title: Coroutine

text: Since, in most Smalltalk environments, the execution stack is a first-class citizen, coroutines can be implemented without additional library or VM support.


title: Coroutine

text: Vala implements native support for coroutines. They are designed to be used with a Gtk Main Loop, but can be used alone if care is taken to ensure that the end callback will never have to be called before doing, at least, one yield.


title: Coroutine

text: Machine-dependent assembly languages often provide direct methods for coroutine execution. For example, in MACRO-11, the assembly language of the PDP-11 family of minicomputers, the “classic” coroutine switch is effected by the instruction "JSR PC,@(SP)+", which jumps to the address popped from the stack and pushes the current ("i.e" that of the next) instruction address onto the stack. On VAXen (in VAX MACRO) the comparable instruction is "JSB @(SP)+". Even on a Motorola 6809 there is the instruction "JSR [,S++]"; note the "++", as 2 bytes (of address) are popped from the stack. This instruction is much used in the (standard) 'monitor' Assist 09.


title: Variational autoencoder

text: In machine learning, a variational autoencoder (VAE), is an artificial neural network architecture introduced by Diederik P. Kingma and Max Welling, belonging to the families of probabilistic graphical models and variational Bayesian methods.


title: Variational autoencoder

text: Variational autoencoders are often associated with the autoencoder model because of its architectural affinity, but with significant differences in the goal and mathematical formulation. Variational autoencoders are probabilistic generative models that require neural networks as only a part of their overall structure, as e.g. in VQ-VAE. The neural network components are typically referred to as the encoder and decoder for the first and second component respectively. The first neural network maps the input variable to a latent space that corresponds to the parameters of a variational distribution. In this way, the encoder can produce multiple different samples that all come from the same distribution. The decoder has the opposite function, which is to map from the latent space to the input space, in order to produce or generate data points. Both networks are typically trained together with the usage of the reparameterization trick, although the variance of the noise model can be learned separately.


title: Variational autoencoder

text: Although this type of model was initially designed for unsupervised learning, its effectiveness has been proven for semi-supervised learning and supervised learning.


title: Variational autoencoder

text: A variational autoencoder is a generative model with a prior and noise distribution respectively. Usually such models are trained using the Expectation-Maximization meta-algorithm (e.g. probabilistic PCA, (spike & slab) sparse coding). Such a scheme optimizes a lower bound of the data likelihood, which is usually intractable, and in doing so requires the discovery of q-distributions, or variational posteriors. These q distributions are normally parameterized for each individual data point in a separate optimization process. However, variational autoencoders use a neural network as an amortized approach to jointly optimize across data points. This neural network takes as input the data points themselves, and outputs parameters for the variational distribution. As it maps from a known input space to the low-dimensional latent space, it is called the encoder.


title: Variational autoencoder

text: The decoder is the second neural network of this model. It is a function that maps from the latent space to the input space, e.g. as the means of the noise distribution. It is possible to use another neural network that maps to the variance, however this can be omitted for simplicity. In such a case, the variance can be optimized with gradient descent.


title: Variational autoencoder

text: To optimize this model, one needs to know two terms: the "reconstruction error", and the Kullback–Leibler divergence. Both terms are derived from the free energy expression of the probabilistic model, and therefore differ depending on the noise distribution and the assumed prior of the data. The KL-D from the free energy expression maximizes the probability mass of the q distribution that overlaps with the p distribution, which unfortunately can result in mode-seeking behaviour. The "reconstruction" term is the remainder of the free energy expression, and requires a sampling approximation to compute its expectation value.


title: Variational autoencoder

text: From the point of view of probabilistic modelling, one wants to maximize the likelihood of the data formula_1 by their chosen parameterized probability distribution formula_2. This distribution is usually chosen to be a Gaussian formula_3 which is parameterized by formula_4 and formula_5 respectively, and as a member of the exponential family it is easy to work with as a noise distribution. Simple distributions are easy enough to maximize, however distributions where a prior is assumed over the latents formula_6 results in intractable integrals. Let us find formula_7 via marginalizing over formula_6.


title: Variational autoencoder

text: where formula_10 represents the joint distribution under formula_11 of the observable data formula_12 and its latent representation or encoding formula_13. According to the chain rule, the equation can be rewritten as


title: Variational autoencoder

text: In the vanilla variational autoencoder, formula_6 is usually taken to be a finite-dimensional vector of real numbers, and formula_16 to be a Gaussian distribution. Then formula_7 is a mixture of Gaussian distributions.


title: Variational autoencoder

text: It is now possible to define the set of the relationships between the input data and its latent representation as


title: Variational autoencoder

text: Unfortunately, the computation of formula_7 is expensive and in most cases intractable. To speed up the calculus to make it feasible, it is necessary to introduce a further function to approximate the posterior distribution as


title: Variational autoencoder

text: with formula_23 defined as the set of real values that parametrize formula_24. This is sometimes called "amortized inference", since by "investing" in finding a good formula_25, one can later infer formula_6 from formula_1 quickly without doing any integrals.


title: Variational autoencoder

text: In this way, the problem is of finding a good probabilistic autoencoder, in which the conditional likelihood distribution formula_19 is computed by the "probabilistic decoder", and the approximated posterior distribution formula_29 is computed by the "probabilistic encoder".


title: Variational autoencoder

text: As in every deep learning problem, it is necessary to define a differentiable loss function in order to update the network weights through backpropagation.


title: Variational autoencoder

text: For variational autoencoders, the idea is to jointly optimize the generative model parameters formula_30 to reduce the reconstruction error between the input and the output, and formula_23 to make formula_32 as close as possible to formula_20. As reconstruction loss, mean squared error and cross entropy are often used.


title: Variational autoencoder

text: As distance loss between the two distributions the reverse Kullback–Leibler divergence formula_34 is a good choice to squeeze formula_32 under formula_20.


title: Variational autoencoder

text: Now define the evidence lower bound (ELBO):formula_38Maximizing the ELBOformula_39is equivalent to simultaneously maximizing formula_40 and minimizing formula_41. That is, maximizing the log-likelihood of the observed data, and minimizing the divergence of the approximate posterior formula_42 from the exact posterior formula_43.


title: Variational autoencoder

text: For a more detailed derivation and more interpretations of ELBO and its maximization, see its main page.


title: Variational autoencoder

text: It is straightforward to findformula_45However, formula_46does not allow one to put the formula_47 inside the expectation, since formula_48 appears in the probability distribution itself. The reparameterization trick (also known as stochastic backpropagation) bypasses this difficulty.


title: Variational autoencoder

text: This can be reparametrized by letting formula_51 be a "standard random number generator", and construct formula_52 as formula_53. Here, formula_54 is obtained by the Cholesky decomposition:formula_55Then we haveformula_56and so we obtained an unbiased estimator of the gradient, allowing stochastic gradient descent.


title: Variational autoencoder

text: Since we reparametrized formula_6, we need to find formula_29. Let formula_59 by the probability density function for formula_60, thenformula_61where formula_62 is the Jacobian matrix of formula_60 with respect to formula_6. Since formula_53, this is formula_66


title: Variational autoencoder

text: Many variational autoencoders applications and extensions have been used to adapt the architecture to other domains and improve its performance.


title: Variational autoencoder

text: formula_67-VAE is an implementation with a weighted Kullback–Leibler divergence term to automatically discover and interpret factorised latent representations. With this implementation, it is possible to force manifold disentanglement for formula_67 values greater than one. This architecture can discover disentangled latent factors without supervision.


title: Variational autoencoder

text: The conditional VAE (CVAE), inserts label information in the latent space to force a deterministic constrained representation of the learned data.


title: Variational autoencoder

text: Some structures directly deal with the quality of the generated samples or implement more than one latent space to further improve the representation learning.


title: Comoro Islands

text: The Comoro Islands or Comoros (Shikomori "Komori"; , "Juzur al-qamar"; ) form an archipelago of volcanic islands situated off the southeastern coast of Africa, to the east of Mozambique and northwest of Madagascar. The islands are politically divided between the Union of the Comoros, a sovereign country, and Mayotte, an Overseas Department of France.


title: Comoro Islands

text: The Comoro Islands are located in the Mozambique Channel to the north-west of Madagascar and facing Mozambique. These volcanic islands, covering a total area of 2034 km, are as follows:


title: Comoro Islands

text: The Glorioso Islands, comprising "Grande Glorieuse", "Île du Lys" and eight little rock islets, were administratively attached to the archipelago before 1975, and, geologically speaking, form a part of the archipelago.


title: Comoro Islands

text: The Comoros may have been settled as early as the 6th century; among the peoples who crossed the sea to populate the islands are Bantu-speaking peoples, Austronesian (including Malagasy), Arabs, Somalis, Portuguese, French, and Indians. Islam probably arrived during the 10th century. The Comoros islands formed, with Zanzibar, Pemba, Lamu, and the coastal towns of Kenya and Tanzania, a united and prosperous region of Swahili culture, trading in local goods which were exported to the African coast, Madagascar, the Middle East and India. In that period, political power was in the hands of local rulers. During their explorations of the Comoros region, the Portuguese made landfall on the Islands of the Moon, in 1505; "kamar" is Arabic for "moon".


title: Comoro Islands

text: During the colonial period, French settlers established plantations, initially producing sugar, then, in the twentieth century, perfume plants and spices such as ylang ylang, vanilla and cloves as well as copra. In 1946, the Comoros became a French overseas territory.


title: Comoro Islands

text: In 1974, France organized a referendum for self-determination in the archipelago in which the population except in Mayotte voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence. Following the unilateral declaration of independence in 1975, France maintained sovereignty over Mayotte. The three remaining islands formed the "Etat Comorian", which later became the "Federal Islamic Republic of the Comoro Islands" and is today the Union of the Comoros.


title: Comoro Islands

text: In 1997, demands for increased autonomy on the islands of Ndzuani (Anjouan) and Mwali (Moheli) led to the breakup of the Federal Islamic Republic. In 2001, the government reformed as the "Union of the Comoros" under a new constitution which gave each of the three islands more autonomy than had been enjoyed previously. In 2008, the President of Anjouan refused to hold free elections. He was forced to flee following military intervention by troops of the Comorian Union and the African Union. The island country continues its present form of confederal government, albeit with minor changes approved in referendums in 2009 and 2018.


title: Comoro Islands

text: Mayotte, which had voted to retain French suzerainty in the 1975 referendum, expressed a wish to accede to the status of a "département d'outre-mer" (DOM) (Overseas Department) following another referendum held on the island on the 29 March 2009. Mayotte officially became France's 101st department on 31 March 2011.


title: Comoro Islands

text: The Comoro Archipelago consists of volcanic islands. These volcanic islands, together with the high mountains in the north of Madagascar, were formed in the Tertiary and Quaternary periods. The island of Mayotte is the oldest one still above sea level and underwent three volcanic phases between 15 million and 500,000 years ago. The ages progressively decrease from east to west. Grande Comore is the youngest island and is still volcanically active. Karthala, a shield volcano occupying some two thirds of the island, rises to 2361 meters. The summit caldera is quite large, being approximately 3 x 4 km (1.9 x 2.5 miles) in size at the rim (2007).


title: Comoro Islands

text: The Comoro Archipelago enjoys a tropical maritime climate, characterized by slight daytime temperature variations throughout the year of around at sea level and by abundant precipitation: a year. The average temperature of the sea water is .


title: Comoro Islands

text: There are two seasons in the Comoros: the hot and humid season flowing in from the north-west from November to April and the dry season from May to October. The climate on Mayotte is, nevertheless, noticeably warmer and drier. The climate is also characterized by important local variations in temperature and precipitation according to altitude, relief and the degree of exposure to the elements. Annual precipitation therefore varies in the region of and the absolute minimum of is reached on the summit of Karthala.


title: Comoro Islands

text: The hot, dry season is caused by a vast low pressure area which extends over a large part of the Indian Ocean and Central Africa. This low pressure favours gusty winds and cyclones. The last cyclone was Cyclone Gafilo, which passed close to the Comoros on 5 March 2004 causing great material damage. During the hot and humid season it can rain as much as in twenty-four hours.


title: Comoro Islands

text: The dry season is calmer. The low pressure moves towards the continent of Asia (this is the monsoon, the wind blowing from the south-east) and an anticyclone forms below the Comoros. This still does not prevent the islands from having a few gusts of wind, but their intensity is a lot less than during the hot season.


title: Comoro Islands

text: The two winds that bring the two different seasons are called the Kashkasi (in November) and the Kusi.


title: Comoro Islands

text: Partly as a result of international pressure during the 1990s, the government of the Union has begun to take greater care of the environment. Measures have been taken not only to preserve the rare fauna, but also to check the destruction of the environment, especially on Anjouan, which is densely populated. More precisely, in order to minimize the felling of trees for fuel, kerosene has been subsidized, and efforts are underway to replace the lost forest cover caused by the distillation of Ylang-ylang for perfume. The Fund for the Support of Community Development, sponsored by the International Development Association (IDA, a subsidiary of the World Bank) and the Comorian government, is applying itself to improving the water supply on the islands.


title: Comoro Islands

text: Like most islands, the diversity of the local flora suffers from two pressures, on the one hand the reduction of available space caused by humans settling in what used to be the wildest areas, and the invasion of exotic plant species such as guava trees. Much of the remaining habitat is not protected, and the islands' growing population puts more pressure on the remaining wild lands.


title: Comoro Islands

text: The islands are home to eight species of native terrestrial mammal – three species of fruit bat, three insectivorous bat species, and two lemur species. Two bat species, Livingstone's fruit bat ("Pteropus livingstonii") and the Comoro rousette ("Rousettus obliviosus"), are endemic. Livingstone's fruit bat, discovered by David Livingstone in 1863, was previously abundant, but has now been reduced to a population of about 1200 specimens restricted to Anjouan and Moheli. A British preservation group sent an expedition to the Comoros in 1992, with the object of transporting some specimens to Great Britain, in order to form a reproducing colony.


title: Comoro Islands

text: Native lemurs include the mongoose lemur ("Eulemur mongoz") and the common brown lemur ("Eulemur fulvus"). The common brown lemur or maki, known as "Kima" in Shikomori, is present on Mayotte, where it is believed to have been introduced from Madagascar. It is protected by French law and by local tradition.


title: Comoro Islands

text: Mammals introduced to the islands by humans include the Javan mongoose ("Urva javanica") and tailless tenrec ("Tenrec ecaudatus").


title: Comoro Islands

text: Twenty-two species of birds are endemic to the archipelago. Endemic species include the Karthala scops-owl ("Otus pauliani"), Anjouan scops-owl ("Otus capnodes") and Humblot's flycatcher ("Humblotia flavirostris").


title: Comoro Islands

text: Native invertebrates include "Scolopendra", venomous centipedes that can reach up to 25 centimetres long.


title: Comoro Islands

text: No large African animals (elephants, giraffes, lions, crocodiles, zebras or antelopes) are found on the Comoros, despite the islands being relatively close to the mainland.


title: Comoro Islands

text: Freshwater habitats on the islands include streams originating in the islands' forested highlands and flowing into the sea, as well as crater lakes. These habitats are home to species of freshwater and brackish water fish, frogs, waterbirds, dragonflies, and caddisflies.


title: Comoro Islands

text: Mayotte and Moheli have perennial streams and lakes. Mayotte is the oldest of the islands, and has many meandering streams which descend from mountain forests, as well as two lakes – Dziani Karehani and Dziani Dzaha. Mohéli also has freshwater streams, and the freshwater but sulfurous lake Dziani Boundouni.


title: Comoro Islands

text: Grande Comore, the largest and youngest island, is volcanically active and has thin and rocky soils, with no perennial streams or large stream valleys. Anjouan also has few permanent freshwater habitats.


title: Comoro Islands

text: All of the freshwater fishes on the Comoros are from secondary families, i.e. families of fishes which can tolerate salt water. No primary families – fish families adapted to freshwater and intolerant of salt water – are native to the island, on account of the islands' oceanic origin and relatively recent geologic origins.


title: Comoro Islands

text: Mayotte, the oldest island, is surrounded by a barrier reef, with extensive reefs and lagoons between the reef and the island. The reef and lagoon cover over 1,000 km. They are home to more than 760 species of marine fish, including 17 threatened species, 581 species of marine arthropods, more than 450 cnidarian species, and 24 marine mammal species.


title: Comoro Islands

text: The other Comoro Islands are surrounded by fringing reefs, which form a narrow platform extending a short distance from the coast. Reefs fringe about 60% of the coast of Grande Comore, 80% of Anjouan's coast, and 100% of Mohéli's coast. The Sima Peninsula on Anjouan is surrounded by a vast reef. The islands also have rocky reefs on basalt substrates.


title: Comoro Islands

text: Mayotte has 7.6 km of seagrass beds. The extensive seagrass beds in Moheli Marine Park account for about 90% of the remaining seagrass beds in the Comoros. Other seagrass beds occur at Mitsamiouli, Malé and Ouroveni around Grande Comore and at Bimbini and Ouani around Anjouan. There are eight seagrass species in the Comoros. The islands' seagrass beds have been degraded by sedimentation and climate change. Between 1993 and 1998 the "Thalassodendron ciliatum" beds at Moheli Marine Park were destroyed by a large sediment influx into the lagoon from upland deforestation coupled with high rainfall.


title: Comoro Islands

text: Mayotte has 8.5 km of mangroves. There are approximately 120 ha of mangroves on the other Comoro islands, 75% of which are on the south coast of Mohéli, particularly around Damou and Mapiachingo. Smaller areas of mangrove are also found on Grande Comore and Anjouan. There are seven mangrove species in the Comoros, with "Rhizophora mucronata" and "Avicennia marina" the most abundant.


title: Comoro Islands

text: Marine mammals in the Comoros' seas include the humpback whale ("Megaptera novaeangliae") sperm whale ("Physeter macrocephalus"), dugong ("Dugong dugon") spinner dolphin ("Stenella longirostris"), pantropical spotted dolphin ("Stenella attenuata"), Fraser's dolphin ("Lagenodelphis hosei"), bottlenose dolphin ("Tursiops" sp.), Risso's dolphin ("Grampus griseus"), melon-headed whale ("Peponocephala electra"), short-finned pilot whale ("Globicephala macrorhynchus"), pygmy killer whale ("Feresa attenuata"), Blainville's beaked whale ("Mesoplodon densirostris"), and Longman's beaked whale ("Mesoplodon pacificus").


title: Comoro Islands

text: Other marine fauna include the green sea turtle ("Chelonia mydas"), most abundantly on Mohéli and Mayotte where they still come to lay eggs, and the coelacanth, a deepwater fish known from fossils over 300 million years old.


title: Comoro Islands

text: Four marine national parks were established in 2010 – Coelacanth National Park (92.76 km) along the south shore of Grande Comore, Mitsamiouli Ndroude National Park (23.14 km) along the north shore of Grande Comore, Mohéli National Park (643.62 km) around Mohéli, and Shisiwani National Park (64.97 km) around Anjouan's Sima Peninsula.


title: Comoro Islands

text: The United Nations General Assembly continued to condemn the French presence in Mayotte until 1994. France, however, used its power of veto in the UN to prevent the Security Council from passing a resolution condemning France.


title: Comoro Islands

text: The political authorities on the island had turned the population of the island against the central government, advocating at first reunification with France, and later a greater autonomy bordering on independence.


title: Comoro Islands

text: Since 2006, the Ex-President of the Union of the Comoros, Ahmed Abdallah Sambi, who is originally from the island of Anjouan, has been in open conflict with the authorities of Anjouan, a conflict which ended in a military landing of the National Army of Development in order to re-establish the authority of the Union on the island.


title: Ossetia

text: Ossetia ( , ; or , or ; ; , "Oseti") is an ethnolinguistic region located on both sides of the Greater Caucasus Mountains, largely inhabited by the Ossetians. The Ossetian language is part of the Eastern Iranian branch of the family of Indo-European languages. Most countries recognize the Ossetian-speaking area south of the main Caucasus ridge as lying within the borders of Georgia, but it has come under the control of the "de facto" government of the Russian-backed Republic of South Ossetia – the State of Alania. The northern portion of the region consists of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania within the Russian Federation.


title: Ossetia

text: Although a Russian-mediated and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe-monitored ceasefire was implemented in South Ossetia in 1992, the Georgian-Ossetian conflict still remains unresolved even though a recent peace plan proposed by the government of Georgia promised the South Ossetians larger autonomy and pledged expanded international involvement in the political settlement of the conflict. Meanwhile, the South Ossetian secessionist authorities demand independence or unification with North Ossetia, which itself is located in Russia, while the international community instead recognizes it and Abkhazia as a part of Georgia.


title: Ossetia

text: On Sunday 12 November 2006, South Ossetians (mostly ethnic Ossetians) went to the polls to vote in a referendum regarding the region's independence from Georgia. The result was a "yes" to independence, with a turnout above 95% from those among the territory's 70,000 people who were eligible to vote at that time. There was also a vote in favor of a new term for Eduard Kokoity, who was the de facto state's president at the time.


title: Ossetia

text: There have been proposals from South Ossetia for joining the Russian Federation and uniting with North Ossetia.


title: Retirement

text: Retirement is the withdrawal from one's position or occupation or from one's active working life. A person may also semi-retire by reducing work hours or workload.


title: Retirement

text: Many people choose to retire when they are elderly or incapable of doing their job due to health reasons. People may also retire when they are eligible for private or public pension benefits, although some are forced to retire when bodily conditions no longer allow the person to work any longer (by illness or accident) or as a result of legislation concerning their positions. In most countries, the idea of retirement is of recent origin, being introduced during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Previously, low life expectancy, lack of social security and the absence of pension arrangements meant that most workers continued to work until their death. Germany was the first country to introduce retirement benefits in 1889.


title: Retirement

text: Nowadays, most developed countries have systems to provide pensions on retirement in old age, funded by employers or the state. In many poorer countries, there is no support for the elderly beyond that provided through the family. Today, retirement with a pension is considered a right of the worker in many societies; hard ideological, social, cultural and political battles have been fought over whether this is a right. In many Western countries, this is a right embodied in national constitutions.


title: Retirement

text: An increasing number of individuals are choosing to put off this point of total retirement, by selecting to exist in the emerging state of pre-tirement.


title: Retirement

text: Retirement, or the practice of leaving one's job or ceasing to work after reaching a certain age, has been around since around the 18th century. Prior to the 18th century, humans had an average life expectancy between 26 and 40 years.


title: Retirement

text: In consequence, only a small percentage of the population reached an age where physical impairments began to be obstacles to working. Countries began to adopt government policies on retirement during the late 19th century and the 20th century, beginning in Germany under Otto von Bismarck.


title: Retirement

text: A person may retire at whatever age they please. However, a country's tax laws or state old-age pension rules usually mean that in a given country a certain age is thought of as the standard retirement age. As life expectancy increases and more and more people live to an advanced age, in many countries the age at which a pension is awarded has been increased in the 21st century, often progressively.


title: Retirement

text: The standard retirement age varies from country to country but it is generally between 50 and 70 (according to latest statistics, 2011). In some countries this age is different for men and women, although this has recently been challenged in some countries (e.g., Austria), and in some countries the ages are being brought into line. The table below shows the variation in eligibility ages for public old-age benefits in the United States and many European countries, according to the OECD.


title: Retirement

text: "The retirement age in many countries is increasing, often starting in the 2010s and continuing until the late 2020s."


title: Retirement

text: Notes: Parentheses indicate eligibility age for women when different. Sources: Cols. 1–2: OECD Pensions at a Glance (2005), Cols. 3–6: Tabulations from HRS, ELSA and SHARE. Square brackets indicate early retirement for some public employees.


title: Retirement

text: In the United States, while the normal retirement age for Social Security, or Old Age Survivors Insurance (OASI) was age 65 to receive unreduced benefits, it is gradually increasing to age 67 by 2027. Public servants are often not covered by Social Security but have their own pension programs. Police officers in the United States may typically retire at half pay after 20 years of service, or three-quarter pay after 30 years, allowing retirement from the early forties. Military members of the US Armed Forces may elect to retire after 20 years of active duty. Their retirement pay (not a pension since they can be recalled to active duty at any time) is calculated on number of years on active duty, final pay grade and the retirement system in place when they entered service. Members awarded the Medal of Honor qualify for a separate stipend. Retirement pay for military members in the reserve and US National Guard is based on a point system.


title: Retirement

text: Recent advances in data collection have vastly improved the ability to understand important relationships between retirement and factors such as health, wealth, employment characteristics and family dynamics, among others. The most prominent study for examining retirement behavior in the United States is the ongoing Health and Retirement Study (HRS), first fielded in 1992. The HRS is a nationally representative longitudinal survey of adults in the U.S. ages 51+, conducted every two years, and contains a wealth of information on such topics as labor force participation (e.g., current employment, job history, retirement plans, industry/occupation, pensions, disability), health (e.g., health status and history, health and life insurance, cognition), financial variables (e.g., assets and income, housing, net worth, wills, consumption and savings), family characteristics (e.g., family structure, transfers, parent/child/grandchild/sibling information) and a host of other topics (e.g., expectations, expenses, internet use, risk taking, psychosocial, time use).


title: Retirement

text: 2002 and 2004 saw the introductions of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) and the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), which includes respondents from 14 continental European countries plus Israel. These surveys were closely modeled after the HRS in the sample frame, design and content. A number of other countries (e.g., Japan, South Korea) also now field HRS-like surveys, and others (e.g., China, India) are currently fielding pilot studies. These data sets have expanded the ability of researchers to examine questions about retirement behavior by adding a cross-national perspective.


title: Retirement

text: Notes: MHAS discontinued in 2003; ELSA numbers exclude institutionalized (nursing homes). Source: Borsch-Supan et al., eds. (November 2008). Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (2004–2007): Starting the Longitudinal Dimension.


title: Retirement

text: Many factors affect people's retirement decisions. Retirement funding education is a big factor that affects the success of an individual's retirement experience. Social Security plays an important role because most individuals solely rely on Social Security as their only retirement option, when Social Security's trust funds are expected to be depleted by 2034. Knowledge affects an individual's retirement decisions by simply finding more reliable retirement options such as Individual Retirement Accounts or Employer-Sponsored Plans. In countries around the world, people are much more likely to retire at the early and normal retirement ages of the public pension system (e.g., ages 62 and 65 in the U.S.). This pattern cannot be explained by different financial incentives to retire at these ages since typically retirement benefits at these ages are approximately actuarially fair; that is, the present value of lifetime pension benefits (pension wealth) conditional on retiring at age "a" is approximately the same as pension wealth conditional on retiring one year later at age "a"+1. Nevertheless, a large literature has found that individuals respond significantly to financial incentives relating to retirement (e.g., to discontinuities stemming from the Social Security earnings test or the tax system).


title: Retirement

text: Greater wealth tends to lead to earlier retirement since wealthier individuals can essentially "purchase" additional leisure. Generally, the effect of wealth on retirement is difficult to estimate empirically since observing greater wealth at older ages may be the result of increased saving over the working life in anticipation of earlier retirement. However, many economists have found creative ways to estimate wealth effects on retirement and typically find that they are small. For example, one paper exploits the receipt of an inheritance to measure the effect of wealth shocks on retirement using data from the HRS. The authors find that receiving an inheritance increases the probability of retiring earlier than expected by 4.4 percentage points, or 12 percent relative to the baseline retirement rate, over an eight-year period.


title: Retirement

text: A great deal of attention has surrounded how the Financial crisis of 2007–2008 and subsequent Great Recession are affecting retirement decisions, with the conventional wisdom saying that fewer people will retire since their savings have been depleted; however recent research suggests that the opposite may happen. Using data from the HRS, researchers examined trends in defined benefit (DB) vs. defined contribution (DC) pension plans and found that those nearing retirement had only limited exposure to the recent stock market decline and thus are not likely to substantially delay their retirement. At the same time, using data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), another study estimates that mass layoffs are likely to lead to an increase in retirement almost 50% larger than the decrease brought about by the stock market crash, so that on net retirements are likely to increase in response to the crisis.


title: Retirement

text: More information tells of how many who retire will continue to work, but not in the career they have had for the majority of their life. Job openings will increase in the next 5 years due to retirements of the baby boomer generation. The Over 50 population is actually the fastest growing labor groups in the US.


title: Retirement

text: A great deal of research has examined the effects of health status and health shocks on retirement. It is widely found that individuals in poor health generally retire earlier than those in better health. This does not necessarily imply that poor health status leads people to retire earlier, since in surveys retirees may be more likely to exaggerate their poor health status to justify their earlier decision to retire. This justification bias, however, is likely to be small. In general, declining health over time, as well as the onset of new health conditions, have been found to be positively related to earlier retirement. Health conditions that can cause someone to retire include hypertension, diabetes mellitus, sleep apnea, joint diseases, and hyperlipidemia.


title: Retirement

text: Most people are married when they reach retirement age; thus, spouse's employment status may affect one's decision to retire. On average, husbands are three years older than their wives in the U.S., and spouses often coordinate their retirement decisions. Thus, men are more likely to retire if their wives are also retired than if they are still in the labor force, and vice versa.


title: Retirement

text: Overall, income after retirement can come from state pensions, occupational pensions, private savings and investments (private pension funds, owned housing), donations (e.g., by children), and social benefits. In some countries an additional lump sum is granted, according to the years of work and the average pay; this is usually provided by the employer. On a personal level, the rising cost of living during retirement is a serious concern to many older adults. Health care costs play an important role.


title: Retirement

text: Provision of state pensions is a significant drain on a government's budget. As life expectancy increases and the health of older people improves with medical advances, the age of entitlement to a pension has been increasing progressively since about 2010.


title: Retirement

text: Older people are more prone to sickness, and the cost of health care in retirement is large. Most countries provide universal health insurance coverage for seniors, although in the United States many people retire before they become eligible for Medicare health cover at 65 years of age.


title: Retirement

text: A useful and straightforward calculation can be done if it is assumed that interest, after expenses, taxes, and inflation is zero. Assume that in real (after-inflation) terms, one's salary never changes over "w" years of working life. During "p" years of pension, one has a living standard that costs a replacement ratio "R" times as much as one's living standard in working life. The working life living standard is one's salary minus the proportion of salary Z that should be saved. Calculations are per unit salary (e.g., assume salary = 1).


title: Retirement

text: Then after "w" years work, retirement age accumulated savings = "wZ". To pay for pension for "p" years, necessary savings at retirement = "Rp(1-Z)"


title: Retirement

text: Equate these: "wZ" = "Rp"("1-Z") and solve to give "Z" = "Rp" / ("w + Rp"). For example, if "w" = 35, "p" = 30 and "R" = 0.65, a proportion "Z" = 35.78% should be saved.


title: Retirement

text: Retirement calculators generally accumulate a proportion of salary up to retirement age. This shows a straightforward case, which nonetheless could be practically useful for optimistic people hoping to work for only as long as they are likely to be retired.


title: Retirement

text: For more complicated situations, there are several online retirement calculators on the Internet. Many retirement calculators project how much an investor needs to save, and for how long, to provide a certain level of retirement expenditures. Some retirement calculators, appropriate for safe investments, assume a constant, unvarying rate of return. Monte Carlo retirement calculators take volatility into account and project the probability that a particular plan of retirement savings, investments, and expenditures will outlast the retiree. Retirement calculators vary in the extent to which they take taxes, social security, pensions, and other sources of retirement income and expenditures into account.


title: Retirement

text: The assumptions keyed into a retirement calculator are critical. One of the most important assumptions is the assumed rate of real (after inflation) investment return. A conservative return estimate could be based on the real yield of Inflation-indexed bonds offered by some governments, including the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The TIP$TER retirement calculator projects the retirement expenditures that a portfolio of inflation-linked bonds, coupled with other income sources like Social Security, would be able to sustain. Current real yields on United States Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) are available at the US Treasury site. Current real yields on Canadian 'Real Return Bonds' are available at the Bank of Canada's site. As of December 2011, US Treasury inflation-linked bonds (TIPS) were yielding about 0.8% real per annum for the 30-year maturity and a noteworthy slightly negative real return for the 7-year maturity.


title: Retirement

text: Many individuals use "retirement calculators" on the Internet to determine the proportion of their pay they should be saving in a tax advantaged-plan (e.g., IRA or 401-K in the US, RRSP in Canada, personal pension in the UK, superannuation in Australia).


title: Retirement

text: After expenses and any taxes, a reasonable (though arguably pessimistic) long-term assumption for a safe real rate of return is zero. So in real terms, interest does not help the savings grow. Each year of work must pay its share of a year of retirement. For someone planning to work for 40 years and be retired for 20 years, each year of work pays for itself and for half a year of retirement. Hence, 33.33% of pay must be saved, and 66.67% can be spent when earned. After 40 years of saving 33.33% of pay, we have accumulated assets of 13.33 years of pay, as in the graph. In the graph to the right, the lines are straight, which is appropriate given the assumption of a zero real investment return.


title: Retirement

text: The graph above can be compared with those generated by many retirement calculators. However, most retirement calculators use nominal (not "real" dollars) and therefore require a projection of both the expected inflation rate and the expected nominal rate of return. One way to work around this limitation is to, for example, enter "0% return, 0% inflation" inputs into the calculator. The Bloomberg retirement calculator gives the flexibility to specify, for example, zero inflation and zero investment return and to reproduce the graph above. The MSN retirement calculator in 2011 has as the defaults a realistic 3% per annum inflation rate and optimistic 8% return assumptions; consistency with the December 2011 US nominal bond and inflation-protected bond market rates requires a change to about 3% inflation and 4% investment return before and after retirement.


title: Retirement

text: Ignoring tax, someone wishing to work for a year and then relax for a year on the same living standard needs to save 50% of pay. Similarly, someone wishing to work from age 25 to 55 and be retired for 30 years till 85 needs to save 50% of pay if government and employment pensions are not a factor and if it is considered appropriate to assume a zero real investment return. The problem that the lifespan is not known in advance can be reduced in some countries by the purchase at retirement of an inflation-indexed life annuity.


title: Retirement

text: To pay for pension, assumed for simplicity to be received at the end of each year, and taking discounted values in the manner of a net present value calculation, the ideal lump sum available at retirement should be:


title: Retirement

text: Above is the standard mathematical formula for the sum of a geometric series. (Or if i =0 then the series in braces sums to p since it then has p equal terms). As an example, assume that S=60,000 per year and that it is desired to replace R=0.80, or 80%, of pre-retirement living standard for p=30 years. Assume for current purposes that a proportion z =0.25 (25%) of pay was being saved. Using i=0.02, or 2% per year real return on investments, the necessary lump sum is given by the formula as (1-0.25)*0.80*60,000*annuity-series-sum(30)=36,000*22.396=806,272 in the nation's currency in 2008–2010 terms. To allow for inflation in a straightforward way, it is best to talk of the 806,272 as being '13.43 years of retirement age salary'. It may be appropriate to regard this as being the necessary lump sum to fund 36,000 of annual supplements to any employer or government pensions that are available. It is common to not include any house value in the calculation of this necessary lump sum, so for a homeowner the lump sum pays primarily for non-housing living costs.


title: Retirement

text: Bring z to the left hand side to give the answer, under this rough and unguaranteed method, for the proportion of pay that should be saved:


title: Retirement

text: Note that the special case i =0 = i means that the geometric series should be summed by noting that there are p or w identical terms and hence z = p/(w+p). This corresponds to the graph above with the straight line real-terms accumulation.


title: Retirement

text: The result for the necessary z given by (Ret-03) depends critically on the assumptions made. As an example, one might assume that price inflation will be 3.5% per year forever and that one's pay will increase only at that same rate of 3.5%. If a 4.5% per year nominal rate of interest is assumed, then (using 1.045/1.035 in real terms) pre-retirement and post-retirement net interest rates will remain the same, i = 0.966 percent per year and i = 0.966 percent per year. These assumptions may be reasonable in view of the market returns available on inflation-indexed bonds, after expenses and any tax. Equation (Ret-03) is readily coded in Excel and with these assumptions gives the required savings rates in the accompanying picture.


title: Retirement

text: Finally, a newer method for determining the adequacy of a retirement plan is Monte Carlo simulation. This method has been gaining popularity and is now employed by many financial planners. Monte Carlo retirement calculators allow users to enter savings, income and expense information and run simulations of retirement scenarios. The simulation results show the probability that the retirement plan will be successful.


title: Retirement

text: Retirement is generally considered to be "early" if it occurs before the age (or tenure) needed for eligibility for support and funds from government or employer-provided sources. Early retirees typically rely on their own savings and investments to be self-supporting, either indefinitely or until they begin receiving external support. Early retirement can also be used as a euphemistic term for being terminated from employment before typical retirement age.


title: Retirement

text: While conventional wisdom has it that one can retire and take 7% or more out of a portfolio year after year, this strategy would not have worked very often in the past.


title: Retirement

text: The chart at the right shows the year-to-year portfolio balances after taking $35,000 (and adjusting for inflation) from a $750,000 portfolio every year for 30 years, starting in 1973 (red line), 1974 (blue line), or 1975 (green line). While the overall market conditions and inflation affected all three about the same (since all three experienced exactly the same conditions between 1975 and 2003), the chance of making the funds last for 30 years depended heavily on what happened to the stock market in the first few years.


title: Retirement

text: Those contemplating early retirement will want to know if they have enough to survive possible bear markets such as the one that would cause the hypothetical 1973 retiree's fund to be exhausted after only 20 years.


title: Retirement

text: The history of the US stock market shows that one would need to live on about 4% of the initial portfolio per year to ensure that the portfolio is not depleted before the end of the retirement; this rule of thumb is a summary of one conclusion of the Trinity study, though the report is more nuanced and the conclusions and very approach have been heavily criticized (see Trinity study for details). This allows for increasing the withdrawals with inflation to maintain a consistent spending ability throughout the retirement, and to continue making withdrawals even in dramatic and prolonged bear markets. (The 4% figure does not assume any pension or change in spending levels throughout the retirement.)


title: Retirement

text: When retiring prior to age , there is a 10% IRS penalty on withdrawals from a retirement plan such as a 401(k) plan or a Traditional IRA. Exceptions apply under certain circumstances. At age 59 and six months, the penalty-free status is achieved and the 10% IRS penalty no longer applies.


title: Retirement

text: To avoid the 10% penalty prior to age , a person should consult a lawyer about the use of IRS rule 72 T. This rule must be applied for with the IRS. It allows the distribution of an IRA account prior to age in equal amounts of a period of either 5 years or until the age of , whichever is the longest time period, without a 10% penalty. Taxes still must be paid on the distributions.


title: Retirement

text: Although the 4% initial portfolio withdrawal rate described above can be used as a rough gauge, it is often desirable to use a retirement planning tool that accepts detailed input and can render a result that has more precision. Some of these tools model only the retirement phase of the plan while others can model both the savings or accumulation phase as well as the retirement phase of the plan. For example, an analysis by "Forbes" reckoned that in 90% of historical markets, a 4% rate would have lasted for at least 30 years, while in 50% of the historical markets, a 4% rate would have been sustained for more than 40 years.


title: Retirement

text: The effects of making inflation-adjusted withdrawals from a given starting portfolio can be modeled with a downloadable spreadsheet that uses historical stock market data to estimate likely portfolio returns. Another approach is to employ a retirement calculator that also uses historical stock market modeling, but adds provisions for incorporating pensions, other retirement income, and changes in spending that may occur during the course of the retirement.


title: Retirement

text: Retirement might coincide with important life changes; a retired worker might move to a new location, for example a retirement community, thereby having less frequent contact with their previous social context and adopting a new lifestyle. Often retirees volunteer for charities and other community organizations. Tourism is a common marker of retirement and for some becomes a way of life, such as for so-called grey nomads. Some retired people even choose to go and live in warmer climates in what is known as retirement migration.


title: Retirement

text: It has been found that Americans have six lifestyle choices as they age: continuing to work full-time, continuing to work part-time, retiring from work and becoming engaged in a variety of leisure activities, retiring from work and becoming involved in a variety of recreational and leisure activities, retiring from work and later returning to work part-time, and retiring from work and later returning to work full-time. An important note to make from these lifestyle definitions are that four of the six involve working. America is facing an important demographic change in that the Baby Boomer generation is now reaching retirement age. This poses two challenges: whether there will be a sufficient number of skilled workers in the work force, and whether the current pension programs will be sufficient to support the growing number of retired people. The reasons that some people choose to never retire, or to return to work after retiring include not only the difficulty of planning for retirement but also wages and fringe benefits, expenditure of physical and mental energy, production of goods and services, social interaction, and social status may interact to influence an individual's work force participation decision.


title: Retirement

text: Often retirees are called upon to care for grandchildren and occasionally aged parents. For many it gives them more time to devote to a hobby or sport such as golf or sailing. On the other hand, many retirees feel restless and suffer from depression as a result of their new situation. The newly retired are one of the most vulnerable social groups to become depressed most likely due to retirement coinciding with a deteriorating health status and increased care-giving responsibilities. Retirement coincides with deterioration of one's health that correlates with increasing age and this likely plays a major role in increased rates of depression in retirees. Longitudinal and cross-sectional studies have shown that healthy elderly and retired people are as happy or happier and have an equal quality of life as they age as compared to younger employed adults, therefore retirement in and of itself is not likely to contribute to development of depression. Research around what retirees would ideally like to have a fulfilling life after retiring, found the most important factors were "physical comfort, social integration, contribution, security, autonomy and enjoyment".


title: Retirement

text: Many people in the later years of their lives, due to failing health, require assistance, sometimes in extremely expensive treatments – in some countries – being provided in a nursing home. Those who need care, but are not in need of constant assistance, may choose to live in a retirement home.


title: Ghadar Movement

text: The Ghadar Movement was an early 20th century, international political movement founded by expatriate Indians to overthrow British rule in India. The early movement was created by conspirators who lived and worked on the West Coast of the United States and Canada, but the movement later spread to India and Indian diasporic communities around the world. The official founding has been dated to a meeting on 15 July 1913 in Astoria, Oregon, with the Ghadar headquarters and Hindustan Ghadar newspaper based in San Francisco, California.


title: Ghadar Movement

text: Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, some Ghadar party members returned to Punjab to incite armed revolution for Indian Independence. Ghadarites smuggled arms into India and incited Indian troops to mutiny against the British. This uprising, known as the Ghadar Mutiny, was unsuccessful, and 42 mutineers were executed following the Lahore Conspiracy Case trial. From 1914 to 1917 Ghadarites continued underground anti-colonial actions with the support of Germany and Ottoman Turkey, known as the Hindu–German Conspiracy, which led to a sensational trial in San Francisco in 1917.


title: Ghadar Movement

text: Following the war's conclusion, the party in the United States fractured into a Communist and an Indian Socialist faction. The party was formally dissolved in 1948. Key participants in the Ghadar Movement included Bhai Parmanand, Vishnu Ganesh Pingle, Sohan Singh Bhakna, Bhagwan Singh Gyanee, Har Dayal, Tarak Nath Das, Bhagat Singh Thind, Kartar Singh Sarabha, Abdul Hafiz Mohamed Barakatullah, Rashbehari Bose, and Gulab Kaur. Although its attempts at overthrowing the British Raj were unsuccessful, the insurrectionary ideals of the Ghadar Party influenced members of the Indian Independence Movement opposed to Gandhian nonviolence. To carry out other revolutionary activities, "Swadesh Sevak Home" at Vancouver and United India House at Seattle was set-up.


title: Ghadar Movement

text: "Ghadar" is a Punjabi and Urdu word derived from Arabic which means "revolt" or "rebellion." It is often also spelled Ghadr or Gadar in English. The movement's name was closely associated with its newspaper, the Hindustan Ghadar.


title: Ghadar Movement

text: Between 1903 and 1913 approximately 10,000 South Asians emigres entered North America, mostly from the rural regions of central Punjab. About half the Punjabis had served in the British military. The Canadian government decided to curtail this influx with a series of laws, which were aimed at limiting the entry of South Asians into the country and restricting the political rights of those already in the country. Many migrants came to work in the fields, factories, and logging camps of Northern California and the Pacific Northwest, where they were exposed to labor unions and the ideas of the radical Industrial Workers of the World or IWW. The migrants of the Pacific Northwest banded together in Sikh gurdwaras and formed political Hindustani Associations for mutual aid.


title: Ghadar Movement

text: Nationalist sentiments were also building around the world among South Asian emigres and students, where they could organize more freely than in British India. Several dozen students came to study at the University of Berkeley, some spurred by a scholarship offered by a wealthy Punjabi farmer. Revolutionary intellectuals like Har Dayal and Taraknath Das attempted to organize students and educate them in anarchist and nationalist ideas.


title: Ghadar Movement

text: RasBihari Bose on request from Vishnu Ganesh Pingle, an American trained Ghadar, who met Bose at Benares and requested him to take up the leadership of the coming revolution. But before accepting the responsibility, he sent Sachin Sanyal to the Punjab to assess the situation. Sachin returned very optimistic, in the United States and Canada with the aim to liberate India from British rule. The movement began with a group of immigrants known as the Hindustani Workers of the Pacific Coast.


title: Ghadar Movement

text: The Ghadar Party, initially the "Pacific Coast Hindustan Association", was formed on 15 July 1913 in the United States but before a decision to create headquarter at Yugantar Ashram in San Francisco was taken at a meeting in the town of Astoria in the state of Oregon in USA under the leadership of Har Dayal, Sant Baba Wasakha Singh Dadehar, Baba Jawala Singh, Santokh Singh and Sohan Singh Bhakna as its president. The members of the party were Indian immigrants, largely from Punjab. Many of its members were students at University of California at Berkeley including Dayal, Tarak Nath Das, Maulavi Barkatullah, Harnam Singh Tundilat, Kartar Singh Sarabha and V.G. Pingle. The party quickly gained support from Indian expatriates, especially in the United States, Canada, East Africa, and Asia.


title: Ghadar Movement

text: The party was built around the weekly paper "The Ghadar", which carried the caption on the masthead: "Angrezi Raj Ka Dushman" (an enemy of the British rule). "Wanted brave soldiers", the Ghadar declared, "to stir up rebellion in India. Pay-death; Price-martyrdom; Pension-liberty; Field of battle-India". The ideology of the party was strongly secular. In the words of Sohan Singh Bhakna, who later became a major peasant leader of Punjab: "We were not Sikhs or Punjabis. Our religion was patriotism". The first issue of "The Ghadar", was published in San Francisco on 1 November 1913.


title: Ghadar Movement

text: As Kartar Singh Sarabha, one of the founders of the party, wrote in the first issue: "Today there begins 'Ghadar' in foreign lands, but in our country's tongue, a war against the British Raj. What is our name? Ghadar. What is our work? Ghadar. Where will be the Revolution? In India. The time will soon come when rifles and blood will take the place of pens and ink."


title: Ghadar Movement

text: Following the voyage of the Komagata Maru in 1914, a direct challenge to Canadian anti-Indian immigration laws, several thousand Indians resident in the United States sold their business and homes ready to drive the British from India. The British government respond by passing the , However, Har Dayal had fled to Europe concerned that the U.S. authorities would hand him over to the British. Sohan Singh Bhakna was already in British hands, and the leadership fell to Ram Chandra. Following the entry of Canada into World War I, the organisation was centred in the USA and received substantial funding from the German government. They had a very militant tone, as illustrated by this quote from Harnam Singh:


title: Ghadar Movement

text: The party rose to prominence in the second decade of the 20th century, and grew in strength owing to Indian discontent over World War I and the lack of political reforms.


title: Ghadar Movement

text: In 1917 some of their leaders were arrested and put on trial in the Hindu German Conspiracy Trial in which their paper was quoted.


title: Ghadar Movement

text: In 1914, Kasi Ram Joshi a member of the party from Haryana, returned to India from America. On 15 March 1915 he was hanged by the colonial government.


title: Ghadar Movement

text: The Ghadar party commanded a loyal following the province of Punjab, but many of its most prominent activists were forced into exile to Canada and the United States. It ceased to play an active role in Indian politics after.


title: Ghadar Movement

text: Although publication such as independence Hindustan and revolution activities of Ghadar Party against British rule continued from 5 wood street San Francisco, place where Ghadar Memorial has been built but Har Dayal one among its founding members severed all connections with revolutionists by its open letter published in March 1919 in Indian newspapers and new Statesman USA, and by writing to British Goveronment for obtaining Amnesty for himself.


title: Ghadar Movement

text: The party had active members in other countries such as Mexico, Japan, China, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Malaya, Indo-China and Eastern and Southern Africa.


title: Beer in Australia

text: Beer arrived in Australia at the beginning of British colonisation. In 2004 Australia was ranked fourth internationally in per capita beer consumption, at around 110 litres per year; although, the nation ranked considerably lower in a World Health Organization report of alcohol consumption per capita of 12.2 litres. Lager is by far the most popular type of beer consumed in Australia.


title: Beer in Australia

text: The oldest brewery still in operation is the Cascade Brewery, established in Tasmania in 1824. The largest Australian-owned brewery is the family-owned Coopers Brewery, as the other two major breweries Carlton & United Breweries and Lion Nathan are owned by Japan's Asahi and Kirin Brewing Company respectively.


title: Beer in Australia

text: Non-alcohol beer variations continue to increase their market share in Australia. According to BWS in December 2019, non alcoholic beer sales had risen 60% since July that year.


title: Beer in Australia

text: Within an alcoholic beverage market worth some $16.3 billion, beer comprises about 48% compared to wine at 29% and spirits at 21%. Within the beer sector, premium beers have a 7.8% share of the market; full-strength beer has 70.6%; mid-strength holds 12%; and light beer has 9.6%. 85% of beer is produced by national brewers, the remainder by regional or microbreweries. Microbreweries manufacturing less than 30,000 litres receive a 60% excise rebate.


title: Beer in Australia

text: The history of Australian beer starts very early in Australia's colonial history. Captain James Cook brought beer with him on his ship Endeavour as a means of preserving drinking water. On 1 August 1768, as Cook was fitting out the Endeavour for its voyage, Nathaniel Hulme wrote to Joseph Banks with a recommendation:


title: Beer in Australia

text: Beer was still being consumed on-board two years later in 1770, when Cook was the first European to discover the east coast of Australia.


title: Beer in Australia

text: The drink of choice for the first settlers and convicts was rum, as represented in a supposed traditional convict song:


title: Beer in Australia

text: The first official brewer in Australia was John Boston who brewed a beverage from Indian corn bittered with cape gooseberry leaves. It is likely though that beer was brewed unofficially much earlier. The first pub, the Mason Arms was opened in 1796 in Parramatta by James Larra, a freed convict.


title: Beer in Australia

text: Rum was so popular—and official currency was in such short supply—that it became a semi-official currency for a period of time (see Rum corps), and even played a role in a short-lived military coup, the Rum rebellion in 1808. Drunkenness was a significant problem in the early colony:


title: Beer in Australia

text: Although modern Australian beer is predominantly lager, early Australian beers were exclusively top-fermented and quick-maturing ales. Lager was not brewed in Australia until 1885. Early beers were also brewed without the benefit of hops, as no-one had successfully cultivated hops in Australia and importation was difficult. James Squire was the first to successfully cultivate hops in 1804, and he also opened a pub and brewed beer. The "Government Gazette" from 1806 mentions that he was awarded a cow herd from the government for his efforts.


title: Beer in Australia

text: In September 1804, a government-owned brewery opened in Parramatta, followed by a rival privately owned brewery three months later. The government brewery was sold two years later to Thomas Rushton, who was its head (and only) brewer. Brewing rapidly expanded in all of the Australian colonies and by 1871 there were 126 breweries in Victoria alone, which at the time had a population of only 800,000.


title: Beer in Australia

text: Tasmania was the first Australian colony to tax beer. Its Beer Duty Act of 1880 established a duty of 3 pence per gallon which was raised to four pence in 1892.


title: Beer in Australia

text: By 1900 the number of breweries had begun to dwindle as a result of the recession of the 1890s. In 1901, just after Federation, the new federal government passed the Beer and Excise Act. This act regulated the making and selling of beer and made homebrewing illegal. The provisions in this act, regarded by many as draconian, led to the closure of many breweries. In Sydney 16 out of 21 breweries closed either immediately after the act's introduction or soon afterwards. The remaining breweries began a process of consolidation, with larger breweries buying out the smaller ones. Within a short period of time, only two breweries remained in Sydney: Tooths and Tooheys. In Melbourne, five breweries merged in 1907 to form the giant Carlton and United Breweries.


title: Beer in Australia

text: Since 2011, Kirin-owned Lion Co and AB InBev-owned Foster's Group own every major brewery in Australia, with the exception of Coopers.


title: Beer in Australia

text: Boag's Brewery, previously owned by San Miguel, was sold to Lion Nathan for A$325 million in November 2007. In 2006 Boag's Brewery reported total revenues of A$92 million.


title: Beer in Australia

text: Although Foster's Lager is not a popular domestic beer in the 21st century, its popularity internationally has grown and the product is made mostly for export. In January 2005, the brand was one of the ten best-selling beers globally.


title: Beer in Australia

text: The introduction of the Tap King product by Lion Nathan in mid-2013 caused controversy due to the perceived impact upon alcohol venues. The product is a home draught beer dispenser and raised concerns regarding lower patronage rates for venues due to a greater incentive for consumers to drink beer in home environments. The product is sold with a gas chamber that is cooled for eight hours prior to use.


title: Beer in Australia

text: Before federation in 1901, Australia was a patchwork of separate colonies, each with different laws regulating the production and sale of alcohol. In addition, until the late 1880s when the rail network began to link the capital cities together, the only means of transporting foods in bulk between the colonies was by sea. This prevented even the largest breweries from distributing significant amounts outside their home city. This allowed strong regional brands to emerge; and, although all but one of the major regional brands (Coopers) are now owned by multinational companies, loyalty to the local brewery remains strong today.


title: Beer in Australia

text: While Foster's Group owns many of these brands, Foster's Lager itself is not considered a local drink anywhere in Australia.


title: Beer in Australia

text: Speciality brews in Australia are produced by both major brewers and microbreweries, and include a wide variety of ales. Microbreweries exist throughout the country, including small towns, but the availability of such beers on-tap in venues is often limited.


title: Beer in Australia

text: Microbrewery Nail Brewing, from Perth, Western Australia, produced a beer in 2010 using water from an Antarctic iceberg, and sold it at auction for US$1,850. The batch of 30 bottles was created to raise money for the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which assisted with the procuring of the ice.


title: Beer in Australia

text: Imported premium beers have started to gain market share in Australia. The two Australian corporate brewers responded to this by signing licence agreements with foreign brands to brew their beers here. Foster's Group brews Kronenbourg. Coopers Brewery brews Carlsberg in Australia. Lion Nathan locally produces Guinness, Heineken, Beck's, Stella Artois and Kirin. Brewers claim that their locally produced product tastes better because it is fresher, and local operations are overseen by the parent brewers using strict guidelines. However, groups such as the Australian Consumers Association say that such beers should have clearer, more prominent labels to inform drinkers.


title: Beer in Australia

text: Prior to metrication in Australia, one could buy beer or cider in glasses of 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 15 or 20 (imperial) fluid ounces. Each sized glass had a different name in each Australian state.


title: Beer in Australia

text: These were replaced by glasses of size 115, 140, 170, 200, 285, 425 and 570 mL, and as Australians travel more, the differences are decreasing.


title: Beer in Australia

text: Smaller sizes have been phased out over time, and in the 21st century, very few pubs serve glasses smaller than 200 mL (approximately 7 imp fl oz).


title: Beer in Australia

text: Those typically available are the 200 mL, 285 mL (10 fl oz) and 425 mL (15 fl oz), with increasingly many pubs also having pints (570 mL, approximately 20 imp fl oz) available. It is also common for pubs and hotels to serve large jugs filled to 1140ml ( approximately two imp pints).


title: Beer in Australia

text: Many imported beers are also served in their own branded glasses of various sizes, including , and for many European beers.


title: Beer in Australia

text: With the introduction of the National Trade Measurement Regulations in 2009 there are no prescribed sizes for beverage measures for the sale of beer, ale and stout, so terms such as seven, middy, pot or schooner do not legally specify a particular size. A typical "schooner" glass can be calibrated to hold 425ml to the rim but poured with 15mm of head, resulting in a "schooner" of 375ml of beer and 50ml of froth.


title: Beer in Australia

text: Many of these sizes are now rarely used. In contemporary SA pubs and restaurants, the most frequent measures are the "schooner" of 285 mL (an imperial half pint), and the "pint" of 425 mL. "Imperial pints" are also increasingly popular, along with the sale of "premium" and non-locally brewed beer in bottles of between 300 mL to 375 mL.


title: Beer in Australia

text: Note that the SA "schooner" and "pint" are considerably smaller than the measures of the same name used elsewhere:


title: Beer in Australia

text: Headmasters is one of the most common glass manufacturers, at least for the schooner size. Many pubs, in Sydney and Melbourne particularly, offer Guinness style and/or conical pint glasses along with tankard glass and British dimpled glass pint mugs.


title: Beer in Australia

text: Larger serving measurements have become increasingly popular, such as Jugs, 1 fluid litre Maß (pronounced like "mass", normally in German-themed bars) and beer towers (although technically illegal due to strict self-service of alcohol laws, these are in some Asian bars/karaoke parlours) have grown in popularity around Australia in tourist spots.


title: Beer in Australia

text: Prior to metrication, beer bottles were frequently , while a carton of beer contained a dozen bottles (two gallons) of beer.


title: Beer in Australia

text: Originally, the bottles were reduced slightly to , but with metrication they became , with a carton of of beer.


title: Beer in Australia

text: From the 1950s, bottles known as "stubbies" (as compared to traditional bottles, they were "stubby") of were introduced. In 1958, cans were introduced by CUB, which were originally in steel and the same size as the bottle; other breweries introduced these in the 1960s.


title: Beer in Australia

text: Originally the stubbies and cans were reduced slightly to , but with metrication they became , and the cans were later made of aluminium to accommodate its increasing use and lower cost compared to steel.


title: Beer in Australia

text: A carton of nine litres of beer in stubbies (i.e. 24 bottles) or cans became known as a "slab" because compared to the more cube-like shape of the traditional cartons, they were flatter, and hence, like slabs.


title: Beer in Australia

text: Traditional bottles subsequently became known as "long necks" or "tallies" to distinguish them from stubbies, and in Western Australia, the 750ml "long neck" bottle is known as a "king brown" because of the size and typical brown coloured glass.


title: Beer in Australia

text: In the 21st century, most bottled beer in Australia is sold in 250 mL (Throwdown/Twist Top), 375 mL (Stubby) or 750 mL (Long Neck) sizes. Carlton United briefly increased to 800 mL in the 1990s and 2000s, but this has since been reduced to the original 750 mL.


title: Beer in Australia

text: Bottle sizes of 330 mL, 345 mL and 355 mL (imported from the United States, equal to 12 US fl oz) are becoming increasingly common, particularly among microbreweries, so-called "premium" beers, and imported beers.


title: Beer in Australia

text: In the Northern Territory, the once-common "Darwin Stubby", a large two litre bottle, is now sold largely as a tourist gimmick, albeit very successfully.


title: Beer in Australia

text: Most bottles are lightweight "single use only", though some are still reusable, and in some cases (e.g. Coopers 750 mL), breweries are reintroducing refillable bottles, such as the Growler (a large bottle of approximately two litres intended for re-use) sold by Four Pines Brewery - a boon to home brewers. In South Australia, container deposits on beer bottles and cans (and some other types of beverage containers) support a well established network of recycling centres, providing significant environmental benefits as well as generating employment opportunities for unskilled workers.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: Consensus decision-making or consensus process (often abbreviated to "consensus") are group decision-making processes in which participants develop and decide on proposals with the aim, or requirement, of acceptance by all. The focus on establishing agreement of at least the majority or the supermajority and avoiding unproductive opinion differentiates consensus from unanimity, which requires all participants to support a decision.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: The word "consensus" is Latin meaning "agreement, accord", derived from "consentire" meaning "feel together". Broadly, "consensus" relates to a generally accepted opinion, but in the context of this article refers to the process "and" the outcome of consensus decision-making (e.g. "to decide "by" consensus" and ""a" consensus was reached").


title: Consensus decision-making

text: Consensus decision-making, as a self-described practice, originates from several nonviolent, direct action groups that were active in the Civil rights, Peace and Women's movements, themselves part of the larger U.S. counterculture of the 1960s. The practice gained popularity in the 1970s through the anti-nuclear movement, and peaked in popularity in the early 1980s. Consensus spread abroad through the anti-globalization and climate movements, and has become normalized in anti-authoritarian spheres in conjunction with affinity groups and ideas of participatory democracy and prefigurative politics. Despite similar practices being observed in different cultures throughout history, there are almost no literary uses of "consensus decision-making" or "consensus process" prior to 1960.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: The Movement for a New Society (MNS) has been credited for popularizing consensus decision-making. Unhappy with the inactivity of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) against the Vietnam War, Lawrence Scott started A Quaker Action Group (AQAG) in 1966 to try and encourage activism within the Quakers. By 1971 AQAG members felt they needed not only to end the war, but transform civil society as a whole, and renamed AQAG to MNS. MNS members used consensus decision-making from the beginning as a non-religious adaptation of the Quaker decision-making they were used to. MNS trained the anti-nuclear Clamshell Alliance (1976) and Abalone Alliance (1977) to use consensus, and in 1977 published "Resource Manual for a Living Revolution", which included a section on consensus.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: An earlier account of consensus decision-making comes from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the main student organization of the civil rights movement, founded in 1960. Early SNCC member Mary King, later reflected: "we tried to make all decisions by consensus ... it meant discussing a matter and reformulating it until no objections remained". This way of working was brought to the SNCC at its formation by the Nashville student group, who had received nonviolence training from James Lawson and Myles Horton at the Highlander Folk School. However, as the SNCC faced growing internal and external pressure toward the mid-1960s, it developed into a more hierarchical structure, eventually abandoning consensus.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: Women Strike for Peace (WSP) are also accounted as independently used consensus from their founding in 1961. Eleanor Garst (herself influenced by Quakers) introduced the practice as part of the loose and participatory structure of WSP.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: As consensus grew in popularity, it became less clear who influenced who. Food Not Bombs, which started in 1980 in connection with an occupation of Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant organized by the Clamshell Alliance, adopted consensus for their organization. Consensus was used in the 1999 Seattle WTO protests, which inspired the S11 (World Economic Forum protest) in 2000 to do so too. Consensus was used at the first Camp for Climate Action (2006) and subsequent camps. Occupy Wall Street (2011) made use of consensus, popularizing the people's microphone and hand signals.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: Consensus decision-making is an alternative to commonly practiced group decision-making processes. "Robert's Rules of Order", for instance, is a guide book used by many organizations. This book allows the structuring of debate and passage of proposals that can be approved through majority vote. It does not emphasize the goal of full agreement. Critics of such a process believe that it can involve adversarial debate and the formation of competing factions. These dynamics may harm group member relationships and undermine the ability of a group to cooperatively implement a contentious decision. Consensus decision-making attempts to address the beliefs of such problems. Proponents claim that outcomes of the consensus process include:


title: Consensus decision-making

text: Consensus is not synonymous with unanimity – though that may be a rule agreed to in a decision-making process. The level of agreement necessary to finalize a decision is known as a decision rule.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: Generally such rules assume a certain number of participants and thus would satisfy consensus thresholds stated in percentage terms. That is, if a majority of nine may override three in a group of twelve, that is a 75% consensus threshold but it is also a "unanimity minus three" threshold, and may be stated either or both ways, as in "75% or unanimity minus three whichever is harder to achieve", in a group's constitution. Such a statement allows for minorities to be more robustly represented in abstention or absence scenarios.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: Even in rapid decision making contexts, minorities (the "minus") have the right to have dissenting opinion or negative outcome predictions recorded.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: If there is any single simple rule that defines what is not consensus decision-making, it is censoring the dissenting opinion. Regardless of how decisions are made, dissents are always recorded in all consensus decision making systems, if only so that accuracy of predictions can be examined later so the group can learn. This principle can be applied in any system, but it is fundamental to all consensus. More controversially, systems that require unanimity are prone to hiding or intimidating, rather than recording, dissent (for example, groupthink). Many authors consider unanimity to be a sign of an inherently wrong decision. The Sanhedrin courts of ancient Israel were of this view, and biblical scholars note that the trial of Jesus was inherently unfair for being a unanimous guilty verdict.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: In groups of human participants, there are psychological implications to dissent, and not all participants are equal. For example, participants may:


title: Consensus decision-making

text: For these reasons, most consensus decision-making emphasizes finding out why dissent occurs. In democratic contexts, political theory debates how to deal with dissent and consensus where violent opposition is possible (or even likely). Weale (1999) states the problem as:


title: Consensus decision-making

text: Rules and processes simply are never enough to resolve these questions, and a robust debate for millennia on political virtues has focused on what human characteristics participants must cultivate to achieve harmony under diversity.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: To ensure the agreement or consent of all participants is valued, many groups choose unanimity or near-unanimity as their decision rule. Groups that require unanimity allow individual participants the option of blocking a group decision. This provision motivates a group to make sure that all group members consent to any new proposal before it is adopted. Proper guidelines for the use of this option, however, are important. The ethics of consensus decision-making encourage participants to place the good of the whole group above their own individual preferences. When there is potential for a block to a group decision, both the group and dissenters in the group are encouraged to collaborate until agreement can be reached. Simply vetoing a decision is not considered a responsible use of consensus blocking. Some common guidelines for the use of consensus blocking include:


title: Consensus decision-making

text: A participant who does not support a proposal may have alternatives to simply blocking it. Some common options may include the ability to:


title: Consensus decision-making

text: All attempts at achieving consensus begin with a good faith attempt at generating full-agreement, regardless of decision rule threshold.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: In the "spokescouncil" model, affinity groups make joint decisions by each designating a speaker and sitting behind that circle of spokespeople, akin to the spokes of a wheel. While speaking rights might be limited to each group's designee, the meeting may allot breakout time for the constituent groups to discuss an issue and return to the circle via their spokesperson. In the case of an activist spokescouncil preparing for the A16 Washington D.C. protests in 2000, affinity groups disputed their spokescouncil's imposition of nonviolence in their action guidelines. They received the reprieve of letting groups self-organize their protests, and as the city's protest was subsequently divided into pie slices, each blockaded by an affinity group's choice of protest. Many of the participants learned about the spokescouncil model on the fly by participating in it directly, and came to better understand their planned action by hearing others' concerns and voicing their own.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: In "Designing an All-Inclusive Democracy" (2007), Emerson proposes a consensus oriented approach based on the Modified Borda Count voting method. The group first elects, say, three referees or consensors. The debate on the chosen problem is initiated by the facilitator calling for proposals. Every proposed option is accepted if the referees decide it is relevant and conforms with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The referees produce and display a list of these options. The debate proceeds, with queries, comments, criticisms and/or even new options. If the debate fails to come to a verbal consensus, the referees draw up a final list of options - usually between 4 and 6 - to represent the debate. When all agree, the chair calls for a preferential vote, as per the rules for a Modified Borda Count, MBC. The referees decide which option, or which composite of the two leading options, is the outcome. If its level of support surpasses a minimum consensus coefficient, it may be adopted.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: Once an agenda for discussion has been set and, optionally, the ground rules for the meeting have been agreed upon, each item of the agenda is addressed in turn. Typically, each decision arising from an agenda item follows through a simple structure:


title: Consensus decision-making

text: Quaker-based consensus is said to be effective because it puts in place a simple, time-tested structure that moves a group towards unity. The Quaker model is intended to allow hearing individual voices while providing a mechanism for dealing with disagreements.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: The Quaker model has been adapted by Earlham College for application to secular settings, and can be effectively applied in any consensus decision-making process.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: Key components of Quaker-based consensus include a belief in a common humanity and the ability to decide together. The goal is "unity, not unanimity." Ensuring that group members speak only once until others are heard encourages a diversity of thought. The facilitator is understood as serving the group rather than acting as person-in-charge. In the Quaker model, as with other consensus decision-making processes, articulating the emerging consensus allows members to be clear on the decision in front of them. As members' views are taken into account they are likely to support it.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: The consensus decision-making process often has several roles designed to make the process run more effectively. Although the name and nature of these roles varies from group to group, the most common are the facilitator, consensor, a timekeeper, an empath and a secretary or notes taker. Not all decision-making bodies use all of these roles, although the facilitator position is almost always filled, and some groups use supplementary roles, such as a Devil's advocate or greeter. Some decision-making bodies rotate these roles through the group members in order to build the experience and skills of the participants, and prevent any perceived concentration of power.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: Critics of consensus blocking often observe that the option, while potentially effective for small groups of motivated or trained individuals with a sufficiently high degree of affinity, has a number of possible shortcomings, notably


title: Consensus decision-making

text: Consensus seeks to improve solidarity in the long run. Accordingly, it should not be confused with unanimity in the immediate situation, which is often a symptom of groupthink. Studies of effective consensus process usually indicate a shunning of unanimity or "illusion of unanimity" that does not hold up as a group comes under real-world pressure (when dissent reappears). Cory Doctorow, Ralph Nader and other proponents of deliberative democracy or judicial-like methods view explicit dissent as a symbol of strength.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: In his book about Wikipedia, Joseph Reagle considers the merits and challenges of consensus in open and online communities. Randy Schutt, Starhawk and other practitioners of direct action focus on the hazards of apparent agreement followed by action in which group splits become dangerously obvious.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: Unanimous, or apparently unanimous, decisions can have drawbacks. They may be symptoms of a systemic bias, a rigged process (where an agenda is not published in advance or changed when it becomes clear who is present to consent), fear of speaking one's mind, a lack of creativity (to suggest alternatives) or even a lack of courage (to go further along the same road to a more extreme solution that would not achieve unanimous consent).


title: Consensus decision-making

text: Unanimity is achieved when the full group apparently consents to a decision. It has disadvantages insofar as further disagreement, improvements or better ideas then remain hidden, but effectively ends the debate moving it to an implementation phase. Some consider all unanimity a form of groupthink, and some experts propose "coding systems ... for detecting the illusion of unanimity symptom". In "Consensus is not Unanimity", long-time progressive change activist Randy Schutt writes:


title: Consensus decision-making

text: Confusion between unanimity and consensus, in other words, usually causes consensus decision-making to fail, and the group then either reverts to majority or supermajority rule or disbands.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: Most robust models of consensus exclude uniformly unanimous decisions and require at least documentation of minority concerns. Some state clearly that unanimity is not consensus but rather evidence of intimidation, lack of imagination, lack of courage, failure to include all voices, or deliberate exclusion of the contrary views.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: Some proponents of consensus decision-making view procedures that use majority rule as undesirable for several reasons. Majority voting is regarded as competitive, rather than cooperative, framing decision-making in a win/lose dichotomy that ignores the possibility of compromise or other mutually beneficial solutions. Carlos Santiago Nino, on the other hand, has argued that majority rule leads to better deliberation practice than the alternatives, because it requires each member of the group to make arguments that appeal to at least half the participants.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: Some advocates of consensus would assert that a majority decision reduces the commitment of each individual decision-maker to the decision. Members of a minority position may feel less commitment to a majority decision, and even majority voters who may have taken their positions along party or bloc lines may have a sense of reduced responsibility for the ultimate decision. The result of this reduced commitment, according to many consensus proponents, is potentially less willingness to defend or act upon the decision.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: Majority voting cannot measure consensus. Indeed,—so many 'for' and so many 'against'—it measures the very opposite, the degree of dissent. The Modified Borda Count has been put forward as a voting method which better approximates consensus.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: Some formal models based on graph theory attempt to explore the implications of suppressed dissent and subsequent sabotage of the group as it takes action.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: High-stakes decision-making, such as judicial decisions of appeals courts, always require some such explicit documentation. Consent however is still observed that defies factional explanations. Nearly 40% of the decisions of the United States Supreme Court, for example, are unanimous, though often for widely varying reasons. "Consensus in Supreme Court voting, particularly the extreme consensus of unanimity, has often puzzled Court observers who adhere to ideological accounts of judicial decision making." Historical evidence is mixed on whether particular Justices' views were suppressed in favour of public unity.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: Heitzig and Simmons (2012) suggest using random selection as a fall-back method to strategically incentivize consensus over blocking. However, this makes it very difficult to tell the difference between those who support the decision and those who merely tactically tolerate it for the incentive. Once they receive that incentive, they may undermine or refuse to implement the agreement in various and non-obvious ways. In general voting systems avoid allowing offering incentives (or "bribes") to change a heartfelt vote.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: In the Abilene paradox, a group can unanimously agree on a course of action that no individual member of the group desires because no one individual is willing to go against the perceived will of the decision-making body.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: Since consensus decision-making focuses on discussion and seeks the input of all participants, it can be a time-consuming process. This is a potential liability in situations where decisions must be made speedily, or where it is not possible to canvass opinions of all delegates in a reasonable time. Additionally, the time commitment required to engage in the consensus decision-making process can sometimes act as a barrier to participation for individuals unable or unwilling to make the commitment. However, once a decision has been reached it can be acted on more quickly than a decision handed down. American businessmen complained that in negotiations with a Japanese company, they had to discuss the idea with everyone even the janitor, yet once a decision was made the Americans found the Japanese were able to act much quicker because everyone was on board, while the Americans had to struggle with internal opposition.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: Outside of Western culture, multiple other cultures have used consensus decision-making. One early example is the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy Grand Council, which used a 75% supermajority to finalize its decisions, potentially as early as 1142. In the Xulu and Xhosa (South African) process of indaba, community leaders gather to listen to the public and negotiate figurative thresholds towards an acceptable compromise. The technique was also used during the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference. In Aceh and Nias cultures (Indonesian), family and regional disputes, from playground fights to estate inheritance, are handled through a "musyawarah" consensus-building process in which parties mediate to find peace and avoid future hostility and revenge. The resulting agreements are expected to be followed, and range from advice and warnings to compensation and exile.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: The origins of formal consensus-making can be traced significantly further back, to the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, who adopted the technique as early as the 17th century. Anabaptists, including some Mennonites, have a history of using consensus decision-making and some believe Anabaptists practiced consensus as early as the Martyrs' Synod of 1527. Some Christians trace consensus decision-making back to the Bible. The Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia references, in particular, Acts 15 as an example of consensus in the New Testament. The lack of legitimate consensus process in the unanimous conviction of Jesus by corrupt priests in an illegally held Sanhedrin court (which had rules preventing unanimous conviction in a hurried process) strongly influenced the views of pacifist Protestants, including the Anabaptists (Mennonites/Amish), Quakers and Shakers. In particular it influenced their distrust of expert-led courtrooms and to "be clear about process" and convene in a way that assures that "everyone must be heard".


title: Consensus decision-making

text: The Modified Borda Count voting method has been advocated as more 'consensual' than majority voting, by, among others, by Ramón Llull in 1199, by Nicholas Cusanus in 1435, by Jean-Charles de Borda in 1784, by Hother Hage in 1860, by Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) in 1884, and by Peter Emerson in 1986.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: Japanese companies normally use consensus decision-making, meaning that unanimous support on the board of directors is sought for any decision. A "ringi-sho" is a circulation document used to obtain agreement. It must first be signed by the lowest level manager, and then upwards, and may need to be revised and the process started over.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: In the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), decisions are assumed to be taken by "rough consensus". The IETF has studiously refrained from defining a mechanical method for verifying such consensus, apparently in the belief that any such codification leads to attempts to "game the system." Instead, a working group (WG) chair or BoF chair is supposed to articulate the "sense of the group."


title: Consensus decision-making

text: One tradition in support of rough consensus is the tradition of humming rather than (countable) hand-raising; this allows a group to quickly discern the prevalence of dissent, without making it easy to slip into majority rule.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: Much of the business of the IETF is carried out on mailing lists, where all parties can speak their views at all times.


title: Consensus decision-making

text: In 2001, Robert Rocco Cottone published a consensus-based model of professional decision-making for counselors and psychologists. Based on social constructivist philosophy, the model operates as a consensus-building model, as the clinician addresses ethical conflicts through a process of negotiating to consensus. Conflicts are resolved by consensually agreed on arbitrators who are selected early in the negotiation process.