title: Selangor

text: Television in Selangor consists of seven free-to-air stations, one satellite television network and two internet television services. Three of the seven free-to-air stations are managed by Radio Televisyen Malaysia, a federal government-owned media company headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, while the four commercial stations are owned by Media Prima, an integrated media company headquartered in Bandar Utama, Selangor. The satellite television service is owned by Astro All Asia Networks and it is available nationwide. One of the Internet television services is owned by the state government of Selangor.


title: Selangor

text: Radio stations in Selangor are available in the FM and shortwave frequencies and are transmitted from Gunung Ulu Kali, Selangor and Kajang, Selangor.


title: Selangor

text: There are a few types of radio stations operating in Selangor, namely, commercial radio stations, local community radio stations, federal government-owned radio stations, and specialized radio stations. Commercial radio stations available in Selangor are operated by media companies such as Astro Radio, Star Media Radio Group, Media Prima, Suara Johor and BFM Media. Local community radio stations are only available in certain regions. For example, UFM (93.6) operated by Universiti Teknologi MARA is only available in Shah Alam, Klang, and Petaling Jaya, while Putra FM (90.7) operated by Universiti Putra Malaysia is only available in Serdang and Seri Kembangan. Both radio stations target university students.


title: Selangor

text: The nine Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM) radio networks available are Klasik FM, Muzik FM, Ai FM, Traxx FM, Minnal FM, Asyik FM, Selangor FM, KLFM, and Pahang FM. There are three specialised radio stations as well, namely IKIM.fm (91.5) operated by IKIM, Salam FM (102.5) operated by JAKIM, and Bernama Radio (93.9) operated by BERNAMA. The regions of Selangor that border other states can also receive two other Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM) radio stations; Perak FM (89.6 MHz/95.6 MHz; Selangor-Perak border) and Negeri FM (92.6 MHz; Selangor-Negeri Sembilan border).


title: Astatine

text: Astatine is a chemical element with the symbol At and atomic number 85. It is the rarest naturally occurring element in the Earth's crust, occurring only as the decay product of various heavier elements. All of astatine's isotopes are short-lived; the most stable is astatine-210, with a half-life of 8.1 hours. A sample of the pure element has never been assembled, because any macroscopic specimen would be immediately vaporized by the heat of its own radioactivity.


title: Astatine

text: The bulk properties of astatine are not known with certainty. Many of them have been estimated from the element's position on the periodic table as a heavier analog of iodine, and a member of the halogens (the group of elements including fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine). However, astatine also falls roughly along the dividing line between metals and nonmetals, and some metallic behavior has also been observed and predicted for it. Astatine is likely to have a dark or lustrous appearance and may be a semiconductor or possibly a metal. Chemically, several anionic species of astatine are known and most of its compounds resemble those of iodine, but it also sometimes displays metallic characteristics and shows some similarities to silver.


title: Astatine

text: The first synthesis of the element was in 1940 by Dale R. Corson, Kenneth Ross MacKenzie, and Emilio G. Segrè at the University of California, Berkeley, who named it from the Ancient Greek () 'unstable'. Four isotopes of astatine were subsequently found to be naturally occurring, although much less than one gram is present at any given time in the Earth's crust. Neither the most stable isotope astatine-210, nor the medically useful astatine-211, occur naturally; they can only be produced synthetically, usually by bombarding bismuth-209 with alpha particles.


title: Astatine

text: Astatine is an extremely radioactive element; all its isotopes have half-lives of 8.1 hours or less, decaying into other astatine isotopes, bismuth, polonium, or radon. Most of its isotopes are very unstable, with half-lives of one second or less. Of the first 101 elements in the periodic table, only francium is less stable, and all the astatine isotopes more stable than francium are in any case synthetic and do not occur in nature.


title: Astatine

text: The bulk properties of astatine are not known with any certainty. Research is limited by its short half-life, which prevents the creation of weighable quantities. A visible piece of astatine would immediately vaporize itself because of the heat generated by its intense radioactivity. It remains to be seen if, with sufficient cooling, a macroscopic quantity of astatine could be deposited as a thin film. Astatine is usually classified as either a nonmetal or a metalloid; metal formation has also been predicted.


title: Astatine

text: Most of the physical properties of astatine have been estimated (by interpolation or extrapolation), using theoretically or empirically derived methods. For example, halogens get darker with increasing atomic weight – fluorine is nearly colorless, chlorine is yellow green, bromine is red brown, and iodine is dark gray/violet. Astatine is sometimes described as probably being a black solid (assuming it follows this trend), or as having a metallic appearance (if it is a metalloid or a metal).


title: Astatine

text: Astatine sublimes less readily than does iodine, having a lower vapor pressure. Even so, half of a given quantity of astatine will vaporize in approximately an hour if put on a clean glass surface at room temperature. The absorption spectrum of astatine in the middle ultraviolet region has lines at 224.401 and 216.225 nm, suggestive of 6p to 7s transitions.


title: Astatine

text: The structure of solid astatine is unknown. As an analogue of iodine it may have an orthorhombic crystalline structure composed of diatomic astatine molecules, and be a semiconductor (with a band gap of 0.7 eV). Alternatively, if condensed astatine forms a metallic phase, as has been predicted, it may have a monatomic face-centered cubic structure; in this structure it may well be a superconductor, like the similar high-pressure phase of iodine. Metallic astatine is expected to have a density of 8.91–8.95 g/cm.


title: Astatine

text: Evidence for (or against) the existence of diatomic astatine (At) is sparse and inconclusive. Some sources state that it does not exist, or at least has never been observed, while other sources assert or imply its existence. Despite this controversy, many properties of diatomic astatine have been predicted; for example, its bond length would be , dissociation energy , and heat of vaporization (∆H) 54.39 kJ/mol. Many values have been predicted for the melting and boiling points of astatine, but only for At.


title: Astatine

text: The chemistry of astatine is "clouded by the extremely low concentrations at which astatine experiments have been conducted, and the possibility of reactions with impurities, walls and filters, or radioactivity by-products, and other unwanted nano-scale interactions". Many of its apparent chemical properties have been observed using tracer studies on extremely dilute astatine solutions, typically less than 10 mol·L. Some properties, such as anion formation, align with other halogens. Astatine has some metallic characteristics as well, such as plating onto a cathode, and coprecipitating with metal sulfides in hydrochloric acid. It forms complexes with EDTA, a metal chelating agent, and is capable of acting as a metal in antibody radiolabeling; in some respects astatine in the +1 state is akin to silver in the same state. Most of the organic chemistry of astatine is, however, analogous to that of iodine. It has been suggested that astatine can form a stable monatomic cation in aqueous solution, but electromigration evidence suggests that the cationic At(I) species is protonated hypoastatous acid (HOAt), showing analogy to iodine.


title: Astatine

text: Astatine has an electronegativity of 2.2 on the revised Pauling scale – lower than that of iodine (2.66) and the same as hydrogen. In hydrogen astatide (HAt), the negative charge is predicted to be on the hydrogen atom, implying that this compound could be referred to as astatine hydride according to certain nomenclatures. That would be consistent with the electronegativity of astatine on the Allred–Rochow scale (1.9) being less than that of hydrogen (2.2). However, official IUPAC stoichiometric nomenclature is based on an idealized convention of determining the relative electronegativities of the elements by the mere virtue of their position within the periodic table. According to this convention, astatine is handled as though it is more electronegative than hydrogen, irrespective of its true electronegativity. The electron affinity of astatine, at 233 kJ mol, is 21% less than that of iodine. In comparison, the value of Cl (349) is 6.4% higher than F (328); Br (325) is 6.9% less than Cl; and I (295) is 9.2% less than Br. The marked reduction for At was predicted as being due to spin–orbit interactions. The first ionisation energy of astatine is about 899 kJ mol, which continues the trend of decreasing first ionisation energies down the halogen group (fluorine, 1681; chlorine, 1251; bromine, 1140; iodine, 1008).


title: Astatine

text: Less reactive than iodine, astatine is the least reactive of the halogens. Its compounds have been synthesized in nano-scale amounts and studied as intensively as possible before their radioactive disintegration. The reactions involved have been typically tested with dilute solutions of astatine mixed with larger amounts of iodine. Acting as a carrier, the iodine ensures there is sufficient material for laboratory techniques (such as filtration and precipitation) to work. Like iodine, astatine has been shown to adopt odd-numbered oxidation states ranging from −1 to +7.


title: Astatine

text: Only a few compounds with metals have been reported, in the form of astatides of sodium, palladium, silver, thallium, and lead. Some characteristic properties of silver and sodium astatide, and the other hypothetical alkali and alkaline earth astatides, have been estimated by extrapolation from other metal halides.


title: Astatine

text: The formation of an astatine compound with hydrogen – usually referred to as hydrogen astatide – was noted by the pioneers of astatine chemistry. As mentioned, there are grounds for instead referring to this compound as astatine hydride. It is easily oxidized; acidification by dilute nitric acid gives the At or At forms, and the subsequent addition of silver(I) may only partially, at best, precipitate astatine as silver(I) astatide (AgAt). Iodine, in contrast, is not oxidized, and precipitates readily as silver(I) iodide.


title: Astatine

text: Astatine is known to bind to boron, carbon, and nitrogen. Various boron cage compounds have been prepared with At–B bonds, these being more stable than At–C bonds. Astatine can replace a hydrogen atom in benzene to form astatobenzene CHAt; this may be oxidized to CHAtCl by chlorine. By treating this compound with an alkaline solution of hypochlorite, CHAtO can be produced. The dipyridine-astatine(I) cation, [At(CHN)], forms ionic compounds with perchlorate (a non-coordinating anion) and with nitrate, [At(CHN)]NO. This cation exists as a coordination complex in which two dative covalent bonds separately link the astatine(I) centre with each of the pyridine rings via their nitrogen atoms.


title: Astatine

text: With oxygen, there is evidence of the species AtO and AtO in aqueous solution, formed by the reaction of astatine with an oxidant such as elemental bromine or (in the last case) by sodium persulfate in a solution of perchloric acid: the latter species might also be protonated astatous acid, . The species previously thought to be has since been determined to be , a hydrolysis product of AtO (another such hydrolysis product being AtOOH). The well characterized anion can be obtained by, for example, the oxidation of astatine with potassium hypochlorite in a solution of potassium hydroxide. Preparation of lanthanum triastatate La(AtO), following the oxidation of astatine by a hot NaSO solution, has been reported. Further oxidation of , such as by xenon difluoride (in a hot alkaline solution) or periodate (in a neutral or alkaline solution), yields the perastatate ion ; this is only stable in neutral or alkaline solutions. Astatine is also thought to be capable of forming cations in salts with oxyanions such as iodate or dichromate; this is based on the observation that, in acidic solutions, monovalent or intermediate positive states of astatine coprecipitate with the insoluble salts of metal cations such as silver(I) iodate or thallium(I) dichromate.


title: Astatine

text: Astatine may form bonds to the other chalcogens; these include SAt and with sulfur, a coordination selenourea compound with selenium, and an astatine–tellurium colloid with tellurium.


title: Astatine

text: Astatine is known to react with its lighter homologs iodine, bromine, and chlorine in the vapor state; these reactions produce diatomic interhalogen compounds with formulas AtI, AtBr, and AtCl. The first two compounds may also be produced in water – astatine reacts with iodine/iodide solution to form AtI, whereas AtBr requires (aside from astatine) an iodine/iodine monobromide/bromide solution. The excess of iodides or bromides may lead to and ions, or in a chloride solution, they may produce species like or via equilibrium reactions with the chlorides. Oxidation of the element with dichromate (in nitric acid solution) showed that adding chloride turned the astatine into a molecule likely to be either AtCl or AtOCl. Similarly, or may be produced. The polyhalides PdAtI, CsAtI, TlAtI, and PbAtI are known or presumed to have been precipitated. In a plasma ion source mass spectrometer, the ions [AtI], [AtBr], and [AtCl] have been formed by introducing lighter halogen vapors into a helium-filled cell containing astatine, supporting the existence of stable neutral molecules in the plasma ion state. No astatine fluorides have been discovered yet. Their absence has been speculatively attributed to the extreme reactivity of such compounds, including the reaction of an initially formed fluoride with the walls of the glass container to form a non-volatile product. Thus, although the synthesis of an astatine fluoride is thought to be possible, it may require a liquid halogen fluoride solvent, as has already been used for the characterization of radon fluoride.


title: Astatine

text: In 1869, when Dmitri Mendeleev published his periodic table, the space under iodine was empty; after Niels Bohr established the physical basis of the classification of chemical elements, it was suggested that the fifth halogen belonged there. Before its officially recognized discovery, it was called "eka-iodine" (from Sanskrit "eka" – "one") to imply it was one space under iodine (in the same manner as eka-silicon, eka-boron, and others). Scientists tried to find it in nature; given its extreme rarity, these attempts resulted in several false discoveries.


title: Astatine

text: The first claimed discovery of eka-iodine was made by Fred Allison and his associates at the Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now Auburn University) in 1931. The discoverers named element 85 "alabamine", and assigned it the symbol Ab, designations that were used for a few years. In 1934, H. G. MacPherson of University of California, Berkeley disproved Allison's method and the validity of his discovery. There was another claim in 1937, by the chemist Rajendralal De. Working in Dacca in British India (now Dhaka in Bangladesh), he chose the name "dakin" for element 85, which he claimed to have isolated as the thorium series equivalent of radium F (polonium-210) in the radium series. The properties he reported for dakin do not correspond to those of astatine, and astatine's radioactivity would have prevented him from handling it in the quantities he claimed. Moreover, astatine is not found in the thorium series, and the true identity of dakin is not known.


title: Astatine

text: In 1936, the team of Romanian physicist Horia Hulubei and French physicist Yvette Cauchois claimed to have discovered element 85 by observing its X-ray emission lines. In 1939, they published another paper which supported and extended previous data. In 1944, Hulubei published a summary of data he had obtained up to that time, claiming it was supported by the work of other researchers. He chose the name "dor", presumably from the Romanian for "longing" [for peace], as World War II had started five years earlier. As Hulubei was writing in French, a language which does not accommodate the "ine" suffix, dor would likely have been rendered in English as "dorine", had it been adopted. In 1947, Hulubei's claim was effectively rejected by the Austrian chemist Friedrich Paneth, who would later chair the IUPAC committee responsible for recognition of new elements. Even though Hulubei's samples did contain astatine-218, his means to detect it were too weak, by current standards, to enable correct identification; moreover, he could not perform chemical tests on the element. He had also been involved in an earlier false claim as to the discovery of element 87 (francium) and this is thought to have caused other researchers to downplay his work.


title: Astatine

text: In 1940, the Swiss chemist Walter Minder announced the discovery of element 85 as the beta decay product of radium A (polonium-218), choosing the name "helvetium" (from , the Latin name of Switzerland). Berta Karlik and Traude Bernert were unsuccessful in reproducing his experiments, and subsequently attributed Minder's results to contamination of his radon stream (radon-222 is the parent isotope of polonium-218). In 1942, Minder, in collaboration with the English scientist Alice Leigh-Smith, announced the discovery of another isotope of element 85, presumed to be the product of thorium A (polonium-216) beta decay. They named this substance "anglo-helvetium", but Karlik and Bernert were again unable to reproduce these results.


title: Astatine

text: Later in 1940, Dale R. Corson, Kenneth Ross MacKenzie, and Emilio Segrè isolated the element at the University of California, Berkeley. Instead of searching for the element in nature, the scientists created it by bombarding bismuth-209 with alpha particles in a cyclotron (particle accelerator) to produce, after emission of two neutrons, astatine-211. The discoverers, however, did not immediately suggest a name for the element. The reason for this was that at the time, an element created synthetically in "invisible quantities" that had not yet been discovered in nature was not seen as a completely valid one; in addition, chemists were reluctant to recognize radioactive isotopes as legitimately as stable ones. In 1943, astatine was found as a product of two naturally occurring decay chains by Berta Karlik and Traude Bernert, first in the so-called uranium series, and then in the actinium series. (Since then, astatine was also found in a third decay chain, the neptunium series.) Friedrich Paneth in 1946 called to finally recognize synthetic elements, quoting, among other reasons, recent confirmation of their natural occurrence, and proposed that the discoverers of the newly discovered unnamed elements name these elements. In early 1947, "Nature" published the discoverers' suggestions; a letter from Corson, MacKenzie, and Segrè suggested the name "astatine" coming from the Greek "astatos" (αστατος) meaning "unstable", because of its propensity for radioactive decay, with the ending "-ine", found in the names of the four previously discovered halogens. The name was also chosen to continue the tradition of the four stable halogens, where the name referred to a property of the element.


title: Astatine

text: Corson and his colleagues classified astatine as a metal on the basis of its analytical chemistry. Subsequent investigators reported iodine-like, cationic, or amphoteric behavior. In a 2003 retrospective, Corson wrote that "some of the properties [of astatine] are similar to iodine … it also exhibits metallic properties, more like its metallic neighbors Po and Bi."


title: Astatine

text: There are 39 known isotopes of astatine, with atomic masses (mass numbers) of 191–229. Theoretical modeling suggests that 37 more isotopes could exist. No stable or long-lived astatine isotope has been observed, nor is one expected to exist.


title: Astatine

text: Astatine's alpha decay energies follow the same trend as for other heavy elements. Lighter astatine isotopes have quite high energies of alpha decay, which become lower as the nuclei become heavier. Astatine-211 has a significantly higher energy than the previous isotope, because it has a nucleus with 126 neutrons, and 126 is a magic number corresponding to a filled neutron shell. Despite having a similar half-life to the previous isotope (8.1 hours for astatine-210 and 7.2 hours for astatine-211), the alpha decay probability is much higher for the latter: 41.81% against only 0.18%. The two following isotopes release even more energy, with astatine-213 releasing the most energy. For this reason, it is the shortest-lived astatine isotope. Even though heavier astatine isotopes release less energy, no long-lived astatine isotope exists, because of the increasing role of beta decay (electron emission). This decay mode is especially important for astatine; as early as 1950 it was postulated that all isotopes of the element undergo beta decay, though nuclear mass measurements indicate that At is in fact beta-stable, as it has the lowest mass of all isobars with "A" = 215. A beta decay mode has been found for all other astatine isotopes except for astatine-213, astatine-214, and astatine-216m. Astatine-210 and lighter isotopes exhibit beta plus decay (positron emission), astatine-216 and heavier isotopes exhibit beta minus decay, and astatine-212 decays via both modes, while astatine-211 undergoes electron capture.


title: Astatine

text: The most stable isotope is astatine-210, which has a half-life of 8.1 hours. The primary decay mode is beta plus, to the relatively long-lived (in comparison to astatine isotopes) alpha emitter polonium-210. In total, only five isotopes have half-lives exceeding one hour (astatine-207 to -211). The least stable ground state isotope is astatine-213, with a half-life of 125 nanoseconds. It undergoes alpha decay to the extremely long-lived bismuth-209.


title: Astatine

text: Astatine has 24 known nuclear isomers, which are nuclei with one or more nucleons (protons or neutrons) in an excited state. A nuclear isomer may also be called a "meta-state", meaning the system has more internal energy than the "ground state" (the state with the lowest possible internal energy), making the former likely to decay into the latter. There may be more than one isomer for each isotope. The most stable of these nuclear isomers is astatine-202m1, which has a half-life of about 3 minutes, longer than those of all the ground states bar those of isotopes 203–211 and 220. The least stable is astatine-214m1; its half-life of 265 nanoseconds is shorter than those of all ground states except that of astatine-213.


title: Astatine

text: Astatine is the rarest naturally occurring element. The total amount of astatine in the Earth's crust (quoted mass 2.36 × 10 grams) is estimated by some to be less than one gram at any given time. Other sources estimate the amount of ephemeral astatine, present on earth at any given moment, to be up to one ounce (about 28 grams).


title: Astatine

text: Any astatine present at the formation of the Earth has long since disappeared; the four naturally occurring isotopes (astatine-215, -217, -218 and -219) are instead continuously produced as a result of the decay of radioactive thorium and uranium ores, and trace quantities of neptunium-237. The landmass of North and South America combined, to a depth of 16 kilometers (10 miles), contains only about one trillion astatine-215 atoms at any given time (around 3.5 × 10 grams). Astatine-217 is produced via the radioactive decay of neptunium-237. Primordial remnants of the latter isotope—due to its relatively short half-life of 2.14 million years—are no longer present on Earth. However, trace amounts occur naturally as a product of transmutation reactions in uranium ores. Astatine-218 was the first astatine isotope discovered in nature. Astatine-219, with a half-life of 56 seconds, is the longest lived of the naturally occurring isotopes.


title: Astatine

text: Isotopes of astatine are sometimes not listed as naturally occurring because of misconceptions that there are no such isotopes, or discrepancies in the literature. Astatine-216 has been counted as a naturally occurring isotope but reports of its observation (which were described as doubtful) have not been confirmed.


title: Astatine

text: Astatine was first produced by bombarding bismuth-209 with energetic alpha particles, and this is still the major route used to create the relatively long-lived isotopes astatine-209 through astatine-211. Astatine is only produced in minuscule quantities, with modern techniques allowing production runs of up to 6.6 giga becquerels (about 86 nanograms or 2.47 × 10 atoms). Synthesis of greater quantities of astatine using this method is constrained by the limited availability of suitable cyclotrons and the prospect of melting the target. Solvent radiolysis due to the cumulative effect of astatine decay is a related problem. With cryogenic technology, microgram quantities of astatine might be able to be generated via proton irradiation of thorium or uranium to yield radon-211, in turn decaying to astatine-211. Contamination with astatine-210 is expected to be a drawback of this method.


title: Astatine

text: The most important isotope is astatine-211, the only one in commercial use. To produce the bismuth target, the metal is sputtered onto a gold, copper, or aluminium surface at 50 to 100 milligrams per square centimeter. Bismuth oxide can be used instead; this is forcibly fused with a copper plate. The target is kept under a chemically neutral nitrogen atmosphere, and is cooled with water to prevent premature astatine vaporization. In a particle accelerator, such as a cyclotron, alpha particles are collided with the bismuth. Even though only one bismuth isotope is used (bismuth-209), the reaction may occur in three possible ways, producing astatine-209, astatine-210, or astatine-211. In order to eliminate undesired nuclides, the maximum energy of the particle accelerator is set to a value (optimally 29.17 MeV) above that for the reaction producing astatine-211 (to produce the desired isotope) and below the one producing astatine-210 (to avoid producing other astatine isotopes).


title: Astatine

text: Since astatine is the main product of the synthesis, after its formation it must only be separated from the target and any significant contaminants. Several methods are available, "but they generally follow one of two approaches—dry distillation or [wet] acid treatment of the target followed by solvent extraction." The methods summarized below are modern adaptations of older procedures, as reviewed by Kugler and Keller. Pre-1985 techniques more often addressed the elimination of co-produced toxic polonium; this requirement is now mitigated by capping the energy of the cyclotron irradiation beam.


title: Astatine

text: The astatine-containing cyclotron target is heated to a temperature of around 650 °C. The astatine volatilizes and is condensed in (typically) a cold trap. Higher temperatures of up to around 850 °C may increase the yield, at the risk of bismuth contamination from concurrent volatilization. Redistilling the condensate may be required to minimize the presence of bismuth (as bismuth can interfere with astatine labeling reactions). The astatine is recovered from the trap using one or more low concentration solvents such as sodium hydroxide, methanol or chloroform. Astatine yields of up to around 80% may be achieved. Dry separation is the method most commonly used to produce a chemically useful form of astatine.


title: Astatine

text: The irradiated bismuth (or sometimes bismuth trioxide) target is first dissolved in, for example, concentrated nitric or perchloric acid. Following this first step, the acid can be distilled away to leave behind a white residue that contains both bismuth and the desired astatine product. This residue is then dissolved in a concentrated acid, such as hydrochloric acid. Astatine is extracted from this acid using an organic solvent such as butyl or isopropyl ether, diisopropylether (DIPE), or thiosemicarbazide. Using liquid-liquid extraction, the astatine product can be repeatedly washed with an acid, such as HCl, and extracted into the organic solvent layer. A separation yield of 93% using nitric acid has been reported, falling to 72% by the time purification procedures were completed (distillation of nitric acid, purging residual nitrogen oxides, and redissolving bismuth nitrate to enable liquid–liquid extraction). Wet methods involve "multiple radioactivity handling steps" and have not been considered well suited for isolating larger quantities of astatine. However, wet extraction methods are being examined for use in production of larger quantities of astatine-211, as it is thought that wet extraction methods can provide more consistency. They can enable the production of astatine in a specific oxidation state and may have greater applicability in experimental radiochemistry.


title: Astatine

text: Newly formed astatine-211 is the subject of ongoing research in nuclear medicine. It must be used quickly as it decays with a half-life of 7.2 hours; this is long enough to permit multistep labeling strategies. Astatine-211 has potential for targeted alpha-particle therapy, since it decays either via emission of an alpha particle (to bismuth-207), or via electron capture (to an extremely short-lived nuclide, polonium-211, which undergoes further alpha decay), very quickly reaching its stable granddaughter lead-207. Polonium X-rays emitted as a result of the electron capture branch, in the range of 77–92 keV, enable the tracking of astatine in animals and patients. Although astatine-210 has a slightly longer half-life, it is wholly unsuitable because it usually undergoes beta plus decay to the extremely toxic polonium-210.


title: Astatine

text: The principal medicinal difference between astatine-211 and iodine-131 (a radioactive iodine isotope also used in medicine) is that iodine-131 emits high-energy beta particles, and astatine does not. Beta particles have much greater penetrating power through tissues than do the much heavier alpha particles. An average alpha particle released by astatine-211 can travel up to 70 µm through surrounding tissues; an average-energy beta particle emitted by iodine-131 can travel nearly 30 times as far, to about 2 mm. The short half-life and limited penetrating power of alpha radiation through tissues offers advantages in situations where the "tumor burden is low and/or malignant cell populations are located in close proximity to essential normal tissues." Significant morbidity in cell culture models of human cancers has been achieved with from one to ten astatine-211 atoms bound per cell.


title: Astatine

text: Several obstacles have been encountered in the development of astatine-based radiopharmaceuticals for cancer treatment. World War II delayed research for close to a decade. Results of early experiments indicated that a cancer-selective carrier would need to be developed and it was not until the 1970s that monoclonal antibodies became available for this purpose. Unlike iodine, astatine shows a tendency to dehalogenate from molecular carriers such as these, particularly at sp carbon sites (less so from sp sites). Given the toxicity of astatine accumulated and retained in the body, this emphasized the need to ensure it remained attached to its host molecule. While astatine carriers that are slowly metabolized can be assessed for their efficacy, more rapidly metabolized carriers remain a significant obstacle to the evaluation of astatine in nuclear medicine. Mitigating the effects of astatine-induced radiolysis of labeling chemistry and carrier molecules is another area requiring further development. A practical application for astatine as a cancer treatment would potentially be suitable for a "staggering" number of patients; production of astatine in the quantities that would be required remains an issue.


title: Astatine

text: Animal studies show that astatine, similarly to iodine—although to a lesser extent, perhaps because of its slightly more metallic nature—is preferentially (and dangerously) concentrated in the thyroid gland. Unlike iodine, astatine also shows a tendency to be taken up by the lungs and spleen, possibly because of in-body oxidation of At to At. If administered in the form of a radiocolloid it tends to concentrate in the liver. Experiments in rats and monkeys suggest that astatine-211 causes much greater damage to the thyroid gland than does iodine-131, with repetitive injection of the nuclide resulting in necrosis and cell dysplasia within the gland. Early research suggested that injection of astatine into female rodents caused morphological changes in breast tissue; this conclusion remained controversial for many years. General agreement was later reached that this was likely caused by the effect of breast tissue irradiation combined with hormonal changes due to irradiation of the ovaries. Trace amounts of astatine can be handled safely in fume hoods if they are well-aerated; biological uptake of the element must be avoided.


title: Gargamel

text: Gargamel is a fictional character from "The Smurfs". He is the main antagonist in the show and comic books. He is a wizard and the sworn enemy of the Smurfs. His main goals are to destroy the Smurfs, eat them, or transform them into gold.


title: Gargamel

text: Gargamel is portrayed as perpetually stooped, with a worn and patched robe and rotten teeth. He lives in a run-down but solidly built hovel with his mangy cat, Azrael. He hates the Smurfs with extreme prejudice, though he will feign friendship with the Smurfs if there is something in it for him. He also frequently denigrates, insults, and abuses Azrael, who typically returns Gargamel's abuse and displays amusement when Gargamel is humiliated. However, some episodes of "The Smurfs" seem to indicate that Gargamel feels affection for his cat and sincerely cares about Azrael.


title: Gargamel

text: When Gargamel first appeared in "Le Voleur de schtroumpf" ("The Smurfnapper"), published in 1959, he captured a Smurf, which he needed as an ingredient for a potion to make gold in accordance with the famed alchemic legend of the Philosopher's Stone. The other Smurfs rallied against him, and freed the kidnapped Smurf. The sorcerer was defeated and humiliated, swearing revenge by saying, "From now on, the conflict would be personal".


title: Gargamel

text: Sometimes, he wants to eat the Smurfs, while other times, he wants to use them to make gold, and still other times, he has even more bizarre uses for them. In one instance, he is so enraged by his loss that he yells, "I don't want to eat them, I don't want to turn them into gold, all I want now is to DESTROY THEM!". Though he often catches Smurfs who wander by his home or whom he happens across in the forest, he does not know the location of the hidden Smurf village, a fact that continually frustrates him.


title: Gargamel

text: Some of his schemes to catch Smurfs border on the bizarre (such as a "blue magnet" that attracts solely blue items). He has a seemingly endless library of spellbooks (grimoires), potions, and gimmicks for his life's passion. However, no matter how elaborate Gargamel's plans are, they invariably end in failure, causing him to spout his catchphrase: "I hate Smurfs!".


title: Gargamel

text: On some occasions, he has accidentally discovered the location of the village, but sooner or later, gets led away from it due to either a magic spell put on him by Papa Smurf or because of some other bizarre factor. Sometimes, it is simply a matter of his being led away from the village while chasing the Smurfs, losing them and then being unable to find his way back. On other occasions, Gargamel would leave a pheromone trail from the village to his house, but the Smurfs knew to sprinkle cinnamon on the path to keep him from retracing it.


title: Gargamel

text: On one occasion, his obsessive search led him to explore the deepest caves, the muddiest marshlands and even go far out to sea. He was just about to give up and go home when, quite by chance, he did finally find the village — but, as always, circumstances were against him.


title: Gargamel

text: Rarely (only a few times in the series), Gargamel has acted on the same side as the Smurfs. In "Fountain of Smurf", Papa Smurf becomes a Smurfling, and the only way the Smurfs can get him back to normal is with Gargamel's help.


title: Gargamel

text: Gargamel keeps a spellbook called the Great Book of Spells in the basement of his house. The book is a living, sentient thing capable of speech, and due to an unspecified agreement, it must provide Gargamel with any spell he requests one day a month on the final phase of the full moon. The book clearly does not like this arrangement and often takes Gargamel's requests too literally, while instructing him to gather ingredients and perform rituals that humiliate him in the process. In one late season, it is suggested that the Book is not malevolent and simply does not like being used for selfish reasons, as it aids the Smurfs in undoing a magical disaster with very little fanfare.


title: Gargamel

text: To try and cause trouble to the Smurfs, Gargamel has created other Smurfs, most notably Smurfette. Smurfette was adopted by the Smurfs, but Sassette the Smurfling, created by the other Smurflings, was made from the same clay that Gargamel used for Smurfette. Sassette refers to Gargamel as "Pappy Gargamel". She is the only one in the Smurf village who wishes to see some good in him.


title: Gargamel

text: In the modern adaptions, his goal in the two live-action films and The Lost Village is to extract the Smurf's essence to become the most powerful sorcerer and conquer the world.


title: Gargamel

text: Gargamel has also worked with other enemies of the Smurfs, although in many cases, these other villains, such as Lord Balthazar, prove to be much more efficient and focused enemies of the Smurfs. Not much is said of Gargamel's relationships with women, although in one episode, an ugly witch named Hogatha turns herself into an attractive woman to seduce Gargamel in order to steal a magical earring from him, which he bought for his mother's birthday. She almost succeeds, but her constant transformations from ugly to beautiful prove to be too hard for her, and Gargamel eventually is informed of the ruse. One time, Gargamel almost got married. His "mummy" decided it was high time he took a wife and introduced him to a baron's lovely daughter (Andria), who did not really love him. He did not really have any feelings for the girl either, until he saw in her hope chest a definitive map to the Smurf Village and "then" proclaimed his love for her and accepted her hand in marriage. (Of course, he still did not love "her", just the map to the Smurf Village.) Some Smurfs showed up at the wedding and wrought enough havoc to ruin the wedding completely, so finally the ceremony was canceled. In the episode "Gargamel's Sweetheart", he does fall in love with Evelyn, a glamorous but evil witch whom he tries unsuccessfully to impress with his claims of being a rich, powerful wizard, but he does catch her interest when he also claims to know how to turn lead into gold, and gets her to agree to help him catch the Smurfs to do so. Their efforts go unrewarded thanks partly to his bungling.


title: Gargamel

text: Being the earliest of the Smurfs' sworn enemies, it was inevitable that Gargamel would be a recurring character in the Hanna-Barbera cartoon series. In the opening theme, he shouts out his hatred for the Smurfs and begins his desperate attempts to catch them.


title: Gargamel

text: Despite his never-ending hatred and frustration for the Smurfs, more than once has he had to rely on Papa Smurf to help save him from a more wicked enemy's plans (such as Balthazar) or to rescue him from a potion gone horribly wrong. Other times, they have had to team up to fight a common enemy. On another occasion, the episode "The Fountain of Smurf", Papa Smurf drinks too much water from a fountain of youth and becomes a smurfling. The Smurfs are forced to rely on Gargamel to come to their aid and help turn Papa Smurf back to his proper age. Gargamel and Azrael themselves fall into the Fountain of Youth, and become a child and a kitten again, respectively.


title: Gargamel

text: In later episodes, he acquired an apprentice named Scruple, who was frequently rejected from a boarding school for young wizards (which Gargamel himself had been expelled from in his youth) and only Gargamel was willing to teach him magic, and only because he was bribed by the wizards in charge of the school. Scruple seems moderately brighter and more savvy than his master, though still inexperienced in the ways of magic. Although Scruple aids Gargamel in capturing the Smurfs, his main problem is with the students of the wizard academy who berate him for failing to qualify for admission. However, in the scheme of things, the smugness of the students proves to be a weakness for them, as Scruple has some success using Gargamel's magic to cause them problems.


title: Gargamel

text: In 1989, the final season of the series, where the Smurfs are constantly traveling through time, different incarnations of Gargamel would appear, such as showing him as an Indian fakir, a Russian peasant, or a Spanish bullfighter. In one of the earlier episodes of the final seasons, where Gargamel is shown as an Egyptian pharaoh's aide, Papa Smurf believes that all these similar-looking men (and their cats) seen must be ancestors of the infamous Gargamel and Azrael of their present time.


title: Gargamel

text: Paul Winchell voiced Gargamel on the 1980s animated television series, Hank Azaria portrayed Gargamel in "The Smurfs" (2011) and "The Smurfs 2" (2013) and voiced him in "" (2011) and "" (2013), and Rainn Wilson voiced Gargamel in the film "" (2017). In the Web Novel, "Warlock of Magus World" Gargamel is the name of an early arc antagonist, an amalgamation of spirits.


title: Gargamel

text: According to French sociologist Antoine Buéno, Gargamel is suggestive of a stereotype of a Jew, having a big nose, magic powers, love of gold, and balding looks.


title: Gargamel

text: In addition, Gargamel's cat Azrael's name in Hebrew actually means "God is my helper" (in the Hebrew translation, he is called "Hat-hattul", composed of the Hebrew words for "fear" and "cat"). In both Jewish and Muslim tradition, Azrael is the name of the angel of death. In addition to that, it was a Jewish name, so it could be used as an in-joke for Delporte's Jewish wife.


title: Gargamel

text: The name "Gargamel" resembles François Rabelais' classic "Gargantua and Pantagruel", where the giantess Gargamelle is the mother of Gargantua. This is appropriate since Gargamel is a giant compared to the Smurfs. The word "gargamelle" in French has become a slang term for "throat".


title: Gargamel

text: Yvan Delporte suggested the name "Gargamel"; he also proposed the name "Azrael", considering "angel of death" an appropriate name for the would-be killer of Smurfs. He also liked the rhyme with Gargamel.


title: Ba'athism

text: Ba'athism, also stylized as Baathism, (; ' , from ' , meaning "renaissance" or "resurrection") is an Arab nationalist ideology which promotes the creation and development of a unified Arab state through the leadership of a vanguard party over a progressive revolutionary government. The ideology is officially based on the theories of the Syrian intellectuals Michel Aflaq (per the Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party), Zaki al-Arsuzi (per the Syrian-led Ba'ath Party), and Salah al-Din al-Bitar. Baathist leaders of the modern era include the former leader of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, former President of Syria, Hafez Assad and his son, the current President of Syria, Bashar Assad.


title: Ba'athism

text: The Ba'athist ideology advocates the enlightenment of the Arabs as well as the renaissance of their culture, values and society. It also advocates the creation of one-party states and rejects political pluralism in an unspecified length of time – the Ba'ath party theoretically uses an unspecified amount of time to develop an enlightened Arabic society. Ba'athism is based on the principles of Arab nationalism, pan-Arabism, and Arab socialism, as well as social progress. It is a secular ideology. A Ba'athist state supports socialist economics to varying degrees and it also supports public ownership of the commanding heights of the economy, but it opposes confiscatory policies with regard to private property. In Ba'athist ideology, socialism does not mean state-socialism or economic equality; rather, it has a strong current of modernization. Ba'athists contend that socialism is the only way to develop an Arab society which is free and united.


title: Ba'athism

text: The two Ba'athist states which have existed (Iraq and Syria) prevented criticism of their ideology through authoritarian means of governance. These states have been labelled "Neo-Ba'athist" rather than "Ba'athist" because the form of Ba'athism which developed in Iraq and Syria was quite distinct from the Ba'athism which Aflaq and Bitar wrote about.


title: Ba'athism

text: The origins of Baathism began with the political thought developed by Michel Aflaq, Salah al-Din al-Bitar, and Zaki Arsuzi. While Aflaq, Bitar and Arsuzi were never members of the same organization and formed different parties, with Aflaq and Bitar on one hand and Arsuzi on the other hand making different ideological contributions, they are considered the founders of Ba'athism. The closest they ever came to being members of the same organization was in 1939, when those three together with Michel Quzman, Shakir al-As and Ilyas Qandalaft, tried to establish a party. This did not happen because Arsuzi personally disliked Aflaq, who seemed to have reciprocated the feeling.


title: Ba'athism

text: Arsuzi formed the Arab Ba'ath Party in 1940 and his views influenced Aflaq, who alongside junior partner Salah al-Din al-Bitar founded the Arab Ihya Movement in 1940 that later renamed itself the Arab Ba'ath Movement in 1943. Though Aflaq was influenced by him, Arsuzi initially did not cooperate with Aflaq's movement. Arsuzi suspected that the existence of the Arab Ihya Movement, which occasionally titled itself "Arab Ba'ath" during 1941, was part of an imperialist plot to prevent his influence over the Arabs by creating a movement of the same name.


title: Ba'athism

text: Arsuzi was an Arab from Alexandretta who had been associated with Arab nationalist politics during the interwar period. He was inspired by the French Revolution, the German and Italian unification movements and the Japanese economic "miracle". His views were influenced by a number of prominent European philosophical and political figures, among them Georg Hegel, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche and Oswald Spengler.


title: Ba'athism

text: When Arsuzi left the League of Nationalist Action (LNA) party in 1939 after its popular leader died and the party had fallen into disarray, he founded the short-lived Arab National Party in 1939 and dissolved it later that year. On 29 November 1940, Arsuzi founded the Arab Ba'ath. A significant conflict and turning point in the development of Ba'athism occurred when Arsuzi's and Aflaq's movements sparred over the issue of the 1941 coup d'etat by Rashid Ali Al-Gaylani and the subsequent Anglo-Iraqi War. Aflaq's movement supported Gaylani's government and the Iraqi government's war against the British and organized volunteers to go to Iraq and fight for the Iraqi government. However, Arsuzi opposed Gaylani's government, considering the coup to be poorly-planned and a failure. At this point, Arsuzi's party lost members and support that transferred to Aflaq's movement.


title: Ba'athism

text: Subsequently, Arsuzi's direct influence in Arab politics collapsed after Vichy French authorities expelled him from Syria in 1941. Aflaq's Arab Ba'ath Movement's next major political action was its support of Lebanon's war of independence from France in 1943. The Arab Ba'ath Movement did not solidify for years until it held its first party congress in 1947, when it formally merged with Arsuzi's Arab Ba'ath Party. Although socialist values existed in the two Ba'ath movements from their inception, they weren't emphasized until the party merged with Akram Al-Hawrani's Arab Socialist Movement in 1953.


title: Ba'athism

text: In 1966, the Ba'ath movement split in half: one Syrian-dominated and one Iraqi-dominated. Scholar Ofra Bengio claims that a consequence of the split was that Arsuzi took Aflaq's place as the official father of Ba'athist thought in the pro-Syrian Ba'ath movement while in the pro-Iraqi Ba'ath movement Aflaq was still considered the "de jure" father of Ba'athist thought.


title: Ba'athism

text: Aflaq is today considered the founder of the Baathist movement, or at least its most notable contributor. There were other notable ideologues as well, such as Arsuzi and Salah al-Din al-Bitar. From the founding of the Arab Baath Movement until the mid-1950s in Syria and the early 1960s in Iraq, the ideology of the Baath Party was largely synonymous with that of Aflaq's. Aflaq's view on Arab nationalism is considered by some, such as historian Paul Salem of the Middle East Institute, as romantic and poetic.


title: Ba'athism

text: In intellectual terms, Aflaq recast the conservative Arab nationalist thoughts and changed them to reflect a strong revolutionary and progressive tendency which developed in harmony alongside the decolonisation and other events which happened in the Arab world at the time of his life. He insisted on the overthrow of the old ruling classes and supported the creation of a secular society by separating Islam from the state. Not all these ideas were his, but it was Aflaq who succeeded in turning these beliefs into a transnational movement. The core basis of Baathism is Arab socialism, a socialism with Arab characteristics which is not associated with the international socialist movement and pan-Arab ideology.


title: Ba'athism

text: Baathism as developed by Aflaq and Bitar was a unique left-wing Arab-centric ideology. The ideology presented itself as representing the "Arab spirit against materialistic communism" and "Arab history against dead reaction". It held ideological similarity and a favourable outlook to the Non-Aligned Movement politics of Jawaharlal Nehru, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Josip Broz Tito and historically opposed affiliation with either the American-led Western Bloc or the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.


title: Ba'athism

text: Aflaq supported Sati' al-Husri's view that language was the principal defining unifying factor of the Arab nation because language led to the unity of thought, norms and ideals. History was also another unifying feature, as it was the "fertile ground in which our consciousness took shape". The centre of Aflaq's Baathist thought was the feature "bath" (literally meaning "renaissance").


title: Ba'athism

text: This renaissance could only be reached by uniting the Arab nation and it would transform the Arab world politically, economically, intellectually and morally. This "future renaissance" would be a "rebirth", while the first Arab renaissance had been the seventh-century emergence of Islam, according to Aflaq. The new "renaissance" would bring another Arab message, which was summed up in the Baath party's slogan "One Nation, Bearing an Eternal Message".


title: Ba'athism

text: The Arab nation could only reach this "renaissance" through a revolutionary process towards the goals of "unity, liberty and socialism". In Aflaq's view, a nation could only "progress" or "decline". Arab states of his time could only progressively "decline" because of their illnesses – "feudalism, sectarianism, regionalism, intellectual reactionism". These problems, Aflaq believed, could only be resolved through a revolutionary process. A revolution could only succeed if the revolutionaries were pure and devoted nearly religiously to the task. Aflaq supported the Leninist view of the need of a vanguard party following a successful revolution, which was not an "inevitable outcome". In Baathist ideology, the vanguard was the Baath party.


title: Ba'athism

text: Aflaq believed that the youth were the key for a successful revolution. The youth were open to change and enlightenment because they still had not been indoctrinated with other views. According to Aflaq, a major problem was the disillusionment of the Arab youth. Disillusionment led to individualism and individualism was not a healthy sign in an underdeveloped country, in contrast to developed countries, where it was a healthy sign.


title: Ba'athism

text: The party's main task before the revolution was to spread enlightened ideas to the people and to challenge reactionary and conservative elements in society. According to Aflaq, a Baath party would ensure a policy of proselytization to keep the uneducated masses out of the party until the party leadership was enlightened with the thoughts of enlightenment. However, the party was also a political organisation and as Aflaq's notes politics was "a means [...] is the most serious of matters at this present stage". Baathism was similar to Leninist thought in that a vanguard party would rule for an unspecified length to construct a "new society".


title: Ba'athism

text: Aflaq supported the idea of a committed activist revolutionary party based on the Leninist model, which in practice was based on democratic centralism. The revolutionary party would seize political power and from there on transform society for the greater good. While the revolutionary party was numerically a minority, it was an all-powerful institution which had the right to initiate a policy even if the majority of the population were against it. As with the Leninist model, the Baath party knew what was right and what was wrong since the population as a whole did not know this yet as they were still influenced by the old value and moral system.


title: Ba'athism

text: According to Aflaq, the Arab Revolt (1916–1918) against the Ottoman Empire failed to unify the Arab world because it was led by a reactionary class. He believed the ruling class, who supported the monarchy as the leaders of the Arab Revolt did, were synonymous with a reactionary class. In Baathist ideology, the ruling class is replaced by a revolutionary progressive class. Aflaq was bitterly opposed to any kind of monarchy and described the Arab Revolt as "the illusions of kings and feudal lords who understood unity as the gathering of backwardness to backwardness, exploitation to exploitation and numbers to numbers like sheep".


title: Ba'athism

text: It was the reactionary class's view of Arab unity which had left the Arab Revolt "struggling for unity without blood and nerve". Aflaq saw the German unification as proof of this. This view put Aflaq at odds with some Arab nationalists who were Germanophiles. According to Aflaq, Bismarck's unification of Germany established the most repressive nation the world had ever seen, a development which could largely be blamed on the existing monarchy and the reactionary class. According to Aflaq, to copy the German example would be disastrous and would lead to the enslavement of the Arab people.


title: Ba'athism

text: The only way to combat the reactionary classes lay in "progressive" revolution, central to which is the struggle for unity. This struggle could not be separated from the social revolution – to separate these two would be the same as to weaken the movement. The reactionary classes, who are content with the "status quo", would oppose the "progressive" revolution. Even if the revolution succeeded in one "region" (country), that region would be unable to develop because of the resource constraints, small populations and the anti-revolution forces held by other Arab leaders. For a revolution to succeed, the Arab world would have to evolve into an "organic whole" (literally become one). In short, Arab unity is both the cause of the "progressive" revolution and its effect.


title: Ba'athism

text: A major obstacle to the success of the revolution is the Arab League. Aflaq believed that the Arab League strengthened both regional interests and the reactionary classes, thus weakening the chance of establishing an Arab nation. Because of the world situation where the majority of Arab states were under the rule of the reactionary classes, Aflaq revised his ideology to meet reality. Instead of creating an Arab nation through an Arab-wide progressive revolution, the main task would be of progressive revolutionaries spreading the revolution from one Arab country to the next. Once successfully transformed, the created progressive revolutionary countries would then one by one unite until the Arab world had evolved into a single Arab nation. The revolution would not succeed if the progressive revolutionary governments did not contribute to spreading the revolution.


title: Ba'athism

text: Fundamentally, Aflaq had an authoritarian perspective on liberty. In contrast to the liberal democratic concept of liberty, in Aflaq's vision liberty would be ensured by a Baath party which was not elected by the populace because the party had the common good at heart. Historian Paul Salem considered the weakness of such a system "quite obvious".


title: Ba'athism

text: Aflaq saw liberty as one of the defining features of Baathism. Articulation of thoughts and the interaction between individuals were a way of building a new society. According to Aflaq, it was liberty which created new values and thoughts. Aflaq believed that living under imperialism, colonialism, religious or a non-enlightened dictatorship weakened liberty as ideas came from above, not from below through human interaction. One of the Baath party's main priorities according to Aflaq was to disseminate new ideas and thoughts and to give individuals the liberty they needed to pursue ideas as the party would interpose itself between the Arab people and both their foreign imperialist oppressors and those forms of tyranny that arise within Arab society.


title: Ba'athism

text: While the notion of liberty was an important ideal to Aflaq, he favored the Leninist model of a continuous revolutionary struggle and he did not develop concepts for a society in which liberty was protected by a set of institutions and rules. His vision of a one-party state ruled by the Baath party, which disseminated information to the public, was in many ways contrary to his view on individual interactions. The Baath party through its preeminence would establish "liberty". According to Aflaq, liberty could not just come from nowhere as it needed an enlightened progressive group to create a truly free society.


title: Ba'athism

text: Aflaq deeply supported some Marxist tenets and he considered the Marxist concept of the "importance of material economic conditions in life" to be one of modern humanity's greatest discoveries. However, he disagreed with the Marxist view that dialectical materialism was the only truth as Aflaq believed that Marxism had forgotten human spirituality. While believing that the concept would work for small and weak societies, the concept of dialectical materialism as the only truth in Arab development was wrong.


title: Ba'athism

text: For a people as spiritual as the Arabs, the working class was just a group, albeit the most important group, in a much larger movement to free the Arab nation. Unlike Karl Marx, Aflaq was uncertain what place the working class had in history. In contrast to Marx, Aflaq also believed in nationalism and believed that in the Arab world all classes and not just the working class were working against "capitalist domination of the foreign powers". What was a struggle between various classes in the West was in the Arab world a fight for political and economic independence.


title: Ba'athism

text: For Aflaq, socialism was a necessary means to accomplish the goal of initiating an Arabic "renaissance" period, in other words a period of modernisation. While unity brought the Arab world together and liberty provided the Arab people with freedom, socialism was the cornerstone which made unity and liberty possible as no socialism meant no revolution. In Aflaq's view, a constitutional democratic system would not succeed in a country such as Syria that was dominated by a "pseudo-feudalist" economic system in which the repression of the peasant nullified the people's political liberty. Liberty meant little to nothing to the general poverty-stricken populace of Syria and Aflaq saw socialism as the solution to their plight.


title: Ba'athism

text: According to Aflaq, the ultimate goal of socialism was not to answer the question of how much state control was necessary or economic equality, but instead socialism was "a means to satisfy the animal needs of man so he can be free to pursue his duties as a human being". In other words, socialism was a system which freed the population from enslavement and created independent individuals. However, economic equality was a major tenet in Baathist ideology as the elimination of inequality would "eliminate all privilege, exploitation, and domination by one group over another". In short, if liberty was to succeed, the Arab people needed socialism.


title: Ba'athism

text: Aflaq labeled this form of socialism Arab socialism to signify that it existed in harmony with and was in some ways subordinate to Arab nationalism. According to Aflaq, who was a Christian, the teaching and reforms of Muhammad had given socialism an authentic Arab expression. Socialism was viewed by Aflaq as justice and the reforms of Muhammad were both just and wise. In modern times, the Baathist would initiate another way of just and radical forms just as Muhammad had done in the seventh century.


title: Ba'athism

text: Though a Christian, Aflaq viewed the creation of Islam as proof of "Arab genius" and a testament of Arab culture, values and thought. According to Aflaq, the essence of Islam was its revolutionary qualities. Aflaq called on all Arabs, both Muslims and non-Muslims alike, to admire the role Islam had played in creating an Arab character, but his view on Islam was purely spiritual and Aflaq emphasized that it "should not be imposed" on state and society. Time and again Aflaq emphasized that the Baath party was against atheism, but also against fundamentalism as the fundamentalists represented a "shallow, false faith".


title: Ba'athism

text: According to Baathist ideology, all religions were equal. Despite his anti-atheist stance, Aflaq was a strong supporter of secular government and stated a Baathist state would replace religion with a state "based on a foundation, Arab nationalism, and a moral; freedom". During the Shia riots against the Iraqi Baath government in the late-1970s, Aflaq warned Saddam Hussein of making any concessions to the rioters, exclaiming that the Baath Party "is with [religious] faith, but is not a religious party, nor should it be one". During his vice presidency, at the time of the Shia riots Saddam discussed the need to convince large segments of the population to convert to the party line's stance on religion.


title: Ba'athism

text: When Aflaq died in 1989, an official announcement by the Iraqi Regional Command stated that Aflaq had converted to Islam before his death, but an unnamed Western diplomat in Iraq told William Harris that Aflaq's family was not aware that he had undergone any religious conversion. Prior, during and after the Gulf War, the government became progressively more Islamic and by the beginning of the 1990s Saddam proclaimed the Baath party to be the party "of Arabism and Islam".


title: Ba'athism

text: Abraham Ben-Tzur labeled the Ba'ath Party which took power in the 8th of March Revolution in Syria and had taken power in Iraq as the "Neo-Ba'ath" for the reason that the Ba'ath Party had gone beyond their pan-Arab ideological basis and stressed preeminence of the military apparatus. The key party document "Some Theoretical Propositions" states that "[s]ocialism is the true goal of Arab unity... Arab unity is the obligatory basis for constructing a socialist society". In short, pan-Arabism became the means to reach the end of both economic and social transformation. John F. Devlin agrees on the matter and states that the "Ba'ath Party, which started with unity as its overwhelming top priority, which was prepared to work within a variety of Middle Eastern political systems, which wanted social justice in society, had pretty much disappeared by the early 1960s. In its place rose Baath organisations which focused primarily on their own region, which advocated, and created where possible, authoritarian centralised governments, which rested heavily on military power and which were very close to other socialist movements and were less distinctively Ba'athist". Munif al-Razzaz, the former Secretary General of the National Command of the unitary Ba'ath Party, agreed with the theory and stated that from 1961 onwards there existed two Ba'ath parties: "the military Ba'ath Party and the Ba'ath Party, and real power lay with the former". He further stated that the military Ba'ath (as paraphrased by Martin Seymour) "was and remains Ba'athist only in name; that it was and remains little more than a military clique with civilian hangers-on; and that from the initial founding of the Military Committee by disgruntled Syrian officers exiled in Cairo in 1959, the chain of events and the total corruption of Ba'athism proceeded with intolerable logic". Salah al-Din al-Bitar agreed, stating that the 1966 Syrian coup d'état "marked the end of Ba'athist politics in Syria". Aflaq shared the sentiment by stating: "I no longer recognise my party!".


title: Ba'athism

text: Salah Jadid's government abandoned the traditional goal of pan-Arab unity and replaced it with a radical form of Western socialism. This emerged in the terminology of the government; terms such as "people's war" (itself a Maoist term, as the Six-Day War was proclaimed as a "people's war" against Israel) and class struggle were used often. The Syrian Communist Party played an important role in Jadid's government as some communists held ministerial posts and Jadid established "fairly close relations" with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The government supported a more radical economic program, state ownership over industry and foreign trade while at the same time trying to restructure agrarian relations and production. In 1968, Al-Bitar left the Baath movement, claiming that "these parties had ceased to be what they set up to be, retaining only their names and acting as the organs of power and the instruments of regional and dictatorial governments". Contrary to expectations, Aflaq remained with the Ba'ath movement and became the ideologue of the Iraqi-dominated Ba'ath movement. His ideological views remained more or less the same, but in Iraq he was sidelined politically.


title: Ba'athism

text: From 1970, when Hafez al-Assad took power, Syria has been under the control of the Assad family. Assad's government was a personal government, meaning a government that is based upon and revolves around the leader and the term “Assadism” was coined to explain how Assad's leadership dominates Syrian politics. The authorities have tried to portray the wisdom of Assad as "beyond the comprehension of the average citizen". Assadism and the neo-Ba'athist government which currently runs Syria are both based upon nepotism and ethnic favoritism – it was Assad who began the Alawitization of the party and the military; and who also began building a government based on loyalty to the leader's family. Jamal al-Atassi, a former co-founder of Zaki al-Arsuzi's Arab Ba'ath Party and later Syrian dissident, claimed that "Assadism is a false nationalism. It's the domination of a minority, and I'm not talking just of the Alawites, who control the society's nervous system. I include also the army and the mukhabarat. [...] And despite its socialist slogans, the state is run by a class who has made a fortune without contributing–a "nouvelle bourgeoisie parasitaire"". Despite this, Assadism is not an ideology – it is a cult of personality, but it is the closest thing Syria comes to an all-encompassing belief system since both Ba'athist and Arab nationalist beliefs have been watered down to such an extent as to not hurt the government's populist credentials.


title: Ba'athism

text: Saddamism ("Saddamiya") is a political ideology based on the politics related to and pursued by Saddam Hussein. It has also been referred to by Iraqi politicians as Saddamist Ba'athism ("Al-Bathiya Al-Saddamiyya"). It is officially described as a distinct variation of Baathism. It espouses Iraqi nationalism and an Iraq-centred Arab world that calls upon Arab countries to adopt Saddamist Iraqi political discourse and to reject "the Nasserite discourse" that it claims collapsed after 1967. It is militarist and views political disputes and conflicts in a military manner as "battles" requiring: "fighting", "mobilization", "battlefields", "bastions" and "trenches". Saddamism was officially supported by Saddam's government and promoted by the Iraqi daily newspaper "Babil" owned by Saddam's son Uday Hussein.


title: Ba'athism

text: Saddam and his ideologists sought to fuse a connection between ancient Babylonian and Assyrian civilization in Iraq with Arab nationalism by claiming that the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians are the ancestors of the Arabs. Thus Saddam and his supporters claimed that there is no conflict between Mesopotamian heritage and Arab nationalism.


title: Ba'athism

text: Saddam's government was critical of Marxism and opposed the orthodox Marxist concepts of class conflict, dictatorship of the proletariat and state atheism as well as opposing Marxism–Leninism's claim that non-Marxist–Leninist parties are automatically bourgeois in nature – claiming that the Ba'ath Party is a popular revolutionary movement and that as such the people rejected "petit bourgeois" politics. Saddam claimed that the Arab nation did not have the class structure which existed in other nations and that class divisions were more along national lines between Arabs and non-Arabs rather than within the Arab community. However, he spoke fondly of Vladimir Lenin and commended Lenin for giving Russian socialism a uniquely Russian specificity that Marx alone was incapable of doing. He also expressed admiration for other communist leaders such as Fidel Castro, Hồ Chí Minh and Josip Broz Tito due to their spirit of asserting national independence rather than their communism.


title: Ba'athism

text: Cyprian Blamires claims that "Ba'athism may have been a Middle Eastern variant of fascism, even though Aflaq and other Ba'athist leaders criticized particular fascist ideas and practices". According to him, the Ba'ath movement shared several characteristics with the European fascist movements such as "the attempt to synthesize radical, illiberal nationalism and non-Marxist socialism, a romantic, mythopoetic, and elitist 'revolutionary' vision, the desire to create a 'new man' and restore past greatness, a centralised authoritarian party divided into 'right-wing' and 'left-wing' factions and so forth; several close associates later admitted that Aflaq had been directly inspired by certain fascist and Nazi theorists". An argument against Aflaq's fascist credentials is based on the fact that he was an active member of the Syrian–Lebanese Communist Party, he participated in the activities of the French Communist Party during his stay in France and that he was influenced by some of the ideas of Karl Marx.


title: Ba'athism

text: According to Sami Jundi, one of the co-founders of the Arab Baath Party which was established by Zaki Arsuzi, the party's emblem was the tiger because it would "excite the imagination of the youth, in the tradition of Nazism and Fascism, but taking into consideration the fact that the Arab is in his nature distant from pagan symbols [like the swastika]". Arsuzi's Baath Party believed in the virtues of "one leader" and Arsuzi himself personally believed in the racial superiority of the Arabs. The party's members read a lot of Nazi literature, such as "The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century"; they were one of the first groups to plan the translation of "Mein Kampf" into Arabic; and they also actively searched for a copy of "The Myth of the Twentieth Century" – according to Moshe Ma'oz, the only copy of it was in Damascus and it was owned by Aflaq. Arsuzi did not support the Axis powers and refused Italy's advances for party-to-party relations, but he was also influenced by the racial theories of Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Arsuzi claimed that historically Islam and Muhammad had reinforced the nobility and purity of the Arabs, which had both degenerated because Islam had been adopted by other peoples. He had been associated with the League of Nationalist Action, a political party which existed in Syria from 1932 to 1939 and was strongly influenced by fascism and Nazism as evidenced by its paramilitary "Ironshirts."


title: Ba'athism

text: According to a British journalist who interviewed Barzan Ibrahim Tikriti, the head of the Iraqi intelligence services, Saddam Hussein drew inspiration on how to rule Iraq from Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler and he had once asked Barzan to procure copies of their works, not for racist or antisemitic purposes, but "as an example of the successful organisation of an entire society by the state for the achievement of national goals."


title: Ba'athism

text: The National Vanguard Party, which has ties to the Iraqi Baath party, was accused of being racist by the Mauritanian government and certain political groups.


title: Ba'athism

text: The Iraqi Regional Branch could either approve or disapprove of marriages between party members and in a party document, party branches were ordered "to thoroughly check the Arabic origin of not only the prospective wife but also her family, and no approval should be given to members who plan to marry [someone] of non-Arab origin." During the war with Iran, the party began to confront members who were of non-Arab, especially Iranian origin. One memo which was directly sent from the party Secretariat to Saddam read that "the party suffers from the existence of members who are not originally Arabs as this might constitute a danger to the party in the future". The Secretariat recommended that people who were of Iranian origin should not be allowed to become party members. In his reply to the document, Saddam wrote: "1) [I] Agree with the opinion of the Party Secretariat; 2) To be discussed in the [Regional] Command meeting". All of those who were denied membership, and all of those whose memberships were revoked, were loyal Baathists. For instance, one Baathist of Iranian origin whose membership was revoked had been a member of the party since 1958, had also participated in the Ramadan Revolution and had even been imprisoned by the authorities in the aftermath of the November 1963 Iraqi coup d'état because he supported the Baathist cause. Later, the authorities began to specifically look for people of Iraqi origin and any contact which they had with Iran and/or Iranians functioned as a good enough reason to deny them party membership.


title: Crane (machine)

text: A crane is a type of machine, generally equipped with a hoist rope, wire ropes or chains, and sheaves, that can be used both to lift and lower materials and to move them horizontally. It is mainly used for lifting heavy objects and transporting them to other places. The device uses one or more simple machines to create mechanical advantage and thus move loads beyond the normal capability of a human. Cranes are commonly employed in transportation for the loading and unloading of freight, in construction for the movement of materials, and in manufacturing for the assembling of heavy equipment.


title: Crane (machine)

text: The first known crane machine was the shaduf, a water-lifting device that was invented in ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) and then appeared in ancient Egyptian technology. Construction cranes later appeared in ancient Greece, where they were powered by men or animals (such as donkeys), and used for the construction of buildings. Larger cranes were later developed in the Roman Empire, employing the use of human treadwheels, permitting the lifting of heavier weights. In the High Middle Ages, harbour cranes were introduced to load and unload ships and assist with their construction—some were built into stone towers for extra strength and stability. The earliest cranes were constructed from wood, but cast iron, iron and steel took over with the coming of the Industrial Revolution.


title: Crane (machine)

text: For many centuries, power was supplied by the physical exertion of men or animals, although hoists in watermills and windmills could be driven by the harnessed natural power. The first "mechanical" power was provided by steam engines, the earliest steam crane being introduced in the 18th or 19th century, with many remaining in use well into the late 20th century. Modern cranes usually use internal combustion engines or electric motors and hydraulic systems to provide a much greater lifting capability than was previously possible, although manual cranes are still utilized where the provision of power would be uneconomic.


title: Crane (machine)

text: There are many different types of cranes, each tailored to a specific use. Sizes range from the smallest jib cranes, used inside workshops, to the tallest tower cranes, used for constructing high buildings. Mini-cranes are also used for constructing high buildings, to facilitate constructions by reaching tight spaces. Large floating cranes are generally used to build oil rigs and salvage sunken ships.


title: Crane (machine)

text: Some lifting machines do not strictly fit the above definition of a crane, but are generally known as cranes, such as stacker cranes and loader cranes.


title: Crane (machine)

text: The first type of crane machine was the shadouf, which had a lever mechanism and was used to lift water for irrigation. It was invented in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) circa 3000 BC. The shadouf subsequently appeared in ancient Egyptian technology circa 2000 BC.


title: Crane (machine)

text: A crane for lifting heavy loads was developed by the Ancient Greeks in the late 6th century BC. The archaeological record shows that no later than c. 515 BC distinctive cuttings for both lifting tongs and lewis irons begin to appear on stone blocks of Greek temples. Since these holes point at the use of a lifting device, and since they are to be found either above the center of gravity of the block, or in pairs equidistant from a point over the center of gravity, they are regarded by archaeologists as the positive evidence required for the existence of the crane.


title: Crane (machine)

text: The introduction of the winch and pulley hoist soon led to a widespread replacement of ramps as the main means of vertical motion. For the next 200 years, Greek building sites witnessed a sharp reduction in the weights handled, as the new lifting technique made the use of several smaller stones more practical than fewer larger ones. In contrast to the archaic period with its pattern of ever-increasing block sizes, Greek temples of the classical age like the Parthenon invariably featured stone blocks weighing less than 15–20 metric tons. Also, the practice of erecting large monolithic columns was practically abandoned in favour of using several column drums.


title: Crane (machine)

text: Although the exact circumstances of the shift from the ramp to the crane technology remain unclear, it has been argued that the volatile social and political conditions of Greece were more suitable to the employment of small, professional construction teams than of large bodies of unskilled labour, making the crane preferable to the Greek polis over the more labour-intensive ramp which had been the norm in the autocratic societies of Egypt or Assyria.


title: Crane (machine)

text: The first unequivocal literary evidence for the existence of the compound pulley system appears in the "Mechanical Problems" ("Mech". 18, 853a32–853b13) attributed to Aristotle (384–322 BC), but perhaps composed at a slightly later date. Around the same time, block sizes at Greek temples began to match their archaic predecessors again, indicating that the more sophisticated compound pulley must have found its way to Greek construction sites by then.


title: Crane (machine)

text: The heyday of the crane in ancient times came during the Roman Empire, when construction activity soared and buildings reached enormous dimensions. The Romans adopted the Greek crane and developed it further. We are relatively well informed about their lifting techniques, thanks to rather lengthy accounts by the engineers Vitruvius ("De Architectura" 10.2, 1–10) and Heron of Alexandria ("Mechanica" 3.2–5). There are also two surviving reliefs of Roman treadwheel cranes, with the Haterii tombstone from the late first century AD being particularly detailed.


title: Crane (machine)

text: The simplest Roman crane, the "trispastos", consisted of a single-beam jib, a winch, a rope, and a block containing three pulleys. Having thus a mechanical advantage of 3:1, it has been calculated that a single man working the winch could raise (3 pulleys x = 150), assuming that represent the maximum effort a man can exert over a longer time period. Heavier crane types featured five pulleys ("pentaspastos") or, in case of the largest one, a set of three by five pulleys ("Polyspastos") and came with two, three or four masts, depending on the maximum load. The "polyspastos", when worked by four men at both sides of the winch, could readily lift (3 ropes x 5 pulleys x 4 men x = ). If the winch was replaced by a treadwheel, the maximum load could be doubled to at only half the crew, since the treadwheel possesses a much bigger mechanical advantage due to its larger diameter. This meant that, in comparison to the construction of the ancient Egyptian pyramids, where about 50 men were needed to move a 2.5 ton stone block up the ramp ( per person), the lifting capability of the Roman "polyspastos" proved to be "60 times" higher ( per person).


title: Crane (machine)

text: However, numerous extant Roman buildings which feature much heavier stone blocks than those handled by the "polyspastos" indicate that the overall lifting capability of the Romans went far beyond that of any single crane. At the temple of Jupiter at Baalbek, for instance, the architrave blocks weigh up to 60 tons each, and one corner cornice block even over 100 tons, all of them raised to a height of about . In Rome, the capital block of Trajan's Column weighs 53.3 tons, which had to be lifted to a height of about (see construction of Trajan's Column).


title: Crane (machine)

text: It is assumed that Roman engineers lifted these extraordinary weights by two measures (see picture below for comparable Renaissance technique): First, as suggested by Heron, a lifting tower was set up, whose four masts were arranged in the shape of a quadrangle with parallel sides, not unlike a siege tower, but with the column in the middle of the structure ("Mechanica" 3.5). Second, a multitude of capstans were placed on the ground around the tower, for, although having a lower leverage ratio than treadwheels, capstans could be set up in higher numbers and run by more men (and, moreover, by draught animals). This use of multiple capstans is also described by Ammianus Marcellinus (17.4.15) in connection with the lifting of the Lateranense obelisk in the Circus Maximus (c. 357 AD). The maximum lifting capability of a single capstan can be established by the number of lewis iron holes bored into the monolith. In case of the Baalbek architrave blocks, which weigh between 55 and 60 tons, eight extant holes suggest an allowance of 7.5 ton per lewis iron, that is per capstan. Lifting such heavy weights in a concerted action required a great amount of coordination between the work groups applying the force to the capstans.


title: Crane (machine)

text: During the High Middle Ages, the treadwheel crane was reintroduced on a large scale after the technology had fallen into disuse in western Europe with the demise of the Western Roman Empire. The earliest reference to a treadwheel ("magna rota") reappears in archival literature in France about 1225, followed by an illuminated depiction in a manuscript of probably also French origin dating to 1240. In navigation, the earliest uses of harbor cranes are documented for Utrecht in 1244, Antwerp in 1263, Bruges in 1288 and Hamburg in 1291, while in England the treadwheel is not recorded before 1331.


title: Crane (machine)

text: Generally, vertical transport could be done more safely and inexpensively by cranes than by customary methods. Typical areas of application were harbors, mines, and, in particular, building sites where the treadwheel crane played a pivotal role in the construction of the lofty Gothic cathedrals. Nevertheless, both archival and pictorial sources of the time suggest that newly introduced machines like treadwheels or wheelbarrows did not completely replace more labor-intensive methods like ladders, hods and handbarrows. Rather, old and new machinery continued to coexist on medieval construction sites and harbors.


title: Crane (machine)

text: Apart from treadwheels, medieval depictions also show cranes to be powered manually by windlasses with radiating spokes, cranks and by the 15th century also by windlasses shaped like a ship's wheel. To smooth out irregularities of impulse and get over 'dead-spots' in the lifting process flywheels are known to be in use as early as 1123.


title: Crane (machine)

text: The exact process by which the treadwheel crane was reintroduced is not recorded, although its return to construction sites has undoubtedly to be viewed in close connection with the simultaneous rise of Gothic architecture. The reappearance of the treadwheel crane may have resulted from a technological development of the windlass from which the treadwheel structurally and mechanically evolved. Alternatively, the medieval treadwheel may represent a deliberate reinvention of its Roman counterpart drawn from Vitruvius' "De architectura" which was available in many monastic libraries. Its reintroduction may have been inspired, as well, by the observation of the labor-saving qualities of the waterwheel with which early treadwheels shared many structural similarities.


title: Crane (machine)

text: The medieval treadwheel was a large wooden wheel turning around a central shaft with a treadway wide enough for two workers walking side by side. While the earlier 'compass-arm' wheel had spokes directly driven into the central shaft, the more advanced "clasp-arm" type featured arms arranged as chords to the wheel rim, giving the possibility of using a thinner shaft and providing thus a greater mechanical advantage.


title: Crane (machine)

text: Contrary to a popularly held belief, cranes on medieval building sites were neither placed on the extremely lightweight scaffolding used at the time nor on the thin walls of the Gothic churches which were incapable of supporting the weight of both hoisting machine and load. Rather, cranes were placed in the initial stages of construction on the ground, often within the building. When a new floor was completed, and massive tie beams of the roof connected the walls, the crane was dismantled and reassembled on the roof beams from where it was moved from bay to bay during construction of the vaults. Thus, the crane "grew" and "wandered" with the building with the result that today all extant construction cranes in England are found in church towers above the vaulting and below the roof, where they remained after building construction for bringing material for repairs aloft.


title: Crane (machine)

text: Less frequently, medieval illuminations also show cranes mounted on the outside of walls with the stand of the machine secured to putlogs.


title: Crane (machine)

text: In contrast to modern cranes, medieval cranes and hoists — much like their counterparts in Greece and Rome — were primarily capable of a vertical lift, and not used to move loads for a considerable distance horizontally as well. Accordingly, lifting work was organized at the workplace in a different way than today. In building construction, for example, it is assumed that the crane lifted the stone blocks either from the bottom directly into place, or from a place opposite the centre of the wall from where it could deliver the blocks for two teams working at each end of the wall. Additionally, the crane master who usually gave orders at the treadwheel workers from outside the crane was able to manipulate the movement laterally by a small rope attached to the load. Slewing cranes which allowed a rotation of the load and were thus particularly suited for dockside work appeared as early as 1340. While ashlar blocks were directly lifted by sling, lewis or devil's clamp (German "Teufelskralle"), other objects were placed before in containers like pallets, baskets, wooden boxes or barrels.


title: Crane (machine)

text: It is noteworthy that medieval cranes rarely featured ratchets or brakes to forestall the load from running backward. This curious absence is explained by the high friction force exercised by medieval tread-wheels which normally prevented the wheel from accelerating beyond control.


title: Crane (machine)

text: According to the "present state of knowledge" unknown in antiquity, stationary harbor cranes are considered a new development of the Middle Ages. The typical harbor crane was a pivoting structure equipped with double treadwheels. These cranes were placed docksides for the loading and unloading of cargo where they replaced or complemented older lifting methods like see-saws, winches and yards.


title: Crane (machine)

text: Two different types of harbor cranes can be identified with a varying geographical distribution: While gantry cranes, which pivoted on a central vertical axle, were commonly found at the Flemish and Dutch coastside, German sea and inland harbors typically featured tower cranes where the windlass and treadwheels were situated in a solid tower with only jib arm and roof rotating. Dockside cranes were not adopted in the Mediterranean region and the highly developed Italian ports where authorities continued to rely on the more labor-intensive method of unloading goods by ramps beyond the Middle Ages.


title: Crane (machine)

text: Unlike construction cranes where the work speed was determined by the relatively slow progress of the masons, harbor cranes usually featured double treadwheels to speed up loading. The two treadwheels whose diameter is estimated to be 4 m or larger were attached to each side of the axle and rotated together. Their capacity was 2–3 tons, which apparently corresponded to the customary size of marine cargo. Today, according to one survey, fifteen treadwheel harbor cranes from pre-industrial times are still extant throughout Europe. Some harbour cranes were specialised at mounting masts to newly built sailing ships, such as in Gdańsk, Cologne and Bremen. Beside these stationary cranes, floating cranes, which could be flexibly deployed in the whole port basin came into use by the 14th century.


title: Crane (machine)

text: A lifting tower similar to that of the ancient Romans was used to great effect by the Renaissance architect Domenico Fontana in 1586 to relocate the 361 t heavy Vatican obelisk in Rome. From his report, it becomes obvious that the coordination of the lift between the various pulling teams required a considerable amount of concentration and discipline, since, if the force was not applied evenly, the excessive stress on the ropes would make them rupture.


title: Crane (machine)

text: Cranes were also used domestically during this period. The chimney or fireplace crane was used to swing pots and kettles over the fire and the height was adjusted by a trammel.


title: Crane (machine)

text: With the onset of the Industrial Revolution the first modern cranes were installed at harbours for loading cargo. In 1838, the industrialist and businessman William Armstrong designed a water-powered hydraulic crane. His design used a ram in a closed cylinder that was forced down by a pressurized fluid entering the cylinder and a valve regulated the amount of fluid intake relative to the load on the crane. This mechanism, the hydraulic jigger, then pulled on a chain to lift the load.


title: Crane (machine)

text: In 1845 a scheme was set in motion to provide piped water from distant reservoirs to the households of Newcastle. Armstrong was involved in this scheme and he proposed to Newcastle Corporation that the excess water pressure in the lower part of town could be used to power one of his hydraulic cranes for the loading of coal onto barges at the Quayside. He claimed that his invention would do the job faster and more cheaply than conventional cranes. The corporation agreed to his suggestion, and the experiment proved so successful that three more hydraulic cranes were installed on the Quayside.


title: Crane (machine)

text: The success of his hydraulic crane led Armstrong to establish the Elswick works at Newcastle, to produce his hydraulic machinery for cranes and bridges in 1847. His company soon received orders for hydraulic cranes from Edinburgh and Northern Railways and from Liverpool Docks, as well as for hydraulic machinery for dock gates in Grimsby. The company expanded from a workforce of 300 and an annual production of 45 cranes in 1850, to almost 4,000 workers producing over 100 cranes per year by the early 1860s.


title: Crane (machine)

text: Armstrong spent the next few decades constantly improving his crane design; his most significant innovation was the hydraulic accumulator. Where water pressure was not available on site for the use of hydraulic cranes, Armstrong often built high water towers to provide a supply of water at pressure. However, when supplying cranes for use at New Holland on the Humber Estuary, he was unable to do this, because the foundations consisted of sand. He eventually produced the hydraulic accumulator, a cast-iron cylinder fitted with a plunger supporting a very heavy weight. The plunger would slowly be raised, drawing in water, until the downward force of the weight was sufficient to force the water below it into pipes at great pressure. This invention allowed much larger quantities of water to be forced through pipes at a constant pressure, thus increasing the crane's load capacity considerably.


title: Crane (machine)

text: One of his cranes, commissioned by the Italian Navy in 1883 and in use until the mid-1950s, is still standing in Venice, where it is now in a state of disrepair.


title: Crane (machine)

text: There are three major considerations in the design of cranes. First, the crane must be able to lift the weight of the load; second, the crane must not topple; third, the crane must not rupture.


title: Crane (machine)

text: For stability, the sum of all moments about the base of the crane must be close to zero so that the crane does not overturn. In practice, the magnitude of load that is permitted to be lifted (called the "rated load" in the US) is some value less than the load that will cause the crane to tip, thus providing a safety margin.


title: Crane (machine)

text: Under United States standards for mobile cranes, the stability-limited rated load for a crawler crane is 75% of the tipping load. The stability-limited rated load for a mobile crane supported on outriggers is 85% of the tipping load. These requirements, along with additional safety-related aspects of crane design, are established by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in the volume ASME B30.5-2018 "Mobile and Locomotive Cranes".


title: Crane (machine)

text: Standards for cranes mounted on ships or offshore platforms are somewhat stricter because of the dynamic load on the crane due to vessel motion. Additionally, the stability of the vessel or platform must be considered.


title: Crane (machine)

text: For stationary pedestal or kingpost mounted cranes, the moment produced by the boom, jib, and load is resisted by the pedestal base or kingpost. Stress within the base must be less than the yield stress of the material or the crane will fail.


title: Crane (machine)

text: There are four principal types of mobile cranes: truck mounted, rough-terrain, crawler, and floating.


title: Crane (machine)

text: The most basic truck-mounted crane configuration is a "boom truck" or "lorry loader", which features a rear-mounted rotating telescopic-boom crane mounted on a commercial truck chassis.


title: Crane (machine)

text: Larger, heavier duty, purpose-built "truck-mounted" cranes are constructed in two parts: the carrier, often called the "lower", and the lifting component, which includes the boom, called the "upper". These are mated together through a turntable, allowing the upper to swing from side to side. These modern hydraulic truck cranes are usually single-engine machines, with the same engine powering the undercarriage and the crane. The upper is usually powered via hydraulics run through the turntable from the pump mounted on the lower. In older model designs of hydraulic truck cranes, there were two engines. One in the lower pulled the crane down the road and ran a hydraulic pump for the outriggers and jacks. The one in the upper ran the upper through a hydraulic pump of its own. Many older operators favor the two-engine system due to leaking seals in the turntable of aging newer design cranes. Hiab invented the world's first hydraulic truck mounted crane in 1947. The name, Hiab, comes from the commonly used abbreviation of Hydrauliska Industri AB, a company founded in Hudiksvall, Sweden 1944 by Eric Sundin, a ski manufacturer who saw a way to utilize a truck's engine to power loader cranes through the use of hydraulics.