure-nai" as Murasaki Kuhōin. In August of the same year, she moved to the agency Pro-Fit. In 2009, she starred in two anime: "Anyamaru Tantei Kiruminzuu" as Mikogami Riko and "Yumeiro Patissiere" as Amano Ichigo, respectively. After that, she voiced the female protagonists of several of her series, notably Iris from "Pokémon: Best Wishes!" and Victorique de Blois from "Gosick".


title: Aoi Yūki

text: In 2011, Yūki voiced Madoka Kaname in "Puella Magi Madoka Magica". In October of the same year, she won the award for best voice actor in the Newtype x Machi Asobi Anime Awards. She was awarded the Best Lead Actress Award in the sixth Seiyu Awards. In 2013, Yūki and Ayana Taketatsu, formed the singing unit Petit Milady. Together, they performed the song , which was used as the third opening theme to the 2013 anime television series "Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal II", and in 2014, performed the song "Azurite", which was used as the opening theme for the 2014 anime series "The Pilot's Love Song". She has also played Hibiki Tachibana in "Symphogear", Yuuki Konno in "Sword Art Online II", Tanya Degurechaff in "The Saga of Tanya the Evil", Yoshiko Hanabatake in "Aho-Girl", Nodoka Hanadera/Cure Grace in "Healin' Good Pretty Cure", and Futaba Sakura in "Persona 5". In 2019, she played as Tamaki Kotatsu in "Fire Force", and reprised her role at the second season.


title: Aoi Yūki

text: Beyond voice acting, Yūki is also a digital artist and illustrator, making several fanart of anime she had voiced in. She also created her own original character project "YUKI×AOI Chimera Project" in 2019 in the hopes to be greenlit for an anime adaptation.


title: Aoi Yūki

text: On April 28, 2017, the official fan website AoimAniA announced that she would take a temporary break from her music career. After the closure of her website and fan club, she resumed her music activities under Nippon Columbia.


title: Aoi Yūki

text: On March 28, 2012, she released her first solo album "Petipa". Her first single, "VisuMania", was released on January 29, 2014, which is used as the ending theme to the anime television series "World Conquest Zvezda Plot".


title: No Nut November

text: No Nut November is an internet challenge revolving around male abstinence from masturbation, sex and ejaculation (or colloquially "to nut") during the month of November. It originated in late 2010 and grew in popularity on social media during and after 2017.


title: No Nut November

text: Although No Nut November was originally intended to be satirical, some participants claim that abstaining from ejaculating and not watching pornography has health benefits. An Urban Dictionary entry for No Nut November was published in 2011, and, in 2017, the movement started to gain popularity on social media. It is associated with the NoFap community on Reddit, which encourages its members not to masturbate. The Reddit community /r/NoNutNovember grew from 16,500 subscribers in November 2018 to 52,000 subscribers in November 2019.


title: No Nut November

text: After some far-right public figures, including Paul Joseph Watson, promoted the campaign, E. J. Dickson of "Rolling Stone" suggested that the movement had been co-opted by the far-right. "Vice" criticized the challenge in 2018 after adherents sent threats to xHamster on Twitter, similarly saying it had been co-opted by far-right figures.


title: No Nut November

text: Destroy Dick December is a related internet challenge following No Nut November which serves as a counterpoint, encouraging participants to take part in sexual activities such as intercourse and masturbation, after abstaining from them during the previous month. Each day, participants in the challenge ejaculate a number of times equal to the day's place in the month, starting with one "nut" on the first of December, and ending with 31 "nuts" on the final day. In total, that is 496 "nuts" in December.


title: Plaster

text: Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of buildings, while "render" commonly refers to external applications. Another imprecise term used for the material is stucco, which is also often used for plasterwork that is worked in some way to produce relief decoration, rather than flat surfaces.


title: Plaster

text: The most common types of plaster mainly contain either gypsum, lime, or cement, but all work in a similar way. The plaster is manufactured as a dry powder and is mixed with water to form a stiff but workable paste immediately before it is applied to the surface. The reaction with water liberates heat through crystallization and the hydrated plaster then hardens.


title: Plaster

text: Plaster can be relatively easily worked with metal tools and sandpaper and can be moulded, either on site or in advance, and worked pieces can be put in place with adhesive. Plaster is suitable for finishing rather than load-bearing, and when thickly applied for decoration may require a hidden supporting framework, usually in metal.


title: Plaster

text: Forms of plaster have several other uses. In medicine, plaster orthopedic casts are still often used for supporting set broken bones. In dentistry, plaster is used to make dental models by pouring the material into dental impressions. Various types of models and moulds are made with plaster. In art, lime plaster is the traditional matrix for fresco painting; the pigments are applied to a thin wet top layer of plaster and fuse with it so that the painting is actually in coloured plaster. In the ancient world, as well as the sort of ornamental designs in plaster relief that are still used, plaster was also widely used to create large figurative reliefs for walls, though few of these have survived.


title: Plaster

text: Plaster was first used as a building material and for decoration in the Middle East at least 7,000 years ago. In Egypt, gypsum was burned in open fires, crushed into powder, and mixed with water to create plaster, used as a mortar between the blocks of pyramids and to provide a smooth facing for places. In Jericho, a cult arose where human skulls were decorated with plaster and painted to appear lifelike. The Romans brought plaster-work techniques to Europe.


title: Plaster

text: Clay plaster is a mixture of clay, sand and water often with the addition of plant fibers for tensile strength over wood lath.


title: Plaster

text: Clay plaster has been used around the world at least since antiquity. Settlers in the American colonies used clay plaster on the interiors of their houses: “Interior plastering in the form of clay antedated even the building of houses of frame, and must have been visible in the inside of wattle filling in those earliest frame houses in which … wainscot had not been indulged. Clay continued in the use long after the adoption of laths and brick filling for the frame." Where lime was not easily accessible it was rationed and usually substituted with clay as a binder. In Martin E. Weaver’s seminal work he says, “Mud plaster consists of clay or earth which is mixed with water to give a “plastic” or workable consistency. If the clay mixture is too plastic it will shrink, crack and distort on drying. Sand, fine gravels and fibres were added to reduce the concentrations of fine clay particles which were the cause of the excessive shrinkage.” Manure was often added for its fibre content. In some building techniques straw or grass was used as reinforcement.


title: Plaster

text: In the Earliest European settlers’ plasterwork, a mud plaster was used McKee writes, of a circa 1675 Massachusetts contract that specified the plasterer, “Is to lath and siele the four rooms of the house betwixt the joists overhead with a coat of lime and haire upon the clay; also to fill the gable ends of the house with ricks and plaister them with clay. 5. To lath and plaster partitions of the house with clay and lime, and to fill, lath, and plaister them with lime and haire besides; and to siele and lath them overhead with lime; also to fill, lath, and plaster the kitchen up to the wall plate on every side. 6. The said Daniel Andrews is to find lime, bricks, clay, stone, haire, together with laborers and workmen… .” Records of the New Haven colony in 1641 mention clay and hay as well as lime and hair also. In German houses of Pennsylvania the use of clay persisted.”


title: Plaster

text: Old Economy Village is one such German settlement. The early Nineteenth-Century utopian village in present-day Ambridge, Pennsylvania, used clay plaster substrate exclusively in the brick and wood frame high architecture of the Feast Hall, Great House and other large and commercial structures as well as in the brick, frame and log dwellings of the society members. The use of clay in plaster and in laying brickwork appears to have been a common practice at that time not just in the construction of Economy village when the settlement was founded in 1824. Specifications for the construction of, “Lock keepers houses on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, written about 1828, require stone walls to be laid with clay mortar, excepting 3 inches on the outside of the walls … which (are) to be good lime mortar and well pointed.” The choice of clay was because of its low cost, but also the availability. At Economy, root cellars dug under the houses yielded clay and sand (stone), or the nearby Ohio river yielded washed sand from the sand bars; and lime outcroppings and oyster shell for the lime kiln.


title: Plaster

text: The surrounding forests of the new village of Economy provided straight grain, old-growth oak trees for lath. Hand split lath starts with a log of straight grained wood of the required length. The log is split into quarters and then smaller and smaller bolts with wedges and a sledge. When small enough, a froe and mallet were used to split away narrow strips of lath. Farm animals provided hair and manure for the float coat of plaster. Fields of wheat and grains provided straw and hay to reinforce the clay plaster. But there was no uniformity in clay plaster recipes.


title: Plaster

text: Manure provides fiber for tensile strength as well as protein adhesive. Unlike casein used with lime plaster, hydrogen bonds of manure proteins are weakened by moisture. With braced timber-framed structures clay plaster was used on interior walls and ceilings as well as exterior walls as the wall cavity and exterior cladding isolated the clay plaster from moisture penetration. Application of clay plaster in brick structures risked water penetration from failed mortar joints on the exterior brick walls. In Economy Village, the rear and middle wythes of brick dwelling walls are laid in a clay and sand mortar with the front wythe bedded in a lime and sand mortar to provide a weather proof seal to protect from water penetration. This allowed a rendering of clay plaster and setting coat of thin lime and fine sand on exterior-walled rooms.


title: Plaster

text: Split lath was nailed with square cut lath nails, one into each framing member. With hand split lath the plasterer had the luxury of making lath to fit the cavity being plastered. Lengths of lath two to six foot are not uncommon at Economy Village. Hand split lath is not uniform like sawn lath. The straightness or waviness of the grain affected the thickness or width of each lath, and thus the spacing of the lath. The clay plaster rough coat varied to cover the irregular lath. Window and door trim as well as the mudboard (baseboard) acted as screeds. With the variation of the lath thickness and use of coarse straw and manure, the clay coat of plaster was thick in comparison to later lime-only and gypsum plasters. In Economy Village, the lime top coats are thin veneers often an eighth inch or less attesting to the scarcity of limestone supplies there.


title: Plaster

text: Clay plasters with their lack of tensile and compressive strength fell out of favor as industrial mining and technology advances in kiln production led to the exclusive use of lime and then gypsum in plaster applications. However, clay plasters still exist after hundreds of years clinging to split lath on rusty square nails. The wall variations and roughness reveal a hand-made and pleasing textured alternative to machine-made modern substrate finishes. But clay plaster finishes are rare and fleeting. According to Martin Weaver, “Many of North America’s historic building interiors…are all too often…one of the first things to disappear in the frenzy of demolition of interiors which has unfortunately come to be a common companion to “heritage preservation” in the guise of building rehabilitation.”


title: Plaster

text: Gypsum plaster, also known as plaster of Paris, is a white powder consisting of calcium sulphate hemihydrate. The natural form of the compound is the mineral bassanite.


title: Plaster

text: The name "plaster of Paris" was given because it was originally made by heating gypsum from a large deposit at Montmartre, a hill in the north end of Paris.


title: Plaster

text: Gypsum plaster, gypsum powder, or plaster of Paris, is produced by heating gypsum to about 120–180 °C (248–356 °F) in a kiln:


title: Plaster

text: Plaster of Paris is stored in moisture-proof containers, because the presence of moisture can cause slow setting of plaster of Paris by bringing about its hydration, which will make it useless after some time.


title: Plaster

text: When the dry plaster powder is mixed with water, it rehydrates over time into gypsum. The setting of plaster slurry starts about 10 minutes after mixing and is complete in about 45 minutes. The setting of plaster of Paris is accompanied by a slight expansion of volume. It is used in making casts for statues, toys, and more. The initial matrix consists mostly of orthorhombic crystals: the kinetic product. Over the next 72 hours, the rhombic crystals give way to an interlocking mass of monoclinic crystal needles, and the plaster increases in hardness and strength. If plaster or gypsum is heated to between 130 °C (266 °F) and 180 °C (350°F), hemihydrate is formed, which will also re-form as gypsum if mixed with water.


title: Plaster

text: On heating to 180 °C (350°F), the nearly water-free form, called γ-anhydrite (CaSO·"n"HO where "n" = 0 to 0.05) is produced. γ-Anhydrite reacts slowly with water to return to the dihydrate state, a property exploited in some commercial desiccants. On heating above 250 °C (480°F), the completely anhydrous form called β-anhydrite or dead burned plaster is formed.


title: Plaster

text: Lime plaster is a mixture of calcium hydroxide and sand (or other inert fillers). Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causes the plaster to set by transforming the calcium hydroxide into calcium carbonate (limestone). Whitewash is based on the same chemistry.


title: Plaster

text: To make lime plaster, limestone (calcium carbonate) is heated above approximately 850 °C (1600°F) to produce quicklime (calcium oxide). Water is then added to produce slaked lime (calcium hydroxide), which is sold as a wet putty or a white powder. Additional water is added to form a paste prior to use. The paste may be stored in airtight containers. When exposed to the atmosphere, the calcium hydroxide very slowly turns back into calcium carbonate through reaction with atmospheric carbon dioxide, causing the plaster to increase in strength.


title: Plaster

text: Lime plaster was a common building material for wall surfaces in a process known as lath and plaster, whereby a series of wooden strips on a studwork frame was covered with a semi-dry plaster that hardened into a surface. The plaster used in most lath and plaster construction was mainly lime plaster, with a cure time of about a month. To stabilize the lime plaster during curing, small amounts of plaster of Paris were incorporated into the mix. Because plaster of Paris sets quickly, "retardants" were used to slow setting time enough to allow workers to mix large working quantities of lime putty plaster. A modern form of this method uses expanded metal mesh over wood or metal structures, which allows a great freedom of design as it is adaptable to both simple and compound curves. Today this building method has been partly replaced with drywall, also composed mostly of gypsum plaster. In both these methods, a primary advantage of the material is that it is resistant to a fire within a room and so can assist in reducing or eliminating structural damage or destruction provided the fire is promptly extinguished.


title: Plaster

text: Lime plaster is used for frescoes, where pigments, diluted in water, are applied to the still wet plaster.


title: Plaster

text: Cement plaster is a mixture of suitable plaster, sand, Portland cement and water which is normally applied to masonry interiors and exteriors to achieve a smooth surface. Interior surfaces sometimes receive a final layer of gypsum plaster. Walls constructed with stock bricks are normally plastered while face brick walls are not plastered. Various cement-based plasters are also used as proprietary spray fireproofing products. These usually use vermiculite as lightweight aggregate. Heavy versions of such plasters are also in use for exterior fireproofing, to protect LPG vessels, pipe bridges and vessel skirts.


title: Plaster

text: Cement plaster was first introduced in America around 1909 and was often called by the generic name "adamant plaster" after a prominent manufacturer of the time. The advantages of cement plaster noted at that time were its strength, hardness, quick setting time and durability.


title: Plaster

text: Heat-resistant plaster is a building material used for coating walls and chimney breasts and for use as a fire barrier in ceilings. Its purpose is to replace conventional gypsum plasters in cases where the temperature can get too high for gypsum plaster to stay on the wall or ceiling.


title: Plaster

text: An example of a heat-resistant plaster composition is a mixture of Portland cement, gypsum, lime, exfoliated insulating aggregate (perlite and vermiculite or mica), phosphate shale, and small amounts of adhesive binder (such as Gum karaya), and a detergent agent (such as sodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate).


title: Plaster

text: Plaster may also be used to create complex detailing for use in room interiors. These may be geometric (simulating wood or stone) or naturalistic (simulating leaves, vines, and flowers). These are also often used to simulate wood or stone detailing found in more substantial buildings.


title: Plaster

text: In modern days this material is also used for False Ceiling. In this, the powder form is converted in a sheet form and the sheet is then attached to the basic ceiling with the help of fasteners. It is done in various designs containing various combinations of lights and colors. The common use of this plaster can be seen in the construction of houses. Post-construction, direct painting is possible (which is commonly seen in French architecture), but elsewhere plaster is used. The walls are painted with the plaster which (in some countries) is nothing but calcium carbonate. After drying the calcium carbonate plaster turns white and then the wall is ready to be painted. Elsewhere in the world, such as the UK, ever finer layers of plaster are added on top of the plasterboard (or sometimes the brick wall directly) to give a smooth brown polished texture ready for painting.


title: Plaster

text: Mural paintings are commonly painted onto a plaster secondary support. Some, like Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling, are executed in fresco, meaning they are painted on a thin layer of wet plaster, called intonaco; the pigments sink into this layer so that the plaster itself becomes the medium holding them, which accounts for the excellent durability of fresco. Additional work may be added "a secco" on top of the dry plaster, though this is generally less durable.


title: Plaster

text: Plaster (often called stucco in this context) is a far easier material for making reliefs than stone or wood, and was widely used for large interior wall-reliefs in Egypt and the Near East from antiquity into Islamic times (latterly for architectural decoration, as at the Alhambra), Rome, and Europe from at least the Renaissance, as well as probably elsewhere. However, it needs very good conditions to survive long in unmaintained buildings – Roman decorative plasterwork is mainly known from Pompeii and other sites buried by ash from Mount Vesuvius.


title: Plaster

text: Plaster may be cast directly into a damp clay mold. In creating this "piece molds" (molds designed for making multiple copies) or "waste molds" (for single use) would be made of plaster. This "negative" image, if properly designed, may be used to produce clay productions, which when fired in a kiln become terra cotta building decorations, or these may be used to create cast concrete sculptures. If a plaster positive was desired this would be constructed or cast to form a durable image artwork. As a model for stonecutters this would be sufficient. If intended for producing a bronze casting the plaster positive could be further worked to produce smooth surfaces. An advantage of this plaster image is that it is relatively cheap; should a patron approve of the durable image and be willing to bear further expense, subsequent molds could be made for the creation of a wax image to be used in lost wax casting, a far more expensive process. In lieu of producing a bronze image suitable for outdoor use the plaster image may be painted to resemble a metal image; such sculptures are suitable only for presentation in a weather-protected environment.


title: Plaster

text: Plaster expands while hardening then contracts slightly just before hardening completely. This makes plaster excellent for use in molds, and it is often used as an artistic material for casting. Plaster is also commonly spread over an armature (form), made of wire mesh, cloth, or other materials; a process for adding raised details. For these processes, limestone or acrylic based plaster may be employed, known as stucco.


title: Plaster

text: Products composed mainly of plaster of Paris and a small amount of Portland cement are used for casting sculptures and other art objects as well as molds. Considerably harder and stronger than straight plaster of Paris, these products are for indoor use only as they degrade in moist conditions.


title: Plaster

text: Plaster is widely used as a support for broken bones; a bandage impregnated with plaster is moistened and then wrapped around the damaged limb, setting into a close-fitting yet easily removed tube, known as an orthopedic cast.


title: Plaster

text: Plaster is also used in preparation for radiotherapy when fabricating individualized immobilization shells for patients. Plaster bandages are used to construct an impression of a patient's head and neck, and liquid plaster is used to fill the impression and produce a plaster bust. The transparent material polymethyl methacrylate (Plexiglas, Perspex) is then vacuum formed over this bust to create a clear face mask which will hold the patient's head steady while radiation is being delivered.


title: Plaster

text: In dentistry, plaster is used for mounting casts or models of oral tissues. These diagnostic and working models are usually made from dental stone, a stronger, harder and denser derivative of plaster which is manufactured from gypsum under pressure. Plaster is also used to invest and flask wax dentures, the wax being subsequently removed by "burning out," and replaced with flowable denture base material. The typically acrylic denture base then cures in the plaster investment mold. Plaster investments can withstand the high heat and pressure needed to ensure a rigid denture base. Moreover, in dentistry there are 5 types of gypsum products depending on their consistency and uses: 1) impression plaster (type 1), 2) model plaster (type 2), dental stones (types 3, 4 and 5)


title: Plaster

text: In orthotics and prosthetics, plaster bandages traditionally were used to create impressions of the patient's limb (or residuum). This negative impression was then, itself, filled with plaster of Paris, to create a positive model of the limb and used in fabricating the final medical device.


title: Plaster

text: In addition, dentures (false teeth) are made by first taking a dental impression using a soft, pliable material that can be removed from around the teeth and gums without loss of fidelity and using the impression to creating a wax model of the teeth and gums. The model is used to create a plaster mold (which is heated so the wax melts and flows out) and the denture materials are injected into the mold. After a curing period, the mold is opened and the dentures are cleaned up and polished.


title: Plaster

text: Gypsum plaster releases water vapor when exposed to flame, acting to slow the spread of the fire, for as much as an hour or two depending on thickness. Plaster also provides some insulation to retard heat flow into structural steel elements, that would otherwise lose their strength and collapse in a fire. Early versions of protective plasters often contain asbestos fibres, which since have been outlawed in many industrialized nations.


title: Plaster

text: Recent plasters for fire protection either contain cement or gypsum as binding agents as well as mineral wool or glass fiber to add mechanical strength.


title: Plaster

text: Vermiculite, polystyrene beads or chemical expansion agents are often added to decrease the density of the finished product and increase thermal insulation.


title: Plaster

text: One differentiates between interior and exterior fireproofing. Interior products are typically less substantial, with lower densities and lower cost. Exterior products have to withstand harsher environmental conditions. A rough surface is typically forgiven inside of buildings as dropped ceilings often hide them. Fireproofing plasters are losing ground to more costly intumescent and endothermic products, simply on technical merit. Trade jurisdiction on unionized construction sites in North America remains with the plasterers, regardless of whether the plaster is decorative in nature or is used in passive fire protection. Cementitious and gypsum based plasters tend to be endothermic. Fireproofing plasters are closely related to firestop mortars. Most firestop mortars can be sprayed and tooled very well, due to the fine detail work that is required of firestopping.


title: Plaster

text: Powder bed and inkjet head 3D printing is commonly based on the reaction of gypsum plaster with water, where the water is selectively applied by the inkjet head.


title: Plaster

text: The chemical reaction that occurs when plaster is mixed with water is exothermic. When plaster sets, it can reach temperatures of more than 60 °C (140°F) and, in large volumes, can burn the skin. In January 2007, a secondary school student in Lincolnshire, England sustained third-degree burns after encasing her hands in a bucket of plaster as part of a school art project.


title: Plaster

text: Plaster that contain powdered silica or asbestos present health hazards if inhaled repeatedly. <nowiki>Asbestos</nowiki> is a known irritant when inhaled and can cause cancer, <nowiki>especially</nowiki> in people who smoke, and inhalation can also cause asbestosis. Inhaled silica can cause silicosis and (in very rare cases) can encourage the development of cancer. Persons working regularly with plaster containing these additives should take precautions to avoid inhaling powdered plaster, cured or uncured. (Note that asbestos is rarely used in modern plaster formulations because of its carcinogenic <nowiki>effects.)</nowiki>


title: Plaster

text: People can be exposed to plaster of Paris in the workplace by breathing it in, swallowing it, skin contact, and eye contact. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has set the legal limit (permissible exposure limit) for plaster of Paris exposure in the workplace as 15 mg/m total exposure and 5 mg/m respiratory exposure over an 8-hour workday. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has set a Recommended exposure limit (REL) of 10 mg/m total exposure and 5 mg/m respiratory exposure over an 8-hour workday.


title: Wineville Chicken Coop murders

text: The Wineville Chicken Coop murders, also known as the Wineville Chicken murders, were a series of abductions and murders of young boys that occurred in the city of Los Angeles and in Riverside County, California between 1926 and 1928. The murders were carried out by Gordon Stewart Northcott, a 19-year-old farmer who had moved to California from Canada two years prior, as well as his mother, Sarah Louise Northcott, and his nephew, Sanford Clark.