title: Adaptive immune system

text: When B cells and T cells are activated some become memory B cells and some memory T cells. Throughout the lifetime of an animal these memory cells form a database of effective B and T lymphocytes. Upon interaction with a previously encountered antigen, the appropriate memory cells are selected and activated. In this manner, the second and subsequent exposures to an antigen produce a stronger and faster immune response. This is "adaptive" in the sense that the body's immune system prepares itself for future challenges, but is "maladaptive" of course if the receptors are autoimmune. Immunological memory can be in the form of either "passive" short-term memory or "active" long-term memory.


title: Adaptive immune system

text: Passive memory is usually short-term, lasting between a few days and several months. Newborn infants have had no prior exposure to microbes and are particularly vulnerable to infection. Several layers of passive protection are provided by the mother. "In utero", maternal IgG is transported directly across the placenta, so that, at birth, human babies have high levels of antibodies, with the same range of antigen specificities as their mother. Breast milk contains antibodies (mainly IgA) that are transferred to the gut of the infant, protecting against bacterial infections, until the newborn can synthesize its own antibodies.


title: Adaptive immune system

text: This is passive immunity because the fetus does not actually make any memory cells or antibodies: It only borrows them. Short-term passive immunity can also be transferred artificially from one individual to another via antibody-rich serum.


title: Adaptive immune system

text: In general, active immunity is long-term and can be acquired by infection followed by B cell and T cell activation, or artificially acquired by vaccines, in a process called immunization.


title: Adaptive immune system

text: Historically, infectious disease has been the leading cause of death in the human population. Over the last century, two important factors have been developed to combat their spread: sanitation and immunization. Immunization (commonly referred to as vaccination) is the deliberate induction of an immune response, and represents the single most effective manipulation of the immune system that scientists have developed. Immunizations are successful because they utilize the immune system's natural specificity as well as its inducibility.


title: Adaptive immune system

text: The principle behind immunization is to introduce an antigen, derived from a disease-causing organism, that stimulates the immune system to develop protective immunity against that organism, but that does not itself cause the pathogenic effects of that organism. An antigen (short for "anti"body "gen"erator), is defined as any substance that binds to a specific antibody and elicits an adaptive immune response.


title: Adaptive immune system

text: Most viral vaccines are based on live attenuated viruses, whereas many bacterial vaccines are based on acellular components of microorganisms, including harmless toxin components. Many antigens derived from acellular vaccines do not strongly induce an adaptive response, and most bacterial vaccines require the addition of "adjuvants" that activate the antigen-presenting cells of the innate immune system to enhance immunogenicity.


title: Adaptive immune system

text: Most large molecules, including virtually all proteins and many polysaccharides, can serve as antigens. The parts of an antigen that interact with an antibody molecule or a lymphocyte receptor, are called epitopes, or antigenic determinants. Most antigens contain a variety of epitopes and can stimulate the production of antibodies, specific T cell responses, or both. A very small proportion (less than 0.01%) of the total lymphocytes are able to bind to a particular antigen, which suggests that only a few cells respond to each antigen.


title: Adaptive immune system

text: For the acquired response to "remember" and eliminate a large number of pathogens the immune system must be able to distinguish between many different antigens, and the receptors that recognize antigens must be produced in a huge variety of configurations, in essence one receptor (at least) for each different pathogen that might ever be encountered. Even in the absence of antigen stimulation, a human can produce more than 1 trillion different antibody molecules. Millions of genes would be required to store the genetic information that produces these receptors, but, the entire human genome contains fewer than 25,000 genes.


title: Adaptive immune system

text: Myriad receptors are produced through a process known as clonal selection. According to the clonal selection theory, at birth, an animal randomly generates a vast diversity of lymphocytes (each bearing a unique antigen receptor) from information encoded in a small family of genes. To generate each unique antigen receptor, these genes have undergone a process called V(D)J recombination, or "combinatorial diversification", in which one gene segment recombines with other gene segments to form a single unique gene. This assembly process generates the enormous diversity of receptors and antibodies, before the body ever encounters antigens, and enables the immune system to respond to an almost unlimited diversity of antigens. Throughout an animal's lifetime, lymphocytes that can react against the antigens an animal actually encounters are selected for action—directed against anything that expresses that antigen.


title: Adaptive immune system

text: The innate and acquired portions of the immune system work together, not in spite of each other. The acquired arm, B, and T cells couldn't function without the innate system input. T cells are useless without antigen-presenting cells to activate them, and B cells are disabled without T cell help. On the other hand, the innate system would likely be overrun with pathogens without the specialized action of the adaptive immune response.


title: Adaptive immune system

text: The cornerstone of the immune system is the recognition of "self" versus "non-self". Therefore, the mechanisms that protect the human fetus (which is considered "non-self") from attack by the immune system, are particularly interesting. Although no comprehensive explanation has emerged to explain this mysterious, and often repeated, lack of rejection, two classical reasons may explain how the fetus is tolerated. The first is that the fetus occupies a portion of the body protected by a non-immunological barrier, the uterus, which the immune system does not routinely patrol. The second is that the fetus itself may promote local immunosuppression in the mother, perhaps by a process of active nutrient depletion. A more modern explanation for this induction of tolerance is that specific glycoproteins expressed in the uterus during pregnancy suppress the uterine immune response (see eu-FEDS).


title: Adaptive immune system

text: During pregnancy in viviparous mammals (all mammals except Monotremes), endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) are activated and produced in high quantities during the implantation of the embryo. They are currently known to possess immunosuppressive properties, suggesting a role in protecting the embryo from its mother's immune system. Also, viral fusion proteins cause the formation of the placental syncytium to limit exchange of migratory cells between the developing embryo and the body of the mother (something an epithelium can't do sufficiently, as certain blood cells specialize to insert themselves between adjacent epithelial cells). The immunodepressive action was the initial normal behavior of the virus, similar to HIV. The fusion proteins were a way to spread the infection to other cells by simply merging them with the infected one (HIV does this too). It is believed that the ancestors of modern viviparous mammals evolved after an infection by this virus, enabling the fetus to survive the immune system of the mother.


title: Adaptive immune system

text: A theoretical framework explaining the workings of the acquired immune system is provided by immune network theory, based on interactions between idiotypes (unique molecular features of one clonotype, i.e. the unique set of antigenic determinants of the variable portion of an antibody) and 'anti-idiotypes' (antigen receptors that react with the idiotype as if it were a foreign antigen). This theory, which builds on the existing clonal selection hypothesis and since 1974 has been developed mainly by Niels Jerne and Geoffrey W. Hoffmann, is seen as being relevant to the understanding of the HIV pathogenesis and the search for an HIV vaccine.


title: Adaptive immune system

text: One of the most interesting developments in biomedical science during the past few decades has been elucidation of mechanisms mediating innate immunity. One set of innate immune mechanisms is humoral, such as complement activation. Another set comprises pattern recognition receptors such as toll-like receptors, which induce the production of interferons and other cytokines increasing resistance of cells such as monocytes to infections. Cytokines produced during innate immune responses are among the activators of adaptive immune responses. Antibodies exert additive or synergistic effects with mechanisms of innate immunity. Unstable HbS clusters Band-3, a major integral red cell protein; antibodies recognize these clusters and accelerate their removal by phagocytic cells. Clustered Band 3 proteins with attached antibodies activate complement, and complement C3 fragments are opsonins recognized by the CR1 complement receptor on phagocytic cells.


title: Adaptive immune system

text: A population study has shown that the protective effect of the sickle-cell trait against falciparum malaria involves the augmentation of acquired as well as innate immune responses to the malaria parasite, illustrating the expected transition from innate to acquired immunity.


title: Adaptive immune system

text: Repeated malaria infections strengthen acquired immunity and broaden its effects against parasites expressing different surface antigens. By school age most children have developed efficacious adaptive immunity against malaria. These observations raise questions about mechanisms that favor the survival of most children in Africa while allowing some to develop potentially lethal infections.


title: Adaptive immune system

text: In malaria, as in other infections, innate immune responses lead into, and stimulate, adaptive immune responses. The genetic control of innate and acquired immunity is now a large and flourishing discipline.


title: Adaptive immune system

text: Humoral and cell-mediated immune responses limit malaria parasite multiplication, and many cytokines contribute to the pathogenesis of malaria as well as to the resolution of infections.


title: Adaptive immune system

text: The acquired immune system, which has been best-studied in mammals, originated in jawed fish approximately 500 million years ago. Most of the molecules, cells, tissues, and associated mechanisms of this system of defense are found in cartilaginous fishes. Lymphocyte receptors, Ig and TCR, are found in all jawed vertebrates. The most ancient Ig class, IgM, is membrane-bound and then secreted upon stimulation of cartilaginous fish B cells. Another isotype, shark IgW, is related to mammalian IgD. TCRs, both α/β and γ/δ, are found in all animals from gnathostomes to mammals. The organization of gene segments that undergo gene rearrangement differs in cartilaginous fishes, which have a cluster form as compared to the translocon form in bony fish to mammals. Like TCR and Ig, the MHC is found only in jawed vertebrates. Genes involved in antigen processing and presentation, as well as the class I and class II genes, are closely linked within the MHC of almost all studied species.


title: Adaptive immune system

text: Lymphoid cells can be identified in some pre-vertebrate deuterostomes (i.e., sea urchins). These bind antigen with pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) of the innate immune system. In jawless fishes, two subsets of lymphocytes use variable lymphocyte receptors (VLRs) for antigen binding. Diversity is generated by a cytosine deaminase-mediated rearrangement of LRR-based DNA segments. There is no evidence for the recombination-activating genes (RAGs) that rearrange Ig and TCR gene segments in jawed vertebrates.


title: Adaptive immune system

text: The evolution of the AIS, based on Ig, TCR, and MHC molecules, is thought to have arisen from two major evolutionary events: the transfer of the RAG transposon (possibly of viral origin) and two whole genome duplications. Though the molecules of the AIS are well-conserved, they are also rapidly evolving. Yet, a comparative approach finds that many features are quite uniform across taxa. All the major features of the AIS arose early and quickly. Jawless fishes have a different AIS that relies on gene rearrangement to generate diverse immune receptors with a functional dichotomy that parallels Ig and TCR molecules. The innate immune system, which has an important role in AIS activation, is the most important defense system of invertebrates and plants.


title: Adaptive immune system

text: Immunity can be acquired either actively or passively. Immunity is acquired actively when a person is exposed to foreign substances and the immune system responds. Passive immunity is when antibodies are transferred from one host to another. Both actively acquired and passively acquired immunity can be obtained by natural or artificial means.


title: John Higgins

text: John Higgins, (born 18 May 1975) is a Scottish professional snooker player. He has won 31 career ranking titles, placing him in third position on the all-time list of ranking event winners, behind Ronnie O'Sullivan (39) and Stephen Hendry (36). Since turning professional in 1992, he has won four World Championships, three UK Championships, and two Masters titles for a total of nine Triple Crown titles, putting him on a par with Mark Selby and behind only O'Sullivan (21), Hendry (18) and Steve Davis (15). A prolific break-builder, he has compiled over 900 century breaks and 12 maximum breaks in professional tournaments, in both cases second only to O'Sullivan (who has compiled over 1,100 centuries and 15 maximums). Higgins has achieved the world number 1 ranking position on four occasions.


title: John Higgins

text: In 2010, the "News of the World" tabloid newspaper carried out a sting operation in a hotel room in Ukraine, which claimed to show Higgins and his then-manager arranging to lose specific frames in future matches for money. Although an investigation cleared Higgins of match-fixing allegations, the WPBSA found that he had brought the sport into disrepute by failing to disclose an invitation to breach the sport's betting rules, and giving the impression of agreeing to it. Higgins was banned from professional competition for six months and fined £75,000. He returned to the tour midway through the 2010–11 season.


title: John Higgins

text: After winning his fourth world title in 2011, Higgins' form has become less consistent, and he has spoken frequently about his struggles with confidence. He has gone for extended periods without ranking wins. He reached three consecutive World Championship finals between 2017 and 2019, but was runner-up each time, losing to Mark Selby in 2017, Mark Williams in 2018, and Judd Trump in 2019. In the 2021–22 season, he lost five major finals, including the 2022 Tour Championship, when he lost 9–10 to Neil Robertson despite having led 9–4.


title: John Higgins

text: Higgins turned professional in 1992 and reached the quarter-finals of the British Open during his first season on the professional tour. He rose to prominence in the 1994–95 season when, at the age of 19, he won his first ranking tournament at the Grand Prix, defeating Dave Harold 9–6 in the final. He went on to win two more ranking titles at the British Open and International Open, making him the first teenager to win three ranking events in one season, and he also reached the finals of the Welsh Open and the Masters. By the end of the season, he had moved from 51st to 11th in the world rankings. By the end of the following season, assisted by two more ranking titles and another ranking final, he had moved up to 2nd in the world. At the 1996 UK Championship final in 1996, he recovered from 4–8 down against Stephen Hendry to lead 9–8, only to lose 9–10.


title: John Higgins

text: In 1998, Higgins won his first World Championship, beating Jason Ferguson, Anthony Hamilton, John Parrott and Ronnie O'Sullivan, before overcoming defending champion Ken Doherty 18–12 in the final. He made a then-record 14 centuries in the tournament (an achievement that was later eclipsed by Hendry, who made 16 centuries in the 2002 World Championship). After winning the world title, Higgins became world number one for the first time in his career, ending Stephen Hendry's eight-year tenure in the top spot.


title: John Higgins

text: During the 1998–99 season, Higgins won the UK Championship and Masters with 10–6 and 10–8 defeats of Matthew Stevens and Ken Doherty, respectively, to become only the third player after Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry to hold the World, UK and Masters titles simultaneously (Mark Williams later joined this elite group). In addition, he is one of just six players to have claimed both the World and UK Championship in the same calendar year (1998); the others are Steve Davis, Stephen Hendry, John Parrott, Ronnie O'Sullivan, and Mark Selby.


title: John Higgins

text: Higgins remained as world number one for two years, when Mark Williams replaced him at the top of the rankings at the close of the 1999–00 season. Higgins and Williams met in the Grand Prix final in 1999, where Higgins came from 2–6 down to claim a 9–8 victory; the World Championship semi-final in 2000, where Higgins was defeated 15–17 after surrendering a 14–10 advantage in the final session; and the UK Championship final in 2000 – Higgins winning by a margin of 10–4 to earn his second UK title.


title: John Higgins

text: He reached the World Championship final in 2001, but lost 14–18 to Ronnie O'Sullivan. At the beginning of the 2001–02 season, Higgins became the first player to win the opening three tournaments of a season: the Champions Cup, Scottish Masters (both invitational events), and the British Open. Higgins then failed to win a major title until his fourth British Open triumph in 2004.


title: John Higgins

text: In the Grand Prix final in 2005, Higgins beat Ronnie O'Sullivan 9–2. In doing so, he became the first player to record four consecutive centuries in a ranking tournament, with breaks of 103, 104, 138 and 128 in frames 7 to 10. Higgins scored 494 points without reply, which was then a record (Ding Junhui managed 495 points against Stephen Hendry in the Premier League in 2007). Higgins and O'Sullivan also contested the Masters finals in 2005 and 2006. Higgins was beaten 3–10 in 2005. In 2006, he lost the first three frames, but won the next five to establish a lead after the first session. O'Sullivan levelled in the evening, and the match went to a deciding frame. On a 60 break, O'Sullivan missed a red to a baulk pocket, and Higgins made a clearance of 64 to win 10–9 to claim the title for the second time.


title: John Higgins

text: At the 2007 World Snooker Championship, Higgins beat Michael Holt, Fergal O'Brien, Ronnie O'Sullivan, and Stephen Maguire en route to the final. His break of 122 in the 29th frame of his semi-final against Maguire, on recovering from a deficit of 10–14 in the final session to prevail 17–15, was the 1,000th century to be made at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield since the World Championship was first staged there in 1977. In the final, Higgins held a 12–4 advantage over Mark Selby overnight, but Selby reduced his arrears to a single frame on day two. However, at 14–13, Higgins rediscovered his form to win four consecutive frames to clinch the match 18–13 to secure his second World title at 12:54 am, the latest finish to a World final (equalled when Neil Robertson beat Graeme Dott in 2010); and nine years after his first title – the longest time span between successes since Alex Higgins (1972, 1982), and the longest at The Crucible. He regained world number one status.


title: John Higgins

text: As World Champion, Higgins reached the quarter-final stages in only the Welsh Open and China Open tournaments. He helped to establish, and actively promoted, the World Series of Snooker – a tour intended to bring snooker to new venues outside the traditional United Kingdom and recently developed Far East markets. He won the inaugural event in St. Helier in June 2008, beating Mark Selby 6–3 in the final. Higgins also devised a new players' union with his manager Pat Mooney, called The Snooker Players Association. He won the Grand Prix for the fourth time in 2008, beating Ryan Day 9–7 in the final in Glasgow – his first ranking tournament win on home soil.


title: John Higgins

text: At the 2009 World Snooker Championship, Higgins beat Michael Holt 10–5 in round one. His second-round and quarter-final matches both went the full distance of 25 frames, with Higgins overcoming 10–12 and 11–12 deficits against Jamie Cope and Mark Selby, respectively, to win 13–12. He established a 13–3 lead in the semi-final against Mark Allen and progressed 17–13 – withstanding a comeback by the Northern Irishman. Higgins recorded an 18–9 victory over Shaun Murphy in the final to become the ninth player to win the World title three or more times after Joe Davis, Fred Davis, John Pulman, John Spencer, Ray Reardon, Steve Davis, Stephen Hendry and Ronnie O'Sullivan. He joined Steve Davis, Hendry and O'Sullivan as the only players to have lifted the trophy three or more times at The Crucible. At two weeks before his 34th birthday, Higgins became the oldest player to triumph since Dennis Taylor in 1985, who was 36 years of age.


title: John Higgins

text: In the 2009–10 season, as reigning World Champion, he lost 5–6 on the black ball to Neil Robertson in the semi-final of the Grand Prix; and 8–10 to Ding Junhui in the final of the UK Championship, after surviving a comeback by Ronnie O'Sullivan in the semi-final when leading 8–2, to advance 9–8 the previous evening. He also defeated Neil Robertson 9–8 during the tournament. He captured the Welsh Open title by defeating Ali Carter 9–4 in the final, and ended the season as world number one despite an 11–13 loss to Steve Davis in round two of the World Championship.


title: John Higgins

text: On 2 May 2010, Higgins and his manager, Pat Mooney, a World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) board member, were the subject of match-fixing allegations after being filmed in a sting operation conducted by the now defunct "News of the World". On 30  April, an undercover "News of the World" team, led by Mazher Mahmood, posing as promoters, had met Higgins and his manager in a hotel room in Kyiv under the pretence of organising a series of events linked to the World Series of Snooker. The newspaper alleged that Higgins and Mooney had agreed to lose four frames in four separate tournaments in exchange for a total payment of €300,000 and further discussed the mechanics of how to fix a frame, which tournaments and opponents to choose, and how Higgins would receive the money. Higgins was immediately suspended from the game and Mooney resigned from his position on the WPBSA board. Higgins issued a statement on the day of the allegations denying that he had ever been involved in match-fixing, and explained that he had decided to "play along" out of fears for his safety, suspecting the involvement of the Russian Mafia.


title: John Higgins

text: A full investigation was conducted into the allegations by David Douglas, former Metropolitan Police detective chief superintendent and head of the WPBSA's disciplinary committee. The independent tribunal that followed in September 2010, hosted by Sports Resolutions (UK) and chaired by Ian Mill QC, concurred that the WPBSA was right to conclude that Higgins had truthfully accounted for his words and actions and to withdraw the more serious charges of match-fixing, but found him guilty of "giving the impression" that he would breach betting rules, and of failing to report the approach made to him by the "News of the World". Higgins received a six-month ban, backdated to the start of his suspension period, and was fined £75,000.


title: John Higgins

text: Higgins returned to professional competition on 12 November 2010 in the Ruhr Championship – European Players Tour Championship (EPTC) event five in Hamm and went on to win the tournament beating Shaun Murphy 4–2 in the final. His winning streak continued in the Prague Classic (EPTC6) in Prague where he reached the final again, but lost 3–4 to Michael Holt.


title: John Higgins

text: In the 2010 UK Championship, his first tournament on British soil since his return, he reached his third final in succession. He fought back from 2–7 and 5–9 down against Mark Williams, and from 7–9 after trailing 0–61, and needing a snooker to level the match. He made a 68 break in the decider, and sealed a 10–9 victory with a sensational double on the brown. In securing his third UK title, Higgins became only the fourth player after Steve Davis, Stephen Hendry and Ronnie O'Sullivan, to win the second biggest ranking tournament in snooker three or more times. As a result of his progress in those three events, where he won 18 out of 19 matches, Higgins earned sufficient points to regain his position as world number one under the new two-year rolling ranking system after having slipped to third by missing the start of the 2010/2011 season.


title: John Higgins

text: Higgins lost in the first round of the Masters 4–6 against Graeme Dott, and withdrew from the German Masters after defeating Robert Milkins 5–3 in round one, to return home due to the deteriorating health of his father, who subsequently died after a long battle against cancer. A little over two weeks later, Higgins successfully defended his Welsh Open title by beating Stephen Maguire 9–6 in the final – dedicating victory to his late father. Higgins won the Hainan Classic, defeating Jamie Cope in the final. Higgins reached the quarter-final of the China Open, where he lost 2–5 against Shaun Murphy. Higgins' next tournament was the Scottish Professional Championship, where he defeated Anthony McGill 6–1 in the final.


title: John Higgins

text: In the World Championship, Higgins defeated Stephen Lee 10–5 in the first round, Rory McLeod 13–7 in the second round and Ronnie O'Sullivan 13–10 in the quarter-finals. On the way to a 17–14 victory over Mark Williams in the semi-finals, Higgins was heckled by an audience member who shouted out, "How do you swallow that three hundred thousand, John? ... You're a disgrace to snooker." Higgins went on to defeat Judd Trump 18–15 in the final to win his fourth world title, which prompted Steve Davis to comment "I think John Higgins is the best snooker player I've ever seen in my life". Despite the victory, Higgins lost the world number one ranking to Mark Williams.


title: John Higgins

text: Higgins had a poor 2011–12 season, reaching only two quarter-finals of major ranking events. His season-best performance was reaching the semi-finals of the Masters, where he lost 4–6 to Shaun Murphy. Before the World Championship, he admitted that he had not practiced much throughout the season and did not feel confident about defending his title. In the first round of the tournament, he came from 6–8 down to defeat Liang Wenbo 10–9. He then played Hendry in the second round, the first time the two players had ever met in a World Championship match, but Hendry defeated the defending champion 13–4, with Higgins calling it the worst he had ever played at the Crucible. He finished the season ranked world number five.


title: John Higgins

text: Higgins started the 2012–13 season by winning his 25th ranking title at the Shanghai Masters, after coming back from 2–7 down to defeat Judd Trump 10–9 in the final. He made a maximum break during the final, and compiled another maximum in his second-round match against Mark Davis at the 2012 UK Championship. He won the minor-ranking Kay Suzanne Memorial Trophy, defeating Trump 4–2 in the final, and reached the final of the minor-ranking Bulgarian Open, where he lost 0–4 to Trump. However, Higgins did not enjoy sustained success for the rest of the season, reaching only one other semi-final of a major ranking event, the World Open, which he lost 2–6 to Mark Allen. He exited the World Championship in the first round, losing 6–10 to Mark Davis. Afterward, he admitted that doubts about whether he could remain at the pinnacle of the sport after 20 years as a professional had affected his form. He finished the season ranked 11th, slipping out of the top 10 for the first time in 17 seasons.


title: John Higgins

text: Playing with a new cue, Higgins began the 2013–14 season strongly, winning the minor-ranking Bulgarian Open with a 4–1 victory over Neil Robertson in the final, having beaten Shaun Murphy and Ronnie O'Sullivan earlier in the event. He reached the final of the season's first major ranking event, the Wuxi Classic, which he lost 7–10 to Robertson. He then lost in the early rounds at a number of minor-ranking events. He changed his cue again before defending his Shanghai Masters title, but lost 1–5 to Mark Davis in the last 16. His Kay Suzanne Memorial Cup title defence ended when he was whitewashed 0–4 by Andrew Higginson in the last 128. He lost 2–4 to Ding Junhui in the last 16 of the 2013 Indian Open, and 2–6 to Matthew Stevens in the last 32 of the 2013 International Championship. In the invitational Champion of Champions tournament, he lost 3–4 in the first round to Maguire.


title: John Higgins

text: Higgins switched cues yet again before the 2013 UK Championship, but continued to struggle in his matches, calling his poor form "soul-destroying." He lost 3–6 to Maguire in the last 16. Referring to Higgins's frequent changes of cue, Joe Johnson alleged in commentary that Higgins was "searching for something that is not there" and "looking for someone or something to blame" for his poor form. Higgins retaliated by claiming that players in Johnson's era had struggled to make breaks of 30 or 40 on tables with much larger pockets, and by calling Johnson one of the sport's worst commentators. After the UK Championship, he slipped to number 12 in the world rankings, having failed to progress beyond the last 16 of any tournament since the Wuxi Classic in June.


title: John Higgins

text: Before the Masters, Higgins revealed that he had reached the "depths of despair" after the UK Championship, after spending months "in turmoil." He also revealed that he had switched to yet another cue, had regained his tempo, and felt that he was playing better than he had in some time. He defeated Stuart Bingham 6–2 in the first round, but lost 5–6 in the quarter-finals to defending champion Selby, despite having led the match 5–3.


title: John Higgins

text: At the German Masters, Higgins lost 3–5 to Dominic Dale in the last 32. At the Welsh Open, he defeated Trump 4–3 in the last 16, but lost 1–5 to O'Sullivan in the quarter-finals. At the World Open, he came from 0–4 behind to defeat Trump 5–4 in the last 16, but lost 3–5 to defending champion Allen in the quarter-finals. He reached a third consecutive ranking tournament quarter-final at the Players Tour Championship Finals, but lost 1–4 to Marco Fu. At the China Open, he lost 2–5 to Ding in the last 16. He suffered a second consecutive first-round exit from the World Championship when he lost 7–10 to fellow Scot Alan McManus. After the match, Higgins described himself as a "journeyman top-16 player now," suggesting that he no longer regarded himself among the top contenders at tournaments. He ended the campaign as the world number 11, the lowest he has been at the end of the season in 19 years.


title: John Higgins

text: Higgins continued to struggle in the opening ranking events of the 2014–15 season, losing 4–5 to Alan McManus in the last 32 of the Wuxi Classic, 2–5 to Robert Milkins in the last 16 of the Australian Goldfields Open, and 4–5 to Ryan Day in the last 32 of the Shanghai Masters. He defended his minor-ranking Bulgarian Open title, but lost 1–4 against Judd Trump in the last 64. At the ranking International Championship, he lost 1–6 to Li Hang in the last 64. He lost 1–4 to Barry Hawkins in the first round of the Champion of Champions invitational tournament, and in the last 64 of the minor-ranking Ruhr Open, he failed to score a single point on his way to a 0–4 defeat by Marco Fu, who outscored Higgins by a cumulative total of 412 points to 0.


title: John Higgins

text: Higgins arrived at the 2014 UK Championship stating that he was struggling for confidence and concerned that a poor result in the championship could cost him his top-16 ranking and his place at the Masters. However, he defeated Lee Walker 6–2, Jamie Cope 6–4, and Matthew Stevens 6–2 to reach the last 16, where he lost 5–6 to fellow Scot Anthony McGill. This was enough to keep him inside the top 16, at number 14. At the Masters, he faced Mark Allen in the first round. Even though he made three century breaks, including missing the yellow when on for a maximum break, Higgins lost the match 4–6. After the match, he said that "I feel my form is steadily coming back – even when I've been losing matches I have still been gaining nuggets of confidence and I thought I played pretty well again."


title: John Higgins

text: In the German Masters, Higgins lost 2–5 to Peter Ebdon in the first round, but he showed improved form and confidence at the Welsh Open, where he defeated Stephen Maguire 5–1 in the quarter-finals, Luca Brecel 6–4 in the semi-finals, and Ben Woollaston 9–3 in the final to claim a fourth Welsh Open title, his first ranking title in two and a half years. Afterwards, he said that "It's great to win and get a bit of confidence back." In the last 16 of the Indian Open, he suffered a sixth consecutive defeat by Mark Davis when he lost 0–4, scoring only 38 points in the match. He lost 3–4 to Graeme Dott in the last 32 of the World Grand Prix, and lost by the same scoreline to Stephen Maguire in the last 32 of the Players Championship Grand Final. In the China Open, he reached the quarter-finals, defeating Dott and Trump along the way, but lost 4–5 to Ding Junhui. At the World Championship, Higgins won his first match at the Crucible since 2012 with a 10–5 first round victory over Robert Milkins, but he lost 9–13 to Ding Junhui in the second round, despite winning five of the first six frames.


title: John Higgins

text: Higgins started the 2015–16 season strongly, winning his 27th ranking title at the Australian Goldfields Open by beating Martin Gould 9–8 in the final. He won his 28th ranking title by defeating David Gilbert 10–5 in the final of the International Championship. This put Higgins level with Steve Davis in the list of ranking events won. Higgins started his quarter-final with Neil Robertson at the 2015 UK Championship by making the 600th century break of his career, but lost the match 5–6 Higgins reached the semi-finals of the China Open, but lost 5–6 after Ricky Walden made a 131 break in the deciding frame. He defeated Ryan Day 10–3 and Walden 13–8 at the World Championship, but lost 13–11 to Alan McManus in the quarter-finals, having been 11–9 ahead. He said later that he had cracked under pressure.


title: John Higgins

text: At the 2016 World Open, Higgins was whitewashed 0–5 by Ali Carter. He lost in the quarter-finals of both the English Open and International Championship, 5–1 to Judd Trump and 6–2 to Ding Junhui respectively. He faced Stuart Bingham in the final of the inaugural China Championship; with the scores tied at 7–7, Higgins made three successive centuries to claim the title and £200,000, which was, at the time, the highest prize awarded outside the UK. At the Champion of Champions, he defeated Ding 6–5 in the semi-finals even though Ding made four centuries in the match. Higgins defeated Ronnie O'Sullivan 10–7 in the final to win his second title in a week. In the second round of the Northern Ireland Open, he made the eighth 147 of his career and also scored breaks of 137 and 130 in a 4–1 victory over Sam Craigie. He lost a deciding frame to Selby in the quarter-finals of the UK Championship. He closed out 2016 by beating O'Sullivan 5–2 in the quarter-finals of the Scottish Open and then came back from 5–1 down to Judd Trump to win the semi-final 6–5. In the final against Marco Fu, he made three centuries in moving 4–1 ahead, but then lost eight frames in a row to lose 4–9. Higgins won the non-ranking Championship League by beating Ryan Day 3–0 in the final.


title: John Higgins

text: At the World Championship, Higgins reached his first world final in six years and became, at age 41, the oldest finalist in 35 years. In a rematch of the 2007 final, he faced Mark Selby. Higgins took a 10–4 lead, but then lost 12 of the next 14 frames. He recovered to 15–16 down before Selby won the two frames he required to claim the title.


title: John Higgins

text: Higgins won his 29th ranking title at the 2017 Indian Open, defeating Anthony McGill 5–1 in the final. He won his 30th ranking title at the 2018 Welsh Open, defeating Barry Hawkins 9–7 in the final; it set a new record for the most Welsh Open titles, surpassing O'Sullivan's four. Higgins also reached the final of the 2018 World Snooker Championship, but lost again to Mark Williams. At the 2019 World Snooker Championship Higgins reached the final again, only to be beaten 18–9 by Judd Trump. This was Higgins' third consecutive World Championship final and his eighth overall.


title: John Higgins

text: Higgins surpassed Stephen Hendry's career total of 775 centuries during the 2019 Scottish Open. He made his 775th century on 11 December during his match against Alexander Ursenbacher, and made his 776th against Jack Lisowski the following day. Higgins made his 800th career century on the first day of the 2020 Champion of Champions, although he lost the match to Ding Junhui.


title: John Higgins

text: In the 2020–21 season, Higgins reached his first Masters final since 2006 after beating Mark Allen, Ronnie O'Sullivan, and David Gilbert. However, he was defeated by tournament debutant Yan Bingtao 8–10 in the final. On 28 February 2021, Higgins defeated Ronnie O'Sullivan in the final of the Players Championship to claim his 31st ranking title and his first ranking title in three years. After his win, Higgins said that was "the best week of [his] snooker career" in terms of the way he played. In particular, his most impressive performance came in the quarter final against Mark Selby, Higgins outscored his opponent 546–7 in a 6–0 victory. After the match, Selby stated that, "I've never had a match where I had so few chances. John froze me out from start to finish, he played an incredible match.”


title: John Higgins

text: Before the beginning of the 2021/22 season, Higgins lost a significant amount of weight by taking spin classes. He weighed 15 and a half stones (217 lbs or 98.5 kg) during the 2021 World Championship, but began the new season at 12 stones (168 lbs or 76 kg). At the 2021 Northern Ireland Open, he won six consecutive frames to defeat Yan Bingtao 6–2 in the semi-finals, but lost the final 8–9 to Mark Allen, despite having led 8–6. At the 2021 English Open, Higgins came from 3–5 behind in the semi-finals to defeat O'Sullivan 6–5, but he lost the final 8–9 to Neil Robertson, despite again having led 8–6. This defeat meant that Higgins had lost six of his previous seven major finals. In his post-match comments, he expressed doubt about his ability to compete in ranking finals, stating: "The last two finals I really do think show I've not really got it at this level." Higgins went on to lose the 2021 Champion of Champions final 4–10 to Trump, and the 2021 Scottish Open final 5–9 to Luca Brecel. Even though he lost in the round of 32 at the Gibraltar Open, he won the BetVictor Series bonus of £150,000 by winning the most prize money across the series as a whole. At the 2022 Tour Championship, he came from 4–8 behind to defeat Zhao Xintong 10–9 in the quarter-finals, a victory he called one of his "best ever wins", and went on to face Robertson in the final. Higgins established a 9–4 lead, but lost his fifth major final of the season after Robertson won six consecutive frames to win 10–9. Afterwards, Higgins admitted that losing the final from a position of being five frames up with six to play would leave "real mental scars". At the 2022 World Championship, Higgins won his quarter-final match against Jack Lisowski on a deciding frame, but lost 11–17 in the semi-finals to eventual champion O'Sullivan, finishing the season ranked fifth in the world.


title: John Higgins

text: Higgins married Denise in 2000; they have three children. Higgins is a supporter of Celtic F.C. and also follows English club Everton. He enjoys playing poker. In 2006, Higgins was escorted off a plane for being drunk after losing the Malta Cup final to Ken Doherty, but he became teetotal in preparation for the 2007 World Championship which he went on to win. Higgins was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2008 New Year Honours.


title: John Higgins

text: In January 2010, Higgins appeared on the BBC's "Celebrity Mastermind", answering questions on his specialist subject "Dallas". He finished third equal. In February of that year, Higgins and his wife Denise appeared on ITV's "Mr. and Mrs." and reached the final after answering all of their questions correctly to win £30,000. They donated the money to The Dalziel Centre – a day hospice for cancer patients, based at Strathclyde Hospital in Motherwell, of which Higgins became a patron after they cared for his terminally ill father.


title: John Higgins

text: In a complex mathematical study conducted at the University of Limerick, Higgins was named the highest performing snooker player from 1968 to 2020, ahead of the likes of Ronnie O'Sullivan, Mark Williams and Stephen Hendry.


title: Gomoku

text: Gomoku, also called "Five in a Row", is an abstract strategy board game. It is traditionally played with Go pieces (black and white stones) on a Go board. It is played using a 15×15 board while in the past a 19×19 board was standard. Because pieces are typically not moved or removed from the board, gomoku may also be played as a paper-and-pencil game. The game is known in several countries under different names.


title: Gomoku

text: Players alternate turns placing a stone of their color on an empty intersection. Black plays first. The winner is the first player to form an unbroken chain of five stones horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. Placing so that a line of more than five stones of the same color is created does not result in a win. These are called overlines.


title: Gomoku

text: Gomoku has existed in Japan since before the Meiji Restoration (1868). The name "gomoku" is from the Japanese language, in which it is referred to as . "Go" means five, "moku" is a counter word for pieces and "narabe" means "line-up". The game is popular in China, where it is called "Wuziqi" (五子棋). "Wu" (五 wǔ) means "five", "zi" (子 zǐ) means "piece", and "qi" ( qí) refers to a board game category in Chinese. The game is also popular in Korea, where it is called "omok" (오목 [五目]) which has the same structure and origin as the Japanese name.


title: Gomoku

text: In the nineteenth century, the game was introduced to Britain where it was known as Go Bang, said to be a corruption of the Japanese word "goban", which was itself adapted from the Chinese "k'i pan (qí pán)" "go-board."


title: Gomoku

text: Championships in Gomoku previously used the "Pro" opening rule, which mandated that the first player place the first stone in the center of the board. The second player's stone placement was unrestricted. The first player's second stone had to be placed at least three intersections away from the first player's first stone. This rule was used in the 1989 and 1991 world championships. When the win–loss ratio of these two championships was calculated, the first player (black) won 67 percent of games.


title: Gomoku

text: This was deemed too unbalanced for tournament play, so tournament Gomoku adopted the Swap2 opening protocol in 2009. In Swap2, the first player places three stones, two black and one white, on the board. The second player then selects one of three options: play as black, play as white and place another white stone, or place two more stones, one white and one black, and let the first player choose the color.


title: Gomoku

text: The win ratio of the first player has been calculated to be around 52 percent using the Swap2 opening protocol, greatly balancing the game and largely solving the first-player advantage.


title: Gomoku

text: Freestyle Gomoku has no restrictions on either player and allows a player to win by creating a line of five or more stones, with each player alternating turns placing one stone at a time.


title: Gomoku

text: Black (the player who makes the first move) has long been known to have an advantage, even before L. Victor Allis proved that black can force a win (see below). Renju attempts to mitigate this imbalance with extra rules that aim to reduce black's first player advantage.


title: Gomoku

text: It is played on a 15×15 board, with the rules of three and three, four and four, and overlines applied to Black only.


title: Gomoku

text: Renju also makes use of various tournament opening rules, such as Soosõrv-8, the current international standard.


title: Gomoku

text: In Caro, (also called gomoku+, popular among Vietnamese), the winner must have an overline or an unbroken row of five stones that is not blocked at either end (overlines are immune to this rule). This makes the game more balanced and provides more power for White to defend.


title: Gomoku

text: Omok is similar to Freestyle gomoku; however, it is played on a 19×19 board and includes the rule of "three and three."


title: Gomoku

text: Also called Wu, Ninuki Renju is a variant which adds capturing to the game; A pair of stones of the same color may be captured by the opponent by means of custodial capture (sandwiching a line of two stones lengthwise). The winner is the player either to make a perfect five in a row, or to capture five pairs of the opponent's stones. It uses a 15x15 board and the rules of three and three and overlines. It also allows the game to continue after a player has formed a row of five stones if their opponent can capture a pair across the line.


title: Gomoku

text: Pente is related to Ninuki-Renju, and has the same custodial capture method, but is most often played on a 19x19 board and does not use the rules of three and three, four and four, or overlines.


title: Gomoku

text: Tournament rules are used in professional play to balance the game and mitigate the first player advantage. The tournament rule used for the Gomoku world championships since 2009 is the Swap2 opening rule.


title: Gomoku

text: The first player's first stone must be placed in the center of the board. The second player's first stone may be placed anywhere on the board. The first player's second stone must be placed at least three intersections away from the first stone (two empty intersections in between the two stones).


title: Gomoku

text: The first player's first stone must be placed in the center of the board. The second player's first stone may be placed anywhere on the board. The first player's second stone must be placed at least four intersections away from the first stone (three empty intersections in between the two stones).


title: Gomoku

text: The tentative first player places three stones (two black, and one white) anywhere on the board. The tentative second player then chooses which color to play as. Play proceeds from there as normal with white playing their second stone.


title: Gomoku

text: The tentative first player places three stones on the board, two black and one white. The tentative second player then has three options:


title: Gomoku

text: Because the tentative first player doesn't know where the tentative second player will place the additional stones if they take option 2 or 3, the swap2 opening protocol limits excessive studying of a line by only one of the players.


title: Gomoku

text: "m","n","k"-games are a generalization of gomoku to a board with "m"×"n" intersections, and "k" in a row needed to win.


title: Gomoku

text: Connect("m","n","k","p","q") games are another generalization of gomoku to a board with "m"×"n" intersections, "k" in a row needed to win, "p" stones for each player to place, and "q" stones for the first player to place for the first move only. Each player may play only at the lowest unoccupied place in a column. In particular, Connect("m","n",6,2,1) is called Connect6.


title: Gomoku

text: The opening moves show clearly black's advantage. An open row of three (one that is not blocked by an opponent's stone at either end) has to be blocked immediately, or countered with a threat elsewhere on the board. If not blocked or countered, the open row of three will be extended to an open row of four, which threatens to win in two ways.


title: Gomoku

text: White has to block open rows of three at moves 10, 14, 16 and 20, but black only has to do so at move 9.


title: Gomoku

text: Move 20 is a blunder for white (it should have been played next to black 19). Black can now force a win against any defense by white, starting with move 21.


title: Gomoku

text: There are two forcing sequences for black, depending on whether white 22 is played next to black 15 or black 21. The diagram on the right shows the first sequence. All the moves for white are forced. Such long forcing sequences are typical in gomoku, and expert players can read out forcing sequences of 20 to 40 moves rapidly and accurately.


title: Gomoku

text: The diagram on the right shows the second forcing sequence. This diagram shows why white 20 was a blunder; if it had been next to black 19 (at the position of move 32 in this diagram) then black 31 would not be a threat and so the forcing sequence would fail.


title: Gomoku

text: Researchers have been applying artificial intelligence techniques on playing gomoku for several decades. In 1994, L. Victor Allis raised the algorithm of proof-number search (pn-search) and dependency-based search (db-search), and proved that when starting from an empty 15×15 board, the first player has a winning strategy using these searching algorithms. This applies to both free-style gomoku and standard gomoku without any opening rules. It seems very likely that black wins on larger boards too. In any size of a board, freestyle gomoku is an "m","n","k"-game, hence it is known that the first player can force a win or a draw. In 2001, Allis' winning strategy was also approved for renju, a variation of gomoku, when there was no limitation on the opening stage.


title: Gomoku

text: However, neither the theoretical values of all legal positions, nor the opening rules such as Swap2 used by the professional gomoku players have been solved yet, so the topic of gomoku artificial intelligence is still a challenge for computer scientists, such as the problem on how to improve the gomoku algorithms to make them more strategic and competitive. Nowadays, most of the state-of-the-art gomoku algorithms are based on the alpha-beta pruning framework.


title: Gomoku

text: Reisch proved that Generalized gomoku is PSPACE-complete. He also observed that the reduction can be adapted to the rules of k-in-a-Row for fixed k. Although he did not specify exactly which values of k are allowed, the reduction would appear to generalize to any k ≥ 5.


title: Gomoku

text: There exist several well-known tournaments for gomoku programs since 1989. The Computer Olympiad started with the gomoku game in 1989, but gomoku has not been in the list since 1993. The Renju World Computer Championship was started in 1991, and held for 4 times until 2004. The Gomocup tournament is played since 2000 and taking place every year, still active now, with more than 30 participants from about 10 countries. The Hungarian Computer Go-Moku Tournament was also played twice in 2005. There were also two Computer vs. Human tournaments played in the Czech Republic, in 2006 and 2011. Not until 2017 were the computer programs proved to be able to outperform the world human champion in public competitions. In the Gomoku World Championship 2017, there was a match between the world champion program Yixin and the world champion human player Rudolf Dupszki. Yixin won the match with a score of 2–0.


title: Gomoku

text: Gomoku was featured in a 2018 Korean drama by Baek Seung-Hwa starring Park Se-wan. The film follows Baduk Lee (Park Se-wan), a former go prodigy who retired after a humiliating loss on time. Years later, Baduk Lee works part time at a go club, where she meets Ahn Kyung Kim, who introduces her to an Omok (Korean Gomoku) tournament. Lee is initially uninterested and considers Omok a children's game, but after her roommate loses money on an impulse purchase, she enters the tournament for the prize money and loses badly, being humiliated once again. Afterwards, she begins training to redeem herself and becomes a serious omok player.


title: Gomoku

text: Another example of famous Go players is in the Korean drama Reply 1988 through the character Choi Teak (Park Bo-Gum). Coming from a small neighborhood in Seoul, Choi Taek becomes internationally renowned in the Gomoku world because of his talent. He spends most of his time playing through Go games and spending little time doing things like school.


title: Market socialism

text: Market socialism is a type of economic system involving the public, cooperative, or social ownership of the means of production in the framework of a market economy, or one that contains a mix of worker-owned, nationalized, and privately owned enterprises. The central idea is that, as in capitalism, businesses compete for profits, however they will be "owned, or at least governed," by those who work in them. Market socialism differs from non-market socialism in that the market mechanism is utilized for the allocation of capital goods and the means of production. Depending on the specific model of market socialism, profits generated by socially owned firms (i.e., net revenue not reinvested into expanding the firm) may variously be used to directly remunerate employees, accrue to society at large as the source of public finance, or be distributed amongst the population in a social dividend.


title: Market socialism

text: Market socialism is not exclusive, but can be distinguished from the concept of the mixed economy because some models of market socialism are complete and self-regulating systems, unlike the mixed economy. While social democracy aims to achieve greater economic stability and equality through policy measures such as taxes, subsidies, and social welfare programs, market socialism aims to achieve similar goals through changing patterns of enterprise ownership and management.


title: Market socialism

text: Early models of market socialism trace their roots to the work of Adam Smith and the theories of classical economics, which consisted of proposals for co-operative enterprises operating in a free-market economy. The aim of such proposals was to eliminate exploitation by allowing individuals to receive the full product of their labor, while removing the market-distorting effects of concentrating ownership and wealth in the hands of a small class of private property owners. Among early advocates of this type of market socialism were the Ricardian socialist economists and mutualist philosophers, but the term "market socialism" only emerged in the 1920s during the socialist calculation debate.


title: Market socialism

text: Although sometimes described as "market socialism", the Lange model is a form of market simulated planning where a central planning board allocates investment and capital goods by simulating factor market transactions, while markets allocate labor and consumer goods. The system was devised by socialist economists who believed that a socialist economy could neither function on the basis of calculation in natural units nor through solving a system of simultaneous equations for economic coordination.


title: Market socialism

text: Giacomo Corneo, Professor of Public Finance and Social Policy at the Free University of Berlin, espouses an "updated version of market socialism" where large firms would be publicly owned (though by no more than 51% share), which would allow the government to distribute a social dividend, while the rest of the firms would be privately owned and subject to regulations to protect employees, consumers and environment.


title: Market socialism

text: The key theoretical basis for market socialism is the negation of the underlying expropriation of surplus value present in other modes of production. Socialist theories that favored the market date back to the Ricardian socialists and anarchist economists, who advocated a free market combined with public ownership or mutual ownership of the means of production.


title: Market socialism

text: Proponents of early market socialism include the Ricardian socialist economists, the classical liberal philosopher John Stuart Mill and the anarchist philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. These models of socialism entailed perfecting or improving the market mechanism and free price system by removing distortions caused by exploitation, private property and alienated labor.


title: Market socialism

text: This form of market socialism has been termed free-market socialism because it does not involve planners.


title: Market socialism

text: Mill's early economic philosophy was one of free markets that he moved toward a more socialist bent, adding chapters to his "Principles of Political Economy" in defence of a socialist outlook, and defending some socialist causes. Within this revised work he also made the radical proposal that the whole wage system be abolished in favour of a co-operative wage system. Nonetheless, some of his views on the idea of flat taxation remained, albeit altered in the third edition of the "Principles of Political Economy" to reflect a concern for differentiating restrictions on unearned incomes which he favoured; and those on earned incomes, which he did not favour.


title: Market socialism

text: Mill's "Principles", first published in 1848, was one of the most widely read of all books on economics in the period. As Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" had during an earlier period, Mill's "Principles" dominated economics teaching. In the case of Oxford University, it was the standard text until 1919, when it was replaced by Alfred Marshall's "Principles of Economics".


title: Market socialism

text: In later editions of "Principles of Political Economy", Mill would argue that "as far as economic theory was concerned, there is nothing in principle in economic theory that precludes an economic order based on socialist policies".


title: Market socialism

text: The form of association, however, which if mankind continue to improve, must be expected in the end to predominate, is not that which can exist between a capitalist as chief, and work-people without a voice in the management, but the association of the labourers themselves on terms of equality, collectively owning the capital with which they carry on their operations and working under managers elected and removable by themselves.


title: Market socialism

text: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon developed a theoretical system called mutualism which attacks the legitimacy of existing property rights, subsidies, corporations, banking and rent. Proudhon envisioned a decentralized market where people would enter the market with equal power, negating wage slavery. Proponents believe that cooperatives, credit unions and other forms of worker ownership would become viable without being subject to the state. Market socialism has also been used to describe some individualist anarchist works which argue that free markets help workers and weaken capitalists.


title: Market socialism

text: For American anarchist historian Eunice Minette Schuster, "[i]t is apparent [...] that Proudhonian Anarchism was to be found in the United States at least as early as 1848 and that it was not conscious of its affinity to the Individualist Anarchism of Josiah Warren and Stephen Pearl Andrews. [...] William B. Greene presented this Proudhonian Mutualism in its purest and most systematic form". Josiah Warren is widely regarded as the first American anarchist, and the four-page weekly paper he edited during 1833, "The Peaceful Revolutionist", was the first anarchist periodical published, an enterprise for which he built his own printing press, cast his own type, and made his own printing plates.


title: Market socialism

text: Warren was a follower of Robert Owen and joined Owen's community at New Harmony, Indiana. Josiah Warren termed the phrase "cost the limit of price", with "cost" here referring not to monetary price paid but the labor one exerted to produce an item. Therefore, "[h]e proposed a system to pay people with certificates indicating how many hours of work they did. They could exchange the notes at local time stores for goods that took the same amount of time to produce". He put his theories to the test by establishing an experimental "labor for labor store" called the Cincinnati Time Store where trade was facilitated by notes backed by a promise to perform labor. The store proved successful and operated for three years after which it was closed so that Warren could pursue establishing colonies based on mutualism. These included Utopia and Modern Times. Warren said that Stephen Pearl Andrews' "The Science of Society", published in 1852, was the most lucid and complete exposition of Warren's own theories.


title: Market socialism

text: Later, Benjamin Tucker fused the economics of Warren and Proudhon and published these ideas in "Liberty" calling them "Anarchistic-Socialism". Tucker said: "[T]he fact that one class of men are dependent for their living upon the sale of their labour, while another class of men are relieved of the necessity of labour by being legally privileged to sell something that is not labour. [...] And to such a state of things I am as much opposed as any one. But the minute you remove privilege [...] every man will be a labourer exchanging with fellow-labourers. [...] What Anarchistic-Socialism aims to abolish is usury [...] it wants to deprive capital of its reward". American individualist anarchists such as Tucker saw themselves as economic market socialists and political individualists while arguing that their "anarchistic socialism" or "individual anarchism" was "consistent Manchesterism". Left-wing market anarchism is a modern branch of free-market anarchism that is based on a revival of such market socialist theories.


title: Market socialism

text: Beginning in the early 20th century, neoclassical economic theory provided the theoretical basis for more comprehensive models of market socialism. Early neoclassical models of socialism included a role for a central planning board (CPB) in setting prices equal marginal cost to achieve Pareto efficiency. Although these early models did not rely on conventional markets, they were labeled market socialist for their utilization of financial prices and calculation. Alternative outlines for market socialism involve models where socially owned enterprises or producer co-operatives operate within free markets under the criterion of profitability. In recent models proposed by American neoclassical economists, public ownership of the means of production is achieved through public ownership of equity and social control of investment.


title: Market socialism

text: The earliest models of neoclassical socialism were developed by Léon Walras, Enrico Barone (1908) and Oskar R. Lange (c. 1936). Lange and Fred M. Taylor (1929) proposed that central planning boards set prices through "trial and error", making adjustments as shortages and surpluses occurred rather than relying on a free price mechanism. If there were shortages, prices would be raised; if there were surpluses, prices would be lowered. Raising the prices would encourage businesses to increase production, driven by their desire to increase their profits, and in doing so eliminate the shortage. Lowering the prices would encourage businesses to curtail production to prevent losses, which would eliminate the surplus. Therefore, it would be a simulation of the market mechanism, which Lange thought would be capable of effectively managing supply and demand.


title: Market socialism

text: Although the Lange–Lerner model was often labelled as market socialism, it is better described as market simulation because factor markets did not exist for the allocation of capital goods. The objective of the Lange–Lerner model was explicitly to replace markets with a non-market system of resource allocation.


title: Market socialism

text: H. D. Dickinson published two articles proposing a form of market socialism, namely "Price Formation in a Socialist Community" ("The Economic Journal" 1933) and "The Problems of a Socialist Economy" ("The Economic Journal" 1934). Dickinson proposed a mathematical solution whereby the problems of a socialist economy could be solved by a central planning agency. The central agency would have the necessary statistics on the economy, as well as the capability of using statistics to direct production. The economy could be represented as a system of equations. Solution values for these equations could be used to price all goods at marginal cost and direct production. Hayek (1935) argued against the proposal to simulate markets with equations. Dickinson (1939) adopted the Lange-Taylor proposal to simulate markets through trial and error.


title: Market socialism

text: The Lange–Dickinson version of market socialism kept capital investment out of the market. Lange (1926 p65) insisted that a central planning board would have to set capital accumulation rates arbitrarily. Lange and Dickinson saw potential problems with bureaucratization in market socialism. According to Dickinson, "the attempt to check irresponsibility will tie up managers of socialist enterprises with so much red tape and bureaucratic regulation that they will lose all initiative and independence" (Dickinson 1938, p. 214). In "The Economics of Control: Principles of Welfare Economics" (1944), Abba Lerner admitted that capital investment would be politicized in market socialism.


title: Market socialism

text: Economists active in the former Yugoslavia, including Czech-born Jaroslav Vaněk and Croat-born Branko Horvat, promoted a model of market socialism dubbed the Illyrian model, where firms were socially owned by their employees and structured around workers' self-management, competing with each other in open and free markets.


title: Market socialism

text: American economists in the latter half of the 20th century developed models based such as coupon socialism (by the economist John Roemer) and economic democracy (by the philosopher David Schweickart).


title: Market socialism

text: Pranab Bardhan and John Roemer proposed a form of market socialism where there was a stock market that distributed shares of the capital stock equally among citizens. In this stock market, there is no buying or selling of stocks that leads to negative externalities associated with a concentration of capital ownership. The Bardhan and Roemer model satisfied the main requirements of both socialism (workers own all the factors of production, not just labour) and market economies (prices determine efficient allocation of resources). New Zealand economist Steven O'Donnell expanded on the Bardhan and Roemer model and decomposed the capital function in a general equilibrium system to take account of entrepreneurial activity in market socialist economies. O'Donnell (2003) set up a model that could be used as a blueprint for transition economies and the results suggested that although market socialist models were inherently unstable in the long term, they would provide in the short term the economic infrastructure necessary for a successful transition from planned to market economies.


title: Market socialism

text: In the early 21st century, the Marxian economist Richard D. Wolff refocused Marxian economics giving it a microfoundational focus. The core idea was that transition from capitalism to socialism required the reorganization of the enterprise from a top-down hierarchical capitalist model to a model where all key enterprise decisions (what, how, and where to produce and what to do with outputs) were made on a one-worker, one vote basis. Wolff called them workers self-directed enterprises (WSDEs). How they would interact with one another and with consumers was left open to democratic social decisions and could entail markets or planning, or likely mixtures of both.


title: Market socialism

text: Advocates of market socialism such as Jaroslav Vaněk argue that genuinely free markets are not possible under conditions of private ownership of productive property. Instead, he contends that the class differences and inequalities in income and power that result from private ownership enable the interests of the dominant class to skew the market to their favor, either in the form of monopoly and market power, or by utilizing their wealth and resources to legislate government policies that benefit their specific business interests. Additionally, Vaněk states that workers in a socialist economy based on cooperative and self-managed enterprises have stronger incentives to maximize productivity because they would receive a share of the profits (based on the overall performance of their enterprise) in addition to receiving their fixed wage or salary. The stronger incentives to maximize productivity that he conceives as possible in a socialist economy based on cooperative and self-managed enterprises might be accomplished in a free-market economy if employee-owned companies were the norm as envisioned by various thinkers including Louis O. Kelso and James S. Albus.


title: Market socialism

text: Another form of market socialism has been promoted by critics of central planning and generally of neoclassical general equilibrium theory. The most notable of these economists were Alec Nove and János Kornai. In particular, Alec Nove proposed what he called feasible socialism, a mixed economy consisting of state-run enterprises, autonomous publicly owned firms, cooperatives and small-scale private enterprise operating in a market economy that included a role for macroeconomic planning.


title: Market socialism

text: A number of market socialist elements have existed in various economies. The economy of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is widely considered to have been a form of market-based socialism, based on socially-owned cooperatives, workers' self-management and market allocation of capital. Some of the economic reforms introduced during the Prague Spring by Alexander Dubček, the leader of Czechoslovakia, included elements of market socialism.


title: Market socialism

text: Likewise, Vietnam's socialist-oriented market economy is self-described as market socialist. It has an extremely high prevalence of cooperatives, especially in agriculture and retail, with the continued state ownership of the commanding heights of the economy. Cooperative businesses in Vietnam are also incentivized and supported by the government, receiving many benefits that private companies do not.


title: Market socialism

text: The Mondragon Corporation in the Basque Country, Coop in Italy, and cooperatives in many other countries are widely cited as highly successful co-operative enterprises based on worker- or consumer-ownership and democratic management. Peter Drucker described the United States system of regulated pension funds providing capital to financial markets as "pension fund socialism". William H. Simon characterized pension fund socialism as "a form of market socialism", concluding that it was promising but perhaps with prospects more limited than those envisioned by its enthusiasts.


title: Market socialism

text: The economy of Cuba under the rule of Raúl Castro has been described as attempting market socialist reforms. Similarly, the economy of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi could be described as a form of market socialism as Muammar Gaddafi's Third International Theory shared many similarities with Yugoslav self-management.


title: Market socialism

text: Policies similar to the market socialist proposal of a social dividend and basic income scheme have been implemented on the basis of public ownership of natural resources in Alaska (Alaska Permanent Fund) and in Norway (the Government Pension Fund of Norway).


title: Market socialism

text: The phrase market socialism has occasionally been used in reference to any attempt by a Soviet-type planned economy to introduce market elements into its economic system. In this sense, market socialism was first attempted during the 1920s in the Soviet Union as the New Economic Policy (NEP) before being abandoned. Later, elements of market socialism were introduced in Hungary (where it was nicknamed goulash communism), Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia (see Titoism) in the 1970s and 1980s. The contemporary Economy of Belarus has been described as a market socialist system. The Soviet Union attempted to introduce a market system with its perestroika reforms under Mikhail Gorbachev. During the later stages there was talk within top circles that the Soviet Union should move toward a market-based socialist system.


title: Market socialism

text: Historically, these kinds of market socialist systems attempt to retain state ownership of the commanding heights of the economy such as heavy industry, energy and infrastructure while introducing decentralised decision making and giving local managers more freedom to make decisions and respond to market demands. Market socialist systems also allow private ownership and entrepreneurship in the service and other secondary economic sectors. The market is allowed to determine prices for consumer goods and agricultural products, and farmers are allowed to sell all or some of their products on the open market and keep some or all of the profit as an incentive to increase and improve production.


title: Market socialism

text: The term market socialism has been used to refer to reformed economic systems in Marxist–Leninist states, most notably in reference to the contemporary economy of the People's Republic of China, where a free price system is used for the allocation of capital goods in both the state and private sectors. However, Chinese political and economic proponents of the socialist market economy do not consider it to be a form of market socialism in the neoclassical sense and many Western economists and political scientists question the degree to which this model constitutes a form of market socialism, often preferring to describe it as state capitalism.


title: Market socialism

text: Although similar in name, market socialism differs markedly from the socialist market economy and socialist-oriented market economy models practiced in the contemporary People's Republic of China and Socialist Republic of Vietnam, respectively. Officially these economic systems represent market economies that are in the long-term process of transition toward socialism. Key differences between models of market socialism and the Chinese and Vietnamese models include the role of private investment in enterprises, the lack of a social dividend or basic income system to equitably distribute state profits among the population and the existence and role of financial markets in the Chinese model—markets which are absent in the market socialist literature.


title: Market socialism

text: The Chinese experience with socialism with Chinese characteristics is frequently referred to as a socialist market economy where the commanding heights are state-owned, but a substantial portion of both the state and private sectors of economy are governed by market practices, including a stock exchange for trading equity and the utilization of indirect macroeconomic market mechanisms (i.e. fiscal, monetary and industrial policies) to influence the economy in the same manner governments affect the economy in capitalist economies. The market is the arbitrator for most economic activity, with economic planning being relegated to macro-economic government indicative planning that does not encompass the microeconomic decision-making that is left to the individual organizations and state-owned enterprises. This model includes a significant amount of privately owned firms that operate as a business for profit, but only for consumer goods and services.


title: Market socialism

text: In the Chinese system, directive planning based on mandatory output requirements and quotas were displaced by market mechanisms for most of the economy, including both the state and private sectors, although the government engages in indicative planning for large state enterprises. In comparison with the Soviet-type planned economy, the Chinese socialist market model is based on the corporatization of state institutions, transforming them into joint-stock companies. As of 2008, there were 150 state-owned corporations directly under the central government. These state-owned corporations have been reformed and become increasingly dynamic and a major source of revenue for the state in 2008, leading the economic recovery in 2009 during the wake of the global financial crises.


title: Market socialism

text: This economic model is defended from a Marxist–Leninist perspective which states that a planned socialist economy can only emerge after first developing the basis for socialism through the establishment of a market economy and commodity-exchange economy; and that socialism would only emerge after this stage has exhausted its historical necessity and gradually transforms itself into socialism. Proponents of this model argue that the economic system of the former Soviet Union and its satellite states attempted to go from a natural economy to a planned economy by decree, without passing through the necessary market economy phase of development.


title: Market socialism

text: Some democratic socialists advocate forms of market socialism, some of which are based on self-management. Others advocate for a non-market participatory economy based on decentralized economic planning.


title: Market socialism

text: The French philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon is the first person to call himself an anarchist and considered among its most influential theorists. Proudhon is considered by many to be the "father of anarchism". Proudhon became a member of the French Parliament after the French Revolution of 1848, whereon he referred to himself as a "federalist". Proudhon's best-known assertion is that "Property is theft!", contained in his first major work "What Is Property?", published in 1840. The book's publication attracted the attention of the French authorities. It also attracted the scrutiny of Karl Marx, who started a correspondence with Proudhon. The two influenced each other and met in Paris while Marx was exiled there. Their friendship finally ended when Marx responded to Proudhon's "The Philosophy of Poverty" with the provocatively titled "The Poverty of Philosophy". The dispute became one of the sources of the split between the anarchist and Marxist wings of the International Working Men's Association. Mutualism is an anarchist school of thought and market socialist economic theory that advocates a socialist society where each person possess a means of production, either individually or collectively, with trade representing equivalent amounts of labor in the free market. Integral to the scheme was the establishment of a mutual-credit bank that would lend to producers at a minimal interest rate, just high enough to cover administration. Mutualism is based on a labor theory of value which holds that when labor or its product is sold it ought to receive in exchange goods or services embodying "the amount of labor necessary to produce an article of exactly similar and equal utility".


title: Market socialism

text: Mutualism originated from the writings of Proudhon. Mutualists oppose the idea of individuals receiving an income through loans, investments and rent as they believe these individuals are not laboring. Although opposed this type of income, Proudhon expressed that he had never intended "to forbid or suppress, by sovereign decree, ground rent and interest on capital. I think that all these manifestations of human activity should remain free and voluntary for all: I ask for them no modifications, restrictions or suppressions, other than those which result naturally and of necessity from the universalization of the principle of reciprocity which I propose". Insofar as they ensure the worker's right to the full product of their labor, mutualists support markets or artificial markets and property in the product of labor. However, mutualists argue for conditional titles to land, whose ownership is legitimate only so long as it remains in use or occupation (which Proudhon called "possession"), advocating personal property in place of private property. However, some individualist anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker started calling possession as "property" or "private property".


title: Market socialism

text: Josiah Warren is widely regarded as the first American anarchist and the four-page weekly paper he edited during 1833, "The Peaceful Revolutionist", was the first anarchist periodical published. For American anarchist historian Eunice Minette Schuster, "[i]t is apparent [...] that Proudhonian Anarchism was to be found in the United States at least as early as 1848 and that it was not conscious of its affinity to the Individualist Anarchism of Josiah Warren and Stephen Pearl Andrews. [...] William B. Greene presented this Proudhonian Mutualism in its purest and most systematic form". Later, the American individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker "was against both the state and capitalism, against both oppression and exploitation. While not against the market and property he was firmly against capitalism as it was, in his eyes, a state-supported monopoly of social capital (tools, machinery, etc.) which allows owners to exploit their employees, i.e. to avoid paying workers the full value of their labour. He thought that the "labouring classes are deprived of their earnings by usury in its three forms, interest, rent and profit". Therefore, ""Liberty" will abolish interest; it will abolish profit; it will abolish monopolistic rent; it will abolish taxation; it will abolish the exploitation of labour; it will abolish all means whereby any labourer can be deprived of any of his product". This stance puts him squarely in the libertarian socialist tradition and, unsurprisingly, Tucker referred to himself many times as a socialist and considered his philosophy to be "[a]narchistic socialism".


title: Market socialism

text: French individualist anarchist Émile Armand shows clearly opposition to capitalism and centralized economies when he said that the individualist anarchist "inwardly he remains refractory – fatally refractory – morally, intellectually, economically (The capitalist economy and the directed economy, the speculators and the fabricators of single systems are equally repugnant to him.)". He argued for a pluralistic economic logic when he said that "Here and there everything happening – here everyone receiving what they need, there each one getting whatever is needed according to their own capacity. Here, gift and barter – one product for another; there, exchange – product for representative value. Here, the producer is the owner of the product, there, the product is put to the possession of the collectivity". The Spanish individualist anarchist Miguel Giménez Igualada thought that "capitalism is an effect of government; the disappearance of government means capitalism falls from its pedestal vertiginously. [...] That which we call capitalism is not something else but a product of the State, within which the only thing that is being pushed forward is profit, good or badly acquired. And so to fight against capitalism is a pointless task, since be it State capitalism or Enterprise capitalism, as long as Government exists, exploiting capital will exist. The fight, but of consciousness, is against the State". His view on class division and technocracy are as follows "Since when no one works for another, the profiteer from wealth disappears, just as government will disappear when no one pays attention to those who learned four things at universities and from that fact they pretend to govern men. Big industrial enterprises will be transformed by men in big associations in which everyone will work and enjoy the product of their work. And from those easy as well as beautiful problems anarchism deals with and he who puts them in practice and lives them are anarchists. [...] The priority which without rest an anarchist must make is that in which no one has to exploit anyone, no man to no man, since that non-exploitation will lead to the limitation of property to individual needs".


title: Market socialism

text: Left-wing market anarchism is a market socialist form of individualist anarchism, left-libertarianism and libertarian socialism associated with scholars such as Kevin Carson, Roderick T. Long, Charles W. Johnson, Brad Spangler, Samuel Edward Konkin III, Sheldon Richman, Chris Matthew Sciabarra and Gary Chartier, who stress the value of radically free markets, termed "freed markets" to distinguish them from the common conception which these libertarians believe to be riddled with capitalist and statist privileges. Referred to as left-wing market anarchists or market-oriented left-libertarians, proponents of this approach strongly affirm the classical liberal ideas of free markets and self-ownership while maintaining that taken to their logical conclusions these ideas support anti-capitalist, anti-corporatist, anti-hierarchical, pro-labor positions in economics; anti-imperialism in foreign policy; and thoroughly liberal or radical views regarding socio-cultural issues.


title: Market socialism

text: The genealogy of contemporary left-wing market anarchism, sometimes labelled market-oriented left-libertarianism, overlaps to a significant degree with that of Steiner–Vallentyne left-libertarianism as the roots of that tradition are sketched in the book "The Origins of Left-Libertarianism". Carson–Long-style left-libertarianism is rooted in 19th-century mutualism and in the work of figures such as Thomas Hodgskin, French Liberal School thinkers such as Gustave de Molinari and the American individualist anarchists Benjamin Tucker and Lysander Spooner. While with notable exceptions market-oriented libertarians after Tucker tended to ally with the political right, relationships between those libertarians and the New Left thrived in the 1960s, laying the groundwork for modern left-wing market anarchism. Left-wing market anarchism identifies with left-libertarianism which names several related yet distinct approaches to politics, society, culture and political and social theory, which stress both individual freedom and social justice.


title: Market socialism

text: Unlike right-libertarians, left-libertarians believe that neither claiming nor mixing one's labor with natural resources is enough to generate full private property rights and maintain that natural resources (land, oil, gold and trees) ought to be held in some egalitarian manner, either unowned or owned collectively. Those left-libertarians who support property do so under different property norms and theories, or under the condition that recompense is offered to the local or global community.


title: Market socialism

text: Market abolitionists such as David McNally argue in the Marxist tradition that the logic of the market inherently produces inequitable outcomes and leads to unequal exchanges, arguing that Adam Smith's moral intent and moral philosophy espousing equal exchange was undermined by the practice of the free market he championed—the development of the market economy involved coercion, exploitation and violence that Smith's moral philosophy could not countenance. McNally criticizes market socialists for believing in the possibility of fair markets based on equal exchanges to be achieved by purging parasitical elements from the market economy such as private ownership of the means of production, arguing that market socialism is an oxymoron when socialism is defined as an end to wage labour.


title: SS Normandie

text: The SS "Normandie" was a French ocean liner built in Saint-Nazaire, France, for the French Line "Compagnie Générale Transatlantique" (CGT). She entered service in 1935 as the largest and fastest passenger ship afloat, crossing the Atlantic in a record 4.14 days, and remains the most powerful steam turbo-electric-propelled passenger ship ever built.


title: SS Normandie

text: "Normandie"s novel design and lavish interiors led many to consider her the greatest of ocean liners, and she would go on to heavily influence the French arm of the Streamline Moderne design movement (called the "style paquebot", or "ocean liner style"). Despite this, she was not a commercial success and relied partly on government subsidy to operate. During service as the flagship of the CGT, she made 139 westbound transatlantic crossings from her home port of Le Havre to New York City. "Normandie" held the Blue Riband for the fastest transatlantic crossing at several points during her service career, during which the was her main rival.


title: SS Normandie

text: During the Second World War, "Normandie" was seized by U.S. authorities at New York and renamed USS "Lafayette". In 1942, while being converted to a troopship, the liner caught fire and capsized onto her port side and came to rest, half submerged, on the bottom of the Hudson River at Pier 88 (the site of the current New York Passenger Ship Terminal). Although salvaged at great expense, restoration was deemed too costly and she was scrapped in October 1946.


title: SS Normandie

text: The origins of "Normandie" can be traced to the 1920s, when the U.S. put restrictions on immigration, greatly reducing the traditional market for steerage-class passengers from Europe, and placing a new emphasis on upper-class tourists, largely Americans, many of them wanting to escape prohibition. Companies like Cunard and the White Star Line planned to build their own superliners to rival newer ships of the day; such vessels included the record-breaking and , both German. The French Line "Compagnie Générale Transatlantique" (CGT) began to plan its own superliner.


title: SS Normandie

text: The CGT's flagship was the , which had modern Art Deco interiors but a conservative hull design. The designers intended their new superliner to be similar to earlier French Line ships. Then they were approached by Vladimir Yourkevitch, a former ship architect for the Imperial Russian Navy who had emigrated to France after the 1917 revolution. Yourkevitch's ideas included a slanting clipper-like bow and a bulbous forefoot beneath the waterline, in combination with a slim hydrodynamic hull. His concepts worked wonderfully in scale models, confirming the design's performance advantages. The French engineers were impressed and asked Yourkevitch to join their project. He also approached Cunard with his ideas, but was rejected because the bow was deemed too radical.


title: SS Normandie

text: The CGT commissioned artists to create posters and publicity for the liner. One of the most famous posters was by Adolphe Mouron Cassandre, another Russian emigrant to France. Another poster, by Albert Sébille, showed the interior layout in a cutaway diagram long. This poster is displayed in the "Musée national de la Marine" in Paris.


title: SS Normandie

text: Work by the "Société Anonyme des Chantiers de Penhoët" began on the unnamed flagship on 26 January 1931 at Saint-Nazaire, soon after the stock market crash of 1929. While the French continued construction, the competing White Star Line ship (intended as "Oceanic", and started before the crash) was cancelled and Cunard's was put on hold. French builders also ran into difficulty and had to ask for government money; this subsidy was questioned in the press. Still, the ship's construction was followed by newspapers and national interest was deep, as she was designed to represent France in the nation-state contest of the great liners and was built in a French shipyard using French parts.


title: SS Normandie

text: The growing hull in Saint-Nazaire had no formal designation except "T-6" ("T" for "Transat", an alternate name for the French Line, and "6" for "6th"), the contract name. Many names were suggested including "Doumer", after Paul Doumer, the recently assassinated President of France; and originally, "La Belle France." Finally "Normandie" was chosen. In France, boat prefixes properly depend on the boat name's gender, but non-sailors mostly use the masculine form, inherited from the French terms for boat, which can be ""paquebot"", ""navire"", ""bateau"", or ""bâtiment"", but English speakers refer to boats as feminine ("she's a beauty") and the GCT carried many rich American customers. The CGT wrote that their boat was to be called simply ""Normandie"", preceded by neither "le" nor "la" (French masculine/feminine for "the") to avoid any confusion.


title: SS Normandie

text: On 29 October 1932 – three years to the day after the stock market crash – "Normandie" was launched in front of 200,000 spectators. The 27,567-ton hull that slid into the river Loire was the largest launched and the wave washed up the shoreline and over several hundred spectators, but with no injury. The ship was dedicated by Madame Marguerite Lebrun, wife of Albert Lebrun, the President of France. She was outfitted until early 1935, her interiors, funnels, engines, and other fittings put in to make her into a working vessel. Finally, in May 1935, "Normandie" was ready for trials, which were watched by reporters. The superiority of Yourkevitch's hull was visible: hardly a wave was created off the bulbous bow. The ship reached a top speed of and performed an emergency stop from that speed in .


title: SS Normandie

text: In addition to hull design which let her attain speed at far less power than other big liners, "Normandie" had a turbo-electric transmission, with turbo-generators and electric propulsion motors built by Alsthom of Belfort. The CGT chose turbo-electric transmission for the ability to use full power in reverse, and because, according to CGT officials, it was quieter and more easily controlled and maintained. The engine installation was heavier than conventional turbines and slightly less efficient at high speed but allowed all propellers to operate even if one engine was not running. This system also made it possible to eliminate astern turbines. An early form of radar was installed to prevent collisions. The rudder frame, including the 125-ton cast steel connecting rod, was produced by Škoda Works in Czechoslovakia.


title: SS Normandie

text: "Normandie"s luxurious interiors were designed in Art Déco and Streamline Moderne style by architect Pierre Patout, one of the founders of the Art Deco style. Many sculptures and wall paintings made allusions to Normandy, the province of France for which the ship was named. Drawings and photographs show a series of vast public rooms of great elegance. Her voluminous interior spaces were made possible by having the funnel uptakes split to pass along the sides of the ship, rather than straight upward. French architect Roger-Henri Expert was in charge of the overall decorative scheme.


title: SS Normandie

text: Most of the public space was devoted to first-class passengers, including the dining room, first-class lounge, grill room, first-class swimming pool, theatre and winter garden. The first-class swimming pool featured staggered depths, with a shallow training beach for children. The children's dining room was decorated by Jean de Brunhoff, who covered the walls with Babar the Elephant and his "entourage".


title: SS Normandie

text: The interiors were filled with grand perspectives, spectacular entryways, and long, wide staircases. First-class suites were given unique designs by select designers. The most luxurious accommodations were the Deauville and Trouville apartments, featuring dining rooms, baby grand pianos, multiple bedrooms, and private decks.


title: SS Normandie

text: "Normandie"s first-class dining hall was the largest room afloat. At , it was longer than the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles, wide, and high. Passengers entered through doors adorned with bronze medallions by artist Raymond Subes. The room could seat 700 at 157 tables, with "Normandie" serving as a floating promotion for the most sophisticated French cuisine of the period. As no natural light could enter it was illuminated by twelve tall pillars of Lalique glass flanked by 38 matching columns along the walls. These, with chandeliers hung at each end of the room, earned the "Normandie" the nickname "Ship of Light" (similar to Paris as the "City of Light").


title: SS Normandie

text: A popular feature was the café grill, which would be transformed into a nightclub. Adjoining the café grill was the first-class smoking room, which was paneled in large murals depicting ancient Egyptian life. The ship also had indoor and outdoor pools, a chapel, and a theatre which could double as a stage and cinema.


title: SS Normandie

text: The machinery of "Normandie"s top deck and forecastle was integrated within the ship, concealing it and releasing nearly all the exposed deck space for passengers. As such it was the only ocean liner to have a regulation-sized open air tennis court on board. The air conditioner units were concealed along with the kennels inside the third, dummy, funnel.