text: The All-Ireland Qualifiers were introduced in 2001. Later that year, the 2001 final brought victory for Galway who became the first football team to win an All-Ireland by springing through "the back door." In 2013, Hawk-Eye was introduced for Championship matches at Croke Park. It was first used to confirm that Offaly substitute Peter Cunningham's attempted point had gone wide 10 minutes into the second half of a game against Kildare. 2013 also brought the first Friday night game in the history of the Championship – a first round qualifier between Carlow and Laois.


title: All-Ireland Senior Football Championship

text: In recent years further changes have been made to the structure of the championship. In 2018 the Super 8s were introduced, where the four provincial champions and the four-round 4 qualifier winners would be split into two groups of four teams. Each team plays their group rivals once, with the top two teams progressing to the All-Ireland Semi-Finals. In 2022 a two-tier format will be adopted for the championship. Division 3 and 4 teams from the National Football League that fail to reach a provincial final will not proceed to the All-Ireland qualifiers and will instead play in the Tailitean Cup.


text: Teams in the top two levels are separated via the provincial championships and the national football league. Teams from tier 3 may reach tiers 1 and 2 through promotion.


text: The county is a geographical region in Ireland, and each of the thirty-two counties in Ireland organise their own Gaelic games affairs through a County Board. The county teams play in their respective Provincial Championships (reflective of the four Irish provinces) in Connacht (which also includes teams from London and New York), Leinster, Munster, and Ulster. Kilkenny is currently unique among the 32 Irish county associations in not participating in the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship. The Provincial Championships operate through a knock-out cup competition format.


text: For the first All-Ireland championship in 1887, the competition was played on an open draw knockout basis. From 1888, the provincial system was introduced, whereby the counties in each of Ireland's four provinces would play each other on a knockout basis to find provincial champions. These four champions would meet in the All-Ireland semi-finals. The structure outlined above was adopted in 2001 to allow more games to be played, but still retain provincial championships and the knockout structure, resulting in every game continuing to be a meaningful fixture, with no dead-rubber league format matches being played out.


text: From 2001 to 2017, the Championship was played using the Quarter-finals format. Under this format, Provincial matches would take place during the months of May, June and July. The winners of each of the four Provincial Championships would earn a place in the All-Ireland Quarter-Finals, which would take place in the month of August. Replays would be played for all drawn matches, not just drawn Provincial Finals and drawn All-Ireland Finals. Extra-time would only be used for Replays and Qualifier Matches. If the teams were still level after extra time, the qualifier match would go to a replay or in the case of replays, another replay would take place.


text: The qualifiers series would take place in the months of June and July with the winning four teams of Round 4 playing the four Provincial Champions in the All-Ireland Quarter Finals.


text: This championship was identical to the format above, though with no second-tier championship all teams who failed to win their provincial final were eligible to play in the qualifiers. The qualifiers took place over four rounds rather than two, and the four winners of the fourth round proceeded to the All-Ireland Super 8s. As in the format above, the further a team progressed in their provincial championships the later the round they entered the qualifiers. The All-Ireland Super 8s were a round-robin group stage, featuring four teams placed into two groups. The two-highest ranked teams from each group were drawn into an All-Ireland Semi-Final, which was followed by the All-Ireland Final.


text: Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 and 2021 championships returned to the historic single-elimination format. Teams that were eliminated in their provincial championships did not access the qualifiers, which were cancelled, and the "Super 8's" were removed in favour of a straight-knockout semi-final and final.


text: In 2023 the format of the championship will again be altered. Under this system, approved at a Special Congress of the GAA in February 2022, the results in the National Football League (held in January through to March of each year) will have an impact on a counties progression in the championship. After the conclusion of the four provincial championships, whose structures remain unaltered, there will be a round-robin competition for 16 teams, split evenly into four. The groups will be made up of the four provincial champions and four runners-up, joined by a further eight teams based on their overall ranking from the league. The four group winners will automatically qualify for the All-Ireland Quarter Finals, and the four remaining spots in the quarter-finals are determined by playoff-matches between the second and third placed teams. The quarter finals, semi finals and final are then played under the traditional single-elimination format. Furthermore, the 16 teams that fail to qualify for the round-robin stage will compete in the second-tier Tailteann Cup, which is also played via round-robin groups and single-elimination finals.


text: Typically, over the four Sundays of September, All-Ireland Finals in men's football, ladies football, hurling and camogie take place at Croke Park, the national stadium of the GAA. Two grades are played on each final day, the "senior" team and the "minor" team (consisting of younger players, under the age of 18, who have participated in that year's All-Ireland Minor Football Championship). Guests who attend these events include the President of Ireland, the Taoiseach and other important dignitaries. The football final is considered the pinnacle event of this period.


text: The final game of the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship takes place on the third Sunday of September. The men's decider regularly attracts crowds of over 80,000. The winning team captain receives the Sam Maguire Cup. The current champions are Tyrone.


text: Due to COVID-19 and the related State restrictions, the 2020 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final was staged on Saturday, 19 December, two weeks after the semi-finals.


text: For the first time since 2000, the football championship was a sudden-death scenario, while the hurling championship – completed on Sunday, 13 December – contained a backdoor format.


text: Although Wexford were the first county to win four consecutive All-Ireland Senior Football Finals (1915–18), historically Kerry has been the most successful football team in the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship. As of 2022, Kerry has won the competition on 38 occasions, winning in four consecutive years twice (1929–1932 and 1978–1981) and for three consecutive years twice as well (1939–1941 and 1984–1986).


text: Dublin follows Kerry on the competition roll of honour with 30 wins, although up to the 1950s much of the success of Dublin teams was based on teams who had many non-Dublin born players playing.


text: Dublin has joined the four in a row club winning the competition consecutively since 2014. As of 2019, Dublin became the first team to win the competition five times in a row. And in 2020, Dublin won a sixth consecutive title. Galway were the first team from the western province of Connacht to win an All-Ireland title, doing so in 1925. The 1933 final brought victory for Cavan, who became the first team from the northern province of Ulster to win an All-Ireland title.


text: Two teams have won the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship as part of a double with that year's All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship, namely Cork (1890 and 1990) and Tipperary (1895 and 1900). The championship has never been won by a team from outside Ireland, though London have played in five finals.


text: Kerry are the reigning champions, winning their thirty-eighth title, having defeated Galway in the 2022 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final.


title: Kinyarwanda

text: Kinyarwanda, Rwandan or Rwanda, officially known as Ikinyarwanda, is a Bantu language and a dialect of the Rwanda-Rundi language that is spoken in Rwanda and adjacent parts of Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda (where there is a dialect known as Rufumbira or Urufumbira) and Tanzania. Kinyarwanda is universal among the native hearing population of Rwanda. The mutually intelligible Kirundi dialect is the national language of neighbouring Burundi. Kinyabwishya and Kinyamulenge are mutually intelligible dialects spoken in North Kivu and South Kivu provinces of neighbouring DR Congo.


title: Kinyarwanda

text: In 2010, the Rwanda Academy of Language and Culture (RALC) was established to help promote and sustain Kinyarwanda. The organization attempted an orthographic reform in 2014, but it was met with pushback due to their perceived top-down and political nature, among other reasons.


title: Kinyarwanda

text: Kinyarwanda is spoken in Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, Uganda and Tanzania. It is also spoken by some Rwandans in Kenya.


title: Kinyarwanda

text: Rufumbira, Fumbira or Urufumbira, spoken by the Bafumbira of the Kisoro District of Uganda, is a dialect of Kinyarwanda.


title: Kinyarwanda

text: Kinyarwanda is a tonal language. Like many Bantu languages, it has a two-way contrast between high and low tones (low-tone syllables may be analyzed as toneless). The realization of tones in Kinyarwanda is influenced by a complex set of phonological rules.


title: Kinyarwanda

text: Except in a few morphological contexts, the sequences 'ki' and 'ke' may be pronounced interchangeably as and or and according to speaker's preference.


title: Kinyarwanda

text: The letters 'a', 'e', or 'i' at the end of a word followed by a word starting with a vowel often follows a pattern of omission (observed in the following excerpt of the Rwandan anthem) in common speech, though the orthography remains the same. For example, "Reka tukurate tukuvuge ibigwi wowe utubumbiye hamwe twese Abanyarwanda uko watubyaye berwa, sugira, singizwa iteka." would be pronounced as "Reka tukurate tukuvug' ibigwi wow' utubumiye hamwe twes' abanyarwand' uko watubyaye berwa, sugira singizw' iteka."


title: Kinyarwanda

text: There are some discrepancies in pronunciation from orthographic "Cw" and "Cy." The glides strengthen to stops in consonant clusters. For example, "rw" (as in "Rwanda)" is normally pronounced . The differences are the following:


title: Kinyarwanda

text: Note that these are all sequences; , for example, is not labial-velar . Even when "Rwanda" is pronounced rather than , the onset is a sequence, not a labialized .


title: Kinyarwanda

text: Kinyarwanda uses 16 of the Bantu noun classes. Sometimes these are grouped into 10 pairs so that most singular and plural forms of the same word are included in the same class. The table below shows the 16 noun classes and how they are paired in two commonly used systems.


title: Kinyarwanda

text: All Kinyarwanda verb infinitives begin with "ku-" (morphed into "k(w)-" before vowels, and into "gu-" before stems beginning with a voiceless consonant due to Dahl's Law). To conjugate, the infinitive prefix is removed and replaced with a prefix agreeing with the subject. Then a tense marker can be inserted.


title: Kinyarwanda

text: The class I prefixes "y-/a-" and "ba-" correspond to the third person for persons. The personal prefix "n-" becomes "m-" before a labial sound (p, b, f, v), while personal prefix "tu-" becomes "du-" under Dahl's Law.


title: Kinyarwanda

text: Every regular verb has three stems: the imperfective (ending in the morpheme "-a"), the perfective (ending in the morpheme "-:ye", which may trigger a variety of morphophonological changes in the preceding segment) and the subjunctive (ending in the morpheme "-e").


title: Kinyarwanda

text: According to Botne (1983), a verb may belong to any of eight Aktionsart categories, which may be broadly grouped into stative and dynamic categories. In the immediate tense, dynamic verbs take the imperfective stem while stative verbs take the perfective stem, while both use the imperfective stem in the habitual or gnomic tense.


title: Kinyarwanda

text: Object affixes corresponding to the noun classes of an object may be placed after the tense marker and before the verb stem:


title: Kinyarwanda

text: The periphrastic causatives use the verbs "-teer-" and "-tum-", which mean "cause". With "-teer-", the original subject becomes the object of the main clause, leaving the original verb in the infinitive (just like in English):


title: Kinyarwanda

text: With "-túm-", the original S remains in the embedded clause and the original verb is still marked for person and tense:


title: Kinyarwanda

text: Derivational causatives use the instrumental marker "-iish-". The construction is the same, but it is instrumental when the subject is inanimate and it is causative when the subject is animate:


title: Kinyarwanda

text: However, there can only be one animate direct object. If a sentence has two, one or both is deleted and understood from context.


title: Kinyarwanda

text: The suffix "-iish-" implies an indirect causation (similar to English "have" in "I had him write a paper), while other causatives imply a direct causation (similar to English "make" in "I made him write a paper").


title: Kinyarwanda

text: One of these more direct causation devices is the deletion of what is called a "neutral" morpheme "-ik-", which indicates state or potentiality. Stems with the "-ik-" removed can take "-iish", but the causation is less direct:


title: Rogue Company

text: Rogue Company is a free-to-play multiplayer tactical third-person hero shooter video game developed by First Watch Games and published by Hi-Rez Studios. The game was released in open beta on October 1, 2020 for Microsoft Windows via the Epic Games Store, Steam, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, with an Xbox Series X/S release following on November 25, 2020, and a PlayStation 5 release on March 30, 2021. The game features full support for cross-platform play and cross-progression. The game takes inspiration from the Counter-Strike series of tactical shooters.The video game came out of the Beta on May 23, 2022


title: Rogue Company

text: "Rogue Company" features a range of playable characters, referred to as Rogues. The game features objective-based game modes and various maps. Matches consist of multiple rounds, with each round beginning with both teams skydiving from aircraft to the map below to compete against each other in various objectives. Between rounds players may use money earned from completing tasks and eliminating players in the previous round to buy and upgrade weapons, equipment and perks.


title: Rogue Company

text: A number of game modes have been revealed: Extraction is a 4v4 game mode, where the attacking team is tasked with hacking an objective; the winner of a round is determined once the objective is hacked or all players on a team have been eliminated. Strikeout is a variation of Extraction in which players are able to respawn after being eliminated, with each team having a limited number of respawns each round. In this mode, victory must be achieved via killing enemies until they have no respawns left. This can be more easily achieved by hacking the objective, an area rather than a box. Demolition is a 4v4 mode in which one team must plant a bomb within a time limit. Wingman is a 2v2 game mode, basically the game mode Strikeout but with less respawns and teams of 2.


title: Rogue Company

text: There are currently 25 playable Rogues in "Rogue Company". Initially, the game had 13 available Rogues, with Dahlia coming to the game in September 2020, The Fixer in November 2020, Sigrid in December 2020, Kestrel with the Season 1 Battle Pass in February 2021, Seeker during Season 1 in March 2021, Mack with launch of Season 2 in May 2021, Switchblade during Season 2 in July 2021 Runway during Season 3 in September 2021, Cannon during Season 3 in October 2021 and Umbra during Season 4 in December 2021. The Final Rogue for Year 1, Glimpse, was released with Season 4 in January 2022. First rogue of Year 2 is Juke, and she came to the game in June 2022.


title: Rogue Company

text: "Rogue Company" was announced on September 5, 2019. Following the initial video announcement, it was revealed that "Rogue Company" would be an Epic Games Store exclusive on PC. On November 15, 2019, First Watch Games released a development insights video highlighting various aspects of the game and members of the development team. A number of Rogues were announced for "Rogue Company" prior to release, including Anvil, who can place down a barricade, Lancer, an assassin who can silence her footsteps, Gl1tch, who can detect nearby enemy equipment, Chaac (originally Phoenix), who wields a personal Stim Pack, and Trench, who places down barbed wire traps that slow enemies and disable their dodges.


title: Rogue Company

text: After a limited public alpha testing phase, the game entered an early access closed beta phase on July 20, 2020 ahead of its intended wide release later in 2020, with players gaining access by purchasing a Founder's Pack or receiving an invite code. During the beta, the game attracted two million players.


title: Rogue Company

text: In September 2020, Hi-Rez collaborated with 100 Thieves to add a collection of 100 Thieves-branded character outfits and weapon skins into "Rogue Company." In October 2020, Dr Disrespect worked with Hi-Rez to add a custom map, designed by Dr Disrespect, and a Dr Disrespect character skin to "Rogue Company." That same month Hi-Rez reported that "Rogue Company" hit 8 million players.


title: Rogue Company

text: In December 2020, the studio announced that the game reached 15 million players. Season 1 of Rogue Company was released in the first week of February 2021, and introduced the game's first battle pass, two new rogues and one new map.


title: Rogue Company

text: The PC version of "Rogue Company" received "generally favorable reviews" from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic.


title: Rogue Company

text: Various journalists were able to play an alpha version of the game at Dreamhack Atlanta in November 2019. Philippa Warr described the game to PC Gamer as "Hi-Rez's grungy take on a co-op PVP shooter". Rectify Gaming stated, "Fully aware of the game still in the alpha phase of development, the build was an impressive show nonetheless."


title: Rogue Company

text: "Gamereactor" rated the game 7/10, saying "The title has simple enough mechanics, tight, great feeling gunplay and characters unique enough to keep the gameplay feeling fresh. Sure, it isn't without its flaws, but for a title that is looking to be around for the long run, "Rogue Company" is definitely showing early signs of what could be greatness". "Screen Rant" gave the game 3/5 stars, indicating ""Rogue Company" has grown into a fun third-person shooter that's fun with the right group, but it's not one that will hook players for the long haul". "PC Gamer" praised the playable characters and the game mechanics, stating "The carefree and casual nature of Rogue Company is a nice palette cleanser from more tense, tactical FPSes". Zack Zwiezen of "Kotaku" compared the game to "Rainbow Six Siege" and "Fortnite", calling it "fine" and indicating "While "Rogue Company" isn’t very remarkable or exciting, it is genuinely well made".


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: The "Halifax"-class frigate, also referred to as the City class, is a class of multi-role patrol frigates that have served the Royal Canadian Navy since 1992. The class is the outcome of the Canadian Patrol Frigate Project, which dates to the mid-1970s. was the first of an eventual twelve Canadian-designed and Canadian-built vessels which combine traditional anti-submarine capabilities with systems to deal with surface and air threats as well. All ships of the class are named after a major city in each province (St. John's, Halifax, Charlottetown, Fredericton, Québec City, Toronto, Winnipeg, Regina, Calgary and Vancouver) plus the cities of Ottawa and Montreal.


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: In 2007, the Government of Canada announced a planned refit of the "Halifax" class which is known as the Halifax Class Modernization Project (HCMP) of which the Frigate Equipment Life Extension (FELEX) project is a part. In November 2008, a Lockheed Martin Canada-led team including Saab AB, Elisra, IBM Canada, CAE Professional Services, L-3 Electronic Systems and xwave, was awarded the contract. The construction phase of the program was completed in November 2016. , the "Halifax"-class modernization program is being closed out, but full operational capacity was reached on 31 January 2018.


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: In October 2011 the Canadian government launched the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy which aims to replace the "Halifax" class, as well as the capabilities of the s, with up to 15 new warships under the Canadian Surface Combatant. This replacement class is currently in the design stage and construction is anticipated to begin in the early 2020s. However, the "Halifax"-class vessels continue to be upgraded with at least some ships of the class anticipated as likely to continue service into the 2040s.


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: The "Halifax"-class frigate design, emerging from the Canadian Patrol Frigate Program, was ordered by the Canadian Forces in 1977 as a replacement for the aging , , , and es of destroyer escorts, which were all tasked with anti-submarine warfare. In July 1983, the federal government approved the budget for the design and construction of the first batch of six frigates, with a second batch ordered in December 1987. To reflect the changing long-term strategy of the Navy during the 1980s and 1990s, the "Halifax"-class frigates was designed as a general purpose warship with particular focus on anti-submarine capabilities.


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: As built, the "Halifax"-class vessels displaced and were long overall and between perpendiculars with a beam of and a draught of . That made them slightly larger than the "Iroquois"-class destroyers. The vessels are propelled by two shafts with Escher Wyss controllable pitch propellers driven by a CODOG system of two General Electric LM2500 gas turbines, generating and one SEMT Pielstick 20 PA6 V 280 diesel engine, generating .


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: This gives the frigates a maximum speed of and a range of at while using their diesel engines. Using their gas turbines, the ships have a range of at . The "Halifax" class has a complement of 198 naval personnel of which 17 are officers and 17 aircrew of which 8 are officers.


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: The tactical command and control systems were developed in Canada. These included the Shipboard Integrated Communications System (SHINCOM), the Shipboard Integrated Machinery Control (SHINMACS), and Shipboard Integrated Integrated Processing and Display System (SHINPADS).


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: SHINCOM was developed by DRS Technology Canada and was exported to other navies. SHINMACS was developed by CAE. SHINPADS was developed by Sperry Computer Systems in Winnipeg. with technical assistance from the United States. It used a revolutionary redundant and distributed computer architecture which was exported for use in US military control systems.


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: As built the "Halifax"-class vessels deployed the CH-124 Sea King helicopter, which acted in concert with shipboard sensors to seek out and destroy submarines at long distances from the ships. The ships have a helicopter deck fitted with a "bear trap" system allowing the launch and recovery of helicopters in up to sea state 6. The "Halifax" class also carries a close-in anti-submarine weapon in the form of the Mark 46 torpedo, launched from twin Mark 32 Mod 9 torpedo tubes in launcher compartments on either side of the forward end of the helicopter hangar.


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: As built, the anti-shipping role is supported by the RGM-84 Harpoon Block 1C surface-to-surface missile, mounted in two quadruple launch tubes at the main deck level between the funnel and the helicopter hangar. For anti-aircraft self-defence the ships are armed with the Sea Sparrow vertical launch surface-to-air missile in two Mk 48 Mod 0 eight-cell launchers placed to port and starboard of the funnel. The vessels carry 16 missiles. A Raytheon/General Dynamics Phalanx Mark 15 Mod 21 Close-In Weapon System (CIWS) is mounted on top of the helicopter hangar for "last-ditch" defence against targets that evade the Sea Sparrow.


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: As built, the main gun on the forecastle is a /70 calibre Mark 2 gun from Bofors. The gun is capable of firing shells at a rate of 220 rounds per minute at a range of more than . The vessels also carry eight machine guns.


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: As built, the decoy system comprises two BAE Systems Shield Mark 2 decoy launchers which fire chaff to and infrared rockets to in distraction, confusion and centroid seduction modes. The torpedo decoy is the AN/SLQ-25A Nixie towed acoustic decoy from Argon ST. The ship's radar warning receiver, the CANEWS (Canadian Electronic Warfare System), SLQ-501, and the radar jammer, SLQ-505, were developed by Thorn and Lockheed Martin Canada.


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: Two Thales Nederland (formerly Signaal) SPG-503 (STIR 1.8) fire control radars are installed one on the roof of the bridge and one on the raised radar platform immediately forward of the helicopter hangar. The ship is also fitted with Raytheon AN/SPS-49(V)5 long-range active air search radar operating at C and D bands, Ericsson HC150 Sea Giraffe medium-range air and surface search radar operating at G and H bands, and Kelvin Hughes Type 1007 I-band navigation radar. The sonar suite includes the CANTASS Canadian Towed Array and GD-C AN/SQS-510 hull-mounted sonar and incorporates an acoustic range prediction system. The sonobuoy processing system is the GD-C AN/UYS-503.


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: The Government of Canada announced on 5 July 2007 a $3.1 billion refit program for the "Halifax" class which would take place from 2010 to 2018 and extend the ships' service lives through to the 2030s.


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: The total cost of the program was set at $4.3 billion, with $2 billion for combat systems upgrades and $1.2 billion for mid-life refits. A further $1 billion was paid to contractors for other projects.


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: Faced with delays and restrictions from the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, the Navy opted to modernize the "Halifax" class using as much non-American equipment as possible, including technology from Canada, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands and Israel. The International Traffic in Arms Regulations has also been blamed for the delay of the CH-148 Cyclone which was running two years behind the original schedule. The "Halifax" class received state of the art equipment able to handle modern threats through 2030. The modernization includes passive and active weapons, radars, and new combat architecture.


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: The refit program was formally announced as completed on the west coast by Victoria Shipyards on 29 April 2016 by the Minister of National Defence Harjit Sajjan when "Regina" was returned to the Royal Canadian Navy. the project was on budget. "Calgary" was the first to undergo work at Victoria, followed by "Winnipeg", "Ottawa" and "Regina". The construction phase of the program on the east coast was completed on 29 November 2016 when the final east coast ship, "Toronto", was handed back to the Royal Canadian Navy at Halifax Shipyard.


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: The new combat system architecture and combat management system is the CMS330 Combat Management System from Lockheed Martin Canada, which includes elements of the Saab 9LV Mk4 Combat Management System (known as the "CanACCS-9LV" suite of components.) CMS330 is a development of SHINPADS.


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: The Integrated Platform Management System (IPMS) from L-3 MAPPS provides systems management. IPMS is a development of SHINMACS.


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: The "Halifax" class currently use the RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM), instead of the obsolete RIM-7 Sea Sparrow. The ESSM gives a greater range against anti-ship missiles and enemy aircraft. BAE Systems received a contract to upgrade the Bofors 57 mm Mk 2 to Bofors 57 mm Mk 3 configuration. The upgrades were performed at Karlskoga between 2010 and 2016, before being installed in Halifax and Victoria.


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: The Department of National Defence requested a tender to provide a naval remote weapon system (NRWS) defence capability to the "Halifax" and "Iroquois" classes. The "Halifax" class was to be fitted with a new close-in weapon system (CIWS) to replace the 12.7 mm M2HB heavy machine gun. Although not part of the refit, Raytheon Canada Limited was awarded a contract of $180 million for eight years to overhaul, convert and repair all Canadian CIWS to a Block 1B Baseline 1 configuration.


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: It was announced by the Department of National Defence that Hewitt Equipment was chosen to replace the diesel generators aboard the "Halifax"-class vessels in June 2015. The contract was awarded for 10 years, with options to extend it out to 22 years and covers ships assigned to either coast. The speed of the vessels in the class increased to over following the FELEX upgrades.


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: As part of the refit, Thales Canada supplied the Sirius long-range Infrared Search and Track (IRST) for the "Halifax" class. The IRST is currently in use on board the German s. The IRST is able to track low radar cross-section aircraft and ships.


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: Saab provided 26 CEROS 200 Fire Control Directors. The CEROS 200 is a Radar and Optronic Tracking system which interfaces with advanced anti-ship missiles and gun systems. It provides defence against modern threats including modern sea skimming anti-ship missiles or asymmetric threats in littoral environments. The CEROS 200 is part of the 9LV Mk4.


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: The "Halifax" class were fitted with a modified Sea Giraffe SG-150 multi-function search radar. The SG-150 HC will be upgraded and will secure a high level of operational availability as well as improved functions. Thales supplied 13 Smart-S Mk2 S-band radars, including one for training purposes. These radars are optimized for medium-to-long-range search and target designation with a high degree of detection. The Smart-S Mk2 is a 3D multibeam radar which can detect hostile targets in near-shore environments. The deliveries began at the end of 2010 and were completed in 2015.


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: Raytheon Anschütz provided at least 12 Pathfinder ST MK 2 Radar systems. The Pathfinder Mark II is designed to provide a modern and flexible navigation tool. The Pathfinder ST Mk 2 radar system is part of the 9LV Mk4. In 2015, Canada acquired twelve sets of X and S-Band navigation radars from Raytheon Anschütz for the class. The new radars have advanced detection capability, new radiation control and pulse blanker interfaces and have improved interaction with the vessels' upgraded command and control system.


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: The "Halifax" class were fitted with the Multi Ammunition Softkill System (MASS) developed by Rheinmetall. MASS is a fully computerized countermeasure. The system is connected to the ship's sensors and protects ships from attacks by advanced, sensor-guided missiles by launching decoys that operate in all relevant wavelengths. MASS is currently in use by 15 other navies worldwide. Elbit Systems received a contract to supply Electronic Warfare equipment for the "Halifax" class, including active jamming and tracking systems.


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: Rheinmetall Waffe Munition GmbH received a contract to provide 14 Passive Electronic Countermeasures Systems (ECM).


title: Halifax-class frigate

text: The "Halifax" class received two Navy Multi-band Terminals (NMT), installed on the forward port and starboard sides of the hangar, to increase its satellite communications capabilities. The NMT system communicates with satellites in geostationary orbit via the Ka band. This system was augmented by the Maritime Satellite Communications Upgrade (MSCU), featuring the AN/USC-69(V3) antenna installed on the hangar top. The system was first used by the "Halifax" class on deployments to Operation Reassurance in 2012.


title: Close central unrounded vowel

text: The close central unrounded vowel, or high central unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in some languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , namely the lower-case letter "i" with a horizontal bar. Both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as barred i.


title: Close central unrounded vowel

text: Some languages feature the near-close central unrounded vowel (), which is slightly lower. It is most often transcribed in IPA with and , but other transcriptions such as and are also possible. In many British dictionaries, this vowel has been transcribed , which captures its height; in the American tradition it is more often , which captures its centrality, or , which captures both. is also used in a number of other publications, such as "Accents of English" by John C. Wells. In the third edition of the "Oxford English Dictionary", represents variation between and .


title: Close central unrounded vowel

text: is uncommon as a phoneme in Indo-European languages, occurring most commonly as an allophone in some Slavic languages, such as Russian (see ы). However, it is very common as a separate phoneme in the indigenous languages of the Americas and is often in phonemic contrast with other close vowels such as and both in modern living languages as well as reconstructed proto-languages (such as Proto-Uto-Aztecan). identify the presence of this vowel phoneme as an areal feature of a Mesoamerican Sprachbund (although that is not a defining feature of the entire area).


title: Close central unrounded vowel

text: The sound of Polish is often represented as , but actually it is a close-mid advanced central unrounded vowel, more narrowly transcribed . Similarly, European Portuguese unstressed , often represented as , is actually a near-close near-back unrounded vowel, more narrowly transcribed using "ad hoc" symbols such as (mid-centralized), (fronted) and (less rounded i.e. unrounded)


title: Shane Richie

text: Shane Patrick Paul Roche (born 11 March 1964), known as Shane Richie, is a British actor, comedian, television presenter and singer. Following initial success as a stage and screen performer, he became best known for his portrayal of the character Alfie Moon in the BBC One soap opera "EastEnders" (appearing 2002–2005, 2010–2016, 2018–2019, 2022–present) and then in its spin-off RTÉ Drama "" in 2017. In 2020, he appeared on the twentieth series of "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here" and finished in fourth place.


title: Shane Richie

text: Richie has presented a number of BBC game shows including "Reflex", "Win Your Wish List" and "Decimate".


title: Shane Richie

text: He also regularly appears in pantomime and in the last few years has starred as Robin Hood. He first took the role appearing at the Mayflower Theatre, Southampton in 2016, then repeated it again in 2017 at the New Victoria Theatre, Woking. He then reprised the role once again in 2018 at the Milton Keynes Theatre. In 2019 he starred alongside Jennie Dale as the title character in Dick Whittington at the Bristol Hippodrome in Bristol.


title: Shane Richie

text: Richie was born at St Mary Abbots Hospital in Kensington, London to Irish parents. He attended Willesden High School and was a member of a youth theatre as a child, and began his professional career in adolescence as a bluecoat entertainer at a Pontins holiday camp Little Canada, on the Isle of Wight. He progressed to the live stand up circuit – receiving a nomination for best new stand-up at the inaugural British Comedy Awards.


title: Shane Richie

text: In 1989, Richie made nightly appearances for Sky TV's chat show series "Jameson Tonight", which was hosted by Derek Jameson and Richie and recorded at the Windmill Theatre, London. In 1990, Richie made his first terrestrial television appearances as one of the comics on the BBC One sketch show "Up to Something!" with Suzy Aitchison, David Schneider, Frances Dodge, Mike Hayley and Lewis MacLeod; however, the show was axed after one series. Richie was one of five comics along with Maddi Cryer, Annette Law, George Marshall and Billy Pearce.


title: Shane Richie

text: Richie later branched out into hosting game shows after proving successful as host of the kids' quiz show "Run the Risk", which was played during the BBC Saturday morning show "Going Live". He moved into mainstream presenting with "Caught in the Act", "Win, Lose or Draw", "The Shane Richie Experience" (later revamped as "Love Me Do") and "Lucky Numbers". He also replaced Danny Baker in the 'doorstep challenge' TV ads for Daz detergent; he had previously replaced Baker as host of "Win, Lose or Draw". In the 2012 Christmas episode of "The Sarah Millican Television Programme", Richie said that Daz gave him so much money for doing the adverts that he would have "snorted the stuff" if they had asked him.


title: Shane Richie

text: Richie has had success in musicals, appearing in such musicals as "Boogie Nights" and the 1993 London revival production of "Grease". He released two albums, "The Album" in 1997 and "Once Around the Sun" in 2000 to limited commercial response, and had a number 2 hit in the UK Singles Chart in 2003, with his "Children in Need" cover version of Wham!'s "I'm Your Man".


title: Shane Richie

text: In 2009, Richie was reportedly scheduled as the opening act for Michael Jackson's concerts at the O2 Arena. The concerts were cancelled following Jackson's death.


title: Shane Richie

text: During Christmas 2009, 2013 and 2014, Richie appeared as Aladdin, Buttons and Dick Whittington, in the pantomimes "Aladdin", "Cinderella" and "Dick Whittington" at the Wycombe Swan Theatre in High Wycombe.


title: Shane Richie

text: In 2017, Richie signed with East West Records and released his debut country music album, "A Country Soul" on 10 November 2017, which featured songs co-written by his son, Rixton member Jake Roche.


title: Shane Richie

text: Richie was a regular co-host alongside Derek Jameson on "Jameson Tonight", an early Sky One talk show in 1990.


title: Shane Richie

text: In 1995, Richie began hosting the game show "Lucky Numbers" and starred in "The Shane Richie Experience" (1995–1996).


title: Shane Richie

text: From 2002 to 2003, Richie played the villainous Danny Dexter on "Night and Day". He won supporting roles in low-profile British films, beginning with "Chris Barfoot"'s award-winning short comedy movie "Dead Clean" and then later "Distant Shadow". In 2003, Richie was executive producer for the British film "Shoreditch", in which he also appeared in a lead role. He invested a six-figure sum into the budget of the film, which ultimately made little profit.


title: Shane Richie

text: In 2007, Richie starred in ITV drama "The Good Samaritan", and "Father Frank" for BBC One. He also starred in the second series of "Skins" on Channel 4 as Bruce Gelcart, a lecherous college drama lecturer.


title: Shane Richie

text: On 11 May 2008, Richie hosted a quiz show on Sky1 called "Don't Forget the Lyrics!", whereby contestants must finish off the lyrics to lines of popular songs in order to win money.


title: Shane Richie

text: On 25 April 2008, he was due to be a guest on "The Paul O'Grady Show", but due to Paul O'Grady falling ill, Richie stood in as host.


title: Shane Richie

text: In February 2009, Richie starred in a revamp of the series "Minder" on Channel 5. Rather than a remake of the original, Richie starred as Archie Daley, the nephew of the character Arthur Daley from the original series, which ran from 1979 to 1994 on ITV.


title: Shane Richie

text: On 26 July 2009, Richie appeared in a one-off television drama called "Whatever It Takes" playing a character called JJ Merrick who comes to the aid of a girl who wins a radio competition – and catapults her into stardom, thus giving her a new lease of life.


title: Shane Richie

text: The BBC announced on 14 November 2011, that following Jimmy Savile's recent death, "Jim'll Fix It" would return for a one-off Christmas Special in December 2011, with Richie as host.


title: Shane Richie

text: In January 2014, Richie presented one series of BBC One game show "Reflex", made by Objective Productions. In December 2014, Richie began hosting "The National Lottery: Win Your Wish List", a new Saturday night game show. A second series began airing in February 2016.


title: Shane Richie

text: Richie has guest-hosted numerous episodes of "The One Show". Between 2015 and 2016, Richie presented the BBC One daytime game show "Decimate".


title: Shane Richie

text: In November 2020, it was announced that Richie would appear on the twentieth series of "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here". He finished in fourth place.


title: Shane Richie

text: In 2002, Richie joined the cast of "EastEnders" as Alfie Moon, bringing humour to a programme often panned for being too depressing. The role won him numerous awards including the award for "Best Male European Actor" at the Rose D'or Festival and National Television Awards for "Most Popular Actor" in 2005, shortly before he, and co-star Jessie Wallace, left the programme on Christmas Day in 2005.


title: Shane Richie

text: On 8 May 2008, he said in an interview with Digital Spy that he would love to return to "EastEnders" as Alfie Moon.


title: Shane Richie

text: On 23 July 2009, Richie announced on "The One Show" that his character Alfie Moon would return to EastEnders. Following an absence of almost five years, Richie made his on-screen return to "EastEnders" on 21 September 2010.


title: Shane Richie

text: As well as appearing in "EastEnders", Richie also narrated three episodes for the documentary series, "EastEnders Revealed", a series that goes behind the scenes and explores characters and storylines; the episodes were "The Secret Mitchell" in 2009 about Ronnie Mitchell and Danielle Jones, "Peggy Mitchell – Queen of the Vic" in 2010 about Peggy Mitchell and "Farewell Pat" in 2012 about Pat Evans.


title: Shane Richie

text: On 4 April 2015, it was announced that Richie would appear alongside Jessie Wallace in a six-part BBC One drama series, "Redwater". In the spin-off, Kat and Alfie Moon visited Ireland as they put their past behind them. Speaking about the series, Richie commented: "Both Jessie and I are absolutely thrilled to be given this amazing opportunity. To have a whole drama focussed around Kat and Alfie is a huge honour for us both and we just can't wait to start filming.


title: Shane Richie

text: In July 2022, it was announced that Richie would reprise the role of Alfie once again, returning to the soap in the Autumn.


title: Shane Richie

text: In 2003, Richie produced and starred in the film "Shoreditch", into which he had reportedly invested half a million pounds of his own money. The film received negative reviews and was not widely seen.


title: Shane Richie

text: In 2006, Richie played a rat named Sid in the Aardman Animation film "Flushed Away". He has recently been seen in the UK stage tour of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" as Randle McMurphy, and heard as a presenter on Virgin Radio, where he interviewed Tony Hadley of Spandau Ballet.


title: Shane Richie

text: In July 2015 it was announced that Richie would star alongside Jessie Wallace in "The Perfect Murder" at the Theatre Royal in February 2016.


title: Shane Richie

text: In 2019, Richie starred as retired drag queen Hugo Battersby/ Loco Chanelle in the hit musical Everybody's Talking About Jamie at the Apollo Theatre. It was then announced that he would reprise the role for the 2020 UK tour.


title: Shane Richie

text: Richie married Coleen Nolan in 1990 and together they had two sons, Shane Roche Jr. (born 1988) and Jake Roche (born 1992). They divorced in 1999. He has three children with wife Christie.


title: Shane Richie

text: In 2003, Richie released his autobiography "Rags to Richie". In the book, he claims to have had sex with six girls in a chalet, during his time as a Pontins Bluecoat and he broke the law by orchestrating ticket touts outside of "Grease". Richie also claims to have given free tickets to the touts, who went on to sell them at a large profit for Richie.


title: Shane Richie

text: Richie is patron of Shinfield Players Theatre, an amateur little theatre in Reading, Berkshire, taking the role from Anton Rodgers who died in 2007. He made his first appearance in the audience on 11 July 2009 for the Youth Group production of Disco Inferno.


title: Shane Richie

text: Richie is also a patron of a charity called Cherry Trees which provides respite care for children with disabilities.


title: Shane Richie

text: In 2019, Richie admitted that he had to live in a squat when a job failed to happen. After the squat was raided by police, he ended up homeless and was cautioned by the police for vagrancy. Of the experience, Richie said "What I learnt almost 40 years ago has had, and will always have, a lasting effect on me."


title: Consciousness after death

text: Consciousness after death is a common theme in society and culture in the context of life after death. Scientific research has established that the physiological functioning of the brain, the cessation of which defines brain death, is closely connected to mental states. However, many believe in some form of life after death, which is a feature of many religions.


title: Consciousness after death

text: Neuroscience is a large interdisciplinary field founded on the premise that all of behavior and all of the cognitive processes that constitute the mind have their origin in the structure and function of the nervous system, especially in the brain. According to this view, the mind can be regarded as a set of operations carried out by the brain.


title: Consciousness after death

text: Death is the permanent end of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. It is no longer defined as the cessation of heartbeat (cardiac arrest) and breathing, as CPR and prompt defibrillation can sometimes restart both.


title: Consciousness after death

text: In modern medicine, when a definition of the moment of death is required, doctors and coroners usually turn to "brain death" or "biological death" to define a person as being dead; brain death being defined as the complete and irreversible loss of brain function (including involuntary activity necessary to sustain life).


title: Consciousness after death

text: A near-death experience (NDE) is a personal experience associated with impending death, encompassing multiple possible sensations. Some explanations from neuroscience hypothesize the NDE to be a hallucinatory state caused by various neurological factors such as cerebral anoxia, hypercarbia, abnormal activity in the temporal lobes and brain damage, though the exact nature of such experiences is not universally agreed upon.


title: House of Representatives (Nigeria)

text: The House of Representatives is the lower chamber of Nigeria's bicameral National Assembly. The Senate is the upper chamber.


title: House of Representatives (Nigeria)

text: The House of Representatives has 360 members who are elected in single-member constituencies using the plurality (or first-past-the-post) system. Members serve four-year terms. The Speaker of the Nigerian House of Representatives is the presiding officer of the house.


title: House of Representatives (Nigeria)

text: The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, assumes a National Assembly for the federation which consist of a senate and a House of Representatives. The senate consist of three senate members from each Nigerian state and one senate member from the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. There must be three hundred and sixty members in total, representing constituencies for the Federal House of Representatives.


title: House of Representatives (Nigeria)

text: Party leaders and whips are elected by their respective parties in a closed-door caucus by secret ballot. With the APC holding a majority of seats and the PDP holding a minority, the current leaders in the 8th National Assembly are: Majority Leader Femi Gbajabiamila, Chief Whip Ado Garba Alhassan, Minority Leader Ogor Okuweh, and Minority Whip Umar Barde Yakubu.


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: In machine learning, the vanishing gradient problem is encountered when training artificial neural networks with gradient-based learning methods and backpropagation. In such methods, during each iteration of training each of the neural network's weights receives an update proportional to the partial derivative of the error function with respect to the current weight. The problem is that in some cases, the gradient will be vanishingly small, effectively preventing the weight from changing its value. In the worst case, this may completely stop the neural network from further training. As one example of the problem cause, traditional activation functions such as the hyperbolic tangent function have gradients in the range , and backpropagation computes gradients by the chain rule. This has the effect of multiplying of these small numbers to compute gradients of the early layers in an -layer network, meaning that the gradient (error signal) decreases exponentially with while the early layers train very slowly.


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: Back-propagation allowed researchers to train supervised deep artificial neural networks from scratch, initially with little success. Hochreiter's diplom thesis of 1991 formally identified the reason for this failure in the "vanishing gradient problem", which not only affects many-layered feedforward networks, but also recurrent networks. The latter are trained by unfolding them into very deep feedforward networks, where a new layer is created for each time step of an input sequence processed by the network. (The combination of unfolding and backpropagation is termed backpropagation through time.)


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: When activation functions are used whose derivatives can take on larger values, one risks encountering the related exploding gradient problem.


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: A generic recurrent network has hidden states formula_1 inputs formula_2, and outputs formula_3. Let it be parametrized by formula_4, so that the system evolves asformula_5Often, the output formula_6 is a function of formula_7, as some formula_8. The vanishing gradient problem already presents itself clearly when formula_9, so we identify them. This gives us a recurrent network with formula_10Now, take its differential:formula_11Training the network requires us to define a loss function to be minimized. Let it be formula_12(x_{t}, u_1, ..., u_t)</math>


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: The vanishing/exploding gradient problem appears because there are repeated multiplications, of the formformula_15


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: formula_16where formula_17 is the network parameter, formula_18 is the sigmoid activation function, applied to each vector coordinate separately, and formula_19 is the bias vector.


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: Then, formula_20, and so formula_21Since formula_22, the operator norm of the above multiplication is bounded above by formula_23. So if the spectral radius of formula_24 is formula_25, then at large formula_26, the above multiplication has operator norm bounded above by formula_27. This is the prototypical vanishing gradient problem.


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: The effect of a vanishing gradient is that the network cannot learn long-range effects. Recall Equation ():formula_28The components of formula_29 are just components of formula_30 and formula_31, so if formula_32 are bounded, then formula_33 is also bounded by some formula_34, and so the terms in formula_35 decay as formula_36. This means that, effectively, formula_35 is affected only by the first formula_38 terms in the sum.


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: If formula_39, the above analysis does not quite work. For the prototypical exploding gradient problem, the next model is clearer.


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: Following (Doya, 1993), consider this one-neuron recurrent network with sigmoid activation:formula_40At the small formula_41 limit, the dynamics of the network becomesformula_42Consider first the autonomous case, with formula_43. Set formula_44, and vary formula_19 in formula_46. As formula_19 decreases, the system has 1 stable point, then has 2 stable points and 1 unstable point, and finally has 1 stable point again. Explicitly, the stable points are formula_48.


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: Now consider formula_49 and formula_50, where formula_51 is large enough that the system has settled into one of the stable points.


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: If formula_52 puts the system very close to an unstable point, then a tiny variation in formula_53 or formula_19 would make formula_55 move from one stable point to the other. This makes formula_49 and formula_50 both very large, a case of the exploding gradient.


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: If formula_52 puts the system far from an unstable point, then a small variation in formula_53 would have no effect on formula_55, making formula_61, a case of the vanishing gradient.


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: Note that in this case, formula_62 neither decays to zero nor blows up to infinity. Indeed, it's the only well-behaved gradient, which explains why early researches focused on learning or designing recurrent networks systems that could perform long-ranged computations (such as outputting the first input it sees at the very end of an episode) by shaping its stable attractors.


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: Continue using the above one-neuron network, fixing formula_63, and consider a loss function defined by formula_64. This produces a rather pathological loss landscape: as formula_65 approach formula_66 from above, the loss approaches zero, but as soon as formula_65 crosses formula_66, the attractor basin changes, and loss jumps to 0.50.


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: Consequently, attempting to train formula_65 by gradient descent would "hit a wall in the loss landscape", and cause exploding gradient. A slightly more complex situation is plotted in, Figures 6.


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: Batch normalization is a standard method for solving both the exploding and the vanishing gradient problems.


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: recommends clipping the norm of formula_70 by formula_41:formula_72where formula_41 is the "threshold" hyperparameter, the maximum norm that the gradient is allowed to reach. Simply clipping each entry of formula_70 separately by formula_41 works as well in practice.


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: One is Jürgen Schmidhuber's multi-level hierarchy of networks (1992) pre-trained one level at a time through unsupervised learning, fine-tuned through backpropagation. Here each level learns a compressed representation of the observations that is fed to the next level.


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: Similar ideas have been used in feed-forward neural networks for unsupervised pre-training to structure a neural network, making it first learn generally useful feature detectors. Then the network is trained further by supervised backpropagation to classify labeled data. The deep belief network model by Hinton et al. (2006) involves learning the distribution of a high level representation using successive layers of binary or real-valued latent variables. It uses a restricted Boltzmann machine to model each new layer of higher level features. Each new layer guarantees an increase on the lower-bound of the log likelihood of the data, thus improving the model, if trained properly. Once sufficiently many layers have been learned the deep architecture may be used as a generative model by reproducing the data when sampling down the model (an "ancestral pass") from the top level feature activations. Hinton reports that his models are effective feature extractors over high-dimensional, structured data.


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: Another technique particularly used for recurrent neural networks is the long short-term memory (LSTM) network of 1997 by Hochreiter & Schmidhuber. In 2009, deep multidimensional LSTM networks demonstrated the power of deep learning with many nonlinear layers, by winning three ICDAR 2009 competitions in connected handwriting recognition, without any prior knowledge about the three different languages to be learned.


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: Hardware advances have meant that from 1991 to 2015, computer power (especially as delivered by GPUs) has increased around a million-fold, making standard backpropagation feasible for networks several layers deeper than when the vanishing gradient problem was recognized. Schmidhuber notes that this "is basically what is winning many of the image recognition competitions now", but that it "does not really overcome the problem in a fundamental way" since the original models tackling the vanishing gradient problem by Hinton and others were trained in a Xeon processor, not GPUs.


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: One of the newest and most effective ways to resolve the vanishing gradient problem is with residual neural networks, or ResNets (not to be confused with recurrent neural networks). ResNets refer to neural networks where skip connections or residual connections are part of the network architecture. These skip connections allow gradient information to pass through the layers, by creating "highways" of information, where the output of a previous layer/activation is added to the output of a deeper layer. This allows information from the earlier parts of the network to be passed to the deeper parts of the network, helping maintain signal propagation even in deeper networks. Skip connections are a critical component of what allowed successful training of deeper neural networks.


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: ResNets yielded lower training error (and test error) than their shallower counterparts simply by reintroducing outputs from shallower layers in the network to compensate for the vanishing data. Note that ResNets are an ensemble of relatively shallow nets and do not resolve the vanishing gradient problem by preserving gradient flow throughout the entire depth of the network – rather, they avoid the problem simply by constructing ensembles of many short networks together. (Ensemble by Construction)


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: Rectifiers such as ReLU suffer less from the vanishing gradient problem, because they only saturate in one direction.


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: Weight initialization is another approach that has been proposed to reduce the vanishing gradient problem in deep networks.


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: Kumar suggested that the distribution of initial weights should vary according to activation function used and proposed to initialize the weights in networks with the logistic activation function using a Gaussian distribution with a zero mean and a standard deviation of codice_1, where codice_2 is the number of neurons in a layer.


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: Recently, Yilmaz and Poli performed a theoretical analysis on how gradients are affected by the mean of the initial weights in deep neural networks using the logistic activation function and found that gradients do not vanish if the "mean" of the initial weights is set according to the formula: codice_3. This simple strategy allows networks with 10 or 15 hidden layers to be trained very efficiently and effectively using the standard backpropagation.


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: Behnke relied only on the sign of the gradient (Rprop) when training his Neural Abstraction Pyramid to solve problems like image reconstruction and face localization.


title: Vanishing gradient problem

text: Neural networks can also be optimized by using a universal search algorithm on the space of neural network's weights, e.g., random guess or more systematically genetic algorithm. This approach is not based on gradient and avoids the vanishing gradient problem.


title: Habbo

text: Habbo (formerly Habbo Hotel) is an online community aimed at teens and young adults. It is owned and operated by Sulake, a Finnish company. Founded in 2000, Habbo has expanded to nine online communities (or "hotels"), with users from more than 150 countries. Since August 2012, more than 273 million avatars have been registered with an average of 5 million unique visitors per month.


title: Habbo

text: In the Summer of 2020, Habbo celebrated their 20th birthday with a two month long anniversary campaign and boosted user numbers due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As of October 2020, they have reportedly accumulated 316 million avatars in the game since the game launched in the summer of 2000. The game boasts more than 800,000 monthly active users, reported in January 2021.


title: Habbo

text: Users on Habbo can create a character and build and design rooms, chat with other players, take care of virtual pets, create and play games and complete quests.


title: Habbo

text: Habbo stemmed from a 1999 hobby project by creative designer Sampo Karjalainen and technologist Aapo Kyrölä entitled Mobiles Disco, for a Finnish band. It was a virtual chat room running on Aapo's Fuse technology. After having been contracted to design a virtual game and chat called Lumisota (Snow Wars) for a Finnish internet service provider, they were contracted for another project. They developed Hotelli Kultakala (eng. Hotel Goldfish) with a small team of developers. It launched in August 2000 on the ISP's web portal.


title: Habbo

text: Aapo, Sampo and Dee Edwards, an entrepreneur from the UK, wanted to create an international business based on the virtual hotel concept, drafting a plan in Autumn 2000, and raised finance. By the end of January 2001, Habbo Hotel had been launched in beta mode. The new hotel exited beta a few weeks afterwards, aimed at the teenage market, with marketing and payment partners in place, run from a HQ in London. It featured a new credits system with community and safety features. The next hotel was launched in Switzerland a few months later, in four languages. It has since been expanded to over 31 countries in five continents, including Hotelli Kultakala in Finland which was made into a Habbo Hotel and has been invested in by venture capitalists.


title: Habbo

text: In May 2006, the service, along with its domain names, were changed from codice_1 (.co.uk, .com.au, etc.) to codice_2 (.co.uk, .com.au, etc.).


title: Habbo

text: In August 2007, Habbo's Chinese community closed down temporarily, the first time a Habbo website has closed. The challenging Chinese market and high operational costs led to the decision of closing the service. Customers in China were redirected to other Habbo communities.


title: Habbo

text: In December 2008, Habbo's Russian community announced it was closing in February 2009 as a result of low numbers. Those on the site with ""furni"" (virtual furniture that can be used to furnish rooms in the hotel that are bought with the use of Habbo Credits or Coins, that can be purchased with actual money) have been told they will receive credit codes for use on the USA Habbo community.


title: Habbo

text: In January 2010, it was announced that Habbo US and Habbo Canada would undergo a merger, to be finalized in April 2010. However, in April 2010, it was announced that all English-speaking hotels will be merged as one. On May 5, the merger for Habbo US and Habbo Canada was complete. On June 2, the Australian site merge was completed. The Singapore site was officially merged on June 4. On June 10, the final Hotel, Habbo UK, was merged and that completed the set, making Habbo.com the only English speaking site. Accounts were migrated to the final English-speaking hotel with varying degrees of automation until March 2011 - after that date any accounts not migrated from the initial Habbo Canada, Singapore, UK and Australia hotels were deleted.


title: Habbo

text: On June 12, 2012 concerns about the site were raised by Channel 4 News. A two-month investigation found users posting pornographic and violent messages – despite the fact that Habbo is intended for young teenagers. A reporter posing as an 11-year-old girl claimed that explicit sex chats were common within minutes of logging on to the service, which she described as "very sexual, perverse, violent, pornographic." As a result of the allegations, Sulake immediately suspended all chat on the service. Speaking in a blog post, chief executive of Sulake, Paul LaFontaine, said that the firm "was reviewing the long-term plans for the Habbo community". The chat services were reinstated in June 2012. Two leading investors, Balderton Capital and 3i, withdrew their funding from Sulake, and some UK retailers stopped selling Habbo gift cards.


title: Habbo

text: In August 2012, Habbo announced its new hotel, Habbo Turkey, fully localised for Turkish-speakers. The then CEO of Sulake, Paul LaFontaine comments, "We're thrilled to announce we have launched in Turkey. This is a very important market for us and we expect Habbo Hotel to be a big success there, with many teenagers joining to converse with friends, meet people with similar interests and enjoy access to the global Habbo Hotel network. Our launch in Turkey is the next big step on our global roadmap."


title: Habbo

text: In 2021, Azerion reached an agreement with fellow Sulake shareholder Elisa Oyj to acquire the company fully"." Azerion had a majority stake in the Habbo Hotel creator until it secured a deal with Oyj for the remaining 49 per cent of shares. Azerion, which is a pan-European firm specialising in gaming and adtech, first purchased a controlling stake of 51% in Sulake back in 2018. It has since been helping to grow revenues, which have risen 46% between January 2019 and December 2020. Habbo joined a block within Azerion’s gaming content business which consists of other leading acclaimed products, including Woozworld and Governor of Poker.


title: Habbo

text: In December 2020, Sulake released their new beta-version of Habbo. They have moved to the Unity platform, since Adobe Flash marks its end in 2020.


title: Habbo

text: In February 2021, Sulake released the AIR client alongside the Unity client with the plan to continue work on the Unity client and improve the user experience. In the official statement from the product owner, he acknowledged that the Unity client was lacking key features and did not reflect the needs of the community. The AIR client is a temporary solution to many of the concerns the community had initially about the Unity client and will eventually be retired when the new client is at an acceptable level and contains key features that the Habbo community rely on.


title: Habbo

text: In September 2021, an NFT collection was introduced. The collection consists of Habbo avatars that can also be used in the community. In addition, it is planned to introduce a new Habbo Hotel in 2022, which will only be based on NFTs.


title: Habbo

text: Habbo's main feature is the "Hotel", and consists of a client made using the Unity platform. The hotel can be accessed by logged-in users via the Habbo Homepage. When a user accesses the Hotel they are brought to a screen colloquially known as "Hotel View/Landing View". From this screen, members can navigate to rooms via the "Navigator" and browse the rooms of the hotel, look for items to buy in the catalogue, private message friends on their Habbo friends list or enter their preset "Home room".


title: Habbo

text: Public Rooms are rooms which are available to all members. They often depict scenes such as restaurants, cinemas, and dance clubs. Most Public Rooms contain automated robots which shout pre-recorded messages and tips and can give members drinks and food items. Public rooms are designed by Sulake and are not customizable by users. Some rooms used to contain games called Battle Ball, SnowStorm, Wobble Squabble and diving, but these games were removed due to coding issues when they upgraded from Shockwave to Flash.


title: Habbo

text: In June 2011, most official rooms were removed from the hotel. The popular games BattleBall and SnowStorm were replaced with Freeze and Battle Banzai to coincide with the Flash client. By buying certain furni, players can build their own rooms for other players to play these games.


title: Habbo

text: Guest Rooms are special rooms which users can customize with furniture, wallpaper, and floor patterns; these can be purchased with credits. Users can choose from pre-made room blueprints or create their own with builders club. Guest rooms can be created by any member and can be locked to allow access only to specific users or password holder. Many users create their own games in their guest rooms, which give furniture or coins as a prize. These rooms are categorized on the navigator in many categories such as "Trading", "Parties", and "Role Playing". Virtual pets and bots can be bought and kept in Guest rooms. Users can interact with the pets and program bots, which will obey certain commands the player throws at them.


title: Habbo

text: Users can create their own games in Habbo by buying furniture from the shop - from Puzzle Boxes to ice skating to football. Users can build an ice rink, Battle Banzai arena, or a never-ending maze. Users can also check out the hotel's Navigator and select the Games & Mazes category under the Rooms tab to play in other people's user-created rooms hosting games like Battle Banzai, Freeze, Ice Tag, and more.


title: Habbo

text: Habbo users often create guest rooms which emulate real world businesses, police departments and other establishments. As the game's platform facilitates the creation of groups some users choose to design their groups based on a role-playing theme and go on to participate in activities which promote their groups to other users in the game.


title: Habbo

text: There are 3 main types of currency on Habbo. Credits (or coins) which are used to buy furniture in the catalogue and Duckets (free currency earned by completing achievements such as logging in X days in a row) which enables users to buy effects and 'Rentable furni' (furniture to decorate rooms for a period of time, before it is then removed). Diamonds are used to buy rewards such as exclusive furniture items or Habbo Club and are gained by buying credits (1 diamond for each credit bought). As well as that, seasonally themed currencies (E.g.: "Snowflakes" for Christmas) are given out to players by staff for completing certain quests which can then be used to buy seasonal Furni for a short time.


title: Habbo

text: Credits (also called "coins" on some hotels) are an in-game virtual currency that can be purchased using a variety of different services, such as credit card, a telephone service, a prepaid card and via SMS. They can also be redeemed into "Exchange", which displays the Credits as an item of virtual furniture; the furniture can then be traded among users, and redeemed back into Credits. Users can join Habbo Club (HC), which is a premium subscription purchased using Credits. Features of Habbo Club membership include a badge, new clothes and outfits for a player's avatar, more friends on their friends list, the ability to create groups, and a free piece of furni exclusive to club members every month.


title: Habbo

text: Duckets (a play on the word ducats) are part of a new and complementary currency introduced in February 2013. Users earn Duckets by completing certain achievements and quests.


title: Habbo

text: The Duckets currency can be used to purchase effects, room promotions, furniture and even as far as pets.


title: Habbo

text: Diamonds are another currency on Habbo. It was introduced in early July 2014. Diamonds are received through purchases of Credits with real money. Diamonds are used to buy Habbo Club, buy rare furniture items or they can be redeemed for credits in furniture form.


title: Habbo

text: Habbo's parent company Sulake has automated online moderation, and only house Community Coordinators are available for all hotels. Habbo stated in 2011 that the in-game moderators were tasked with tracking some 70 million lines of conversation worldwide every day, and blocking inappropriate users and filtering links to black-listed sites.


title: Habbo

text: Sulake also worked with child safety organizations and local police forces to stop inappropriate behavior. Habbo's moderation and safety systems were recognized as making the service as one of the safest social networks in a 2011 European Commission report. In 2011, Habbo was also awarded the commendation of 'Safer by Design' from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP). Sulake encouraged users to take responsibility for reporting any abuses or any bad behaviour on the site, providing education and rapid-response support to users who may experience uncomfortable conversations or questions.


title: Habbo

text: As well as working within the Habbo online community, Sulake actively contributed to campaigns like Insafe and Safer Internet Day to be used on relevant user safety issues and collaborates in more than 30 charitable partnerships around the world to educate teens about a load of topics including safe internet use, trolling, the dangers of drugs, bullying etc. Partners include NSPCC (ChildLine), UNICEF, the Red Cross, the National Safety Hospital, Frank, Child Right, Power Child as well as many other market specific organisations.


title: Habbo

text: Users in Habbo can report users breaking the Habbo Way (there are sets of rules on Habbo that everyone must obey) by clicking on the offending avatar, scrolling through their information and clicking report then trying to highlight the offending pieces of chat. Users can also ignore their user by clicking on them and pressing ignore, and this will block every action and chat line that comes from that user into their view.


title: Habbo

text: Automatic moderation exists in Habbo's language filter, the "Bobba Filter", which replaces offensive text with the simple word "bobba". Replacement applies to anything from mild to highly offensive words, groups of 6 or more numbers, suggestive phrases, and websites.


title: Habbo

text: From August 2000 to 31 December 2005, Habbo existed as a program for experienced members of each Habbo community to become a 'Hobba'. Hobbas were non-paid, volunteer moderators with limited powers that acted as Hotel Guides. On December 31, 2005, Sulake suspended the Hobba program completely due to major security issues and the rapidly growing Habbo community. It was decided that it needed a stronger, more professional moderation team, that would be followed by employees of Sulake. The following requests for the program to be revived, in June 2012, it was announced that modernized Hobbas, called Guardians, would be introduced into Habbo. These users will be limited and will be closely monitored to ensure safety is not compromised or advanced.


title: Habbo

text: In June 2012, there was a two-month investigation by Channel 4 News that uncovered lapses in Habbo's online moderation, such as cyber sex, sexual frequences and sexual predation on minors, which subsequently led to withdrawals from two of the company's biggest investors. In response to the news, the company globally muted all chat and text, and launched "The Great Unmute", which allowed users to express their views on the company's future, their experiences with Habbo, and their thoughts on the Channel Four News report. Following this, launching "The Great Go-Live", Habbo lifted the chat restrictions for Finnish users to allow testing on a new safety system. Chat restrictions were lifted for users in Brazil and Spain, followed by France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands. A "Parental Advisory Summit" was also launched, to allow parents and users that the chance to answer how Habbo can deliver a safer experience, have a safe environment and influence what content children view on other social media platforms. Restrictions on chat were lifted in Norway, Denmark and Sweden, and finally in the English hotel on 6 July 2012.


title: Habbo

text: Habbo has been a frequent target for organized raids by Anonymous. In 2006, a meme began circulating on 4chan boards regarding racist conduct by Habbo moderators and arbitrary banning of players with darker-skinned avatars. As a result, users signed up to the Habbo site dressed in avatars of a black man wearing a grey suit and an Afro hairstyle and blocked entry to the pool, declaring that it was "closed due to AIDS", flooding the site with internet sayings, and forming swastika-like formations. When the raiders were banned, they complained of racism.


title: Habbo

text: In January 2021, the live-streamer Quackity and his viewers raided the game with the hashtag "#NOTMYHABBO", protesting the recent restrictions on item trading.


title: Habbo

text: As a website geared towards teenagers, Habbo has attracted sponsorship from outside entities and organizations. This sponsorship includes visits by musicians (such as Gorillaz, Skye Sweetnam, Jamelia, and Akon) as well as various corporations. In 2014 Habbo associated itself with the company DitchTheLabel which hosts various anti-bullying sessions on Habbo.


title: Habbo

text: In November 2001, "The Daily Telegraph" listed Habbo as a top-10 chat and instant messaging site, describing it as "great-looking" and "proving popular with teenagers." In 2005 and 2006, Habbo Australia received the NetGuide Online Web Award for "Best kids'/youth website". In September 2006, Sulake won Deloitte's Fast 50 competition.


title: Habbo

text: Common Sense Media, a non-profit association advocating for children and families, and studying the effects that media and technology have on young users, reports that "foul talk and sexy chat rooms dominate [this] virtual world", giving it one star out of five and not recommending it for kids of any age.


title: Habbo

text: There are currently 9 websites in operation, with as many as 12 up until 29 April 2015. This date saw the closure of the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish language hotels, having been in operation from December 2004, June 2004 and December 2003 respectively.


title: Russian phonology

text: This article discusses the phonological system of standard Russian based on the Moscow dialect (unless otherwise noted). For an overview of dialects in the Russian language, see Russian dialects. Most descriptions of Russian describe it as having five vowel phonemes, though there is some dispute over whether a sixth vowel, , is separate from . Russian has 34 consonants, which can be divided into two types:


title: Russian phonology

text: Russian also distinguishes hard consonants from soft (palatalized) consonants and from consonants followed by , making four sets in total: , although in native words appears only at morpheme boundaries. Russian also preserves palatalized consonants that are followed by another consonant more often than other Slavic languages do. Like Polish, it has both hard postalveolars () and soft ones ( and marginally or dialectically ).


title: Russian phonology

text: Russian has vowel reduction in unstressed syllables. This feature also occurs in a minority of other Slavic languages like Belarusian and Bulgarian and is also found in English, but not in most other Slavic languages, such as Czech, Polish, most varieties of Serbo-Croatian, and even the closely-related Ukrainian.


title: Russian phonology

text: Russian has five to six vowels in stressed syllables, and in some analyses , but in most cases these vowels have merged to only two to four vowels when unstressed: (or ) after hard consonants and after soft ones.


title: Russian phonology

text: A long-standing dispute among linguists is whether Russian has five vowel phonemes or six; that is, scholars disagree as to whether constitutes an allophone of or if there is an independent phoneme . The five-vowel analysis, taken up by the Moscow school, rests on the complementary distribution of and , with the former occurring after hard (non-palatalized) consonants and elsewhere. The allophony of the stressed variant of the open is largely the same, yet no scholar considers and to be separate phonemes (which they are in e.g. Slovak).


title: Russian phonology

text: The six-vowel view, held by the Saint-Petersburg (Leningrad) phonology school, points to several phenomena to make its case:


title: Russian phonology

text: The most popular view among linguists (and the one taken up in this article) is that of the Moscow school, though Russian pedagogy has typically taught that there are six "vowels" (the term "phoneme" is not used).


title: Russian phonology

text: Reconstructions of Proto-Slavic show that and (which correspond to and ) were separate phonemes. On the other hand, numerous alternations between the two sounds in Russian indicate clearly that at one point the two sounds were reanalyzed as allophones of each other.


title: Russian phonology

text: Russian vowels are subject to considerable allophony, subject to both stress and the palatalization of neighboring consonants. In most unstressed positions, in fact, only three phonemes are distinguished after hard consonants, and only two after soft consonants. Unstressed and have merged to (a phenomenon known as ); unstressed and have merged to (); and all four unstressed vowels have merged after soft consonants, except in the absolute final position in a word. None of these mergers are represented in writing.


title: Russian phonology

text: When a preceding consonant is "hard", is retracted to . Formant studies in demonstrate that is better characterized as slightly diphthongized from the velarization of the preceding consonant, implying that a phonological pattern of using velarization to enhance perceptual distinctiveness between hard and soft consonants is strongest before . When unstressed, becomes near-close; that is, following a hard consonant and in most other environments. Between soft consonants, stressed is raised, as in ('to drink'). When preceded "and" followed by coronal or dorsal consonants, is fronted to . After a cluster of a labial and , is retracted, as in ('to float'); it is also slightly diphthongized to .


title: Russian phonology

text: In native words, only follows unpaired (i.e. the retroflexes and ) and soft consonants. After soft consonants (but not before), it is a mid vowel (hereafter represented without the diacritic for simplicity), while a following soft consonant raises it to close-mid . Another allophone, an open-mid , occurs word-initially and between hard consonants. Preceding hard consonants retract to and so that ('gesture') and ('target') are pronounced and respectively.


title: Russian phonology

text: In words borrowed from other languages, often follows hard consonants; this foreign pronunciation usually persists in Russian for many years until the word is more fully adopted into Russian. For instance, (from French "chauffeur") was pronounced in the early twentieth century, but is now pronounced . On the other hand, the pronunciations of words such as ('hotel') retain the hard consonants despite a long presence in the language.


title: Russian phonology

text: Between soft consonants, becomes , as in ('five'). When not following a soft consonant, is retracted to before /ɫ/ as in ('stick').


title: Russian phonology

text: For most speakers, is a mid vowel , but it can be a more open for some speakers. Following a soft consonant, is centralized and raised to as in ('aunt').


title: Russian phonology

text: As with the other back vowels, is centralized to between soft consonants, as in ('narrowly'). When unstressed, becomes near-close; central between soft consonants, centralized back in other positions.


title: Russian phonology

text: Russian unstressed vowels have lower intensity and lower energy. They are typically shorter than stressed vowels, and in most unstressed positions tend to undergo mergers for most dialects:


title: Russian phonology

text: The merger of unstressed and in particular is less universal in the pretonic (pre-accented) position than that of unstressed and . For example, speakers of some rural dialects as well as the "Old Petersburgian" pronunciation may have the latter but not the former merger, distinguishing between and , but not between and (both ). The distinction in some "loanwords" between unstressed and , or and is codified in some pronunciation dictionaries (, ), for example, and .


title: Russian phonology

text: Unstressed vowels (except ) are preserved word-finally, for example in second-person plural or formal verb forms with the ending , such as ("you do") (phonetically ). The same applies for vowels starting a word.


title: Russian phonology

text: As a result, in most unstressed positions, only three vowel phonemes are distinguished after hard consonants (, , and ), and only two after soft consonants ( and ). For the most part, Russian orthography (as opposed to that of the closely related Belarusian) does "not" reflect vowel reduction. This can be seen in Russian ("nébo") as opposed to Belarusian ("néba") "sky", both of which can be phonemically analyzed as and morphophonemically as , as the nominative singular ending of neuter nouns is when stressed: compare Russian , Belarusian "village".


title: Russian phonology

text: In terms of actual pronunciation, there are at least two different levels of vowel reduction: vowels are less reduced when a syllable immediately precedes the stressed one, and more reduced in other positions. This is particularly visible in the realization of unstressed and , where a less-reduced allophone appears alongside a more-reduced allophone .


title: Russian phonology

text: The pronunciation of unstressed is after soft consonants and , and word-initially ( ('stage')), but after hard consonants ( ('to breathe')).


title: Russian phonology

text: Unstressed is generally pronounced as a lax (or near-close) , e.g. ('man'). Between soft consonants, it becomes centralized to , as in ('to huddle').


title: Russian phonology

text: Note a spelling irregularity in of the reflexive suffix : with a preceding in third-person present and a in infinitive, it is pronounced as , i.e. hard instead of with its soft counterpart, since , normally spelled with , is traditionally always hard. In other forms both pronunciations and alternate for a speaker with some usual form-dependent preferences: in the outdated dialects, reflexive imperative verbs (such as , lit. "be afraid yourself") may be pronounced with instead of modern (and phonetically consistent) .


title: Russian phonology

text: In weakly stressed positions, vowels may become voiceless between two voiceless consonants: ('exhibition'), ('because'). This may also happen in cases where only the following consonant is voiceless: ('skull').


title: Russian phonology

text: Because of mergers of different phonemes in unstressed position, the assignment of a particular phone to a phoneme requires phonological analysis. There have been different approaches to this problem:


title: Russian phonology

text: Russian diphthongs all end in a non-syllabic , an allophone of and the only semivowel in Russian. In all contexts other than after a vowel, is considered an approximant consonant. Phonological descriptions of may also classify it as a consonant even in the coda. In such descriptions, Russian has no diphthongs.


title: Russian phonology

text: The first part of diphthongs are subject to the same allophony as their constituent vowels. Examples of words with diphthongs: ('egg'), ('her' dat.), ('effective'). , written or , is a common inflexional affix of adjectives, participles, and nouns, where it is often unstressed; at normal conversational speed, such unstressed endings may be monophthongized to .


title: Russian phonology

text: denotes palatalization, meaning the center of the tongue is raised during and after the articulation of the consonant. Phonemes that have at different times been disputed are enclosed in parentheses.


title: Russian phonology

text: There is some dispute over the phonemicity of soft velar consonants. Typically, the soft–hard distinction is allophonic for velar consonants: they become soft before front vowels, as in ('short'), unless there is a word boundary, in which case they are hard (e.g. 'to Ivan'). Hard variants occur everywhere else. Exceptions are represented mostly by:


title: Russian phonology

text: In the mid-twentieth century, a small number of reductionist approaches made by structuralists put forth that palatalized consonants occur as the result of phonological processes involving (or palatalization as a phoneme in itself), so that there were no underlying palatalized consonants. Despite such proposals, linguists have long agreed that the underlying structure of Russian is closer to that of its acoustic properties, namely that soft consonants are separate phonemes in their own right.


title: Russian phonology

text: Voiced consonants (, and ) are devoiced word-finally unless the next word begins with a voiced obstruent. In other words, their voiceless equivalent will be used (see table on the right).


title: Russian phonology

text: Basically, when a voiced consonant comes before an voiceless one, its sound will shift to its voiceless equivalent (see table).


title: Russian phonology

text: The same logic applies when a voiceless consonant comes before a voiced one (except в). In this case, the sound of the former will change to its voiced equivalent.


title: Russian phonology

text: Russian features general regressive assimilation of voicing and palatalization. In longer clusters, this means that multiple consonants may be soft despite their underlyingly (and orthographically) being hard. The process of voicing assimilation applies across word-boundaries when there is no pause between words.


title: Russian phonology

text: Within a morpheme, voicing is not distinctive before obstruents (except for , and when followed by a vowel or sonorant). The voicing or devoicing is determined by that of the final obstruent in the sequence: ('request'), ('vodka'). In foreign borrowings, this isn't always the case for , as in ('Adolf Hitler') and ('the count is ill'). and are unusual in that they seem transparent to voicing assimilation; in the syllable onset, both voiced and voiceless consonants may appear before :


title: Russian phonology

text: When precedes and follows obstruents, the voicing of the cluster is governed by that of the final segment (per the rule above) so that voiceless obstruents that precede are voiced if is followed by a voiced obstruent (e.g. 'to the widow') while a voiceless obstruent will devoice all segments (e.g. 'without an admission').


title: Russian phonology

text: , , and have voiced allophones (, and ) before voiced obstruents, as in ('a daughter would'), ('bridge-head') and ('peas are ready').


title: Russian phonology

text: Other than and , nasals and liquids devoice between voiceless consonants or a voiceless consonant and a pause: ) ('buttress').


title: Russian phonology

text: Before , paired consonants (that is, those that come in a hard-soft pair) are normally soft as in ('I drink') and ('I hit'). However, the last consonant of prefixes and parts of compound words generally remains hard in the standard language: ('departure'), ('Min[istry of] Just[ice]'); when the prefix ends in or there may be an optional softening: ('to travel').


title: Russian phonology

text: Paired consonants preceding are also soft; although there are exceptions from loanwords, alternations across morpheme boundaries are the norm. The following examples show some of the morphological alternations between a hard consonant and its soft counterpart:


title: Russian phonology

text: Paired consonants preceding another consonant often inherit softness from it. This phenomenon in literary language has complicated and evolving rules with many exceptions, depending on what these consonants are, in what morphemic position they meet and to what style of speech the word belongs. In old Moscow pronunciation, softening was more widespread and regular; nowadays some cases that were once normative have become low colloquial or archaic. In fact, consonants can be softened to differing extents, become semi-hard or semi-soft.


title: Russian phonology

text: The more similar the consonants are, the more they tend to soften each other. Also, some consonants tend to be softened less, such as labials and .


title: Russian phonology

text: Softening is stronger inside the word root and between root and suffix; it is weaker between prefix and root and weak or absent between a preposition and the word following.


title: Russian phonology

text: In addition to this, dental fricatives conform to the place of articulation (not just the palatalization) of following postalveolars: ) ('with a part'). In careful speech, this does not occur across word boundaries.


title: Russian phonology

text: Russian has the rare feature of nasals not typically being assimilated in place of articulation. Both and appear before retroflex consonants: ) ('money' (scornful)) and ) ('sanctimonious one' instr.). In the same context, other coronal consonants are always hard.


title: Russian phonology

text: As a Slavic language, Russian has fewer phonotactic restrictions on consonants than many other languages, allowing for clusters that would be difficult for English speakers; this is especially so at the beginning of a syllable, where Russian speakers make no sonority distinctions between fricatives and stops. These reduced restrictions begin at the morphological level; outside of two morphemes that contain clusters of four consonants: встрет-/встреч- 'meet' (), and чёрств-/черств- 'stale' (), native Russian morphemes have a maximum consonant cluster size of three:


title: Russian phonology

text: If is considered a consonant in the coda position, then words like ('quince') contain semivowel+consonant clusters.


title: Russian phonology

text: Affixation also creates consonant clusters. Some prefixes, the best known being вз-/вс- (), produce long word-initial clusters when they attach to a morpheme beginning with consonant(s) (e.g. ||+ || → 'flash'). However, the four-consonant limitation persists in the syllable onset.


title: Russian phonology

text: Clusters of three or more consonants are frequently simplified, usually through syncope of one of them, especially in casual pronunciation. Various cases of relaxed pronunciation in Russian can be seen here.


title: Russian phonology

text: All word-initial four-consonant clusters begin with or , followed by a stop (or, in the case of , a fricative), and a liquid:


title: Russian phonology

text: Because prepositions in Russian act like clitics, the syntactic phrase composed of a preposition (most notably, the three that consist of just a single consonant: к, с, and в) and a following word constitutes a phonological word that acts like a single grammatical word. This can create a 4-consonant onset cluster not starting in or ; for example, the phrase ('in an instant') is pronounced [].


title: Russian phonology

text: In the syllable coda, suffixes that contain no vowels may increase the final consonant cluster of a syllable (e.g. 'city of Noyabrsk' ||+ || → ), theoretically up to seven consonants: * ('of monsterships'). There is usually an audible release of plosives between these consecutive consonants at word boundaries, the major exception being clusters of homorganic consonants.


title: Russian phonology

text: Consonant cluster simplification in Russian includes degemination, syncope, dissimilation, and weak vowel insertion. For example, is pronounced , as in ('cleft'). There are also a few isolated patterns of apparent cluster reduction (as evidenced by the mismatch between pronunciation and orthography) arguably the result of historical simplifications. For example, dental stops are dropped between a dental continuant and a dental nasal or lateral: 'flattering' (from 'flattery'). Other examples include:


title: Russian phonology

text: The simplifications of consonant clusters are done selectively; bookish-style words and proper nouns are typically pronounced with all consonants even if they fit the pattern. For example, the word is pronounced in a simplified manner for the meaning of 'Dutch oven' (a popular type of oven in Russia) and in a full form for 'Dutch woman' (a more exotic meaning). The orthographic combination is pronounced in the words [ˈzdrastvʊj(tʲe)] 'hello', [ˈt͡ɕustvə] 'feeling' (does not have related words with pronounced in the modern language, so the first in the spelling exists only for historical reasons), [bʲɪzˈmoɫstvəvətʲ] 'to be silent', and related words, otherwise pronounced : [bəɫɐfstˈvo] 'naughtiness'.


title: Russian phonology

text: In certain cases, this syncope produces homophones, e.g. ('bony') and ('rigid'), both are pronounced .