title: Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

text: Players can choose whether to heal the world - an ending in which Kain sacrifices his life, ensuring the extinction of the vampires and restoration of Nosgoth - or damn the world, in which case the Pillars collapse, leaving Nosgoth an irredeemable wasteland, with Kain fully embracing his curse and living on as the most powerful entity in the land. The latter choice is considered the canon ending leading to the rest of the series.


title: Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

text: "Blood Omen" originated as "The Pillars of Nosgoth", a game proposal drafted circa 1993 by Silicon Knights president Denis Dyack and art director and writer Ken McCulloch. In 1993, while Silicon Knights completed work on "Dark Legions", Dyack met Crystal Dynamics producer Lyle Hall at a conference, and they shared their mutual ambition to build "epic" games with bigger budgets and higher expectations than the then-current industry standard. Several publishers were sent "The Pillars of Nosgoth", the science fiction concept "Too Human", and a third competing Silicon Knights pitch. "Too Human" was almost pursued, but Crystal Dynamics—who felt that the high fantasy genre was a preferable choice—made a deal with Silicon Knights to produce "The Pillars of Nosgoth". Design work continued for approximately six to eight months before both parties reached agreement on the most suitable video game console to publish for. Hall, who had been "instantly taken" by the project, thought that "it was obvious this game deserved a "[Legend of] Zelda"-style take on a vampire action RPG", and assisted Dyack in convincing Crystal Dynamics to choose the newly announced PlayStation over the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer and Sega Saturn. Dyack and Hall believed that "Blood Omen" could help to evolve the action role-playing genre through strong writing and artistic, cinematic flair—Dyack summarized it as a game which adults would want to play.


title: Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

text: Central influences included vampire mythology, William Shakespeare's plays, themes of ethical dilemma in the film "Unforgiven", the visceral qualities of the "Necroscope" novels, and the intricate plot of "The Wheel of Time" book series. Although antiheroes were previously uncommon in action-adventure games, Silicon Knights rejected concerns that the character of Kain was too unconventional and the story too ambitious. The developers endorsed the narrative motif, "what is evil? Perhaps it is merely a perspective", and hoped to determine how players would react in "a world where [they] had to kill innocents to survive". McCulloch, who wrote the majority of in-game texts, was urged by marketer colleagues to give characters more accessible names—he described some, such as Mortanius, as "Names from Hell", which were difficult to get past the "marketing censor". Cover art for the historical novel "The Pillars of the Earth" served as the inspiration behind the Pillars of Nosgoth. The Soul Reaver sword, which was originally conceived as a weapon for "Too Human", was transferred to "Blood Omen"'s fictional universe, and would become a mainstay weapon in subsequent games in the "Legacy of Kain" series.


title: Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

text: The developers undertook a talent search for the game's voice cast, listening to dozens of tapes submitted by Hollywood voice actors. Before the game's voice-over was recorded, Dyack expressed concern that the actors cast would be unable to convey McCulloch's complex dialogue. He later said, however, that their performances "blew him away", commenting that "after five minutes with Simon Templeman [...] we knew that there was no problem".


title: Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

text: "Blood Omen"'s extended 3.5-year development period obliged Silicon Knights to double staff levels, and Crystal Dynamics flew employees to Canada to assist in their design work for over six months—this delegation was left to procure their own off-site accommodation, resulting in "great personal sacrifice". Prior to shipping, Activision and BMG Interactive reached arrangements with Crystal Dynamics to manufacture and distribute the product in various territories. In what they described as "a first in the industry", Silicon Knights added an opening credit to fully clarify that they were responsible for developing the game's concept, story, and content. "After Herculean efforts", having received promotion at the 1995 and 1996 E3 trade fairs, "Blood Omen" was released for the PlayStation in November 1996.


title: Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

text: Activision and Crystal Dynamics published a Microsoft Windows port, developed by Semi Logic Entertainments, in 1997. Work on a Saturn version was also commenced by Silicon Knights after the initial release. Employees at Crystal Dynamics, including Steve Groll, stated that the Saturn version was completed but that they could not find a publisher willing to release it. The Silicon Knights website insisted that this "was simply not true" and that the Saturn version was never finished.


title: Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

text: "Blood Omen" was named the best game showcased at the inaugural E3 fair by "DieHard GameFan" in 1995. A 2011 court filing revealed that it sold at least 320,082 units historically; Silicon Knights claimed it had sold 2 million copies in its lifetime, but did not substantiate this figure. Crystal Dynamics viewed its commercial performance as "immensely successful", and remarkable for the time.


title: Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

text: Review aggregator site GameRankings assigned the PlayStation version of the game an average rating of 83%. While critics awarded it high praise for its premise, audio, and scope, they commonly cited shortcomings in its graphics and technical aspects. Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot appreciated its sound design and challenging gameplay, though he disapproved of its overhead perspective. IGN's staff discussed problems with the controls, but referenced the "intense story", atmosphere, and longevity of playtime as positives. "Next Generation" made a favorable comparison to the 1985 hack and slash game "Gauntlet", remarking on "Blood Omen"'s unique design elements, and the high production values behind its "huge and extremely gory" game world. The four reviewers of "Electronic Gaming Monthly" were all enthusiastic about the game, citing its morbid tone, epic length, and strong plot. "GamePro" remarked that "The hauntingly compelling storyline triumphs over somewhat plodding action." The reviewer elaborated that the scrolling is jerky and unpredictable, at times forcing the player to engage in blind dueling along the edge of the screen. However, he highly praised the visual impact of both the cinematics and the backgrounds. 1UP.com's staff lauded the game in their synopsis, saying it offered "the best plot of any PlayStation game to date". They acknowledged its "moody" graphics and sound design, describing its art as "beautifully rendered", and its music as "genius".


title: Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

text: GameSpot's Greg Kasavin praised Kain as "the perfect antihero", and his story as "unique, involving, and epic in proportion", but said "the game itself doesn't quite keep up", hindered by sluggish controls and technological limitations. Despite deeming its linearity a flaw, Baldric of Game Revolution regarded the plot as intelligent and thoughtful, and commented on the game being "surprisingly amoral". Hugh Falk of "PC Gamer" echoed a complaint raised by both Gerstmann and "Electronic Gaming Monthly" that the graphics are excessively dark, and was disappointed in the artificial intelligence, but dismissed these as "minor" grievances with the conclusion that "Blood Omen" was an excellent entry in the role-playing genre.


title: Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

text: The game's cinematics and voice direction were considered exceptional by many publications, particularly relative to other titles of the day. 1UP.com's writers referred to the cast as "actual talent" comparative to other actors in the medium. Some reviewers, though, described the PlayStation iteration's loading times as particularly exorbitant and unsatisfactory. "Next Generation" and "GamePro" both decried these as "noticeable and at times intrusive", while IGN rebuked them as "agonizing", but said that they are common to disc-based games, and reasonably unobtrusive in "Blood Omen". Dyack rationalized the slowdown as a consequence of the PlayStation's random-access memory constraints on video data. Baldric noted in his review that the Windows port alleviated, but did not fully amend, the issue.


title: Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

text: "Next Generation" reviewed the PC version of the game, and held it to be inferior to the PlayStation version, noting that the hi-res mode runs at a choppy frame rate on all but the most high-end PC hardware and arguing that the game is better played with a joypad than with a keyboard or joystick.


title: Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

text: "Electronic Gaming Monthly" named "Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain" Role-Playing Game of the Year, explaining that, "This was a close race with "Suikoden", but the dark and violent nature of Kain won. ... The excellent voice work, as well as the foreboding and violent cinemas, produced the perfect mood."


title: Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

text: By the time "Blood Omen" was released, Crystal Dynamics had already secured a deal with Activision to publish a sequel. "Blood Omen" did receive a sequel, but its production was impeded by a litigious battle between the game's stakeholders and developer. In an interview conducted shortly after the PlayStation release, Dyack contemplated the possibility of creating a prequel centered around the character of Vorador - referring to it as part of the ""Blood Omen" series" - but mentioned that it was "extremely unlikely" that Silicon Knights would work with Crystal Dynamics again. Subsequently, the relationship between both parties dissolved, and Crystal Dynamics - who had withdrawn from software publishing to focus exclusively on game development - announced their own follow-up in the form of "". In 1997, GameSpot divulged that Silicon Knights had filed a lawsuit against their former partner for ownership of the series, requesting an injunction to prevent Crystal Dynamics from publicizing "Soul Reaver". Silicon Knights, they reported, accused Crystal Dynamics of plagiarizing their concept for a sequel.


title: Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

text: The dispute was settled in private, with Crystal Dynamics retaining the rights to the game, and permission to create derivative work using its characters, provided they credit Silicon Knights as the developer of "Blood Omen" in their sequel. Crystal Dynamics was acquired by Eidos Interactive, who published "Soul Reaver" in 1999 to critical acclaim and commercial success. Later, it publicly emerged that "Soul Reaver" had never been a Silicon Knights concept. It originated as "Shifter" - an unrelated project inspired by Biblical mythology, devised by Crystal Dynamics' Amy Hennig and Seth Carus (both of whom had worked as designers on "Blood Omen") - whose team, initially reluctantly, reworked it into a "Blood Omen" sequel at the request of company management. Successive titles in what was now the "Legacy of Kain" series were produced by Crystal Dynamics and Eidos, whereas Silicon Knights walked away from the franchise to begin work on "Too Human", and later "".


title: Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

text: In 2012, NeoGAF member Mama Robotnik highlighted public records of the 1997 court case. During the proceedings, Silicon Knights stated that they had ceded the "Blood Omen" intellectual property to Crystal Dynamics under "financial duress". Among other assertions, they claimed that Crystal Dynamics had breached an agreement in late 1996 by selling certain publishing rights to the game—and any potential sequels—to Activision for $2,000,000. Silicon Knights alleged that Crystal Dynamics had failed to inform them of their intention to leave the publishing business, and had misrepresented themselves to Activision as "Blood Omen"'s developer. The documents revealed that Activision commissioned Crystal Dynamics to develop a project codenamed ""Kain II"", but—dissatisfied with its quality—contracted Silicon Knights to create a competing proposal. Supposedly, Crystal Dynamics then disparaged Silicon Knights to Activision, while directly, and indirectly, approaching some of its staff to join them in working on their prototype.


title: Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

text: When the case was resolved, control of the "Legacy of Kain" trademark belonged to Crystal Dynamics, and "Kain II" was either canceled or superseded when "Shifter" became "Soul Reaver". Though Crystal Dynamics staff who worked on "Soul Reaver" declined to comment on the discovery, Dyack had previously affirmed that "[they] tried to take it over". He said that "many people ask us if we like the direction they have gone in but it is so alien to what we created it is pointless to answer now. We understand that some people love the "Soul Reaver" series and we think that is great. However, it is not what we would ever have done". In a 2008 interview, he elaborated his sentiment that "if you look at "Legacy of Kain" where it is right now -- so diluted, so dysfunctional -- as a property itself, it's pretty much gone in a completely different direction than we would have ever taken it. [...] Even if the developer's good, and I think Crystal Dynamics is not a bad developer, you get this dilution of the content, because the original author is gone".


title: Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

text: In January 2020, Denis Dyack announced a spiritual successor to "Legacy of Kain" called "Deadhaus Sonata", which is a free-to-play cooperative action role-playing video game.


title: Aritzia

text: Aritzia LP is a Canadian women's fashion brand founded in Vancouver, British Columbia, by Brian Hill in 1984. Aritzia sells a variety of lifestyle apparel through various upscale retail stores across Canada and the United States and online.


title: Aritzia

text: In June 2021, Aritzia announced it would be acquiring Reigning Champ, a menswear-focused Canadian streetwear brand, for $63 million.


title: Aritzia

text: Aritzia primarily sells in-house brands, such as Wilfred, Wilfred Free, Le Fou by Wilfred, TNA, Babaton, The Group by Babaton, 1 -01 Babaton, Sunday Best, Main Character, Community and Super Puff. In 2014, Aritzia introduced two handbag lines: SIXELEVEN and Auxiliary. Stores also carry clothing from labels such as Citizens of Humanity, Mackage, Six Eleven, New Balance, Levi's, A Gold E, Havaianas, J Brand Jeans, Adidas, Herschel Supply Co. and Rag & Bone.


title: Aritzia

text: Aritzia's stores are designed individually. As of January 2021, Aritzia operates 101 stores in North America; 68 boutiques are located in Canada including 5 TNA stores, 8 Wilfred stores and 4 Babaton stores. There are 33 Aritzia stores in the USA, including a 13,000 square-foot flagship location in Manhattan, New York City.


title: Aritzia

text: In November 2012, Aritzia launched the aritzia.com e-commerce site. It also provided a digital magazine with artist profiles and galleries of clothing trends.


title: Aritzia

text: "Thymes products are only sold in the best home décor stores in Canada". Retrieved September 24, 2019.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: ' (English: Morandi Bridge), officially ' (English: Polcevera Viaduct), was a road viaduct in Genoa, Liguria, Italy, constructed between 1963 and 1967 along the A10 motorway over the Polcevera River, from which it derived its official name. It connected Genoa's Sampierdarena and Cornigliano districts across the Polcevera Valley. The bridge was widely called "Ponte Morandi" after its structural designer, engineer Riccardo Morandi.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: On 14 August 2018, a section of the viaduct collapsed during a rainstorm, killing forty-three people. The collapse led to a year-long state of emergency in the Liguria region, extensive analysis of the structural failure, and widely varying assignment of responsibility.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: The remains of the original bridge were demolished in June 2019. The replacement bridge, the Genoa-Saint George Bridge was inaugurated a year later.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: Ponte Morandi was designed by civil engineer Riccardo Morandi, from whom its unofficial name was derived. It was a cable-stayed bridge characterised by a prestressed concrete structure for the piers, pylons and deck, very few stays, as few as two per span, and a hybrid system for the stays constructed from steel cables with prestressed concrete shells poured on. The concrete was prestressed only to , making it susceptible to cracks, water intrusion, and corrosion of the internal steel. The bridge was similar to Morandi's earlier 1957 design for the General Rafael Urdaneta Bridge in Venezuela except for the stays, which on the Venezuelan bridge are not covered with prestressed concrete.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: The viaduct was built between 1963 and 1967 by the Società Italiana per Condotte d'Acqua, costing 3.8 billion Italian lire and opened on 4 September 1967. It had a length of , a height above the valley of at road level, and three reinforced concrete pylons reaching in height; the maximum span was . It featured diagonal cable stays, with the vertical trestle-like supports made up of sets of Vs, one set carrying the roadway deck, while the other pair of inverted Vs supported the top ends of two pairs of diagonal stay cables.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: The viaduct was officially opened on 4 September 1967 in the presence of Italian President Giuseppe Saragat.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: The bridge had been subject to continual restoration work from the 1970s on due to an incorrect initial assessment of the effects of creep of the concrete. This resulted in excessive deferred displacement of the vehicle deck so that it was neither level nor flat; at the worst points, it undulated in all three dimensions. Only after continual measurement, redesign, and associated structural work was the vehicle deck considered acceptable, approaching horizontal by the mid-1980s.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: In a 1979 report, Morandi himself recommended for authorities to "remove all traces of rust on the exposure of the reinforcements, fill the patches with epoxy resin, and cover everything up with elastomer of very high chemical resistance". In the 1990s, the tendons on pillar 11 appeared to be most damaged. About 30% of the tendons had corroded away. The load of the bridge was per tendon, while the tendons were originally capable of carrying . A single truck can weigh as much as . As of the collapse of the bridge, only pillar 11 had been internally inspected in the 1990s, showing severed and oxidized strands. From 1990 onward, the easternmost pillar 11 had its stays strengthened by flanking them with external steel cables. Pillar 10 had the stays at the top strengthened with steel sheathing in the 1990s. Following the collapse, many questions have been raised about the stays. Morandi's similar bridge in Venezuela suffered one or more stay cable failures in 1979/1980, with collapse imminent.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: The minister of infrastructures and transport in charge until 1 June 2018, Graziano Delrio, was informed multiple times in the Italian parliament during 2016 that the Morandi bridge needed maintenance.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: In 2017, a confidential university report in Genoa noted severe disparities in the behaviour of the stays of the pillar 9, which would collapse. The minutes of a February 2018 government meeting report that resistance and reflectometry measurements indicated an "average" reduction of the cross-section of the tendons of 10 to 20%. A crack in the road had appeared at least 14 days before the collapse, near the southeastern stay of the subsequently collapsed pillar 9. The crack may have been an indication that the stay had stretched. At no point was a suggestion made to reduce the load on the bridge. Traditionally, bridges were designed for a 50-year lifespan; the bridge failed just under 51 years after its opening.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: On 3 May 2018, the Autostrade company had announced a call for tenders for a structural upgrade of the viaduct to the value of €20,159,000, with a deadline of 11 June 2018. The work on the reinforcement of the stays on pillars 9 and 10 would have needed to be finished within five years.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: Workers were installing new heavy concrete Jersey barriers on the Ponte Morandi before it collapsed, reducing the already low-compressive prestress on the concrete of the stays and increasing the loads.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: In 2017, Carmelo Gentile and Antonello Ruccolo of the Polytechnic University of Milan studied the modal frequencies and deformations of the stays of the bridge. On pillar 9, they could identify only four global modes, and the deformations of two of these identified modes were not fully compliant. Modal frequencies were more than 10% different, specifically on the southern stays. In pre-stressed concrete beams, such a difference could represent the entire effect of the non-linear pre-stresses. As little as a 2% shift could represent severe damage. The prestress in the Ponte Morandi was characterised as relatively small from the start. In contrast, with bare tendons, which are relatively under-constrained like the strings in a piano, the effect of prestress is dominant in determining the resonant frequency. Other than prestress, changes in geometry, such as corrosion in the tendons, could impact the resonant frequency. The effects would be reduced by the composite nature of the stays when observing global modes. Gentile had performed similar modal analyses on pillar 11 in the 1990s. Other related methods were applied on the stays of Ponte Morandi in the 1990s, such as reflectometry, which was able to measure the tension, but not strength of the tendons.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: By the mid-2000s, the A10 route through Genoa and over the bridge had become highly congested. The city council requested proposals for improvement of traffic flow through Genoa, with the Autostrade company in 2009 proposing the "Gronda di Ponente" project to improve flow, by moving traffic to a newly built Autostrada interchange system located to the north of the city. As part of the initial study and report, the Autostrade company measured that the bridge carried 25.5 million transits a year, with traffic having quadrupled in the previous 30 years and "destined to grow, even in the absence of intervention, by a further 30% in the next 30 years". The study highlighted how the traffic volume, with daily queues at peak hours joining the Autostrada Serravalle, produced "an intense degradation of the bridge structure subjected to considerable stress", with the need for continuous maintenance. The study showed that, in the option for improving what was termed as the "low gutter", it would be more economical to replace the bridge with a new one north of its current location, and then to demolish the existing bridge.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: On 14 August 2018, around 11:36 local time (09:36 UTC), during a torrential rainstorm, a section of Ponte Morandi collapsed. The collapsed span was centred on the westernmost cable-stayed pillar, pillar 9, and crossed the Polcevera, as well as an industrial area of Sampierdarena. Eyewitnesses reported that the bridge was hit by lightning before it collapsed. Between 30 and 35 cars and three trucks were reported to have fallen from the bridge.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: A large part of the collapsed bridge and the vehicles on it fell into the rain-swollen Polcevera. Other parts landed on the tracks of the Turin–Genoa and Milan–Genoa railways, and on warehouses belonging to Ansaldo Energia, an Italian power engineering company. The latter were serendipitously largely empty because the collapse occurred on the eve of a major Italian public holiday, .


title: Ponte Morandi

text: The initial hypotheses were that a structural weakness or a landslide caused the collapse. The bridge was reportedly undergoing maintenance at the time of the collapse, including strengthening the road foundations.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: The southern stays reportedly gave way explosively due to corrosion and damage. With only four stays, one of them giving way might have been enough for the structure to lose stability. A preliminary investigative report suggested the pillar itself may have collapsed first, but Genoa prosecutors had not provided the report's authors with a local video showing the southern stays gave way first. There is speculation that lightning may have struck the stays, or a landslide could have destabilised the base.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: In July 2019, a video showing the fall of the bridge was made public. It originated from the nearby Ferrometal company cameras, showing that both southern stays and locally attached road sections at pillar 9 started dropping virtually simultaneously. From the movement of the top crossbeam, the tension cables of the southeastern stay apparently gave way. Immediately, the complete road on the pillar and soon after also the pillar itself fell. However, Autostrade, the company that maintained the bridge, objected that the video still does not show all bridge structures, so it does not really explain the cause.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: At the time of the collapse, the bridge was managed by Atlantia S.p.A. (formerly Autostrade S.p.A.), a holding company operating toll motorways and airports, which is controlled by the Benetton family. The family waited two days to release a company public statement offering condolences to victims and their families.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: The disaster caused a major political controversy about the poor state of infrastructure in Italy and raised wider questions about the condition of bridges across Europe.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: It was later decided that the bridge would not be repaired, but demolished. Demolition began in February 2019 and was completed on 28 June 2019.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: Forty-three people were confirmed dead and 16 injured. The dead were 29 citizens of Italy, four from France, three from Chile, two from Albania, and one each from Colombia, Jamaica, Moldova, Peru, and Romania.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: Multiple survivors were transported to nearby hospitals, many in critical condition. Davide Capello, the former goalkeeper for Cagliari, survived without injury and was able to walk away from his car, even though it dropped before becoming wedged between parts of the fallen bridge.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: The area under the remaining part of the bridge, including several homes, was evacuated. As of 02:00 the following day (midnight UTC), 12 people were known still to be missing, and voices could be heard calling from underneath the debris; rescue efforts were continuing by floodlight using techniques commonly deployed after earthquakes.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: The railways connecting Genoa Sampierdarena (and ) with Genoa Borzoli and Genoa Rivarolo were closed immediately as a result of the bridge's collapse. A rail replacement bus service was established between the stations.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: The day after the collapse, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte declared a state of emergency for the Liguria region, which would last for a year. According to deputy minister of infrastructure Edoardo Rixi, the entire bridge would be demolished.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: The Italian Football Federation announced that a minute of silence would be held for the victims of the collapse before all football events across the country during the weekend that followed the incident. On 16 August, the Lega Serie A postponed the opening 2018–19 Serie A matches for both Genoese association football clubs Genoa and Sampdoria that were originally scheduled for 19 August.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: Italian transport minister Danilo Toninelli, who had started in office on 1 June 2018, described the incident as "an immense tragedy", but it was pointed out that his Five Star Movement political party had said in 2012 that the risk of a collapse of Morandi Bridge was just a silly fairy tale, because "the bridge would have lasted another hundred years", quoting a 2009 evaluation by Autostrade.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: Governor Giovanni Toti said that the loss of the bridge was an "incident of vast proportions on a vital arterial road, not just for Genoa, but for the whole country". The disaster resulted in a drop in the stock price of the road's operator, Atlantia, by 5% the same day and by 25% two days later.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: A state funeral was held on 18 August, inside the Fiera di Genova event arena, for 18 victims of the collapse, along with recognition for the firefighters and other rescue workers. Some of the victims' families refused to attend the service and instead hosted private funerals. The funeral was attended by Italian politicians, such as President Sergio Mattarella, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, interior minister Matteo Salvini, transport minister Danilo Toninelli, and the secretary of the Democratic Party Maurizio Martina.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: In mid-2020, control of the infrastructure company was given back to the government after legislators had reduced the penalty for changing the ownership structure.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: In 2021 the footbridge immediately next to the Morandi Bridge (previously called Ponte delle Ratelle) was named "Passerella 14 agosto 2018".


title: Ponte Morandi

text: Various criminal charges, up to and including manslaughter, were laid against 59 individuals, many of them employees of Autostrade per l’Italia. The most high-profile defendant was Giovanni Castellucci, chief executive of the company at the time of the collapse. The trial began with an initial hearing in July 2022.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: The collapse raised concerns about the general condition of infrastructure in Europe, with studies in Italy, France, and Germany suggesting that a significant number of bridges are in need of renovation or replacement due to corrosion and structural deterioration. Infrastructure investment in Italy was reduced dramatically after the 2008 financial crisis. A resident of Genoa told reporters: "The central government will scapegoat the bridge company, the company will scapegoat someone else — they're all to blame. We all know how bad our infrastructure is in Italy."


title: Ponte Morandi

text: The ruling coalition put pressure on the managers of the road, Autostrade per l'Italia (which is part of the Atlantia group). Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio claimed that they were "definitely to blame." Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini also blamed European Union budget rules and limitations on deficit and state debt, to which the European Commission opposed a denial. The position of the Benetton family, whose company owns 30% of Atlantia, has also come under scrutiny. Autostrade per l’Italia's chief executive, Giovanni Castellucci, said that the bridge would be rebuilt within eight months.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: The investigative committee was to be chaired by Roberto Ferrazza and to have as an expert member Antonio Brencich. However, these two committee members were immediately criticised for being among the signatories of the February 2018 government report that failed to impose precautionary measures on the weakened bridge. On 23 August 2018, Brencich resigned from the inspection commission, and Minister Danilo Toninelli removed Ferrazza as the chair, for "reasons of opportunity in relation to all the institutions involved in this affair".


title: Ponte Morandi

text: Scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, developed a method of analyzing satellite data to detect millimeter-sized changes. Their analysis suggests that the deck between pier 10 and pier 11 had minimal movements until early 2015, and that between March 2017 and August 2018, a significant increase in structural changes occurred (noting that the collapsed pier is pier 9, without any consequential damage to piers 10 and 11, and the between deck). The research and imagery were forwarded to the Italian authorities for further evaluation.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: A Volvo FM truck belonging to Damonte Trasporti S.R.L. and in services for Basko Supermercati, painted in blue and green, became a widely publicised symbol of the disaster because it remained standing almost at the edge of the collapsed section. The 37-year-old driver at the time of the accident recounted to the media how he looked in shock as the bridge busy with dense traffic collapsed in front of him, as he brought his vehicle to a stop and ran back until he reached firm ground.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: The last two cable-stayed pillars (10 and 11) of the bridge were demolished using a tonne of explosives on 28 June 2019. The complete bridge was planned to be removed, along with multiple houses in the surrounding area.


title: Ponte Morandi

text: Construction began on the replacement Genoa-Saint George Bridge, designed by Italian Genoese-born architect Renzo Piano, on 25 June 2019, and it was completed in the spring of 2020. It was inaugurated on 3 August 2020.


title: Constant-velocity joint

text: Constant-velocity joints (also known as homokinetic or CV joints) are mechanical joints which allow a drive shaft to transmit power through a variable angle, at constant rotational speed, without an appreciable increase in friction or play. They are mainly used in front-wheel drive vehicles. Modern rear-wheel drive cars with independent rear suspension typically use CV joints at the ends of the rear axle halfshafts and increasingly use them on the drive shaft.


title: Constant-velocity joint

text: The universal joint, one of the earliest means of transmitting power between two angled shafts, was invented by Gerolamo Cardano in the 16th century. The fact that it failed to maintain constant velocity during rotation was recognized by Robert Hooke in the 17th century, who proposed the first constant velocity joint, consisting of two Cardan joints offset by 90 degrees, so as to cancel out the velocity variations. This is the "double Cardan". Many different types of constant-velocity joints have been invented since then.


title: Constant-velocity joint

text: Early front-wheel drive systems such as those used on the 1930s Citroën Traction Avant and the front axles of Land Rover and similar four-wheel drive vehicles used universal joints, where a cross-shaped metal pivot sits between two forked carriers. These are not CV joints as, except for specific configurations, they result in a variation of the angular velocity. They are simple to make and can be tremendously strong and are still used to provide a flexible coupling in some propshafts, where there is not very much movement. However, they become "notchy" and difficult to turn when operated at extreme angles.


title: Constant-velocity joint

text: As front-wheel drive systems became more popular, with cars such as the BMC Mini using compact transverse engine layouts, the shortcomings of universal joints in front axles became more and more apparent. Based on a design by Alfred H. Rzeppa which was filed for a patent in 1927 (a CV joint, the Tracta joint, designed by Pierre Fenaille at Jean-Albert Grégoire's Tracta company was filed for patent in 1926), constant velocity joints solved many of these problems. They allowed a smooth transfer of power despite the wide range of angles through which they were bent.


title: Constant-velocity joint

text: The Tracta joint works on the principle of the double tongue and groove joint. It comprises only four individual parts: the two forks (a.k.a. yokes, one driving and one driven) and the two semi-spherical sliding pieces (one called male or spigot swivel and another called female or slotted swivel) which interlock in a floating (movable) connection. Each yoke jaw engages a circular groove formed on the intermediate members. Both intermediate members are coupled together in turn by a swivel tongue and grooved joint. When the input and output shafts are inclined at some working angle to each other, the driving intermediate member accelerates and decelerates during each revolution. Since the central tongue and groove joint are a quarter of a revolution out of phase with the yoke jaws, the corresponding speed fluctuation of the driven intermediate and output jaw members exactly counteracts and neutralizes the speed variation of the input half member. Thus the output speed change is identical to that of the input drive, providing constant velocity rotation.


title: Constant-velocity joint

text: A Rzeppa joint (invented by Alfred H. Rzeppa in 1926) consists of a spherical inner shell with 6 grooves in it and a similar enveloping outer shell. Each groove guides one ball. The input shaft fits in the centre of a large, steel, star-shaped "gear" that nests inside a circular cage. The cage is spherical but with ends open, and it typically has six openings around the perimeter. This cage and gear fit into a grooved cup that has a splined and threaded shaft attached to it. Six large steel balls sit inside the cup grooves and fit into the cage openings, nestled in the grooves of the star gear. The output shaft on the cup then runs through the wheel bearing and is secured by the axle nut. This joint can accommodate the large changes of angle when the front wheels are turned by the steering system; typical Rzeppa joints allow 45°–48° of articulation, while some can give 54°. At the "outboard" end of the driveshaft a slightly different unit is used. The end of the driveshaft is splined and fits into the outer "joint". It is typically held in place by a circlip.


title: Constant-velocity joint

text: The Birfield joint is a type of constant-velocity joint based on the Rzeppa joint, but with the six balls confined using elliptical tracks rather than a cage. They have improved efficiency and are widely used in modern cars for the outboard driveshaft joints. The Birfield joint was developed by Birfield Industries and came into widespread use with the development of front-wheel drive cars such as the Mini.


title: Constant-velocity joint

text: A Weiss joint consists of two identical ball yokes which are positively located (usually) by four balls. The two joints are centered by means of a ball with a hole in the middle. Two balls in circular tracks transmit the torque while the other two preload the joint and ensure there is no backlash when the direction of loading changes.


title: Constant-velocity joint

text: Its construction differs from that of the Rzeppa in that the balls are a tight fit between two halves of the coupling and that no cage is used. The center ball rotates on a pin inserted in the outer race and serves as a locking medium for the four other balls. When both shafts are in line, that is, at an angle of 180 degrees, the balls lie in a plane that is 90 degrees to the shafts. If the driving shaft remains in the original position, any movement of the driven shaft will cause the balls to move one half of the angular distance. For example, when the driven shaft moves through an angle of 20 degrees, the angle between the two shafts is reduced to 160 degrees. The balls will move 10 degrees in the same direction, and the angle between the driving shaft and the plane in which the balls lie will be reduced to 80 degrees. This action fulfills the requirement that the balls lie in the plane that bisects the angle of drive. This type of Weiss joint is known as the Bendix-Weiss joint.


title: Constant-velocity joint

text: The most advanced plunging joint which works on the Weiss principle is the six-ball star joint of Kurt Enke. This type uses only three balls to transmit the torque, while the remaining three center and hold it together. The balls are preloaded and the joint is completely encapsulated.


title: Constant-velocity joint

text: Tripod joints are used at the inboard end of car driveshafts. The joints were developed by Michel Orain, of Glaenzer Spicer of Poissy, France. This joint has a three-pointed yoke attached to the shaft, which has barrel-shaped roller bearings on the ends. These fit into a cup with three matching grooves, attached to the differential. Since there is only significant movement in one axis, this simple arrangement works well. These also allow an axial 'plunge' movement of the shaft, so that engine rocking and other effects do not preload the bearings. A typical Tripod joint has up to 50 mm of plunge travel, and 26 degrees of angular articulation. The tripod joint does not have as much angular range as many of the other joint types, but tends to be lower in cost and more efficient. Due to this it is typically used in rear-wheel drive vehicle configurations or on the inboard side of front-wheel drive vehicles where the required range of motion is lower.


title: Constant-velocity joint

text: Double Cardan joints are similar to double Cardan shafts, except that the length of the intermediate shaft is shortened leaving only the yokes; this effectively allows the two Hooke's joints to be mounted back to back. DCJs are typically used in steering columns, as they eliminate the need to correctly phase the universal joints at the ends of the intermediate shaft (IS), which eases packaging of the IS around the other components in the engine bay of the car. They are also used to replace Rzeppa style constant-velocity joints in applications where high articulation angles, or impulsive torque loads are common, such as the driveshafts and halfshafts of rugged four-wheel drive vehicles. Double Cardan joints require a centring element that will maintain equal angles between the driven and driving shafts for true constant velocity rotation. This centering device requires additional torque to accelerate the internals of the joint and does generate some additional vibration at higher speeds.


title: Constant-velocity joint

text: The Thompson constant velocity joint (TCVJ), also known as a Thompson coupling, assembles two cardan joints within each other to eliminate the intermediate shaft. A control yoke is added to keep the input and output shafts aligned. The control yoke uses a spherical pantograph scissor mechanism to bisect the angle between the input and output shafts and to maintain the joints at a relative phase angle of zero. The alignment ensures constant angular velocity at all joint angles. Eliminating the intermediate shaft and keeping the input shafts aligned in the homokinetic plane greatly reduces the induced shear stresses and vibration inherent in double cardan shafts. While the geometric configuration does not maintain constant velocity for the control yoke that aligns the cardan joints, the control yoke has minimal inertia and generates little vibration. Continuous use of a standard Thompson coupling at a straight-through, zero-degree angle will cause excessive wear and damage to the joint; a minimum offset of 2 degrees between the input and output shafts is needed to reduce control yoke wear. Modifying the input and output yokes so that they are not precisely normal to their respective shafts can alter or eliminate the "disallowed" angles.


title: Constant-velocity joint

text: The novel feature of the coupling is the method for geometrically constraining the pair of cardan joints within the assembly by using, for example, a spherical four bar scissors linkage (spherical pantograph) and it is the first coupling to have this combination of properties.


title: Constant-velocity joint

text: The coupling earned its inventor, Glenn Thompson, the Australian Society for Engineering in Agriculture Engineering Award.


title: Constant-velocity joint

text: Designed and patented by Antonio Malpezzi (at the time owner of a CV remanufacturing company in Italy) in 1976, this joint consists of a cage with a spherical inner with a shaped mouth. The input shaft fits on the centre of a sphere with two rectangular grooves. To assemble it, the spherical driving ball is inserted in the cage by matching the two grooves with the narrowest part of the cage's mouth, rotated 90°. Then two steel blocks are inserted in the grooves and locked in place with a bolt running through the cage's side.


title: Constant-velocity joint

text: This joint was extensively tested for possible automotive application but proved to be unable to cope with the articulation needed for such a use. It was widely used in Italy in agriculture, as it was better suited than a Cardan joint to rotate at high speed and cheaper than a Rzeppa joint. By the early '90s, with the appearance on the market of Rzeppa joints produced in Asia, its production became uneconomic and it was discontinued.


title: Constant-velocity joint

text: Constant-velocity joints are protected by a rubber boot, a "CV gaiter", usually filled with molybdenum disulfide grease. The six spheres are bounded by an anti-fall gate that prevents the spheres from falling when the shaftings are perfectly aligned. Cracks and splits in the boot will allow contaminants in, which would cause the joint to wear quickly as grease leaks out. (Parts in contact would not get proper lubrication, small particulates would cause damage and scratching, while water ingress causes metal components to rust and corrode.) Wear of the boot often takes the form of small cracks, which appear closer to the wheel, because the wheel produces most of the vibration and up and down motions. Cracks and tears in the areas closer to the axle are usually caused by external factors, such as packed snow, stones or uneven rocky off-road paths. Aging and chemical damage can also cause boot failure.


title: Hank Hall

text: Hank Hall is a fictional character that appears in DC Comics. He first appeared in "Showcase" #75 (June 1968) as Hawk of Hawk and Dove. He later became the supervillain Monarch in the crossover event limited series "Armageddon 2001". After that, he became known as Extant, and appeared in the limited series "", as well as some related tie-ins.


title: Hank Hall

text: Hawk has appeared in numerous television shows and films. He appeared in his first live-action adaptation in the television series "Titans", played by Alan Ritchson in the first, second, and third seasons.


title: Hank Hall

text: The character first appeared in "Showcase" #75 (June 1968), created by Steve Ditko and Steve Skeates. He latter appeared as Monark in "Armageddon 2001" #1 (May 1991), created by Archie Goodwin, Denny O'Neil, and Dan Jurgens, and as Extant in "" #4 (September 1994), created by Jurgens.


title: Hank Hall

text: Hank Hall was originally the superhero Hawk of Hawk and Dove. Hawk represented "chaos", while Dove represented "order". His brother Don Hall died during "Crisis on Infinite Earths" and was replaced with Dawn Granger.


title: Hank Hall

text: Monarch was an oppressive tyrant from a bleak, dystopian Earth fifty years in the future. The people were unhappy with his rule, particularly a scientist named Matthew Ryder, an expert on temporal studies, who was convinced he could use his technology to travel back in time and prevent the maniacal ruler from ever coming to power. He learned that forty years ago, one of Earth's strongest and most powerful heroes would eventually turn evil and become Monarch, and ten years from that event he would conquer the world. During a time travel experiment, Matthew was transformed into a being called "Waverider", and began searching the timestream for the hero who would become Monarch, not knowing that Monarch was following him. When Monarch came into battle with the heroes of the present day, he killed Dove, and her enraged partner killed him for it. Removing the villain's mask, Hank discovered that he was Monarch, and donned the armor.


title: Hank Hall

text: The reveal of Hank Hall as Monarch led to some controversy amongst the fan community; Monarch was originally intended to be revealed as Captain Atom, with clues in the story pointing towards this which had to be discarded when it was changed at the last minute. This change was due to the premature leaking of Monarch's identity. While Monarch was always supposed to be Captain Atom, this was supposed to be a secret. When Monarch's identity was prematurely leaked, DC decided to preserve the surprise of the story by switching Monarch's identity to that of Hank Hall.


title: Hank Hall

text: As many fans pointed out, "Hawk and Dove" (vol. 3) Annual #2 had Hank Hall fighting Monarch face to face in 2001 with Hawk being the destroyer of Monarch. Dove allowed Waverider to see a multitude of futures and realize Hawk is Monarch.


title: Hank Hall

text: When hostile aliens encounter Monarch and Captain Atom in the past (sometime between 230 and 65 million years ago), they attempt to enlist both (with each figure having no knowledge of the other involved) to assist them in creating a wormhole. The wormhole's creation would destroy the universe in which the primitive Earth existed, but would allow the aliens to travel freely.


title: Hank Hall

text: Shortly after returning to the present, Monarch confronted Waverider and used his power to see the past and future to become aware of the power within him. It is explained at this point, that when Monarch killed Dove, her powers went directly into Hawk. Realising this, Monarch unleashes his hidden powers and becomes Extant. Extant then removes Waverider's timetravel device and joins forces with renegade Green Lantern Hal Jordan, now known as Parallax, in a plan to alter time as they saw fit.


title: Hank Hall

text: His first act was to alter the future so that he could have a metahuman army at his disposal, mostly consisting of members of the Teen Titans; his plan was to amass an army so powerful that no one could interfere with his efforts to control time itself. Several armies of heroes banded together to stop his plans before they began in the 30th century, and altered history so that his followers never came to exist in the future.


title: Hank Hall

text: Down, but not out, Extant began to strike back at the heroes at Ground Zero, the beginning of time. Parallax had warped several metahumans from various time periods together for the ultimate assault, and Extant hit the Atom with a chronal blast, de-aging him into a teenager. Sensing defeat was imminent, he escaped the fight, promising vengeance at a later date.


title: Hank Hall

text: Extant would first reappear in the 1999 one-shot "Impulse: Bart Saves the Universe". In it, Extant picks a fight with the original Justice Society as a means of tricking the Linear Men into saving the life of an innocent bystander who was destined to die. The man they saved would now go on to develop a nuclear weapon that, when tested, would shift the Earth out of its proper orbit, causing massive changes in the timelines of some of Earth's greatest heroes. Among these changes, Hal Jordan never becomes Green Lantern, thus he never becomes Parallax, and never stops Extant from destroying all of time. Fortunately for the citizens of time, Impulse arrives and is barely able to defeat Extant and prevent the Linear Men from saving the doomed scientist.


title: Hank Hall

text: He would engage the Justice Society again on a later date as he sought to acquire the reality-warping power of the Worlogog, recently dismantled by Hourman because he feared its power. Although Extant succeeded in his goal with the aid of Metron's stolen Mobius Chair, Doctor Fate learned from the imprisoned Mordru that when Hourman had dismantled the Worlogog, he had retained a small fragment of it, thus creating infinitesimal flaw in the prime Worlogog that the JSA could exploit.


title: Hank Hall

text: After the resurrected Dove sacrificed herself to distract Extant, Hourman divided his Hour of Power amongst his teammates, thus granting them all immunity to Extant's reality warping powers for four minutes, each of them attacking him on a different temporal plane until they were able to separate him from the Worlogog. Following this setback, Extant again attempted to escape. Instead, Extant was teleported by Hourman and Metron, at Atom Smasher's behest, into the seat of an airplane whose crash Kobra had caused earlier (in his relative timestream). As a result of this, Atom Smasher's mother was saved (as she was on the plane when it crashed), but Atom Smasher replaced his mother with a weakened Extant, saving her life but murdering the super villain to stop his threat and ensure that the same number of people died on that plane who had died originally.


title: Hank Hall

text: In response to fan-criticism of "Armageddon 2001", many of whose readers felt that the character of Hawk had been severely misused in the story's last-minute changes, DC Comics set about restoring the character as he had originally been intended; a hero. DC had already retconned Extant's portion of Hank Hall's timeline in issue 14 of "JSA", dated September 2000, in which Metron announced his intention to erase the villain's "wretched timeline" with his Mobius Chair. This was the second issue of a 3-part story entitled "The Hunt for Extant!" (the details of which are listed above). After this, DC also retconned Monarch's portion of Hall's timeline with the final issue of the 6-part miniseries The Battle for Blüdhaven, dated September 2006, which now depicted Captain Atom's transformation into Monarch, as had been DC's original intention back in 1991. Hawk was restored, but he would not be revived until the final issue of "Blackest Night".


title: Hank Hall

text: In the "Blackest Night" crossover, Hank Hall is reanimated as a member of the undead Black Lantern Corps. The black power rings also try to reanimate his brother Don, but are denied, stating "Don Hall of Earth at Peace". Hank then tracks down and attacks Dawn and the new Hawk (Holly Granger). After a short battle, Hank rams his hand into Holly's chest, ripping her heart out, and using it to charge his ring. Holly's body is then revived by a black ring, and the two attack Dawn together. Severely outmatched, Dawn retreats, with Hank and Holly giving chase. Hank and Holly follow Dawn to Titans Tower, where more Black Lantern Titans are attacking the living heroes. The two eventually overwhelm Dawn, with Holly plunging her hand into Dawn's chest. Dawn suddenly radiates a white energy that completely destroys Holly's body and ring. The other Black Lanterns, seeing Dawn as their greatest threat, attack her. However, she turns the light on them, destroying all but Hank, Tempest and Terra who quickly retreat. While battling the Black Lanterns at Coast City, Hank is later brought back to life by the power of the white light. Dawn has a vision of Don who tells Dawn that she can save Hank, and to not give up on him.


title: Hank Hall

text: At the beginning of the "Brightest Day" event, Hank and Dawn begin working together again as a crime-fighting duo. Dawn expresses worries over Hank's increasingly violent demeanor, but he simply brushes off her concerns. While stopping an army of powerful teenaged super villains in Gotham City, Hank and Dawn are invited by Zinda Blake to join the Birds of Prey. The two are immediately called by Oracle to help Black Canary and Huntress during their battle with a dangerous villainess known as the White Canary. Dove attempts to defeat her herself, but is surprised when White Canary is somehow able to dodge her attack and then draw blood from her. Hank and Dawn later encounter Deadman who Hank asks to resurrect Don. At a crater in Silver City, New Mexico, Deadman attempts to revive Don, only to be prevented from doing so by the Entity. As a number of onlookers (including Jackson Hyde) watch the Entity speak to the heroes, it instructs Hank to catch the boomerang that Captain Boomerang will throw at Dove.


title: Hank Hall

text: After being injured trying to kill himself because of depression, Hank Hall is sent to a hospital while his teammates plan their next move. During his hospital stay, Hank has a vision of himself, clad in a White Lantern uniform and talking to Don. Just before the dream ends, Don assures his brother that he is at peace. Later, Dawn is transported to the Star City forest by the Entity, Hawk unintentionally went with her, but when the "dark avatar" made his presence known, the Entity tells them that they must protect the forest and withstand the ultimate savior, which is Alec Holland.


title: Hank Hall

text: It was revealed that Captain Boomerang's mission for throwing the boomerang was to free Hawk as an avatar of war from the Lords of Chaos because his act of saving Dove would have broken their hold on him to be his own self. However, he failed to catch the boomerang and instead it was caught by Boston Brand, who ended up dying in the process and used his final act to move his white power ring to Alec Holland and bring back the Swamp Thing in order to cleanse the Green of Nekron's influence.


title: Hank Hall

text: As Hawk he possessed a "danger sense transformation" which allowed him to change into a super-human with the powers of super strength, unlimited stamina, enhanced speed, increased agility, enhanced body density, extreme durability and healing factor.


title: Hank Hall

text: As Monarch he possessed the same powers that he had as Hawk, along with a suit of highly durable armor that was crafted using advanced technology.


title: Hank Hall

text: As Extant he had the powers of chronokinesis, energy projection, flight, and omniscience. After piecing together the Worlogog he became nigh-omnipotent.


title: Hank Hall

text: While he was a member of the Black Lantern Corps, Hank wielded a black power ring which allowed him to generate black energy constructs. He was also able to perceive emotional auras. Whilst he was able to perceive Holly's aura as red for rage, he saw Dawn's as a pure white that his ring could not identify. While wearing the black power ring it lowers his original power by over 50%.


The Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, also known as the 1951 Refugee Convention or the Geneva Convention of 28 July 1951, is a United Nations multilateral treaty that defines who a refugee is, and sets out the rights of individuals who are granted asylum and the responsibilities of nations that grant asylum. The Convention also sets out which people do not qualify as refugees, such as war criminals. The Convention also provides for some visa-free travel for holders of refugee travel documents issued under the convention.


title: Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees

text: The Refugee Convention builds on Article 14 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which recognizes the right of persons to seek asylum from persecution in other countries. A refugee may enjoy rights and benefits in a state in addition to those provided for in the Convention.


text: The rights created by the Convention generally still stand today. Some have argued that the complex nature of 21st century refugee relationships calls for a new treaty that recognizes the evolving nature of the nation-state, economic migrants, population displacement, environmental migrants, and modern warfare. Nevertheless, ideas like the principle of non-refoulement (non-returning of refugees to dangerous countries) (Article 33) are still applied today, with the 1951 Convention being the source of such rights.


text: Prior to the 1951 document, there was agreed a Convention relating to the International Status of Refugees, of 28 October 1933, which dealt with administrative measures such as the issuance of Nansen certificates, refoulement, legal questions, labour conditions, industrial accidents, welfare and relief, education, fiscal regime and exemption from reciprocity, and provided for the creation of committees for refugees.


text: The Convention was approved at a special United Nations conference on 28 July 1951, and entered into force on 22 April 1954. It was initially limited to protecting European refugees from before 1 January 1951 (after World War II), but states could make a declaration that the provisions would apply to refugees from other places.


text: The 1967 Protocol removed the time limits and applied to refugees "without any geographic limitation" but declarations previously made by parties to the Convention on geographic scope were grandfathered.


text: As of 20 January 2020, there were 146 parties to the Convention, and 147 to the Protocol. Madagascar and Saint Kitts and Nevis are parties only to the Convention, while Cape Verde, the United States of America and Venezuela are parties only to the Protocol. Since the US ratified the Protocol in 1968, it undertook a majority of the obligations spelled out in the original 1951 document (Articles 2-34), and Article 1 as amended in the Protocol, as "supreme Law of the Land".


text: With the passage of time and the emergence of new refugee situations, the need was increasingly felt to make the provisions of the 1951 Convention applicable to such new refugees. As a result, a Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees was prepared, and entered into force on 4 October 1967. The UNHCR is called upon to provide international protection to refugees falling within its competence. The Protocol defined "refugee" to mean any person within the 1951 Convention definition as if the words "As a result of events occurring before 1 January 1951 and ..." were omitted.


text: Several groups have built upon the 1951 Convention to create a more objective definition. While their terms differ from those of the 1951 Convention, the Convention has significantly shaped the new, more objective definitions. They include the 1969 Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa by the Organisation of African Unity (since 2002 African Union) and the 1984 Cartagena Declaration, while nonbinding, also sets out regional standards for refugees in South and Central Americas, Mexico and the Caribbean.


text: Scholars have started to consider this definition unsuitable for contemporary society, where for example environmental refugees are not captured in the definition.


text: In the general principle of international law, treaties in force are binding upon the parties to it and must be performed in good faith. Countries that have ratified the Refugee Convention are obliged to protect refugees that are on their territory in accordance with its terms. There are a number of provisions to which parties to the Refugee Convention must adhere.


text: Although the Convention is "legally binding", there is no body that monitors compliance. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has supervisory responsibilities but cannot enforce the Convention, and there is no formal mechanism for individuals to file complaints. The Convention specifies that complaints should be referred to the International Court of Justice. It appears that no nation has ever done this.


text: An individual may lodge a complaint with the UN Human Rights Committee under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights or with the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, but no one has ever done so in regard to violations of the Convention. Nations may levy international sanctions against violators, but no nation has ever done so.


text: At present, the only real consequences of violation are 1) public shaming in the press, and 2) verbal condemnation of the violator by the UN and by other nations. To date, those have not proven to be significant deterrents.


title: Seo Taiji and Boys

text: The band won the Grand Prize at the Seoul Music Awards in both 1992 and 1993. In April 1996, "Billboard" reported that the band's first three albums had each sold over 1.6 million copies, with the fourth nearing two million, making all four some of the best-selling albums in South Korea.


title: Seo Taiji and Boys

text: After the breakup of the heavy metal band Sinawe in 1991, Seo Taiji switched gears and formed the group Seo Taiji and Boys with dancers and backing vocalists Yang Hyun-suk and Lee Juno. Yang said he first met Seo when the musician came to him to learn how to dance. "Blown away" by his music, Yang offered to join the group, and they later recruited Lee who was one of the top dancers in Korea and joined the group as a background dancer, despite being highly regarded in his own right, because the music "moved [his] heart." Seo Taiji came across MIDI technology for the first time in South Korea in the early 1990s and started experimenting with different MIDI sounds to create a new type of music that had not been heard by the public. He initially had no plans to debut as a dance/pop boy group, and Seo Taiji and Boys' mainstream success was a surprise.


title: Seo Taiji and Boys

text: The trio debuted on MBC's talent show on April 11, 1992, with their song "Nan Arayo" (난 알아요, "I Know") and got the lowest rating from the jury. However, the song and their self-titled debut album became so successful that, according to MTV Iggy, "K-pop" music would never be the same" again. One of the first Korean rap songs, "Nan Arayo" was a hugely successful hit; its new jack swing-inspired beats, upbeat rap verses and pop-style choruses combined with a focus on new dance moves took Korean audiences by storm. Influenced by the videos for Technotronic's "Pump Up the Jam" and Snap!'s "The Power", the music video for "Nan Arayo" features varying color saturation and chroma key editing, varying the angles of the dancers' bodies constantly. The group sold over 1.5 million copies of the album within a month of its release, and Seo Taiji and Boys won a Golden Disc Award for "Nan Arayo" in 1992. "Spin" named "Nan Arayo" number 4 on their 2012 list of the 21 Greatest K-Pop Songs of All Time. In 2015, "Rolling Stone" named it number 36 on its list of the 50 Greatest Boy Band Songs of All Time. "Nan Arayo" is also recognized for establishing the popularity of rap in K-pop and hybridizing the Korean ballad style with rap, rock, and techno.


title: Seo Taiji and Boys

text: Their 1993 second album took a different turn. Although remaining a mostly dance album, a few songs such as "Hayeoga" (하여가, 何如歌, "Anyhow Song") combined elements of heavy metal and traditional Korean folk music through the use of the taepyeongso, a double-reed wind instrument, and melodic structure. While there was controversy that the guitar solo in the middle of the song plagiarized Testament's "First Strike is Deadly", the guitarist for the solo, Lee Tae-Seop, mentioned in an interview that the solo's arpeggios reinterpreted Scandinavian folk songs, which had no copyright. "Hayeoga" earned them their second Golden Disc Award. Moreover, while promoting the album, the group was banned from appearing on the national television channel KBS-TV because they wore earrings, ripped jeans and had dreadlocks, which ethics committees associated with reggae, resistance movements, and rejection of social norms (although their brightly dyed long hair in 1995 did not attract a similar ban). This was the first of the numerous controversies regarding Seo Taiji and Boys. The band's second album became the first 'double million sellers' album in Korean history.


title: Seo Taiji and Boys

text: The third album shifted to a more heavy metal and rock style. Danceable tunes were nearly non-existent except "Dreaming of Bal-Hae" (발해를 꿈꾸며), an alternative rock song indicating a hope of reuniting North and South Korea, which earned the group its third Golden Disc Award. Instead, songs such as the controversial "Classroom Idea" (교실 이데아) with death growl vocals, influenced by bands such as the Beastie Boys and Rage Against the Machine, by Ahn Heung-Chan of Crash took center stage. The song was extremely critical of the Korean education system and the pressure placed on youth to succeed academically, such as doing well on university entrance exams. The song was banned from being played on TV and radio (but passed by ethics committees) for the censuring of the education system in its lyrics:Every morning you lead us into a tiny classroom by 7:30, forcing the same things into the 7 million heads of children around the country. These dark, closed classrooms are swallowing us up. My life is too precious to be wasted here.Additionally, the band was accused of backmasking Satanic messages in the song. Although the mainstream news media later proved these accusations to be groundless, the moral panic proved difficult to eliminate entirely.


title: Seo Taiji and Boys

text: Not backing down, Seo Taiji and Boys' fourth album exploded with more controversial songs. "Come Back Home" was a foray into gangsta rap, featuring a high-pitched nasal voice influenced by B-Real of Cypress Hill in "Insane in the Brain" and by House of Pain. "Pilseung" (필승, 必勝, "Certain Victory") was also a hit with alternative rock sound and shouting voice reminiscent of House of Pain's "Jump Around". However, "Regret of the Times" (시대유감, 時代遺憾) was banned by the Public Performance Ethics Committee for having lyrics that criticized the government. The version of the song included on the album is instrumental only, as a refusal by Seo to rewrite or remove the original three lines that the Ethics Committee demanded be changed (in bold): Educated elders are walking down the street holding pretty dolls. It seems that the day everyone has been secretly hoping for is coming today. Lips stained black. [...] [...] Tonight!The backlash from the fans was immense, and the system of "pre-censorship" (사전심의제) was abolished in June 1996, partially as a result of this reaction. An EP titled "Regret of the Times" including the original version of the song was released a month after the system was abolished.


title: Seo Taiji and Boys

text: Seo Taiji and Boys retired from South Korea's popular music scene in January 1996 during its heyday. Lee later stated that Seo made the decision to disband while recording their fourth album, much to the surprise of Yang and himself. The band's announcement of retirement was a huge disappointment for millions of fans in Korea. The compilation album "Goodbye Best Album" was released later that year.


title: Seo Taiji and Boys

text: Seo Taiji headed over to the United States soon after, while Lee Juno and Yang Hyun-suk established record labels right after their retirement. Yang Hyun-suk was successful in founding YG Entertainment, one of the three biggest record companies in the country. Seo Taiji returned to music two years later with a very successful solo career; he is now referred to as "the President of culture" in South Korea. In 2007, all four of Seo Taiji and Boys' albums were included in "Kyunghyang Shinmun"s Top 100 Pop Albums, with their first ranking the highest at number 24.


title: Seo Taiji and Boys

text: In 2014, when asked about a possible Seo Taiji and Boys reunion, Seo revealed that the three members had talked about it often. However, he said:The biggest obstacle is that in the past, we put on really beautiful performances, which fans remember, but if we get back together now, I worry we might disappoint, so I am not confident. I lack more and more confidence as I get older. I don't think I'd be able to dance as fiercely as I had in the past.


title: Seo Taiji and Boys

text: By incorporating these musical elements with Korea's ballad music, Seo Taiji and Boys provided the basis for the hybridization of Korea's music with that of the West, resulting in the foundation of modern K-pop. This hybridization of music and foregrounding of dance movements was one of the fundamental reasons for the popularity of Korean popular music, especially among teenage and early 20s listeners, as it also promoted Korean popular music's ability to penetrate foreign markets in what has become known as the Korean Wave. Doobo Shim, a researcher of Asian culture, credits Seo Taiji and Boys with creating the "distinctively Korean pop style" which became commonplace. Moreover, the band was voted as the most crucial Korean cultural product in a survey conducted by the Samsung Economic Research Institute in 1997.


title: Seo Taiji and Boys

text: Seo Taiji and Boys acted as an instrument of change within Korea, challenging censorship laws as well as the television networks hegemony over the music market. In 1995 the Korean Broadcasting Ethics Committee demanded that Seo Taiji and Boys change the lyrics for "Shidae Yugam". This incited protests and resulted in the abolishment of music pre-censorship in Korea. Seo Taiji also did not have to rely on television networks due to the fact that he owned his own studio. This autonomy allowed Seo to bring subcultures in Korea, such as heavy metal, to the forefront of popular culture and challenge pervasive social norms. The band's independent success diminished the power of the television networks to dictate which artists appeared on shows, and gave rise to the influence of record labels and . Such companies led to the formation of bands such as H.O.T., Sechs Kies, Uptown, and Shinhwa.


title: Seo Taiji and Boys

text: Additionally, Seo Taiji and Boys' fashion contrasted sharply with the convention at the time. The band members' style ranged from wearing tailored jackets and neat dress shirts to street fashion. They incorporated traditional Korean folk costumes and Scottish kilts, showcasing a variety of cultures. Seo Taiji and Boys pioneered the "snowboard look", which included dark sunglasses, ski hats, and large parkas. Furthermore, the band members' wearing of dreadlocks in 1993 caused a reactionary ban of the band on national television.


title: Seo Taiji and Boys

text: Another aspect of Korean pop that Seo Taiji and Boys influenced was dance. The band was the first to turn dance into a dominant feature in performance by including breakdancing routines. Dancer Nam Hyun-joon cites Seo Taiji and Boys as a primary influence, and appeared in one of band member Lee Juno's music videos.


title: Seo Taiji and Boys

text: Celebrating the Seo Taiji and Boys' 25th anniversary project "TIME: TRAVELER", the band BTS remade "Come Back Home" in 2017, reflecting a similar sentiment to the societal change that Seo argued for in his songs. While maintaining the gangsta rap style, J-Hope raps: "I feel suffocated in my life. What is blocking my life is my fear towards tomorrow," while RM adds, "Because we are still young, there's a decent future. Now wipe those old tears and come back home." While Seo's social critique of Korean culture was predated by songs of Kim Min-ki, who focused on political violence during the Fourth Republic of Korea under the leader Park Chung-hee, Seo's songs included more direct lyrics and maintained his musical identity by refusing to acquiesce to the pre-censorship policies of the time. In fact, his artistry was unhampered by marketing and advertising campaigns, which may have contributed to the band's success.


title: Prior probability

text: In Bayesian statistical inference, a prior probability distribution, often simply called the prior, of an uncertain quantity is the probability distribution that would express one's beliefs about this quantity before some evidence is taken into account. For example, the prior could be the probability distribution representing the relative proportions of voters who will vote for a particular politician in a future election. The unknown quantity may be a parameter of the model or a latent variable rather than an observable variable.


title: Prior probability

text: Bayes' theorem calculates the renormalized pointwise product of the prior and the likelihood function, to produce the "posterior probability distribution", which is the conditional distribution of the uncertain quantity given the data.


title: Prior probability

text: Similarly, the prior probability of a random event or an uncertain proposition is the unconditional probability that is assigned before any relevant evidence is taken into account.


title: Prior probability

text: Priors can be created using a number of methods. A prior can be determined from past information, such as previous experiments. A prior can be "elicited" from the purely subjective assessment of an experienced expert. An "uninformative prior" can be created to reflect a balance among outcomes when no information is available. Priors can also be chosen according to some principle, such as symmetry or maximizing entropy given constraints; examples are the Jeffreys prior or Bernardo's reference prior. When a family of "conjugate priors" exists, choosing a prior from that family simplifies calculation of the posterior distribution.


title: Prior probability

text: Parameters of prior distributions are a kind of "hyperparameter". For example, if one uses a beta distribution to model the distribution of the parameter "p" of a Bernoulli distribution, then:


title: Prior probability

text: Hyperparameters themselves may have hyperprior distributions expressing beliefs about their values. A Bayesian model with more than one level of prior like this is called a hierarchical Bayes model.


title: Prior probability

text: A reasonable approach is to make the prior a normal distribution with expected value equal to today's noontime temperature, with variance equal to the day-to-day variance of atmospheric temperature,


title: Prior probability

text: namely, that the posterior from one problem (today's temperature) becomes the prior for another problem (tomorrow's temperature); pre-existing evidence which has already been taken into account is part of the prior and, as more evidence accumulates, the posterior is determined largely by the evidence rather than any original assumption, provided that the original assumption admitted the possibility of what the evidence is suggesting. The terms "prior" and "posterior" are generally relative to a specific datum or observation.


title: Prior probability

text: A "weakly informative prior" expresses partial information about a variable. An example is, when setting the prior distribution for the temperature at noon tomorrow in St. Louis, to use a normal distribution with mean 50 degrees Fahrenheit and standard deviation 40 degrees, which very loosely constrains the temperature to the range (10 degrees, 90 degrees) with a small chance of being below -30 degrees or above 130 degrees. The purpose of a weakly informative prior is for regularization, that is, to keep inferences in a reasonable range.


title: Prior probability

text: An uninformative, flat, or diffuse prior expresses vague or general information about a variable. The term "uninformative prior" is somewhat of a misnomer. Such a prior might also be called a "not very informative prior", or an "objective prior", i.e. one that's not subjectively elicited.


title: Prior probability

text: Uninformative priors can express "objective" information such as "the variable is positive" or "the variable is less than some limit". The simplest and oldest rule for determining a non-informative prior is the principle of indifference, which assigns equal probabilities to all possibilities. In parameter estimation problems, the use of an uninformative prior typically yields results which are not too different from conventional statistical analysis, as the likelihood function often yields more information than the uninformative prior.


title: Prior probability

text: Some attempts have been made at finding a priori probabilities, i.e. probability distributions in some sense logically required by the nature of one's state of uncertainty; these are a subject of philosophical controversy, with Bayesians being roughly divided into two schools: "objective Bayesians", who believe such priors exist in many useful situations, and "subjective Bayesians" who believe that in practice priors usually represent subjective judgements of opinion that cannot be rigorously justified (Williamson 2010). Perhaps the strongest arguments for objective Bayesianism were given by Edwin T. Jaynes, based mainly on the consequences of symmetries and on the principle of maximum entropy.


title: Prior probability

text: As an example of an a priori prior, due to Jaynes (2003), consider a situation in which one knows a ball has been hidden under one of three cups, A, B, or C, but no other information is available about its location. In this case a "uniform prior" of "p"("A") = "p"("B") = "p"("C") = 1/3 seems intuitively like the only reasonable choice. More formally, we can see that the problem remains the same if we swap around the labels ("A", "B" and "C") of the cups. It would therefore be odd to choose a prior for which a permutation of the labels would cause a change in our predictions about which cup the ball will be found under; the uniform prior is the only one which preserves this invariance. If one accepts this invariance principle then one can see that the uniform prior is the logically correct prior to represent this state of knowledge. This prior is "objective" in the sense of being the correct choice to represent a particular state of knowledge, but it is not objective in the sense of being an observer-independent feature of the world: in reality the ball exists under a particular cup, and it only makes sense to speak of probabilities in this situation if there is an observer with limited knowledge about the system.


title: Prior probability

text: As a more contentious example, Jaynes published an argument (Jaynes 1968) based on the invariance of the prior under a change of parameters that suggests that the prior representing complete uncertainty about a probability should be the Haldane prior "p"(1 − "p"). The example Jaynes gives is of finding a chemical in a lab and asking whether it will dissolve in water in repeated experiments. The Haldane prior gives by far the most weight to formula_1 and formula_2, indicating that the sample will either dissolve every time or never dissolve, with equal probability. However, if one has observed samples of the chemical to dissolve in one experiment and not to dissolve in another experiment then this prior is updated to the uniform distribution on the interval [0, 1]. This is obtained by applying Bayes' theorem to the data set consisting of one observation of dissolving and one of not dissolving, using the above prior. The Haldane prior is an improper prior distribution (meaning that it has an infinite mass). Harold Jeffreys devised a systematic way for designing uninformative priors as e.g., Jeffreys prior "p"(1 − "p") for the Bernoulli random variable.


title: Prior probability

text: Priors can be constructed which are proportional to the Haar measure if the parameter space "X" carries a natural group structure which leaves invariant our Bayesian state of knowledge (Jaynes, 1968). This can be seen as a generalisation of the invariance principle used to justify the uniform prior over the three cups in the example above. For example, in physics we might expect that an experiment will give the same results regardless of our choice of the origin of a coordinate system. This induces the group structure of the translation group on "X", which determines the prior probability as a constant improper prior. Similarly, some measurements are naturally invariant to the choice of an arbitrary scale (e.g., whether centimeters or inches are used, the physical results should be equal). In such a case, the scale group is the natural group structure, and the corresponding prior on "X" is proportional to 1/"x". It sometimes matters whether we use the left-invariant or right-invariant Haar measure. For example, the left and right invariant Haar measures on the affine group are not equal. Berger (1985, p. 413) argues that the right-invariant Haar measure is the correct choice.


title: Prior probability

text: Another idea, championed by Edwin T. Jaynes, is to use the principle of maximum entropy (MAXENT). The motivation is that the Shannon entropy of a probability distribution measures the amount of information contained in the distribution. The larger the entropy, the less information is provided by the distribution. Thus, by maximizing the entropy over a suitable set of probability distributions on "X", one finds the distribution that is least informative in the sense that it contains the least amount of information consistent with the constraints that define the set. For example, the maximum entropy prior on a discrete space, given only that the probability is normalized to 1, is the prior that assigns equal probability to each state. And in the continuous case, the maximum entropy prior given that the density is normalized with mean zero and unit variance is the standard normal distribution. The principle of "minimum cross-entropy" generalizes MAXENT to the case of "updating" an arbitrary prior distribution with suitable constraints in the maximum-entropy sense.


title: Prior probability

text: A related idea, reference priors, was introduced by José-Miguel Bernardo. Here, the idea is to maximize the expected Kullback–Leibler divergence of the posterior distribution relative to the prior. This maximizes the expected posterior information about "X" when the prior density is "p"("x"); thus, in some sense, "p"("x") is the "least informative" prior about X. The reference prior is defined in the asymptotic limit, i.e., one considers the limit of the priors so obtained as the number of data points goes to infinity. In the present case, the KL divergence between the prior and posterior distributions is given by


title: Prior probability

text: Here, formula_4 is a sufficient statistic for some parameter formula_5. The inner integral is the KL divergence between the posterior formula_6 and prior formula_7 distributions and the result is the weighted mean over all values of formula_4. Splitting the logarithm into two parts, reversing the order of integrals in the second part and noting that formula_9 does not depend on formula_4 yields


title: Prior probability

text: The inner integral in the second part is the integral over formula_4 of the joint density formula_13. This is the marginal distribution formula_7, so we have


title: Prior probability

text: Now we use the concept of entropy which, in the case of probability distributions, is the negative expected value of the logarithm of the probability mass or density function or formula_16 Using this in the last equation yields


title: Prior probability

text: In words, KL is the negative expected value over formula_4 of the entropy of formula_5 conditional on formula_4 plus the marginal (i.e. unconditional) entropy of formula_5. In the limiting case where the sample size tends to infinity, the Bernstein-von Mises theorem states that the distribution of formula_5 conditional on a given observed value of formula_4 is normal with a variance equal to the reciprocal of the Fisher information at the 'true' value of formula_5. The entropy of a normal density function is equal to half the logarithm of formula_25 where formula_26 is the variance of the distribution. In this case therefore formula_27 where formula_28 is the arbitrarily large sample size (to which Fisher information is proportional) and formula_29 is the 'true' value. Since this does not depend on formula_4 it can be taken out of the integral, and as this integral is over a probability space it equals one. Hence we can write the asymptotic form of KL as


title: Prior probability

text: where formula_32 is proportional to the (asymptotically large) sample size. We do not know the value of formula_29. Indeed, the very idea goes against the philosophy of Bayesian inference in which 'true' values of parameters are replaced by prior and posterior distributions. So we remove formula_29 by replacing it with formula_5 and taking the expected value of the normal entropy, which we obtain by multiplying by formula_7 and integrating over formula_5. This allows us to combine the logarithms yielding


title: Prior probability

text: This is a quasi-KL divergence ("quasi" in the sense that the square root of the Fisher information may be the kernel of an improper distribution). Due to the minus sign, we need to minimise this in order to maximise the KL divergence with which we started. The minimum value of the last equation occurs where the two distributions in the logarithm argument, improper or not, do not diverge. This in turn occurs when the prior distribution is proportional to the square root of the Fisher information of the likelihood function. Hence in the single parameter case, reference priors and Jeffreys priors are identical, even though Jeffreys has a very different rationale.


title: Prior probability

text: Reference priors are often the objective prior of choice in multivariate problems, since other rules (e.g., Jeffreys' rule) may result in priors with problematic behavior.


title: Prior probability

text: Objective prior distributions may also be derived from other principles, such as information or coding theory (see e.g. minimum description length) or frequentist statistics (see frequentist matching). Such methods are used in Solomonoff's theory of inductive inference. Constructing objective priors have been recently introduced in bioinformatics, and specially inference in cancer systems biology, where sample size is limited and a vast amount of prior knowledge is available. In these methods, either an information theory based criterion, such as KL divergence or log-likelihood function for binary supervised learning problems and mixture model problems.


title: Prior probability

text: Philosophical problems associated with uninformative priors are associated with the choice of an appropriate metric, or measurement scale. Suppose we want a prior for the running speed of a runner who is unknown to us. We could specify, say, a normal distribution as the prior for his speed, but alternatively we could specify a normal prior for the time he takes to complete 100 metres, which is proportional to the reciprocal of the first prior. These are very different priors, but it is not clear which is to be preferred. Jaynes' often-overlooked method of transformation groups can answer this question in some situations.


title: Prior probability

text: Similarly, if asked to estimate an unknown proportion between 0 and 1, we might say that all proportions are equally likely, and use a uniform prior. Alternatively, we might say that all orders of magnitude for the proportion are equally likely, the , which is the uniform prior on the logarithm of proportion. The Jeffreys prior attempts to solve this problem by computing a prior which expresses the same belief no matter which metric is used. The Jeffreys prior for an unknown proportion "p" is "p"(1 − "p"), which differs from Jaynes' recommendation.


title: Prior probability

text: Priors based on notions of algorithmic probability are used in inductive inference as a basis for induction in very general settings.


title: Prior probability

text: Practical problems associated with uninformative priors include the requirement that the posterior distribution be proper. The usual uninformative priors on continuous, unbounded variables are improper. This need not be a problem if the posterior distribution is proper. Another issue of importance is that if an uninformative prior is to be used "routinely", i.e., with many different data sets, it should have good frequentist properties. Normally a Bayesian would not be concerned with such issues, but it can be important in this situation. For example, one would want any decision rule based on the posterior distribution to be admissible under the adopted loss function. Unfortunately, admissibility is often difficult to check, although some results are known (e.g., Berger and Strawderman 1996). The issue is particularly acute with hierarchical Bayes models; the usual priors (e.g., Jeffreys' prior) may give badly inadmissible decision rules if employed at the higher levels of the hierarchy.


title: Prior probability

text: then it is clear that the same result would be obtained if all the prior probabilities "P"("A") and "P"("A") were multiplied by a given constant; the same would be true for a continuous random variable. If the summation in the denominator converges, the posterior probabilities will still sum (or integrate) to 1 even if the prior values do not, and so the priors may only need to be specified in the correct proportion. Taking this idea further, in many cases the sum or integral of the prior values may not even need to be finite to get sensible answers for the posterior probabilities. When this is the case, the prior is called an improper prior. However, the posterior distribution need not be a proper distribution if the prior is improper. This is clear from the case where event "B" is independent of all of the "A".


title: Prior probability

text: Statisticians sometimes use improper priors as uninformative priors. For example, if they need a prior distribution for the mean and variance of a random variable, they may assume "p"("m", "v") ~ 1/"v" (for "v" > 0) which would suggest that any value for the mean is "equally likely" and that a value for the positive variance becomes "less likely" in inverse proportion to its value. Many authors (Lindley, 1973; De Groot, 1937; Kass and Wasserman, 1996) warn against the danger of over-interpreting those priors since they are not probability densities. The only relevance they have is found in the corresponding posterior, as long as it is well-defined for all observations. (The Haldane prior is a typical counterexample.)


title: Prior probability

text: By contrast, likelihood functions do not need to be integrated, and a likelihood function that is uniformly 1 corresponds to the absence of data (all models are equally likely, given no data): Bayes' rule multiplies a prior by the likelihood, and an empty product is just the constant likelihood 1. However, without starting with a prior probability distribution, one does not end up getting a posterior probability distribution, and thus cannot integrate or compute expected values or loss. See for details.


title: Prior probability

text: These functions, interpreted as uniform distributions, can also be interpreted as the likelihood function in the absence of data, but are not proper priors.


title: Helen Lewis (journalist)

text: Helen Lewis (born 30 September 1983) is a British journalist and a staff writer at "The Atlantic". She is a former deputy editor of the "New Statesman," and has also written for "The Guardian" and "The Sunday Times".


title: Helen Lewis (journalist)

text: After graduating, she gained a post-graduate diploma in newspaper journalism from London's City University. Subsequently, she was accepted on the "Daily Mail" programme for trainee sub-editors, working in the job for a few years, and later joining the team responsible for commissioning features for the newspaper. She was appointed the Women in the Humanities Honorary Writing Fellow at Oxford University for 2018/2019, and is now on the steering committee for the Reuters Institute for Journalism at Oxford University, where she delivered a lecture on "The Failures of Political Journalism," subsequently adapted as a "New Statesman" cover story.


title: Helen Lewis (journalist)

text: Lewis was appointed as deputy editor of the "New Statesman" in May 2012, after becoming assistant editor in 2010. Since July 2019, she has been a staff writer at "The Atlantic".


title: Helen Lewis (journalist)

text: In September 2018, Lewis interviewed Jordan Peterson for "GQ", in a video which has been viewed nearly 60 million times.


title: Helen Lewis (journalist)

text: In November 2019, April 2020, October 2020, April 2021 and November 2021 Lewis was a panellist on BBC's "Have I Got News for You".


title: Helen Lewis (journalist)

text: Lewis's first book "Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights", a history of the battles for women's rights, was published by Jonathan Cape on 27 February 2020. "Difficult Women" was featured in the "New Statesman" under "Books to Read in 2020", and in the "Observer" list of "Non-fiction Books to Look Out for in 2020".


title: Helen Lewis (journalist)

text: In December 2019, Lewis launched her Radio 4 series, "The Spark", a longform interview series with each episode dedicated to a single guest (or, in one case, two co-authors). The first four series have been collected by Penguin as an audiobook.


title: Helen Lewis (journalist)

text: In 2012, Lewis coined what she herself referred to as "": "the comments on any article about feminism justify feminism".


title: Helen Lewis (journalist)

text: In January 2013, Lewis edited a week of articles dedicated to transgender issues at the "New Statesman", featuring articles by transgender and non-binary writers including Juliet Jacques, Jane Fae and Sky Yarlett. In the introduction, she wrote: "For anyone interested in equality, it should be obvious that trans people are subject to harassment simply for the way they express their gender identity."


title: Helen Lewis (journalist)

text: While supportive of transgender people's right to freedom from harassment and abuse, in July 2017, Lewis wrote about her concerns that gender self-identification would make rape shelters unsafe for women and would lead to an increase in sexual assaults in women's changing rooms, writing: "In this climate, who would challenge someone with a beard exposing their penis in a women's changing room?" In response to criticism for those comments, Lewis said "I've had two tedious years of being abused online as a transphobe and a 'TERF' or 'trans-exclusionary radical feminist'—despite my belief that trans women are women, and trans men are men—because I have expressed concerns about self-ID and its impact on single-sex spaces". In November 2020, game developer Ubisoft removed two in-game podcasts from "" that featured Lewis. This decision was reportedly due to complaints about Lewis' alleged transphobia.


title: Helen Lewis (journalist)

text: Lewis was educated at the independent St Mary's School, Worcester and then read English at St Peter's College, Oxford.


title: Helen Lewis (journalist)

text: Lewis married "Guardian" journalist Jonathan Haynes in 2015. She was previously married in 2010 and divorced her first husband in 2013.


title: Chinampa

text: Chinampa ( ) is a technique used in Mesoamerican agriculture which relies on small, rectangular areas of fertile arable land to grow crops on the shallow lake beds in the Valley of Mexico. They are built up on wetlands of a lake or freshwater swamp for agricultural purposes, and their proportions ensure optimal moisture retention. The United Nations designated it a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System in 2018. The Aztecs created the very first Chinampa.