title: Galleria dell'Accademia

text: In 2016, it had 1.46 million visitors, making it the second-most-visited art museum in Italy, after the Uffizi (2.02 million).


title: Galleria dell'Accademia

text: In 2001 the "Museo degli strumenti musicali" collection opened. It includes musical instruments made by Stradivarius, Niccolò Amati and Bartolomeo Cristofori which were acquired by the Florence Conservatory.


title: Galleria dell'Accademia

text: The Galleria dell'Accademia has housed the original "David" by Michelangelo since 1873. The sculpture was allegedly brought to the Accademia for reasons of conservation, although other factors were involved in its move from its previous outdoor location on Piazza della Signoria. The original intention was to create a "Michelangelo museum", with original sculptures and drawings, to celebrate the fourth centenary of the artist's birth. Today, the gallery's small collection of Michelangelo's work includes his four unfinished "Prisoners", intended for the tomb of Pope Julius II, and a statue of "Saint Matthew", also unfinished. In 1939, these were joined by the "Palestrina Pietà", discovered in the Barberini chapel in Palestrina, though experts now consider its attribution to Michelangelo to be dubious.


title: Galleria dell'Accademia

text: Other works on display are Florentine paintings from the 13th and 16th centuries, including works by Paolo Uccello, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Sandro Botticelli and Andrea del Sarto; and, from the High Renaissance, Giambologna's original full-size plaster modello for the "Rape of the Sabine Women". As well as a number of Florentine Gothic paintings, the gallery houses the collection of Russian icons assembled by the Grand Dukes of the House of Lorraine, of which Leopoldo was one.


title: 2021 British Grand Prix

text: The 2021 British Grand Prix (officially known as the Formula 1 Pirelli British Grand Prix 2021 for sponsorship reasons) was a Formula One motor race held on 18 July 2021 at the Silverstone Circuit in Northamptonshire, England.


title: 2021 British Grand Prix

text: It was the tenth round of the 2021 Formula One World Championship and also featured the first ever "sprint qualifying" event in F1 - a new format run on the Saturday of the race weekend over a distance of around 1/3rd the usual race distance. 3 points were awarded to the winner of the Sprint, 2 to 2nd place and 1 to 3rd place.


title: 2021 British Grand Prix

text: The sprint qualification was won by Max Verstappen giving him pole position for the race while the race was won by Lewis Hamilton who won his record eighth British Grand Prix.


title: 2021 British Grand Prix

text: The event, which was held over the weekend of July, was the only Formula One race at Silverstone in 2021, after the venue had held two races behind closed doors due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom during 2020; the 2020 British Grand Prix was won by Lewis Hamilton, while the other one-off race, the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix, was won by Max Verstappen. This was the seventy-second time the British Grand Prix had formed a part of the world championship. In February 2021, the organisers at Silverstone Circuit said they hoped the race would have a capacity 140,000 crowd, but that this was dependent on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, which had forced the two races held at Silverstone in 2020 to be behind closed doors. Hamilton aimed to win the event for a record-breaking eighth time, having won the event seven times overall previously having first won the event in 2008 and going for his third consecutive British GP win having won the event the previous two seasons. The United Kingdom government allowed fans to return to live major sporting events on 17 May 2021 in limited numbers.


title: 2021 British Grand Prix

text: On 14 June 2021, the United Kingdom's government announced that a planned further easing of lockdown restrictions in England would be delayed from an original date of 21 June 2021 to 19 July 2021, a delay of four weeks and the day after the Silverstone race took place. This meant Silverstone would require special exemption to gain a capacity crowd and the circuit began work with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to try and establish how many fans the venue would be allowed to host. On 24 June 2021, the British Grand Prix was given permission to take place with a full capacity crowd as a part of United Kingdom government's events research programme with ticket holders either required to provide evidence of negative lateral flow test carried out 48 hours before their attendance of the event or proof of double vaccination against the virus fourteen days before attending the first day of the event. Upon being asked for his reaction to news about Silverstone being permitted to have a capacity crowd, Hamilton said in a press conference prior to the Styrian Grand Prix that he feared allowing such big numbers of spectators to attend the event were "premature" but some of his fellow drivers, notably George Russell and Verstappen, were more positive about the news. Reportedly more of the spectators were women than in previous years.


title: 2021 British Grand Prix

text: On Thursday 15 July, one day prior to start of the weekend action, Lando Norris admitted in an interview to Craig Slater of Sky Sports his preparations for his home race were not ideal, stating he was "sore", "not in the perfect condition", and he was "struggling to get sleep" after he was mugged in an incident at Wembley Stadium after the UEFA Euro 2020 Final. Also on 15 July, McLaren made a statement confirming that three of their team had tested positive for COVID-19. Notably, chief executive officer Zak Brown was one of the three who were positive. Neither of the drivers had to self-isolate and the plans for the weekend were "unaffected." The event marked the seventieth anniversary of Scuderia Ferrari's first world championship Grand Prix win. A full-scale mock-up model illustrating what cars built to the planned 2022 aerodynamic regulations will look like was revealed at the venue on the Thursday before the Grand Prix.


title: 2021 British Grand Prix

text: Following the Austrian Grand Prix, Verstappen led the Drivers' Championship from Hamilton by 32 points, who leads third placed Sergio Pérez by 46 points. Red Bull Racing led Mercedes by 44 points in the Constructors' Championship. The drivers and teams were the same as the season entry list, with no additional stand-in drivers for the race. Sole tyre supplier Pirelli allocated the C1, C2, and C3 compounds of tyre to be used in the race. The weekend saw the race debut of new rear-tyre construction following a successful test in practice at the previous event in Austria. The new construction is designed to improve safety, by preventing rear-tyre failures, such as those experienced by Lance Stroll and Verstappen at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix earlier in the season.


title: 2021 British Grand Prix

text: The 2021 British Grand Prix was the first race in the season to implement the new sprint-qualifying format, with two others expected to do the same later in the season. It was agreed after the FIA, Formula One and all ten teams had reached a unanimous agreement, regarding the schedule of the weekend. This saw a change in the weekend format as well as the rules. Usually, Friday would host two practice sessions, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon. Saturday would have the final practice in the morning with qualifying in the afternoon. Sunday would have just one session, the race. The sprint qualifying changes this format, and on a Friday there would be one practice session in the early afternoon and a traditional qualifying (to determine the sprint-qualifying starting order) in the evening. On a Saturday, the second practice would take place at noon, with a newly added sprint race happening in the afternoon. Sunday is unchanged in this format. This also meant that this was the first F1 weekend for many years with a Friday qualification season.


title: 2021 British Grand Prix

text: Formula One's director of data systems Rob Smedley said the sport would do the best it could to make sure that sprint-qualifying races do not become a "blur" for fans. Whilst ex-World Champion Sebastian Vettel has voiced his scepticism over the sprint-qualifying idea, drivers such as Hamilton, Carlos Sainz Jr., Fernando Alonso, and Russell have reacted positively with Formula One willingness to try a new format. Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc suggested the sprint-qualifying experiments should not continue in the future if they were proven to be unsuccessful. Leclerc also said he believed that sprint qualifying would enable drivers to push "for a whole race". Changes to sporting regulations to accommodate sprint qualifying were approved by teams prior to the Austrian Grand Prix ready for approval from the FIA. Hamilton later revised his opinion, and he thought the new format probably "would not be too exciting" and saw it being "a train". Formula One managing director Ross Brawn said that the sprint-qualifying experiment could be the first of many Formula One format experiments. The weekend was the first time since the 1959 German Grand Prix at AVUS (where results of the Grand Prix itself were decided on aggregate with drivers completing two 30-lap heats) that a Grand Prix meeting had consisted of more than one race for Grand Prix cars during a weekend.


title: 2021 British Grand Prix

text: The sprint qualifying is a , seventeen laps for this event, race which would decide the starting order for the race on Sunday. The grid order for sprint qualifying would be decided via the normal Q1, Q2, Q3 qualifying session. The final classification of the sprint qualifying race would be the starting grid for the race. The winner of the sprint qualifying would be on pole. Additionally, sprint qualifying awards points to the top three finishers. The maximum time limit would be 60 minutes, and normal fuel flow limits would still apply. The top three in sprint qualifying would also be given a victory parade and special wreaths for their efforts.


title: 2021 British Grand Prix

text: The first free practice session commenced on Friday at 14:30 BST in warm sunny conditions. Verstappen of Red Bull topped the timing sheets, 0.779 seconds ahead of Norris, who was second for McLaren. Reigning World Champion Hamilton was third for Mercedes, just 0.001 seconds slower than second-placed Norris.


title: 2021 British Grand Prix

text: The second free practice session took place on Saturday at 12:00 BST in sunny conditions. Verstappen topped the timing sheets again, 0.375 seconds ahead of Leclerc. Leclerc's teammate Sainz, was in third, 0.230 seconds behind. There were no major incidents in either of the practice sessions.


title: 2021 British Grand Prix

text: Qualifying took place on Friday at 18:00 BST. Hamilton set the fastest time in qualifying, granting him first place for sprint qualifying ahead of Verstappen in second and his teammate Valtteri Bottas in third. As the winner of sprint qualifying would be given the title of "polesitter", the driver who set the fastest time was instead named the event's "speed king". Formula One's chief technical officer Pat Symonds said that control over how the title of pole position is declared lies with the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile and not Formula One Management.


title: 2021 British Grand Prix

text: Sprint qualifying took place on Saturday at 16:30 BST and was contested over seventeen laps. Hamilton lost out at the start with Verstappen overtaking him into first place. Verstappen had had trouble getting his car's tyres up to temperature in the cooler temperatures of qualifying, but it was much warmer for the sprint. Bottas and Leclerc remained in the third and fourth positions they started in for the duration of the sprint. Alonso went from eleventh to fifth in the first lap, while Nikita Mazepin hit his Haas teammate Mick Schumacher, causing Mazepin to spin on track. Also on the first lap, Russell and Sainz made contact, resulting in Sainz dropping down to 19th place; Russell was handed a three-place grid penalty by the FIA. The next major incident was when Pérez lost control of his car on lap 5, spinning off into the gravel. He was able to carry on but later retired on lap 16. Alonso, who finished the sprint in seventh, was given a warning for moving in the braking zone, to which he responded by saying that he intended to continue driving the same way for the rest of the year. Alonso was passed by the two McLaren drivers without much resistance, as they had faster cars than him, but he was then able to hold off Vettel's Aston Martin AMR21. Formula One held the event with the intent to analyse the views of audiences on the format, and noted that there had been both positive and negative reactions.


title: 2021 British Grand Prix

text: The race started at 15:00 BST (14:00 UTC). Hamilton had a better start than Verstappen, and they ran side by side through the first corner, each contesting for the lead throughout the first half of the lap. A better run out of the fourth turn allowed Hamilton to briefly get ahead going in to the sixth turn, but Verstappen was able to get back past on the inside, with Hamilton then accelerating faster than Verstappen out of the seventh turn. Hamilton collided with Verstappen into Copse corner, with Verstappen's rear-right tyre stripped from the wheel rim. Verstappen slid sideways across the gravel trap on the outside of the track, and collided with the tyre wall at at least .


title: 2021 British Grand Prix

text: The crash saw a red flag brought out following Verstappen's retirement, with the race suspended for fifteen minutes while Verstappen's car was removed and the tyre wall repaired. Hamilton received a ten-second time penalty for causing the collision, with stewards ruling that Hamilton was predominantly, but not fully, at fault in the contact. Hamilton's car was repaired during the stoppage. Verstappen was taken to the circuit medical centre, and subsequently hospital, for precautionary checks after the sideways impact into the barriers. Verstappen was released from hospital later that night as he was not seriously injured.


title: 2021 British Grand Prix

text: The collision with Verstappen caused Hamilton to lose speed, allowing Leclerc to get through into the lead before the race was neutralised. Hamilton pitted from second, served his ten-second time penalty and came back out fourth. He quickly dispatched Norris's McLaren and then his teammate, Bottas, who was instructed to let Hamilton past. Norris suffered a slow pit stop following an issue with the rear right tyre, placing him behind Bottas in fourth as he rejoined the race, where he remained for the rest of the race. Norris lost further time after emerging from the pit lane as he had to clear Alonso. This was the fifteenth consecutive race in which Norris finished in the points. Bottas's water bottle broke during the race. Leclerc struggled with intermittent power issues throughout the first half of the race, with momentary losses of power keeping the interval between him an Hamilton at around 1.5 seconds. Hamilton caught up to Leclerc on lap 50, where he overtook him for the lead. Hamilton's move on Leclerc was similar to the one he made on Verstappen, but with less fuel in the tank and warmer tyres Hamilton did not understeer this time around and held the apex. Leclerc had a little moment mid corner that caused him to run wide on the exit, allowing Hamilton to complete the overtake. Leclerc had led for almost the entire race, which was seen as unexpected given the relative pace of the Ferrari SF21 to the Mercedes W12 and the Red Bull RB16B.


title: 2021 British Grand Prix

text: Vettel lost control of his Aston Martin during a battle with Alonso on the fourth lap. This saw Vettel drop down to last; he recovered into 17th, but later retired. Kimi Räikkönen, in the Alfa Romeo, also spun, on lap 49, after a minor collision with Red Bull driver Pérez. Pérez pitted on the next lap for new soft tyres, in a bid to take Hamilton's fastest lap away (which is worth a championship point). Scuderia AlphaTauri driver Pierre Gasly had a puncture late in the race, which dropped him out of the points.


title: 2021 British Grand Prix

text: Much of the post-race debate surrounded the Hamilton–Verstappen incident on the first lap, with the collision compared by some to previous collisions which have occurred during close championship battles, and the likelihood of incidents under such circumstances also being noted. Verstappen said that the penalty issued to Hamilton mid-race was not enough, and felt Hamilton's post-race celebrations were "disrespectful and unsportsmanlike". Mercedes said that they would not have celebrated the win had they not known Verstappen was uninjured. Hamilton said that he did not believe himself to be at fault, adding that "regardless of whether I agree with the penalty, I'll take it on the chin and I just kept working." Hamilton expressed relief that Verstappen was uninjured.


title: 2021 British Grand Prix

text: Red Bull team principal Christian Horner called Hamilton's move "desperate" and his victory "hollow". He also said "[w]e are lucky that there wasn't someone seriously hurt. That's what I'm most angry about", and that he could not "see how Lewis can take any satisfaction from the win when you have put your fellow competitor and driver in hospital." Horner said Verstappen was winded in the crash. Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko accused Hamilton of dangerous driving and suggested that the seven-time champion be banned for one race. Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff defended Hamilton, stating that it was merely a racing incident and "it always takes two to tango", and brushed off Marko's criticism of Hamilton. Wolff believed that Hamilton's move complied with the sport's guidelines on when an overtaking driver is entitled to a corner, as Hamilton was further alongside Verstappen than the diagrams provided to competitors illustrated, although said guidelines stipulate that this only applies if the driver "make[s] the corner cleanly." Mercedes trackside engineer Andrew Shovlin stated that the collision was "inevitable", citing Verstappen's aggressive driving style. Red Bull were also concerned about the financial cost of repairing or replacing a crashed racing car. According to Horner, the damage amounted to at least £1,300,000.


title: 2021 British Grand Prix

text: Several drivers, including Leclerc and Bottas, believed that it was a racing incident, with Sainz adding that it was "difficult to judge". Leclerc (who was the next car behind Verstappen and Hamilton) noted: "There was space on the inside. Maybe Lewis was not completely at the apex but it is also true Max was quite aggressive on the outside. Things happen." Daniel Ricciardo said that Hamilton "went in too hot" but felt that the collision was unintentional, and that the aerodynamic design of the cars was a major contributing factor. Alonso believed neither Hamilton nor Verstappen had done anything wrong, suggesting Hamilton was at a tricky position.


title: 2021 British Grand Prix

text: Formula One sporting director Brawn said that he hoped the incident would not be repeated, adding that "nobody wants the championship decided on crashes and penalties." Indycar Series championship leader Alex Palou said that he would have done the same thing as Hamilton or Verstappen in either of their positions. Race director Michael Masi stood ground with the stewards' decision, stating that the stewards do not take the consequences of an incident into account when deciding penalties.


title: 2021 British Grand Prix

text: Hamilton became the target of racial abuse online following the race. Fellow competitors Red Bull and McLaren (with whom Hamilton won his first Drivers' Championship title in 2008), along with Formula One and other members of the Formula One community, also condemned those who were racist against Hamilton. Social media firm Facebook, Inc criticised the abuse and said they had deleted some offensive comments from their platforms.


title: 2021 British Grand Prix

text: Several drivers expressed disappointment in their post-race results, with Norris and Sainz in particular stating that their long pit stops endured during the race cost them a better result, the former a potential podium finish. Regarding his own race, Leclerc said that he "gave not 100%, but 200%." Pérez lamented that he would have finished in seventh had he not taken a third stop to take away the fastest lap extra point from Hamilton as well as his late clash with Räikkönen, with Gasly echoing similar thoughts after a third stop for a late puncture denied him a potential points finish. Räikkönen felt that he had spent most of his race trying to prevent faster cars from getting past him. In the build up to the Hungarian Grand Prix on 27 July Red Bull requested the right to review the severity of Hamilton's penalty for the incident with Verstappen but the Stewards dismissed it. Red Bull's motivation for lodging the appeal was questioned in some quarters, with the potential negative public relations outcomes being noted. In a post-season interview Verstappen (who now was a World Champion) said being in hospital after the crash was among the lowest points of his title winning 2021 season. Verstappen told the "GP Racing" magazine the following year that he no longer had any ill feeling with Hamilton over the accident.


title: Edo people

text: The Edo or Benin people are an Edoid ethnic group primarily found in Edo State, Southern part of Nigeria. They speak the Edo language and are the descendants of the founders of the Benin Empire. They are closely related to other ethnic groups that speak Edoid languages, such as the Esan, the Afemai, the Isoko, and the Urhobo.


title: Edo people

text: The name "Benin" (and "Bini") is a Portuguese corruption, ultimately from the word "Ubini", which came into use during the reign of Oba (ruler) Ewuare the Great, c. 1440. "Ubini", a word meaning Vexation, used by Prince Oranmiyan, son of the wealthy ruler of Uhe (Ife) to describe the frustration he encountered after he was invited to rule benin. "Ubini" was later corrupted to "Bini" by the mixed ethnicities living together at the centre; and further corrupted to "Benin" around 1485 when the Portuguese began trade relations with Oba Ewuare giving them coral beads.


title: Edo people

text: Edo people can be found in Nigeria's Edo State which got its name from the primary inhabitants of the region's most notable historical conglomeration, Benin City, which is also the central capital homeland of the Edo people. Edo people also have many related groups in their immediate surroundings also encompassed by the political and administrative borders of Edo state. Most of these groups have traced their history back to the historical city center off the Benin people, Benin City. Examples of such adjacent groups include various Afemai sub-groups, the Esan people of Edo state and the Akoko Edo people situated on the state's northern borders.


title: Edo people

text: Edo state was formerly part of the old Bendel state of early post-colonial Nigeria, also known as the Mid-Western Region, Nigeria. This region's influence and culture reflects that of the Edo, Urhobo, Esan and other Edo related peoples.


title: Edo people

text: In the traditional religion of the Edo, there exists, besides the human world, an invisible world of supernatural beings acting as interceders for the human world. Offerings are made to them in their respective shrines. Osanobua is the creator and Supreme God. His son/daughter Olokun is ruler of all bodies of water and is responsible for the prosperity and fertility of his/her human followers. Another son Ogun, is the patron god of metalworkers. The epithet "Osanobua Noghodua" mean "God Almighty". The word "Osanobua" encompasses a large number of divine principles - including the divine state of being merciful, timeless, goodness, justice, sublimity, and supreme. In the Edo belief system, Osanobua has the divine attributes of omnipresence (), omniscience (), and omnipotence (). The Supreme Deity is believed to be present everywhere and at all times.


title: Edo people

text: Traditional Edo art consists of widely identifiable sculptures, plaques and masks which reflect various spiritual and historical aspects of their cultural traditions. Some of the notable Edo art pieces include the mask of the Queen Mother Idia and a vast collection of historical Edo art pieces called the Benin Bronzes which can be found not only in Nigeria but further dispersed around the world.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: Ørsted A/S (formerly DONG Energy) is a Danish multinational power company based in Fredericia, Denmark. It is the largest energy company in Denmark. The company adopted its current name on 6 November 2017, previously being known as DONG.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: As of January 2022, the company is the world's largest developer of offshore wind power by number of built offshore wind farms. Ørsted developed approximately 30% of the global offshore wind power installed capacity, excluding mainland China.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: Globally, Ørsted produces 90% of their energy from renewable sources, and has an objective of exceeding 95% by 2023 and 99% by 2025.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: The company has a goal of net zero generation by 2025 and no carbon emissions by 2040. Since 2019, the company has been ranked the world's most sustainable energy company in the Corporate Knights Global 100 Index.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: Ørsted has its origin in the Danish state-owned company Dansk Naturgas A/S. The company was founded in 1972 to manage gas and oil resources in the Danish sector of the North Sea. After some years, the company was renamed to Dansk Olie og Naturgas A/S (DONG), meaning Danish Oil and Natural Gas. At the beginning of the decade of the 2000s, DONG started to expand itself into the electricity market by taking long positions in electricity companies. In 2005, DONG acquired and merged Danish electrical power producers Elsam and Energi E2 and public utility (electricity distribution) companies NESA, Københavns Energi and Frederiksberg Forsyning. The result of the merger was the creation of DONG Energy. The merger was approved by the European Commission on 14 March 2006.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: In 2002, one of predecessors of DONG Energy named Elsam installed the 160 MW Horns Rev offshore wind farm, which was the first large-scale offshore wind farm in the world.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: In 2005, DONG Energy acquired 10.34% in the Ormen Lange gas field (operated by Shell). The share of gas reserves allocated to DONG Energy are approximately .


title: Ørsted (company)

text: In 2006, DONG entered a 20-year contract for one billion cubic meters of natural gas per year from 2011, from Gazprom in Russia through Nord Stream 1 and Germany. The deal included that DONG delivers 600 million cubic meters per year (for 15 years) from the Ormen Lange gas field to Gazprom in United Kingdom.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: In 2007, DONG and Wingas (partly owned by Gazprom) agreed to a gas swap, where DONG delivers gas to Wingas UK, while Wingas delivers the same amount to DONG in North Germany. The deal was criticized as "damaging to European interests".


title: Ørsted (company)

text: At about the time of the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, DONG Energy adopted a strategy, called "85/15 vision", of changing from a company with 85% of activities fossil fuel based to a company 85% based on green energy activities.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: In 2009, the Gazprom->DONG contract was doubled to 2 bcm/year for 18 years, beginning in 2012. However, Gazprom records showed that DONG only bought 15% of that amount in 2012 and 2013.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: In 2010, DONG divested Norwegian power companies Salten and Nordkraft. In September 2013, DONG Energy sold a power cable accessing the London Array wind farm to its partners, E.ON and Masdar for around $728 million.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: In 2013, DONG Energy finished the construction of the 400 MW Anholt Offshore Wind Farm off the Danish island of Anholt in the Kattegat at a cost of 10 billion Danish kroner (€1.35 bln). DONG Energy was the only bidder in the process.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: As of 2012, DONG Energy had a wind turbine capacity of 794 MW and planned to add another 594 MW in 2013.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: In 2014 DONG Energy divested its last onshore wind turbines, focusing on offshore wind power. of which DONG Energy had 3,000 MW in 2015;


title: Ørsted (company)

text: As part of the restructuring plan to fund offshore wind projects, in January 2014 DONG Energy sold an 18% stake to New Energy Investment S.a.r.l., a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs, while Danish pension funds, ATP and PFA Pension acquired 4.9% and 1.8% accordingly. The deal was heavily criticised and caused a split of the ruling coalition of Helle Thorning-Schmidt.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: DONG Energy was listed on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange in June 2016. At the same time, it divested its ownership shares of five Norwegian oil and gas fields to Faroe Petroleum.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: In 2017, DONG Energy completed decommissioning the world's first offshore wind farm, Vindeby Offshore Wind Farm.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: Also in 2017, the company decided to phase-out the use of coal for power generation, and it sold off its oil and gas business to Ineos for US$1.05 billion.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: After selling its oil and gas business the company announced its transition to renewable energy was fulfilled and changed its name to Ørsted after the Danish scientist Hans Christian Ørsted, citing that DONG was inappropriate considering they no longer owned any oil and natural gas assets.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: In 2018, a gas price arbitration case was closed between Gazprom on one side, and Ørsted, Shell and others on the opposite side.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: On 9 September 2020 it was revealed that Mads Nipper, former CEO of Grundfos, will take over as CEO from Henrik Poulsen on 1 January 2021.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: In 2020 developer Ørsted sold a 50% stake in the Greater Changhua 1 Offshore Wind Farm in Taiwan to Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec and Cathay PE for $2.7 billion.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: Ørsted considers Denmark, Sweden, United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands as core markets of corporation. However, in 2015 they also received a lease from the US agencies the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which, in the lease, handed over some sea area in the United States for wind park development, specifically in New Jersey.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: Before divestment of its oil and gas upstream assets to Ineos in 2017, DONG Energy's core areas of oil and gas exploration and production lay in the southern part of the Norwegian North Sea and the Danish part of the North Sea, Barents Sea, west of Shetland, and in the central region of Norway (gas production). The reserve base was expected to be of oil equivalent.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: It owned oil and gas pipelines which extend from the Danish part of the North Sea to Nybro and the Swedish gas transmission network (Nova Naturgas). DONG Energy co-owned the Tyra West – F3 pipeline pipelines, which create a link from the North Sea Danish section to the Netherlands natural gas hub in Den Helder, the DEUDAN pipeline from Jutland to north of Hamburg in Germany, and the Langeled pipeline from Nyhamna terminal in Norway to Easington in the UK. DONG Energy also owned a share of the Norwegian gas pipeline system.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: Ørsted is the largest power producer in Denmark with market shares of 49% for electricity production and 35% for heat production. It also owns power production facilities and projects in Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: In the United Kingdom Ørsted operates Barrow and Burbo Bank offshore windfarms and will construct Walney and Gunfleet Sands I and II wind farms.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: In addition, it is building the world largest wind farms, the 1,200 MW Hornsea 1 and the 1,386 MW Hornsea 2.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: In North America it is a joint-venture partner in multiple proposed offshore wind projects, including the Block Island Wind Farm, Revolution Wind, South Fork Wind, and Sunrise Wind, all off the southern coast of New England.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: The company is also developing Ocean Wind, an offshore wind farm on the Atlantic coast near Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Skipjack Wind, southeast of the mouth of Delaware Bay. The company also has interests in onshore wind farms in Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, and Illinois.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: Ørsted was until 2017 the largest shareholder (51%) of offshore wind turbine installer A2SEA, while Siemens owns the other 49%.


title: Ørsted (company)

text: Ørsted is listed at the Nasdaq Copenhagen stock exchange. The Danish Government holds the majority of Ørsted shares (50.1%). Capital Group Companies, EuroPacific Growth Fund's, and SEAS-NVE holds over 5% of shares. According to a political agreement, the Danish Government shall maintain a majority in the company until 2025. Reduction of the ownership below 50% requires political agreement of Danish parties.


title: Daniel Palladino

text: Daniel Palladino is an American television executive producer, screenwriter, and director. He is best known for his work on the television series "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" (2017–present), which earned him a WGA Award, two PGA Awards, and four Primetime Emmy Awards.


title: Daniel Palladino

text: Palladino began working in series television in 1989, spending three years on the ABC program "Who's the Boss?" starring Tony Danza, Judith Light and Alyssa Milano. Along with stints as a producer of the David Keith series "Flesh 'n' Blood" and as a writer for an episode of "Cheers", Palladino wrote a half-dozen episodes of "The Upper Hand", the British version of "Who's The Boss?".


title: Daniel Palladino

text: Palladino spent two years in the mid-1990s on "Roseanne", serving as a writer, co-executive producer, then executive producer.


title: Daniel Palladino

text: In 2000 he began a half-dozen years on "Gilmore Girls" on the WB Television Network. He wrote and eventually segued into directing. "Gilmore Girls" was the story of a thirty-something single mom (Lauren Graham) who runs an inn in a small Connecticut town while raising her teenage daughter (Alexis Bledel). "Time" magazine listing it among the "100 Best TV Shows of All Time". He went on to serve in producing roles on such original series as "The Return of Jezebel James" and the dance drama "Bunheads".


title: Daniel Palladino

text: Just prior and for a time concurrent with "Gilmore Girls", Palladino was executive producer and showrunner of the Fox animated sitcom "Family Guy" for its initial two seasons, earning an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Animated Program for its second season. From 2012 to 2013, he returned to "Family Guy" as a consulting producer.


title: Daniel Palladino

text: In 2016, Palladino helped navigate the return of "Gilmore Girls", to Netflix, writing and directing two of the four installments for "". Much of the cast reunited for the four-part mini-series, with each episode tracing the characters' lives across one season: winter, spring, summer and fall. Palladino served as executive producer, writer and director alongside his wife, series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino.


title: Daniel Palladino

text: Palladino then served as executive producer on the Amazon Prime Video pilot "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel". The series went on to win twenty Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Comedy Series, three Golden Globes and five Critics' Choice Awards, as well as the Peabody and WGA award. He is executive producer, writer, and director of the series' fourth season.


title: Daniel Palladino

text: Palladino has received four Primetime Emmy Awards for his work on "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" including Outstanding Music Supervision and Outstanding Comedy Series, two PGA Awards and a WGA Award.


title: Daniel Palladino

text: Nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for "Family Guy" along with Seth MacFarlane, David Zuckerman, Craig Hoffman, Danny Smith, Billiam Coronel, Matt Weitzman, Mike Barker, Sherry Gunther, Gary Janetti, Pete Michels, Peter Shin, and Dan Povenmire in the Outstanding Animated Program (For One Hour or Less) category for the episode "Road to Rhode Island" in the year 2000.


title: Daniel Palladino

text: Palladino has received two DGA Award Nominations in the Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Comedy Series category for the episode "We're Going to the Catskills!" in 2019 and in the same category in 2020 for "Marvelous Radio".


title: Daniel Palladino

text: In 2018, he won the PGA Award in the Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television, Comedy category for "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" alongside Amy Sherman-Palladino, Dhana Gilbert, Sheila R. Lawrence, Matthew Shapiro, Sal Carino, Francesca M. Mannix, Frank Covino, Rachel Jablin, Parker Chehak, and Molly Pabin. He received two PGA Award nominations for "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" in 2019 alongside Amy Sherman-Palladino, Dhana Gilbert, and Sheila R. Lawrence, and in 2020 alongside Amy Sherman-Palladino, Dhana Gilbert, Daniel Goldfarb, Kate Fodor, Sono Patel, and Matthew Shapiro.


title: Daniel Palladino

text: He won the WGA Award in 2019 in the category for his work on "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" alongside Amy Sherman-Palladino, Kate Fodor, Noah Gardenswartz, Daniel Goldfarb, Jen Kirkman, and Sheila R. Lawrence. He received a nomination in 2020 alongside Amy Sherman-Palladino, Kate Fodor, Noah Gardenswartz, Daniel Goldfarb, Alison Leiby, Sono Patel, and Jordan Temple.


title: Daniel Palladino

text: Palladino won a Peabody Award along with Amy Sherman-Palladino in the Entertainment category for first season of "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" in 2017.


title: Greek Basket League

text: The Greek Basket League (GBL), often also referred to as the Greek A1 Basketball League, or Greek Basketball Championship (originally called Panhellenic Basketball Championship), and also known as the Stoiximan Basket League for sponsorship reasons, is the first tier level professional basketball league in Greece. It is run by HEBA (), under the legal authority of the Hellenic Basketball Federation (E.O.K.).


title: Greek Basket League

text: It is the highest-tier level of the Greek league system. The GBL plays under FIBA rules and currently consists of 13 teams, with the lowest-placed team relegated to the A2 Basket League and replaced by the winner of the play-offs of that tier. It runs from October to June, with teams playing 22 games each during the regular season, and the top 8 teams then competing in the playoffs. The first official Greek Basketball Championship was held in the 1927–28 season. The league held a competition in which the teams of the league played under a format with a nationwide schedule, for the first time, in the 1963–64 season. The league first held a playoff round in the 1986–87 season. The league first allowed foreign (non-Greek) players, in the 1988–89 season. The league became a fully professional competition in the 1992–93 season.


title: Greek Basket League

text: The league has always been ranked as one of the top 3-5 level national domestic leagues in European basketball, since league rankings began. For further information, see historical European national basketball league rankings, and European national basketball league rankings.


title: Greek Basket League

text: Basketball first came to Greece in the year 1924. The first Greek basketball championship took place in the 1927–28 season, the first fully organized Greek basketball championship began. The league was originally organized by the Hellenic Amateur Athletic Association (SEGAS). There have been four different official championship eras. The first era was the Panhellenic Championship (Πανελλήνιο Πρωτάθλημα), which lasted from the 1927–28 to 1962–63 seasons, when the champions of every regional district played each other to decide the Greek Champion. The second era started in the 1963–64 season, when the A National Category (Α' Εθνική Κατηγορία), or Alpha National Category was founded.


title: Greek Basket League

text: In 1969, the Hellenic Basketball Federation (E.O.K.) took over the duties of overseeing the competition, and did so until the year 1992. The third era of the championship existed between the 1986–87 and 1991–92 seasons, when the first division A1 National Category (Α1 Εθνική Κατηγορία), with a regular season and playoffs, and the second division A2 National Category (Α2 Εθνική Κατηγορία) were formed. The 1988–89 season, marked the first time that Greek Basket League teams were allowed to have foreign players on their rosters.


title: Greek Basket League

text: The fourth era of the championship began in the 1992–93 season, when the Hellenic Basketball Clubs Association (HEBA) took over the competition and renamed the first division the HEBA A1 (ΕΣΑΚΕ Α1). The league was then renamed to Greek Basket League (Ελληνική Μπάσκετ Λιγκ), starting with the 2010–11 season.


title: Greek Basket League

text: The Greek League has been one of the most competitive basketball leagues in Europe through the years, and it was widely regarded as the second best national domestic league in the world, after only the NBA, in the 1990s decade. It currently ranks among the best national domestic leagues in the world (excluding the NBA), such as Liga ACB in Spain, VTB United League (counts as the domestic league for Russian clubs), and BSL in Turkey. It has always been considered one of the top 3-5 European national domestic leagues under the historical European national basketball league rankings and European national basketball league rankings.


title: Greek Basket League

text: The league has several European historical basketball powers, which also belong to some of the most traditional European basketball clubs, especially Panathinaikos,


title: Greek Basket League

text: Olympiacos and AEK (which had great success in the 1960s), which are three of the most successful European basketball clubs of all-time.


title: Greek Basket League

text: Also, Aris, led by Nikos Galis, Panagiotis Giannakis, and Slobodan "Lefteris" Subotić, was the dominant Greek club, and one of the most powerful European teams in the 1980s. Other clubs that have had significant success throughout the history of Greek basketball, as well as


title: Greek Basket League

text: The first five aforementioned clubs (Panathinaikos, Olympiacos, AEK, Aris and PAOK), are also the most widely supported by fans in Greece.


title: Greek Basket League

text: Despite the championship having been contested 80 times, only nine different clubs have won it so far. The dominating club has usually been Panathinaikos, having claimed the championship 39 times. Since the foundation of the Alpha National Category in the 1963–64 season, only two teams have participated in every season of the competition, Panathinaikos and Aris.


title: Greek Basket League

text: The championship, in its current form, has been organized since the 1992–93 season by the Hellenic Basketball Clubs Association (HEBA), under the authority of the Hellenic Basketball Federation. The fully professional Greek basketball clubs compete in the first division championship, which is often colloquially called the "A1", in which 12 teams compete for the Greek National Championship. There is also a professional level second division championship that is run entirely by the Hellenic Basketball Federation, which is called the "A2", in which 16 teams compete for the second division crown. The bottom one place finishing team each year in the A1 division standings is relegated to the A2 division, due to poor performance. While conversely, the top one teams each year from the A2 division is promoted to the A1 division, due to good performance.


title: Greek Basket League

text: In order to compete in the Greek Basket League, clubs must invest a minimum of €1 million on club operations per season. The minimum club budget per season is €800,000 euros, and each club must also invest €200,000 euros into a league-wide fund that insures players get their full salaries. Most of the league's clubs invest more than the minimum requirements in each season.


title: Greek Basket League

text: Currently, Greek Basket League clubs must play their home games in arenas with a seating capacity of at least 2,000 people, in order to play Greek domestic league games. Several Greek clubs have two arenas that they primarily use. One for domestic Greek League games, and one for European-wide games.


title: Greek Basket League

text: Greek clubs that play in European-wide competitions, such as the EuroLeague, the EuroCup, or the FIBA Champions League, must play their home games in those leagues in arenas that fit the arena standards of those leagues. Which are currently, a 5,000 seat minimum for the EuroLeague, and a 3,000 seat minimum for the EuroCup and FIBA Champions League. Although the FIBA Champions League's minimum seat rule can be waived with the league's approval.


title: Greek Basket League

text: Greek Basket League teams were first allowed to have foreign (non-Greek) players on their rosters in the 1988–89 season.


title: Greek Basket League

text: Under the league's current foreign player rules, Greek Basket League teams must have at least 6 Greek players on their active 12 man game rosters. Each team is allowed to have up to 6 foreign (non-Greek) players, on their active 12 man game roster. There are no restrictions on the number of foreign players allowed by country of origin. Meaning that for example, any team in the league could sign up to 6 American players, or up to 6 Canadian players, or up to 6 players from European countries, etc.


title: Greek Basket League

text: The number of times that clubs participated in the league's original format, the Panhellenic Championship.


title: Greek Basket League

text: The number of times that clubs participated in the top A National Category, while it existed from the 1963–64 season to the 1985–86 season. As well as the number of times that clubs have participated in the top A1 National Category, since it began with the 1986–87 season. Only two clubs, Panathinaikos and Aris, have played in the top division every year since its formation.


title: Greek Basket League

text: The total number of times that each club has played in the top-tier level Greek Basket League, through all of its different league formats.


title: Jack Larson

text: Jack Edward Larson (February 8, 1928 – September 20, 2015) was an American actor, librettist, screenwriter and producer best known for his portrayal of photographer/cub reporter Jimmy Olsen on the television series "Adventures of Superman".


title: Jack Larson

text: Larson was born on February 8, 1928 in Los Angeles, the son of Anita (Calicoff), a Western Union clerk, and George Larson, a milk truck driver. His father was of English and Swedish descent and his mother was from a Jewish family (from Germany and Russia). He was raised in Pasadena. He graduated from Montebello High School in 1945, aged 17 and at times claimed 1933 as his birth year.


title: Jack Larson

text: Larson found the role of cub reporter Jimmy Olsen on "The Adventures of Superman" to be a handicap, because he became typecast as a naive young man. This caused him to do little acting after the show ended in 1958, and he turned to writing and production, with an output that included plays, a libretto, texts for classical music, and movies such as "The Baby Maker". In later years his attitude towards the Jimmy Olsen role warmed, as he focused more on the love people had for the character. Larson was always willing to sit for interviews about the "Superman" series and his connection to it, and began having a number of cameos that paid subtle tribute to his character and the series, including a 1991 episode of the TV series "Superboy", alongside Noel Neill, who played Lois Lane in "Adventures of Superman", and an episode of "" as an aged Jimmy Olsen in the episode "Brutal Youth", first broadcast on October 20, 1996.


title: Jack Larson

text: Larson had a cameo in a late-1990s American Express card commercial, "The Adventures of Seinfeld & Superman". He and Neill provided commentary on several "Adventures of Superman" episodes for the January 2006 DVD release of the 1953 season, and in 2006, he appeared in Bryan Singer's film "Superman Returns" in a cameo role as "Bo the Bartender". Bo wore a bowtie, a trademark of Larson's depiction of Jimmy Olsen. Larson and Neill appeared together at the premiere of "Superman Returns".


title: Jack Larson

text: Larson's last television appearance was in the "" episode "Quickie", which aired on the NBC network on January 6, 2010.


title: Jack Larson

text: Larson was interviewed extensively for the movie "Making Montgomery Clift" in which he verified Clift's nephew's (Rob Clift, Director) claim that Clift was not a dark tragically depressed figure, but someone who loved life and the people who loved him in return.


title: Jack Larson

text: Among his other work, Larson wrote the libretto to the opera "Lord Byron" to music by Virgil Thomson.


title: Jack Larson

text: Larson was the life partner of director James Bridges from 1958 until Bridges' death on June 6, 1993. Prior to that, he was the companion of actor Montgomery Clift.


title: Jack Larson

text: Larson owned and resided in the Frank Lloyd Wright–designed George Sturges House in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles, California, until his death.


title: Jack Larson

text: He died on September 20, 2015, at the age of 87. His interment was at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, California.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: Lafarge is a French industrial company specialising in cement, construction aggregates, and concrete. It is the world's largest cement manufacturer. It was founded in 1833 by Joseph-Auguste Pavin de Lafarge and is a part of the Holcim Group.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: In 2015, Lafarge merged with Holcim and a new company was formed under the name of LafargeHolcim. It was renamed to Holcim Group in 2021.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: Lafarge was convicted of financing terrorism and complicity in crimes against humanity for paying $5.92 million to the terrorist groups ISIS and al Nusra Front between 2013 and 2014 to keep its cement plant in Syria operating.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: Lafarge was founded in 1833 by Joseph-Auguste Pavin de Lafarge in Le Teil, France (Ardèche), to exploit the limestone quarry in Mont Saint-Victor between Le Teil and Viviers. The limestone is white and argillaceous, and yielded an eminently hydraulic lime. In 1864 Lafarge signed its first international contract for the delivery of 110,000 tonnes of lime to the Suez Canal construction project.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: In 1980 Lafarge joined with the Belgian coal, coke and fertilizer company Coppée to become SA Lafarge Coppée.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: Lafarge purchased a plant from the National Gypsum in early 1987. Ten years later, it bought Redland plc, a British quarry operator.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: In 1999, Lafarge acquired 100% shareholding in Hima Cement Limited, the second-largest cement manufacturer in Uganda, with installed capacity of 850,000 metric tonnes annually, as of January 2011. That same year, Lafarge entered the Indian market through its cement business, with the acquisition of Tata Steel's cement activity. This acquisition was followed by the purchase of the Raymond Cement facility in 2001. In 2001, Lafarge, then the world's second largest cement manufacturer, acquired Blue Circle Industries (BCI), which at the time was the world's sixth largest cement manufacturer, to become the world's largest cement manufacturer.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: In 2006, Lafarge North America shareholders accepted a $3 billion tender offer from Lafarge Group which gave the parent company full control over the North American business, removing LNA from the New York Stock Exchange. Previously the group had owned 53% of LNA shares.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: In 2007, it divested its roofing division, selling it to a private equity group in a deal that resulted in Lafarge retaining a 35% equity stake.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: In December 2007, Lafarge announced the purchase of the Orascom Cement Group, an Egyptian-based cement producer with operations across Africa and the Middle East, from Orascom Construction Industries (OCI).


title: Lafarge (company)

text: On 15 May 2008 Lafarge acquired Larsen & Toubro Ready Mix-Concrete (RMC) business in India for $349 million.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: In 2009, Lafarge sells Canadian precast concrete company, Pre-Con to Armtec Infrastructure Income Fund.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: In 2010, Lafarge strengthened its presence in Brazil (agreement with Lafarge and STRABAG to create a common company in Cement in Central Europe).


title: Lafarge (company)

text: In 2011, Lafarge SA announced it would build a cement plant in Langkat, North Sumatra, Indonesia with investment up to Rp 5 trillion ($585 million).


title: Lafarge (company)

text: In 2011 Lafarge sold to Boral its stake in their common Asian Gypsum joint-venture LBGA (Lafarge Boral Gypsum Asia).


title: Lafarge (company)

text: Lafarge launched three plants in Hungary, Syria and Nigeria and created a joint-venture with Anglo American in the United Kingdom.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: In September 2013, Lafarge agreed to the sale of its 53.3 per cent stake in its Honduras subsidiary Lafarge Cementos SA de CV to Cementos Argos for €232m.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: In 2018, the Lafarge Cement plant located south of Kobanî, Syria was being used as a base of operations by 1st Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment and United States Army forces.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: On 7 April 2014, Lafarge and Holcim announced they had agreed to terms on a "merger of equals". The exchange ratio will be based on 9 Holcim shares for 10 Lafarge shares. The new company would be based in Switzerland and have a manufacturing capacity of 427 million tons a year would vastly exceed the 227 million ton capacity Anhui Conch. Lafarge CEO Bruno Lafont and Holcim Chairman Wolfgang Reitzle became co-chairmen of the new group. Eric Olsen, then Lafarge's Executive Vice-president in charge of Operations, became the CEO of the new group. Executives from both companies said the deal would save the new company 1.4 billion euros (US$1.9 billion) annually and create "the most advanced group in the building materials industry."


title: Lafarge (company)

text: The deal faced significant regulatory obstacles, as 15 different jurisdictions could have potentially raised objections. The cement market in Europe is tightly consolidated and antitrust scrutiny of deals has been commonplace since the 1970s. To meet regulatory concerns, Holcim and Lafarge planned to sell or spinoff assets that generated about 5 billion euros (US$6.9 billion) of revenue in 2013 in areas of large overlap between the two companies. Lafont said the merger was aimed at rebalancing operations, not cutting costs. He said overlapping businesses would be sold, not closed, so industry job losses would be minimal.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: Industry analysts said the deal would combine Holcim's marketing strength with Lafarge's edge in innovation, while providing significant cost savings, but cautioned "the road to merger clearance will be a long, complex and uncertain one." Others said the deal could lead to further mergers within the industry and give competitors a chance to pick up assets at a bargain price. Most analysts surveyed by Reuters felt the merger would be approved in the end.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: The acquisition would turn it into the world's third-biggest building materials supplier. Analysts said that although it was broadly anticipated by the market. "The additional assets expand the company’s footprint in Eastern Europe and into Brazil and the Philippines. Given the well flagged nature of the deal however, these benefits are largely reflected in the price at current levels," Alan Breen of Cantor Fitzgerald Ireland said.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: On 10 July 2015, Lafarge merged with Holcim, a Swiss cement company. On 15 July 2015, the new company was officially launched around the globe under the name of LafargeHolcim, which later renamed as the Holcim Group on 8 July 2021.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: In June 2016, France opened an inquiry into the activities of Lafarge in Syria. The inquiry followed reports by French journalist Dorothée Myriam Kellou, published by "Le Monde" and France 24, which uncovered deals Lafarge made with an array of armed groups, including the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorist group, in order to keep its cement plant in Syria operating. ISIL had captured the plant on 19 September 2014. In 2017 LafargeHolcim executives were investigated for these claims in the civil and criminal courts.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: Lafarge sought to have the claims dismissed, arguing that the payments were intended to allow Lafarge to continue commercial activities, not to support ISIS, and that the company and its executives could not be held accountable for actions undertaken by its Syrian subsidiary. Initially, the Paris Court of Appeals agreed with Lafarge.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: On 7 September 2021, the French Supreme Court confirmed charges of financing terrorism and endangering employees' lives. The Supreme Court (Cour de cassation) quashed the Court of Appeal ruling, determining that there was sufficient evidence, including minutes from Lafarge meetings, for the investigative judge to find Lafarge had "precise knowledge" of the nature of ISIS's activities. In the decision, the Supreme Court explained that "Crimes against humanity are the most serious of crimes because beyond the attack on the individual, which it transcends, it targets and denies humanity." It found that for a conviction on complicity in crimes against humanity, Lafarge did not need to be a part of ISIS but "It is sufficient that [the accused] has knowledge that the main perpetrators are committing or are about to commit such a crime against humanity and that by his aid or assistance, he facilitates the preparation or the commission thereof." The Court concluded that "the knowing payment of a sum of several million dollars to an organization whose object is only criminal is sufficient to characterize complicity by aiding and abetting." The Supreme Court referred the matter back to the Court of Appeal.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: On 18 May 2022, the Investigative Chamber of the Paris Court of Appeals rejected a request by Lafarge to dismiss charges of complicity in crimes against humanity and endangering lives. In confirming the charges, the Court of Appeal judges found that "although informed that the actions of ISIS could constitute crimes against humanity, Lafarge, which could have put an end to the activities of LCS by asking it to close the plant, decided instead to continue this activity … even if it meant paying several million dollars to its groups".


title: Lafarge (company)

text: In a statement, the company said it strongly disagreed with the Court of Appeal's decision to retain complicity in crimes against humanity within the scope of an investigation and said it would appeal the decision to France's Supreme Court.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: On 17 October 2022, the United States Department of Justice reached a $777.8 million criminal plea agreement with Lafarge in the case. Executives with Lafarge agreed to the deal after paying $5.92 million to Islamic State and al-Nusra Front leaders and urging them to help the company keep its production facilities running, according to a company spokesman and law enforcement official.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: On 11 July 2008, the "Albany Times Union" reported that Lafarge's Ravena, New York plant "was the greatest source of mercury emissions in New York from 2004 to 2006" According to the story, plans had been made to upgrade the plant to reduce the mercury emissions. A second story, published the following day, stated that the factory had emitted 400 pounds (181 kg) of mercury annually from 2004 to 2006.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: In November 2010 Lafarge opposed new Environmental Protection Agency regulations in the United States that required mercury-emissions reductions at cement plants. Preliminary data published by the EPA for the year 2009 showed 145 pounds of mercury were recorded for the Ravena plant (total on- and off-site disposals). The plant has continued to perform within permitted limits.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: In July 2013, the New York State Department of Health, in partnership with the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, completed a public health assessment for communities near the Lafarge Cement Plant in Ravena, New York. Major findings and results from the NYS DOH Lafarge Cement Plant Health Assessment included:


title: Lafarge (company)

text: On 23 July 2013, under an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Justice and the state of New York, Lafarge North America Inc. agreed to fund $1.5 million in projects to reduce air pollution in the community surrounding its Ravena, New York cement plant. The agreement also amends a March 2010 consent decree that the federal Environmental Protection Agency, New York and 11 other states entered into with Lafarge requiring the company to limit pollutant emissions from its 13 plants nationwide.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: Under the agreement, Lafarge North America would adhere to an updated schedule that provides Lafarge an additional 18 months to finish construction of a new modernized facility by 1 July 2016. At that time, the existing Ravena plant would be taken offline.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: Lafarge's $300 million upgrade to its Ravena plant included a new, German-designed dry-process cement kiln to replace two 50-year-old wet-process kilns. The new kiln was to use less coal and emit fewer pollutants, including a 66% reduction in mercury emissions, while increasing production capacity. It will also take less water from the Hudson River, getting most of its water from the nearby limestone quarry that feeds the plant.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: In July 2019, the company filed a request for a permit with the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks to increase the amount of water it moves from its gravel pits near Guelph in Wellington County, Ontario, Canada into the local watershed. According to a news report, "If it’s approved, the company would be permitted to take up to 27.7 million litres of water a day — more than half of the city’s average daily demand of 47 million litres" but a City of Guelph report stated that it would "add a groundwater water-taking of 21,718 m3/day to the existing permit". The company was already permitted to take just over six million litres per day. According to a Lefarge spokesperson, the company's plan was actually to move the water from the quarry and pump into nearby wetlands or the Speed River, not to take water from the area. The Wellington Water Watchers advocacy group expressed concern about how the discharged water might affect aquatic ecosystems downstream and believed that a full environmental review was necessary before the request for the permit should be allowed. "With climate change, there's all kinds of uncertainties that come into our long-term water security issues and we can no longer afford to play fast and loose with that", said the group's chair Robert Case.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: The board of directors of Lafarge has 15 members appointed by the annual shareholders' meeting for a period of four years:


title: Lafarge (company)

text: Guilherme Frering, Raphaël de Lafarge, Michael Blakenham, Jean-Pierre Boisivon, Alain Joly, Bernard Kasriel, Jacques Lefèvre, Eric de Waubert de Genlis, Michel Pébereau, Pierre de Lafarge, Gérald Frère, Michel Bon, Thierry de Rudder, Colette Lewiner, Philippe Dauman, Paul Desmarais (fils), Nassef Sawiris, Hillary Clinton, .


title: Lafarge (company)

text: By 29 February 2016 the company had a share value of 17.292 billion euros, distributed in 288,383,057 shares.


title: Lafarge (company)

text: Lafarge owns several nature reserves. An example of this is Brandon Marsh, in the UK, which is on an old quarry and an existing quarry is next door to it. Another example is the LaCouronne plant in France. It was never quarried but Lafarge bought some land and began to convert it into a nature reserve. Other nature reserves are Eardington Nature Reserve; Shropshire (UK), Medway Nature Reserve; Kent (UK) and NWT Besthorpe Nature Reserve; Trent Vale (UK).


title: Lutetium

text: Lutetium is a chemical element with the symbol Lu and atomic number 71. It is a silvery white metal, which resists corrosion in dry air, but not in moist air. Lutetium is the last element in the lanthanide series, and it is traditionally counted among the rare earth elements. Lutetium is generally considered the first element of the 6th-period transition metals by those who study the matter, although there has been some dispute on this point.


title: Lutetium

text: Lutetium was independently discovered in 1907 by French scientist Georges Urbain, Austrian mineralogist Baron Carl Auer von Welsbach, and American chemist Charles James. All of these researchers found lutetium as an impurity in the mineral ytterbia, which was previously thought to consist entirely of ytterbium. The dispute on the priority of the discovery occurred shortly after, with Urbain and Welsbach accusing each other of publishing results influenced by the published research of the other; the naming honor went to Urbain, as he had published his results earlier. He chose the name "lutecium" for the new element, but in 1949 the spelling was changed to "lutetium". In 1909, the priority was finally granted to Urbain and his names were adopted as official ones; however, the name "cassiopeium" (or later "cassiopium") for element 71 proposed by Welsbach was used by many German scientists until the 1950s.


title: Lutetium

text: Lutetium is not a particularly abundant element, although it is significantly more common than silver in the earth's crust. It has few specific uses. Lutetium-176 is a relatively abundant (2.5%) radioactive isotope with a half-life of about 38 billion years, used to determine the age of minerals and meteorites. Lutetium usually occurs in association with the element yttrium and is sometimes used in metal alloys and as a catalyst in various chemical reactions. Lu-DOTA-TATE is used for radionuclide therapy (see Nuclear medicine) on neuroendocrine tumours. Lutetium has the highest Brinell hardness of any lanthanide, at 890–1300 MPa.


title: Lutetium

text: A lutetium atom has 71 electrons, arranged in the configuration [Xe] 4f5d6s. When entering a chemical reaction, the atom loses its two outermost electrons and the single 5d-electron. The lutetium atom is the smallest among the lanthanide atoms, due to the lanthanide contraction, and as a result lutetium has the highest density, melting point, and hardness of the lanthanides. It is the only lanthanide that cannot use the 4f orbitals for chemistry; though there is some controversy on the matter, most who have studied the situation consider lutetium to be a d-block rather than f-block element, and on this basis some consider it not to be a lanthanide at all, but a transition metal like scandium and yttrium.


title: Lutetium

text: Lutetium's compounds always contain the element in the oxidation state +3. Aqueous solutions of most lutetium salts are colorless and form white crystalline solids upon drying, with the common exception of the iodide. The soluble salts, such as nitrate, sulfate and acetate form hydrates upon crystallization. The oxide, hydroxide, fluoride, carbonate, phosphate and oxalate are insoluble in water.


title: Lutetium

text: Lutetium metal is slightly unstable in air at standard conditions, but it burns readily at 150 °C to form lutetium oxide. The resulting compound is known to absorb water and carbon dioxide, and it may be used to remove vapors of these compounds from closed atmospheres. Similar observations are made during reaction between lutetium and water (slow when cold and fast when hot); lutetium hydroxide is formed in the reaction. Lutetium metal is known to react with the four lightest halogens to form trihalides; all of them (except the fluoride) are soluble in water.


title: Lutetium

text: Lutetium dissolves readily in weak acids and dilute sulfuric acid to form solutions containing the colorless lutetium ions, which are coordinated by between seven and nine water molecules, the average being .


title: Lutetium

text: Lutetium is usually found in the +3 oxidation state, like most other lanthanides. However, it can also be in the 0, +1 and +2 states as well.


title: Lutetium

text: Lutetium occurs on the Earth in form of two isotopes: lutetium-175 and lutetium-176. Out of these two, only the former is stable, making the element monoisotopic. The latter one, lutetium-176, decays via beta decay with a half-life of 3.78×10 years; it makes up about 2.5% of natural lutetium.


title: Lutetium

text: To date, 34 synthetic radioisotopes of the element have been characterized, ranging in mass number from 149 to 184; the most stable such isotopes are lutetium-174 with a half-life of 3.31 years, and lutetium-173 with a half-life of 1.37 years. All of the remaining radioactive isotopes have half-lives that are less than 9 days, and the majority of these have half-lives that are less than half an hour. Isotopes lighter than the stable lutetium-175 decay via electron capture (to produce isotopes of ytterbium), with some alpha and positron emission; the heavier isotopes decay primarily via beta decay, producing hafnium isotopes.


title: Lutetium

text: The element also has 43 nuclear isomers, with masses of 150, 151, 153–162, and 166–180 (not every mass number corresponds to only one isomer). The most stable of them are lutetium-177m, with a half-life of 160.4 days, and lutetium-174m, with a half-life of 142 days; these are longer than the half-lives of the ground states of all radioactive lutetium isotopes except lutetium-173, 174, and 176.


title: Lutetium

text: Lutetium, derived from the Latin "Lutetia" (Paris), was independently discovered in 1907 by French scientist Georges Urbain, Austrian mineralogist Baron Carl Auer von Welsbach, and American chemist Charles James. They found it as an impurity in ytterbia, which was thought by Swiss chemist Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac to consist entirely of ytterbium. The scientists proposed different names for the elements: Urbain chose "neoytterbium" and "lutecium", whereas Welsbach chose "aldebaranium" and "cassiopeium" (after Aldebaran and Cassiopeia). Both of these articles accused the other man of publishing results based on those of the author.


title: Lutetium

text: The International Commission on Atomic Weights, which was then responsible for the attribution of new element names, settled the dispute in 1909 by granting priority to Urbain and adopting his names as official ones, based on the fact that the separation of lutetium from Marignac's ytterbium was first described by Urbain; after Urbain's names were recognized, neoytterbium was reverted to ytterbium. Until the 1950s, some German-speaking chemists called lutetium by Welsbach's name, "cassiopeium"; in 1949, the spelling of element 71 was changed to lutetium. The reason for this was that Welsbach's 1907 samples of lutetium had been pure, while Urbain's 1907 samples only contained traces of lutetium. This later misled Urbain into thinking that he had discovered element 72, which he named celtium, which was actually very pure lutetium. The later discrediting of Urbain's work on element 72 led to a reappraisal of Welsbach's work on element 71, so that the element was renamed to "cassiopeium" in German-speaking countries for some time. Charles James, who stayed out of the priority argument, worked on a much larger scale and possessed the largest supply of lutetium at the time. Pure lutetium metal was first produced in 1953.


title: Lutetium

text: Found with almost all other rare-earth metals but never by itself, lutetium is very difficult to separate from other elements. Its principal commercial source is as a by-product from the processing of the rare earth phosphate mineral monazite (, which has concentrations of only 0.0001% of the element, not much higher than the abundance of lutetium in the Earth crust of about 0.5 mg/kg. No lutetium-dominant minerals are currently known. The main mining areas are China, United States, Brazil, India, Sri Lanka and Australia. The world production of lutetium (in the form of oxide) is about 10 tonnes per year. Pure lutetium metal is very difficult to prepare. It is one of the rarest and most expensive of the rare earth metals with the price about US$10,000 per kilogram, or about one-fourth that of gold.


title: Lutetium

text: Crushed minerals are treated with hot concentrated sulfuric acid to produce water-soluble sulfates of rare earths. Thorium precipitates out of solution as hydroxide and is removed. After that the solution is treated with ammonium oxalate to convert rare earths into their insoluble oxalates. The oxalates are converted to oxides by annealing. The oxides are dissolved in nitric acid that excludes one of the main components, cerium, whose oxide is insoluble in HNO. Several rare earth metals, including lutetium, are separated as a double salt with ammonium nitrate by crystallization. Lutetium is separated by ion exchange. In this process, rare-earth ions are sorbed onto suitable ion-exchange resin by exchange with hydrogen, ammonium or cupric ions present in the resin. Lutetium salts are then selectively washed out by suitable complexing agent. Lutetium metal is then obtained by reduction of anhydrous LuCl or LuF by either an alkali metal or alkaline earth metal.


title: Lutetium

text: Because of production difficulty and high price, lutetium has very few commercial uses, especially since it is rarer than most of the other lanthanides but is chemically not very different. However, stable lutetium can be used as catalysts in petroleum cracking in refineries and can also be used in alkylation, hydrogenation, and polymerization applications.


title: Lutetium

text: Lutetium aluminium garnet () has been proposed for use as a lens material in high refractive index immersion lithography. Additionally, a tiny amount of lutetium is added as a dopant to gadolinium gallium garnet, which is used in magnetic bubble memory devices. Cerium-doped lutetium oxyorthosilicate is currently the preferred compound for detectors in positron emission tomography (PET). Lutetium aluminium garnet (LuAG) is used as a phosphor in light-emitting diode light bulbs.


title: Lutetium

text: Aside from stable lutetium, its radioactive isotopes have several specific uses. The suitable half-life and decay mode made lutetium-176 used as a pure beta emitter, using lutetium which has been exposed to neutron activation, and in lutetium–hafnium dating to date meteorites. The synthetic isotope lutetium-177 bound to octreotate (a somatostatin analogue), is used experimentally in targeted radionuclide therapy for neuroendocrine tumors. Indeed, lutetium-177 is seeing increased usage as a radionuclide in neuroendrocine tumor therapy and bone pain palliation. Research indicates that lutetium-ion atomic clocks could provide greater accuracy than any existing atomic clock.


title: Lutetium

text: Lutetium tantalate (LuTaO) is the densest known stable white material (density 9.81 g/cm) and therefore is an ideal host for X-ray phosphors. The only denser white material is thorium dioxide, with density of 10 g/cm, but the thorium it contains is radioactive.


title: Lutetium

text: Like other rare-earth metals, lutetium is regarded as having a low degree of toxicity, but its compounds should be handled with care nonetheless: for example, lutetium fluoride inhalation is dangerous and the compound irritates skin. Lutetium nitrate may be dangerous as it may explode and burn once heated. Lutetium oxide powder is toxic as well if inhaled or ingested.


title: Lutetium

text: Similarly to the other rare-earth metals, lutetium has no known biological role, but it is found even in humans, concentrating in bones, and to a lesser extent in the liver and kidneys. Lutetium salts are known to occur together with other lanthanide salts in nature; the element is the least abundant in the human body of all lanthanides. Human diets have not been monitored for lutetium content, so it is not known how much the average human takes in, but estimations show the amount is only about several micrograms per year, all coming from tiny amounts taken by plants. Soluble lutetium salts are mildly toxic, but insoluble ones are not.


title: Performance appraisal

text: A performance appraisal, also referred to as a performance review, performance evaluation, (career) development discussion, or employee appraisal, sometimes shortened to "PA", is a periodic and systematic process whereby the job performance of an employee is documented and evaluated. This is done after employees are trained about work and settle into their jobs. Performance appraisals are a part of career development and consist of regular reviews of employee performance within organizations.


title: Performance appraisal

text: Performance appraisals are most often conducted by an employee's immediate manager or line manager. While extensively practiced, annual performance reviews have also been criticized as providing feedback too infrequently to be useful, and some critics argue that performance reviews in general do more harm than good. It is an element of the principal-agent framework, that describes the relationship of information between the employer and employee, and in this case the direct effect and response received when a performance review is conducted.


title: Performance appraisal

text: A performance appraisal is a systematic, general and periodic process that assesses an individual employee's job performance and productivity in relation to certain pre-established criteria and organizational objectives. Other aspects of individual employees are considered as well, such as organizational citizenship behavior, accomplishments, potential for future improvement, strengths and weaknesses, etc.


title: Performance appraisal

text: To collect PA data, there are three main methods: objective production, personnel, and judgmental evaluation. Judgmental evaluations are the most commonly used with a large variety of evaluation methods. Historically, PA has been conducted annually (long-cycle appraisals); however, many companies are moving towards shorter cycles (every six months, every quarter), and some have been moving into short-cycle (weekly, bi-weekly) PA. The interview could function as "providing feedback to employees, counseling and developing employees, and conveying and discussing compensation, job status, or disciplinary decisions". PA is often included in performance management systems. PA helps the subordinate answer two key questions: first, "What are your expectations of me?" second, "How am I doing to meet your expectations?"


title: Performance appraisal

text: Performance management systems are employed "to manage and align" all of an organization's resources in order to achieve highest possible performance and to eliminate distractions procured from individual agents that neglect the companies goals. "How performance is managed in an organization determines to a large extent the success or failure of the organization. Therefore, improving PA for everyone should be among the highest priorities of contemporary organizations".


title: Performance appraisal

text: Some applications of PA are compensation, performance improvement, promotions, termination, test validation, and more. While there are many potential benefits of PA, there are also some potential drawbacks. For example, PA can help facilitate management-employee communication; however, PA may result in legal issues if not executed appropriately, as many employees tend to be unsatisfied with the PA process, as well as, the misuse of PA's can incur apathy towards organizational goals and values. PAs created in and determined as useful in the United States are not necessarily able to be transferable cross-culturally.


title: Performance appraisal

text: A central reason for the utilization of performance appraisals (PAs) is performance improvement ("initially at the level of the individual employee, and ultimately at the level of the organization"). Other fundamental reasons include "as a basis for employment decisions (e.g. promotions, terminations, transfers), as criteria in research (e.g. test validation), to aid with communication (e.g. allowing employees to know how they are doing and organizational expectations), to establish personal objectives for training" programs, for transmission of objective feedback for personal development, "as a means of documentation to aid in keeping track of decisions and legal requirements" and in wage and salary administration. Additionally, PAs can aid in the formulation of job criteria and selection of individuals "who are best suited to perform the required organizational tasks". An appraisal can be part of guiding and monitoring employee career development. PAs can also be used to aid in work motivation through the use of reward systems.


title: Performance appraisal

text: There are a number of potential benefits of organizational performance management conducting formal performance appraisals (PAs). There has been a general consensus in the belief that PAs lead to positive implications of organizations. Furthermore, PAs can benefit an organization's effectiveness. One way is PAs can often lead to giving individual workers feedback about their job performance. From this may spawn several potential benefits such as the individual workers becoming more productive.


title: Performance appraisal

text: Despite all the potential advantages of formal performance appraisals (PAs), there are also potential drawbacks. It has been noted that determining the relationship between individual job performance and organizational performance can be a difficult task. The ones conducting performance appraisals, such as line managers also often face complexities . Generally, there are two overarching problems from which several complications spawn. One of the problems with formal PAs is there can be detrimental effects to the organization(s) involved if the appraisals are not used appropriately. The second problem with formal PAs is they can be ineffective if the PA system does not correspond with the organizational culture and system.


title: Performance appraisal

text: Although performance appraisals can be biased, there are certain steps that can be taken to improve the evaluations and reduce the margin of errors through the following:


title: Performance appraisal

text: Leadership development coach Jack Zenger urges companies to find alternatives to annual performance reviews, and says that research supports the following:


title: Performance appraisal

text: Labor union contracts sometimes specify that promotions, layoffs, and various perks are assigned in order of seniority, rather than based on performance. Historically, this was one means to prevent cronyism, nepotism, and corruption, and could also be seen as a form of solidarity. If employers have a reliable way to distinguish productive from unproductive workers, then firing the worst employees and hiring replacements would be one way to increase the overall productivity of the firm, and possibly increase profits or lower consumer prices. Some labor contracts specify a way to take merit into account when firing or promoting, often involving performance reviews. For example, union rules might require an employer to warn a poorly performing employee and have a probationary period before firing. The records generated by performance reviews might be consulted during binding arbitration to decide whether a firing was justified.


title: Performance appraisal

text: Managers who have had unsatisfactory experiences with inadequate or poorly designed appraisal programs may be skeptical about their usefulness.


title: Performance appraisal

text: Human resource management (HRM) conducts performance management. Performance management systems consist of the activities and/or processes embraced by an organization in anticipation of improving employee performance, and therefore, organizational performance. Consequently, performance management is conducted at the organizational level and the individual level. At the organizational level, performance management oversees organizational performance and compares present performance with organizational performance goals. The achievement of these organizational performance goals depends on the performance of the individual organizational members. Therefore, measuring individual employee performance can prove to be a valuable performance management process for the purposes of HRM and for the organization. Many researchers would argue that "performance appraisal is one of the most important processes in Human Resource Management".


title: Performance appraisal

text: The performance management process begins with leadership within the organization creating a performance management policy. Primarily, management governs performance by influencing employee performance input (e.g. training programs) and by providing feedback via output (i.e. performance assessment and appraisal). "The ultimate objective of a performance management process is to align individual performance with organizational performance". A very common and central process of performance management systems is performance appraisal (PA). The PA process should be able to inform employees about the "organization's goals, priorities, and expectations and how well they are contributing to them".


title: Performance appraisal

text: Performance appraisals (PAs) are conducted at least annually, and annual employee performance reviews appear to be the standard in most American organizations. However, "it has been acknowledged that appraisals conducted more frequently (more than once a year) may have positive implications for both the organization and employee." It is suggested that regular performance feedback provided to employees may quell any unexpected and/or surprising feedback to year-end discussions. In a recent research study concerning the timeliness of PAs, "one of the respondents even suggested that the performance review should be done formally and more frequently, perhaps once a month, and recorded twice a year."


title: Performance appraisal

text: Other researchers propose that the purpose of PAs and the frequency of their feedback are contingent upon the nature of the job and characteristics of the employee. For example, employees of routine jobs where performance maintenance is the goal would benefit sufficiently from annual PA feedback. On the other hand, employees of more discretionary and non-routine jobs, where goal-setting is appropriate and there is room for development, would benefit from more frequent PA feedback. Non formal performance appraisals may be done more often, to prevent the element of surprise from the formal appraisal.


title: Performance appraisal

text: There are three main methods used to collect performance appraisal (PA) data: objective production, personnel, and judgmental evaluation. Judgmental evaluations are the most commonly used with a large variety of evaluation methods.


title: Performance appraisal

text: The objective production method consists of direct, but limited, measures such as sales figures, production numbers, the electronic performance monitoring of data entry workers, etc. The measures used to appraise performance would depend on the job and its duties. Although these measures deal with unambiguous criteria, they are usually incomplete because of criterion contamination and criterion deficiency. Criterion contamination refers to the part of the actual criteria that is unrelated to the conceptual criteria. In other words, the variability in performance can be due to factors outside of the employee's control. Criterion deficiency refers to the part of the conceptual criteria that is not measured by the actual criteria. In other words, the quantity of production does not necessarily indicate the quality of the products. Both types of criterion inadequacies result in reduced validity of the measure. Regardless of the fact that objective production data is not a complete reflection upon job performance, such data is relevant to job performance.


title: Performance appraisal

text: The happy-productive worker hypothesis states that the happiest workers are the most productive performers, and the most productive performers are the happiest workers. Yet, after decades of research, the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance produces only a weak positive correlation. Published in 2001 by "Psychological Bulletin", a meta-analysis of 312 research studies produced an uncorrected correlation of 0.18. This correlation is much weaker than what the happy-productive worker hypothesis would predict.


title: Performance appraisal

text: The personnel method is the recording of withdrawal behaviors (i.e. absenteeism, accidents). Most organizations consider unexcused absences to be indicators of poor job performance, even with all other factors being equal; however, this is subject to criterion deficiency. The quantity of an employee's absences does not reflect how dedicated he/she may be to the job and its duties. Especially for blue-collar jobs, accidents can often be a useful indicator of poor job performance, but this is also subject to criterion contamination because situational factors also contribute to accidents. Once again, both types of criterion inadequacies result in reduced validity of the measure. Although excessive absenteeism and/or accidents often indicate poor job performance rather than good performance, such personnel data is not a comprehensive reflection of an employee's performance.


title: Performance appraisal

text: Judgmental evaluation appears to be a collection of methods, and as such, could be considered a methodology. A common approach to obtaining PAs is by means of raters. Because the raters are human, some error will always be present in the data. The most common types of error are leniency errors, central tendency errors, and errors resulting from the halo effect. Halo effect is characterized by the tendency to rate a person who is exceptionally strong in one area higher than deserved in other areas. It is the opposite of the Horns effect, where a person is rated as lower than deserved in other areas due to an extreme deficiency in a single discipline. These errors arise predominantly from social cognition and the theory in that how we judge and evaluate other individuals in various contexts is associated with how we "acquire, process, and categorize information".


title: Performance appraisal

text: An essential piece of this method is rater training. Rater training is the "process of educating raters to make more accurate assessments of performance, typically achieved by reducing the frequency of halo, leniency, and central-tendency errors". Rater training also helps the raters "develop a common frame of reference for evaluation" of individual performance. Many researchers and survey respondents support the ambition of effectual rater training. However, it is noted that such training is expensive, time-consuming, and only truly functional for behavioral assessments.


title: Performance appraisal

text: Another piece to keep in mind is the effects of rater motivation on judgmental evaluations. It is not uncommon for rating inflation to occur due to rater motivation (i.e. "organizationally induced pressures that compel raters to evaluate ratees positively"). Typically, raters are motivated to give higher ratings because of the lack of organizational sanction concerning accurate/inaccurate appraisals, the rater's desire to guarantee promotions, salary increases, etc., the rater's inclination to avoid negative reactions from subordinates, and the observation that higher ratings of the ratees reflect favorably upon the rater.


title: Performance appraisal

text: While assessment can be performed along reporting relationships (usually top-down), net assessment can include peer and self-assessment. Peer assessment is when assessment is performed by colleagues along both horizontal (similar function) and vertical (different function) relationship. Self-assessments are when individuals evaluate themselves. There are three common methods of peer assessments. "Peer nomination" involves each group member nominating who he/she believes to be the "best" on a certain dimension of performance. "Peer ratings" has each group member rate each other on a set of performance dimensions. "Peer ranking" requires each group member rank all fellow members from "best" to "worst" on one or more dimensions of performance.


title: Performance appraisal

text: In general, optimal PA process involves a combination of multiple assessment modalities. One common recommendation is that assessment flows from self-assessment, to peer-assessment, to management assessment - in that order. Starting with self-assessment facilitates avoidance of conflict. Peer feedback ensures peer accountability, which may yield better results than accountability to management. Management assessment comes last for need of recognition by authority and avoidance of conflict in case of disagreements. It is generally recommended that PA is done in shorter cycles to avoid high-stakes discussions, as is usually the case in long-cycle appraisals.


title: Performance appraisal

text: Research has shown that the source of the feedback (either manager or peer) does not matter in influencing employees' subsequent innovative or extra-role behaviors after the feedback is received. As long as the feedback is provided, the source does not matter.


title: Performance appraisal

text: The Principal-agent framework is a model describing the relationship of information held between an employer and an employee. It is used to forecast responses from employees and strategies at finding resolutions against misaligned incentives that interfere with the goals of the employer. The model makes two assumptions: the principals wants agents to work for the principal's best interest, but agents possess different goals than the principals; and, the agents have more information than the principals resulting in the asymmetry of information between the two parties. This paradigm creates adverse selections and moral hazards for the hiring company in deciding how to effectively minimize the potential threat of shirking; disruption to daily operations; and loss in output margins due to actions of the employee.


title: Performance appraisal

text: Incentive pay leads to the increase of agents awareness of their own actions and seek to maximize their pay by considering the best possible actions that can be taken for the success of the firm and actively explore several options to minimize opportunity costs. The issue with this form of resolution is the firm must compensate the agents for bearing a risk premium and inequitable pay.


title: Performance appraisal

text: Fixed payment ensures a safer, standardized mode of contract that delivers reassurance in spite of performance fluctuations and external environment volatility. However, lack of motivation occurs more readily and incurs shirking and adverse selections.


title: Performance appraisal

text: Also referred to as contextual behavior, prosocial behavior, and extra-role behavior, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) consists of employee behavior that contributes to the welfare of the organization but is beyond the scope of the employee's job duties. These extra-role behaviors may help or hinder the attainment of organizational goals. Research supports five dimensions of OCB: altruism, conscientiousness, courtesy, sportsmanship, and civic virtue. Researchers have found that the OCB dimensions of altruism and civic virtue can have just as much of an impact on manager's subjective evaluations of employees’ performances as employees’ objective productivity levels. The degree to which OCB can influence judgments of job performance is relatively high. Controversy exists as to whether OCB should be formally considered as a part of performance appraisal (PA).


title: Performance appraisal

text: The performance appraisal (PA) interview is typically the final step of the appraisal process. The interview is held between the subordinate and supervisor. The PA interview can be considered of great significance to an organization's PA system. It is most advantageous when both the superior and subordinate participate in the interview discussion and establish goals together. Three factors consistently contribute to effective PA interviews: the supervisor's knowledge of the subordinate's job and performance in it, the supervisor's support of the subordinate, and a welcoming of the subordinate's participation.