Employees and employers.

An employee contributes labor and expertise to an endeavor of an employer or of a person conducting a business or undertaking (PCB) and is usually hired to perform specific duties which are packaged into a job. In a corporate context, an employee is a person who is hired to provide services to a company on a regular basis in exchange for compensation and who does not provide these services as part of an independent business.  An issue that rises in most companies, especially the ones that are in the gig economy, is the classification of workers. A lot of workers that fulfill gigs are often hired as independent contractors.  As a general principle of employment law, in the United States, there is a difference between an agent and an independent contractor. The default status of a worker is employee unless specific guidelines are met, which can be determined by the ABC test. Thus, clarifying whether someone who performs work is an independent contractor or an employee from the beginning, and treating them accordingly, can save a company from trouble later on.  Provided key circumstances, including ones such as that the worker is paid regularly, follows set hours of work, is supplied with tools from the employer, is closely monitored by the employer, acting on behalf of the employer, only works for one employer at a time, they are considered an employee, and the employer will generally be liable for their actions and be obliged to give them benefits. In order to stay protected and avoid lawsuits, an employer has to be aware of that distinction.

Employer–worker relationship.

Employer and managerial control within an organization rests at many levels and has important implications for staff and productivity alike, with control forming the fundamental link between desired outcomes and actual processes. Employers must balance interests such as decreasing wage constraints with a maximization of labor productivity in order to achieve a profitable and productive employment relationship.

Labor acquisition / hiring.

The main ways for employers to find workers and for people to find employers are via jobs listings in newspapers (via classified advertising) and online, also called job boards. Employers and job seekers also often find each other via professional recruitment consultants which receive a commission from the employer to find, screen and select suitable candidates. However, a study has shown that such consultants may not be reliable when they fail to use established principles in selecting employees. A more traditional approach is with a "Help Wanted" sign in the establishment (usually hung on a window or door or placed on a store counter). Evaluating different employees can be quite laborious but setting up different techniques to analyze their skill to measure their talents within the field can be best through assessments. Employer and potential employee commonly take the additional step of getting to know each other through the process of job interview.

Training and development.

Training and development refers to the employer's effort to equip a newly hired employee with necessary skills to perform at the job, and to help the employee grow within the organization. An appropriate level of training and development helps to improve employee's job satisfaction.

Remuneration.

There are many ways that employees are paid, including by hourly wages, by piecework, by yearly salary, or by gratuities (with the latter often being combined with another form of payment). In sales jobs and real estate positions, the employee may be paid a commission, a percentage of the value of the goods or services that they have sold. In some fields and professions ("e.g.", executive jobs), employees may be eligible for a bonus if they meet certain targets. Some executives and employees may be paid in stocks or stock options, a compensation approach that has the added benefit, from the company's point of view, of helping to align the interests of the compensated individual with the performance of the company.  Under the faithless servant doctrine, a doctrine under the laws of a number of states in the United States, and most notably New York State law, an employee who acts unfaithfully towards his employer must forfeit all of the compensation he received during the period of his disloyalty.

Employee benefits.

Employee benefits are various non-wage compensation provided to employee in addition to their wages or salaries. The benefits can include: housing (employer-provided or employer-paid), group insurance (health, dental, life etc.), disability income protection, retirement benefits, daycare, tuition reimbursement, sick leave, vacation (paid and non-paid), social security, profit sharing, funding of education, and other specialized benefits. In some cases, such as with workers employed in remote or isolated regions, the benefits may include meals. Employee benefits can improve the relationship between employee and employer and lowers staff turnover.

Organizational justice.

Organizational justice is an employee's perception and judgement of employer's treatment in the context of fairness or justice. The resulting actions to influence the employee-employer relationship is also a part of organizational justice.

Workforce organizing.

Employees can organize into trade or labor unions, which represent the work force to collectively bargain with the management of organizations about working, and contractual conditions and services.

Ending employment.

Usually, either an employee or employer may end the relationship at any time, often subject to a certain notice period. This is referred to as at-will employment. The contract between the two parties specifies the responsibilities of each when ending the relationship and may include requirements such as notice periods, severance pay, and security measures. In some professions, notably teaching, civil servants, university professors, and some orchestra jobs, some employees may have tenure, which means that they cannot be dismissed at will. Another type of termination is a layoff.

Wage labor.

Wage labor is the socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer, where the worker sells their labor under a formal or informal employment contract. These transactions usually occur in a labor market where wages are market determined. In exchange for the wages paid, the work product generally becomes the undifferentiated property of the employer, except for special cases such as the vesting of intellectual property patents in the United States where patent rights are usually vested in the original personal inventor. A wage laborer is a person whose primary means of income is from the selling of his or her labor in this way.  In modern mixed economies such as that of the OECD countries, it is currently the dominant form of work arrangement. Although most work occurs following this structure, the wage work arrangements of CEOs, professional employees, and professional contract workers are sometimes conflated with class assignments, so that "wage labor" is considered to apply only to unskilled, semi-skilled or manual labor.

Wage slavery.

Wage labor, as institutionalized under today's market economic systems, has been criticized, especially by both mainstream socialists and anarcho-syndicalists, using the pejorative term wage slavery. Socialists draw parallels between the trade of labor as a commodity and slavery. Cicero is also known to have suggested such parallels.  The American philosopher John Dewey posited that until "industrial feudalism" is replaced by "industrial democracy", politics will be "the shadow cast on society by big business". Thomas Ferguson has postulated in his investment theory of party competition that the undemocratic nature of economic institutions under capitalism causes elections to become occasions when blocs of investors coalesce and compete to control the state plus cities.

Employment contract.

Australia.

Australian employment has been governed by the Fair Work Act since 2009.

Bangladesh.

Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) is an association of national level with its international reputation of co-operation and welfare of the migrant workforce as well as its approximately 1200 members agencies in collaboration with and support from the Government of Bangladesh.

Canada.

In the Canadian province of Ontario, formal complaints can be brought to the Ministry of Labour. In the province of Quebec, grievances can be filed with the Commission des normes du travail.

Pakistan.

Pakistan has no contract Labor, Minimum Wage and Provident Funds Acts. Contract labor in Pakistan must be paid minimum wage and certain facilities are to be provided to labor. However, the Acts are not yet fully implemented.

India.

India has Contract Labor, Minimum Wage, Provident Funds Act and various other acts to comply with. Contract labor in India must be paid minimum wage and certain facilities are to be provided to labor. However, there is still a large amount of work that remains to be done to fully implement the Act.

Philippines.

In the Philippines, employment is regulated by the Department of Labor and Employment.

United Kingdom.

In the United Kingdom, employment contracts are categorized by the government into the following types:

United States.

For purposes of U.S. federal income tax withholding, 26 U.S.C. § 3401(c) provides a definition for the term "employee" specific to chapter 24 of the Internal Revenue Code:  "For purposes of this chapter, the term “employee” includes an officer, employee, or elected official of the United States, a State, or any political subdivision thereof, or the District of Columbia, or any agency or instrumentality of any one or more of the foregoing. The term “employee” also includes an officer of a corporation." This definition does not exclude all those who are commonly known as 'employees'. “Similarly, Latham’s instruction which indicated that under 26 U.S.C. § 3401(c) the category of ‘employee’ does not include privately employed wage earners is a preposterous reading of the statute. It is obvious that within the context of both statutes the word ‘includes’ is a term of enlargement not of limitation, and the reference to certain entities or categories is not intended to exclude all others.”  Employees are often contrasted with independent contractors, especially when there is dispute as to the worker's entitlement to have matching taxes paid, workers compensation, and unemployment insurance benefits. However, in September 2009, the court case of "Brown v. J. Kaz, Inc." ruled that independent contractors are regarded as employees for the purpose of discrimination laws if they work for the employer on a regular basis, and said employer directs the time, place, and manner of employment.  In non-union work environments, in the United States, unjust termination complaints can be brought to the United States Department of Labor.  Labor unions are legally recognized as representatives of workers in many industries in the United States. Their activity today centers on collective bargaining over wages, benefits, and working conditions for their membership, and on representing their members in disputes with management over violations of contract provisions. Larger unions also typically engage in lobbying activities and electioneering at the state and federal level.  Most unions in America are aligned with one of two larger umbrella organizations: the AFL-CIO created in 1955, and the Change to Win Federation which split from the AFL-CIO in 2005. Both advocate policies and legislation on behalf of workers in the United States and Canada, and take an active role in politics. The AFL-CIO is especially concerned with global trade issues.  American business theorist Jeffrey Pfeffer posits that contemporary employment practices and employer commonalities in the United States, including toxic working environments, job insecurity, long hours and increased performance pressure from management, are responsible for 120,000 excess deaths annually, making the workplace the fifth leading cause of death in the United States.

Sweden.

According to Swedish law, there are three types of employment. There are no laws about minimum salary in Sweden. Instead there are agreements between employer organizations and trade unions about minimum salaries, and other employment conditions.  There is a type of employment contract which is common but not regulated in law, and that is Hour employment ("swe: Timanställning"), which can be Normal employment (unlimited), but the work time is unregulated and decided per immediate need basis. The employee is expected to be answering the phone and come to work when needed, e.g. when someone is ill and absent from work. They will receive salary only for actual work time and can in reality be fired for no reason by not being called anymore. This type of contract is common in the public sector.

Age-related issues.

Younger age workers.

Young workers are at higher risk for occupational injury and face certain occupational hazards at a higher rate; this is generally due to their employment in high-risk industries. For example, in the United States, young people are injured at work at twice the rate of their older counterparts. These workers are also at higher risk for motor vehicle accidents at work, due to less work experience, a lower use of seat belts, and higher rates of distracted driving. To mitigate this risk, those under the age of 17 are restricted from certain types of driving, including transporting people and goods under certain circumstances.  High-risk industries for young workers include agriculture, restaurants, waste management, and mining. In the United States, those under the age of 18 are restricted from certain jobs that are deemed dangerous under the Fair Labor Standards Act.  Youth employment programs are most effective when they include both theoretical classroom training and hands-on training with work placements.  In the conversation of employment among younger aged workers, youth unemployment has also been monitored. Youth unemployment rates tend to be higher than the adult rates in every country in the world.

Older age workers.

Those older than the statutory defined retirement age may continue to work, either out of enjoyment or necessity. However, depending on the nature of the job, older workers may need to transition into less-physical forms of work to avoid injury. Working past retirement age also has positive effects, because it gives a sense of purpose and allows people to maintain social networks and activity levels. Older workers are often found to be discriminated against by employers.

Working poor.

Employment is no guarantee of escaping poverty, the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that as many as 40% of workers are poor, not earning enough to keep their families above the $2 a day poverty line. For instance, in India most of the chronically poor are wage earners in formal employment, because their jobs are insecure and low paid and offer no chance to accumulate wealth to avoid risks. According to the UNRISD, increasing labor productivity appears to have a negative impact on job creation: in the 1960s, a 1% increase in output per worker was associated with a reduction in employment growth of 0.07%, by the first decade of this century the same productivity increase implies reduced employment growth by 0.54%. Both increased employment opportunities and increased labor productivity (as long as it also translates into higher wages) are needed to tackle poverty. Increases in employment without increases in productivity leads to a rise in the number of "working poor", which is why some experts are now promoting the creation of "quality" and not "quantity" in labor market policies. This approach does highlight how higher productivity has helped reduce poverty in East Asia, but the negative impact is beginning to show. In Vietnam, for example, employment growth has slowed while productivity growth has continued. Furthermore, productivity increases do not always lead to increased wages, as can be seen in the United States, where the gap between productivity and wages has been rising since the 1980s.  Researchers at the Overseas Development Institute argue that there are differences across economic sectors in creating employment that reduces poverty. 24 instances of growth were examined, in which 18 reduced poverty. This study showed that other sectors were just as important in reducing unemployment, such as manufacturing. The services sector is most effective at translating productivity growth into employment growth. Agriculture provides a safety net for jobs and economic buffer when other sectors are struggling.

Models of the employment relationship.

Scholars conceptualize the employment relationship in various ways. A key assumption is the extent to which the employment relationship necessarily includes conflicts of interests between employers and employees, and the form of such conflicts. In economic theorizing, the labor market mediates all such conflicts such that employers and employees who enter into an employment relationship are assumed to find this arrangement in their own self-interest. In human resource management theorizing, employers and employees are assumed to have shared interests (or a unity of interests, hence the label “unitarism”). Any conflicts that exist are seen as a manifestation of poor human resource management policies or interpersonal clashes such as personality conflicts, both of which can and should be managed away. From the perspective of pluralist industrial relations, the employment relationship is characterized by a plurality of stakeholders with legitimate interests (hence the label “pluralism), and some conflicts of interests are seen as inherent in the employment relationship (e.g., wages v. profits). Lastly, the critical paradigm emphasizes antagonistic conflicts of interests between various groups (e.g., the competing capitalist and working classes in a Marxist framework) that are part of a deeper social conflict of unequal power relations. As a result, there are four common models of employment:  These models are important because they help reveal why individuals hold differing perspectives on human resource management policies, labor unions, and employment regulation. For example, human resource management policies are seen as dictated by the market in the first view, as essential mechanisms for aligning the interests of employees and employers and thereby creating profitable companies in the second view, as insufficient for looking out for workers’ interests in the third view, and as manipulative managerial tools for shaping the ideology and structure of the workplace in the fourth view.

Academic literature.

Literature on the employment impact of economic growth and on how growth is associated with employment at a macro, sector and industry level was aggregated in 2013.  Researchers found evidence to suggest growth in manufacturing and services have good impact on employment. They found GDP growth on employment in agriculture to be limited, but that value-added growth had a relatively larger impact. The impact on job creation by industries/economic activities as well as the extent of the body of evidence and the key studies. For extractives, they again found extensive evidence suggesting growth in the sector has limited impact on employment. In textiles however, although evidence was low, studies suggest growth there positively contributed to job creation. In agri-business and food processing, they found impact growth to be positive.  They found that most available literature focuses on OECD and middle-income countries somewhat, where economic growth impact has been shown to be positive on employment. The researchers didn't find sufficient evidence to conclude any impact of growth on employment in LDCs despite some pointing to the positive impact, others point to limitations. They recommended that complementary policies are necessary to ensure economic growth's positive impact on LDC employment. With trade, industry and investment, they only found limited evidence of positive impact on employment from industrial and investment policies and for others, while large bodies of evidence does exist, the exact impact remains contested.  Researchers have also explored the relationship between employment and illicit activities. Using evidence from Africa, a research team found that a program for Liberian ex-fighters reduced work hours on illicit activities. The employment program also reduced interest in mercenary work in nearby wars. The study concludes that while the use of capital inputs or cash payments for peaceful work created a reduction in illicit activities, the impact of training alone is rather low.

Globalization and employment relations.

The balance of economic efficiency and social equity is the ultimate debate in the field of employment relations. By meeting the needs of the employer; generating profits to establish and maintain economic efficiency; whilst maintaining a balance with the employee and creating social equity that benefits the worker so that he/she can fund and enjoy healthy living; proves to be a continuous revolving issue in westernized societies.  Globalization has effected these issues by creating certain economic factors that disallow or allow various employment issues. Economist Edward Lee (1996) studies the effects of globalization and summarizes the four major points of concern that affect employment relations:  What also results from Lee's (1996) findings is that in industrialized countries an average of almost 70 per cent of workers are employed in the service sector, most of which consists of non-tradable activities. As a result, workers are forced to become more skilled and develop sought after trades, or find other means of survival. Ultimately this is a result of changes and trends of employment, an evolving workforce, and globalization that is represented by a more skilled and increasing highly diverse labor force, that are growing in non standard forms of employment (Markey, R. et al. 2006).

Alternatives.

Subcultures.

Various youth subcultures have been associated with not working, such as the hippie subculture in the 1960s and 1970s (which endorsed the idea of "dropping out" of society) and the punk subculture, in which some members live in anarchist squats (illegal housing).

Postsecondary education.

One of the alternatives to work is engaging in postsecondary education at a college, university or professional school. One of the major costs of obtaining a postsecondary education is the opportunity cost of forgone wages due to not working. At times when jobs are hard to find, such as during recessions, unemployed individuals may decide to get postsecondary education, because there is less of an opportunity cost.

Workplace democracy.

Workplace democracy is the application of democracy in all its forms (including voting systems, debates, democratic structuring, due process, adversarial process, systems of appeal) to the workplace.

Self-employment.

When an individual entirely owns the business for which they labor, this is known as self-employment. Self-employment often leads to incorporation. Incorporation offers certain protections of one's personal assets. Individuals who are self-employed may own a small business. They may also be considered to be an entrepreneur.

Social assistance.

In some countries, individuals who are not working can receive social assistance support (e.g., welfare or food stamps) to enable them to rent housing, buy food, repair or replace household goods, maintenance of children and observe social customs that require financial expenditure.

Volunteerism.

Workers who are not paid wages, such as volunteers who perform tasks for charities, hospitals or not-for-profit organizations, are generally not considered employed. One exception to this is an internship, an employment situation in which the worker receives training or experience (and possibly college credit) as the chief form of compensation.

Indentured servitude and slavery.

Those who work under obligation for the purpose of fulfilling a debt, such as indentured servants, or as property of the person or entity they work for, such as slaves, do not receive pay for their services and are not considered employed. Some historians suggest that slavery is older than employment, but both arrangements have existed for all recorded history. Indentured servitude and slavery are not considered compatible with human rights or with democracy.

Employment is a relationship between two parties, usually based on a contract where work is paid for, where one party, which may be a corporation, for profit, not-for-profit organization, co-operative or other entity is the employer and the other is the employee. Employees work in return for payment, which may be in the form of an hourly wage, by piecework or an annual salary, depending on the type of work an employee does or which sector they are working in. Employees in some fields or sectors may receive gratuities, bonus payment or stock options. In some types of employment, employees may receive benefits in addition to payment. Benefits can include health insurance, housing, disability insurance or use of a gym. Employment is typically governed by employment laws, organisation or legal contracts.

Un emploi, en économie, consiste à utiliser des personnes actives de la population à des activités économiques. Il s'agit souvent d'un contrat passé entre deux parties, l’employeur et le salarié, pour la réalisation d’un travail contre une rémunération, par l’exercice d'une profession, ou bien pour un travailleur indépendant, la réalisation de multiples contrats implicites ou explicites dans le cadre de l’exercice d’une profession. Une personne bénévole n'occupe pas un emploi au sens strict du terme.


Typical body fat amounts.

Epidemiologically, the percentage of body fat in an individual varies according to sex and age. Various theoretical approaches exist on the relationships between body fat percentage, health, athletic capacity, etc. Different authorities have consequently developed different recommendations for ideal body fat percentages.  This graph from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in the United States charts the average body fat percentages of Americans from samples from 1999–2004:  In males, mean percentage body fat ranged from 22.9% at age 16–19 years to 30.9% at age 60–79 years. In females, mean percentage body fat ranged from 32.0% at age 8–11 years to 42.4% at age 60–79 years.  The table below from the American Council on Exercise shows how average percentages differ according to the specified groups and categories: Essential fat is the level at which physical and physiological health would be negatively affected, and below which death is certain. Controversy exists as to whether a particular body fat percentage is better for one's health; athletic performance may also be affected. The leanest athletes typically compete at levels of about 6-13% for men or 14–20% for women. Bodybuilders may compete at essential body fat range, in fact certified personal trainers will suggest them to keep that extremely low level of body fat only for the contest time. However it is unclear that such levels are ever actually attained since (a) the means to measure such levels are, as noted below, lacking in principle and inaccurate, and (b) 4–6% is generally considered a physiological minimum for human males.

Measurement techniques.

Underwater weighing.

Irrespective of the location from which they are obtained, the fat cells in humans are composed almost entirely of pure triglycerides with an average density of about 0.9 kilograms per litre. Most modern body composition laboratories today use the value of 1.1 kilograms per litre for the density of the "fat free mass", a theoretical tissue composed of 72% water (density = 0.993), 21% protein (density = 1.340) and 7% mineral (density = 3.000) by weight.  With a well engineered weighing system, body density can be determined with great accuracy by completely submerging a person in water and calculating the volume of the displaced water from the weight of the displaced water. A correction is made for the buoyancy of air in the lungs and other gases in the body spaces. If there were no errors whatsoever in measuring body density, the uncertainty in fat estimation would be about ± 3.8% of the body weight, primarily because of normal variability in body constituents.

Whole-body air displacement plethysmography.

Whole-body air displacement plethysmography (ADP) is a recognised and scientifically validated densitometric method to measure human body fat percentage. ADP uses the same principles as the gold-standard method of underwater weighing, but representing a densitometric method that is based on air displacement rather than on water immersion. Air-displacement plethysmography offers several advantages over established reference methods, including a quick, comfortable, automated, noninvasive, and safe measurement process, and accommodation of various subject types (e.g., children, obese, elderly, and disabled persons). However, its accuracy declines at the extremes of body fat percentages, tending to slightly understate the percent body fat in overweight and obese persons (by 1.68–2.94% depending on the method of calculation), and to overstate to a much larger degree the percent body fat in very lean subjects (by an average of 6.8%, with up to a 13% overstatement of the reported body percentage of one individual — i.e. 2% body fat by DXA but 15% by ADP).

Near-infrared interactance.

A beam of infra-red light is transmitted into a biceps. The light is reflected from the underlying muscle and absorbed by the fat. The method is safe, noninvasive, rapid and easy to use.

Dual energy X-ray absorptiometry.

Dual energy X-ray absorptiometry, or DXA (formerly DEXA), is a newer method for estimating body fat percentage, and determining body composition and bone mineral density.  X-rays of two different energies are used to scan the body, one of which is absorbed more strongly by fat than the other. A computer can subtract one image from the other, and the difference indicates the amount of fat relative to other tissues at each point. A sum over the entire image enables calculation of the overall body composition.

Expansions.

There are several more complicated procedures that more accurately determine body fat percentage. Some, referred to as multicompartment models, can include DXA measurement of bone, plus independent measures of body water (using the dilution principle with isotopically labeled water) and body volume (either by water displacement or air plethysmography). Various other components may be independently measured, such as total body potassium.  In-vivo neutron activation can quantify all the elements of the body and use mathematical relations among the measured elements in the different components of the body (fat, water, protein, etc.) to develop simultaneous equations to estimate total body composition, including body fat.

Body average density measurement.

Prior to the adoption of DXA, the most accurate method of estimating body fat percentage was to measure that person's average density (total mass divided by total volume) and apply a formula to convert that to body fat percentage.  Since fat tissue has a lower density than muscles and bones, it is possible to estimate the fat content. This estimate is distorted by the fact that muscles and bones have different densities: for a person with a more-than-average amount of bone mass, the estimate will be too low. However, this method gives highly reproducible results for individual persons (± 1%), unlike the methods discussed below, which can have an uncertainty of 10%, or more. The body fat percentage is commonly calculated from one of two formulas (ρ represents density in g/cm):

Bioelectrical impedance analysis.

The bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) method is a lower-cost (from less than one to several hundred US dollars in 2006) but less accurate way to estimate body fat percentage. The general principle behind BIA: two or more conductors are attached to a person's body and a small electric current is sent through the body. The resistance between the conductors will provide a measure of body fat between a pair of electrodes, since the resistance to electricity varies between adipose, muscular and skeletal tissue. Fat-free mass (muscle) is a good conductor as it contains a large amount of water (approximately 73%) and electrolytes, while fat is anhydrous and a poor conductor of electric current. Factors that affect the accuracy and precision of this method include instrumentation, subject factors, technician skill, and the prediction equation formulated to estimate the fat-free mass.  Each (bare) foot may be placed on an electrode, with the current sent up one leg, across the abdomen and down the other leg. (For convenience, an instrument which must be stepped on will also measure weight.) Alternatively, an electrode may be held in each hand; calculation of fat percentage uses the weight, so that must be measured with scales and entered by the user. The two methods may give different percentages, without being inconsistent, as they measure fat in different parts of the body. More sophisticated instruments for domestic use are available with electrodes for both feet and hands.  There is little scope for technician error as such, but factors such as eating, drinking and exercising must be controlled since hydration level is an important source of error in determining the flow of the electric current to estimate body fat. The instructions for use of instruments typically recommended not making measurements soon after drinking or eating or exercising, or when dehydrated. Instruments require details such as sex and age to be entered, and use formulae taking these into account; for example, men and women store fat differently around the abdomen and thigh region.  Different BIA analysers may vary. Population-specific equations are available for some instruments, which are only reliable for specific ethnic groups, populations, and conditions. Population-specific equations may not be appropriate for individuals outside of specific groups.

Anthropometric methods.

There exist various anthropometric methods for estimating body fat. The term "anthropometric" refers to measurements made of various parameters of the human body, such as circumferences of various body parts or thicknesses of skinfolds. Most of these methods are based on a statistical model. Some measurements are selected, and are applied to a population sample. For each individual in the sample, the method's measurements are recorded, and that individual's body density is also recorded, being determined by, for instance, under-water weighing, in combination with a multi-compartment body density model. From this data, a formula relating the body measurements to density is developed.  Because most anthropometric formulas such as the Durnin-Womersley skinfold method, the Jackson-Pollock skinfold method, and the US Navy circumference method, actually estimate body density, not body fat percentage, the body fat percentage is obtained by applying a second formula, such as the Siri or Brozek described in the above section on density. Consequently, the body fat percentage calculated from skin folds or other anthropometric methods carries the cumulative error from the application of two separate statistical models.  These methods are therefore inferior to a direct measurement of body density and the application of just one formula to estimate body fat percentage. One way to regard these methods is that they trade accuracy for convenience, since it is much more convenient to take a few body measurements than to submerge individuals in water.  The chief problem with all statistically derived formulas is that in order to be widely applicable, they must be based on a broad sample of individuals. Yet, that breadth makes them inherently inaccurate. The ideal statistical estimation method for an individual is based on a sample of similar individuals. For instance, a skinfold based body density formula developed from a sample of male collegiate rowers is likely to be much more accurate for estimating the body density of a male collegiate rower than a method developed using a sample of the general population, because the sample is narrowed down by age, sex, physical fitness level, type of sport, and lifestyle factors. On the other hand, such a formula is unsuitable for general use.

Skinfold methods.

The skinfold estimation methods are based on a "skinfold test", also known as a "pinch test", whereby a pinch of skin is precisely measured by calipers, also known as a plicometer, at several standardized points on the body to determine the subcutaneous fat layer thickness. These measurements are converted to an estimated body fat percentage by an equation. Some formulas require as few as three measurements, others as many as seven. The accuracy of these estimates is more dependent on a person's unique body fat distribution than on the number of sites measured. As well, it is of utmost importance to test in a precise location with a fixed pressure. Although it may not give an accurate reading of real body fat percentage, it is a reliable measure of body composition change over a period of time, provided the test is carried out by the same person with the same technique.  Skinfold-based body fat estimation is sensitive to the type of caliper used, and technique. This method also only measures one type of fat: subcutaneous adipose tissue (fat under the skin). Two individuals might have nearly identical measurements at all of the skin fold sites, yet differ greatly in their body fat levels due to differences in other body fat deposits such as visceral adipose tissue: fat in the abdominal cavity. Some models partially address this problem by including age as a variable in the statistics and the resulting formula. Older individuals are found to have a lower body density for the same skinfold measurements, which is assumed to signify a higher body fat percentage. However, older, highly athletic individuals might not fit this assumption, causing the formulas to underestimate their body density.

Ultrasound.

Ultrasound is used extensively to measure tissue structure and has proven to be an accurate technique to measure subcutaneous fat thickness. A-mode and B-mode ultrasound systems are now used and both rely on using tabulated values of tissue sound speed and automated signal analysis to determine fat thickness. By making thickness measurements at multiple sites on the body you can calculate the estimated body fat percentage. Ultrasound techniques can also be used to directly measure muscle thickness and quantify intramuscular fat. Ultrasound equipment is expensive, and not cost-effective solely for body fat measurement, but where equipment is available, as in hospitals, the extra cost for the capability to measure body fat is minimal.

Height and circumference methods.

There also exist formulas for estimating body fat percentage from an individual's weight and girth measurements. For example, the U.S. Navy circumference method compares abdomen or waist and hips measurements to neck measurement and height and other sites claim to estimate one's body fat percentage by a conversion from the body mass index. In the U.S. Navy the method is known as the "rope and choke." There is limited information, however, on the validity of the "rope and choke" method because of its universal acceptance as inaccurate and easily falsified.  The U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps also rely on the height and circumference method. For males, they measure the neck and waist just above the navel. Females are measured around the hips, waist, and neck. These measurements are then looked up in published tables, with the individual's height as an additional parameter. This method is used because it is a cheap and convenient way to implement a body fat test throughout an entire service.  Methods using circumference have little acceptance outside the Department of Defense due to their negative reputation in comparison to other methods. The method's accuracy becomes an issue when comparing people with different body compositions, those with larger necks artificially generate lower body fat percentage calculations than those with smaller necks.

From BMI.

Body fat can be estimated from body mass index (BMI), a person's mass in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters; if weight is measured in pounds and height in inches, the result can be converted to BMI by multiplying by 703. There are a number of proposed formulae that relate body fat to BMI. These formulae are based on work by researchers published in peer-reviewed journals, but their correlation with body fat are only estimates; body fat cannot be deduced accurately from BMI.  Body fat may be estimated from the body mass index by formulae derived by Deurenberg and co-workers. When making calculations, the relationship between densitometrically determined body fat percentage (BF%) and BMI must take age and sex into account. Internal and external cross-validation of the prediction formulas showed that they gave valid estimates of body fat in males and females at all ages. In obese subjects, however, the prediction formulas slightly overestimated the BF%. The prediction error is comparable to the prediction error obtained with other methods of estimating BF%, such as skinfold thickness measurements and bioelectrical impedance. The formula for children is different; the relationship between BMI and BF% in children was found to differ from that in adults due to the height-related increase in BMI in children aged 15 years and younger.  However – contrary to the aforementioned internal and external cross-validation –, these formulae definitely proved unusable at least for adults and are presented here illustratively only.  Still, the following formula designed for adults proved to be much more accurate at least for adults:  Other indices may be used; the body adiposity index was said by its developers to give a direct estimate of body fat percentage, but statistical studies found this not to be so.

The body fat percentage (BFP) of a human or other living being is the total mass of fat divided by total body mass, multiplied by 100; body fat includes essential body fat and storage body fat. Essential body fat is necessary to maintain life and reproductive functions. The percentage of essential body fat for women is greater than that for men, due to the demands of childbearing and other hormonal functions. Storage body fat consists of fat accumulation in adipose tissue, part of which protects internal organs in the chest and abdomen. A number of methods are available for determining body fat percentage, such as measurement with calipers or through the use of bioelectrical impedance analysis.

L’indice de masse grasse () est un indice, exprimé en pourcentage, qui permet de juger de la proportion de tissus adipeux d'une personne adulte. Il prend en compte la disproportion entre la masse de graisse et celles des muscles.


History.

Acid2 was first proposed by Håkon Wium Lie, chief technical officer of Opera Software and creator of the widely used Cascading Style Sheets web standard. In a 16 March 2005 article on CNET, Lie expressed dismay that Microsoft Internet Explorer did not properly support web standards and hence was not completely interoperable with other browsers. He announced that Acid2 would be a challenge to Microsoft to design Internet Explorer 7, then in development, to achieve a greater degree of standards compliance than previous versions of Internet Explorer. The original Acid1 test had forced browser makers to fix their applications or face embarrassment; Lie hoped that Acid2 would do the same.  Lie and a colleague, Ian Hickson, created the first draft of the test in February 2005. Ian Hickson coded the final test in collaboration with the Web Standards Project and the larger web community. It was officially released on 13 April 2005 and at that time, every web browser failed it spectacularly.  On 23 April 2005, Acid2 was updated to fix a bug that made the mouth appear too close to the nose. After several complaints, the test was again updated in January 2006 to remove a test for unpopular SGML-style comments that were never widely implemented. In browsers that do not implement SGML-style comments, the original test displayed the word "ERROR" on the bottom part of the face.  In March 2008, Ian Hickson released Acid3 as a follow-up to Acid2. While Acid2 primarily tests CSS, Acid3 focuses more on JavaScript and other "Web 2.0" technologies.

Microsoft's response.

In July 2005, Chris Wilson, the Internet Explorer Platform Architect, stated that passing Acid2 was not a priority for Internet Explorer 7, describing the test as a "wish list" of features rather than a true test of standards compliance. In December 2007, Microsoft announced that all the changes required to pass Acid2 would be made available in Internet Explorer 8, but that the changes would not be turned on by default, meaning that IE8 would not actually pass the test. The concern was that switching to a new behavior would cause too many problems in web pages expecting Internet Explorer's old, non-compliant behavior. Then in March 2008 Microsoft released IE8 beta 1 and turned on the changes by default after all. James Pratt, product manager for IE8, explained that this decision was made so that "developers can spend more time building features and cool stuff, and less time just trying to tweak their sites across different browsers."  Another unresolved standards compliance issue caused IE8 beta 1 to fail if not all elements of the test were hosted from the same server. In August 2008 Microsoft released IE8 beta 2, which resolved the issue. As of that beta, however, standards mode is not turned on by default for pages loaded in the "Intranet Zone". This zone is active for pages loaded via UNC paths, named addresses without dots (like <nowiki>http://mysite/</nowiki>), and sites that bypass the proxy settings. As such, IE8 will not pass the Acid2 test if loaded in these cases.

Overview of standards tested.

Acid2 tests a variety of web standards published by the World Wide Web Consortium and the Internet Engineering Task Force. With the exception of CSS 2.1, all web standards tested were codified before the year 2000. CSS 2.1 was a candidate recommendation at the time of Acid2's release, and was still a candidate recommendation as of 23 April 2009.  Specifically, Acid2 tests:  Because Acid2 is not a comprehensive test, it does not guarantee total conformance to any particular standard. A variant of the Acid2 test that does not test for data URI support is also available from the Web Standards Project.

Passing conditions.

A passing score is only considered valid if the browser's default settings were used. Actions such as changing font sizes, zoom level, and applying user stylesheets can break the display of the test. This is expected and is not relevant to a browser's compliance.  The following browser settings and user actions invalidate the test:

Compliant applications.

If rendered correctly, Acid2 will appear as a smiley face below the text "Hello World!" in the user's browser, with the nose turning blue when the mouse cursor hovers over it. At the time of the test's release, every browser failed it, but now a number of browsers pass it. See the list below.

Non-compliant applications.

Even though Opera Mini is based on the same rendering engine as Opera for personal computers, it does not pass the Acid2 test. This is because Opera Mini intentionally reformats web pages to try to make them more suitable for devices with small screens.

Timeline of passing applications.

The following is a list of releases noting significant releases of applications that passed the test. New applications that have passed Acid2 since their first official release are not included in the timeline.

Acid2 is a webpage that test web browsers' functionality in displaying aspects of HTML markup, CSS 2.1 styling, PNG images, and data URIs. The test page was released on 13 April 2005 by the Web Standards Project. The Acid2 test page will be displayed correctly in any application that follows the World Wide Web Consortium and Internet Engineering Task Force specifications for these technologies. These specifications are known as web standards because they describe how technologies used on the web are expected to function.

Le test Acid2 vise à valider la mise en œuvre d'un choix de fonctionnalités liées à différents standards du web dans un navigateur, jugées prioritaires par ses promoteurs. Lancé par Håkon Wium Lie et supporté par le, il a été nommé ainsi en référence à un premier historique, créé par, qui concernait le modèle de boîte CSS1, et qui avait été par la suite intégré dans les « » du W3C. Le test Acid3 lui a succédé.


Description.

This species is a somewhat plump wader with a dark greenish-brown back and wings, greyish head and breast and otherwise white underparts. The back is spotted white to varying extents, being maximal in the breeding adult, and less in winter and young birds. The legs and short bill are both dark green.  It is conspicuous and characteristically patterned in flight, with the wings dark above and below and a brilliant white rump. The latter feature reliably distinguishes it from the slightly smaller but otherwise very similar solitary sandpiper ("T. solitaria") of North America.  In flight it has a characteristic three-note whistle.

Distribution and ecology.

It breeds across subarctic Europe and east across the Palearctic and is a migratory bird, wintering in southern Europe, the Indian Subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and tropical Africa. Food is small invertebrate items picked off the mud as this species works steadily around the edges of its chosen pond.  This is not a gregarious species, although sometimes small numbers congregate in suitable feeding areas. Green sandpiper is very much a bird of freshwater, and is often found in sites too restricted for other waders, which tend to like a clear all-round view.  It lays 2–4 eggs in an old tree nest of another species, such as a fieldfare ("Turdus pilaris"). The clutch takes about three weeks to hatch.  The green sandpiper is one of the species to which the "Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds" (AEWA) applies. Widely distributed and not uncommon, it is not considered a threatened species by the IUCN on a global scale.

The green sandpiper ("Tringa ochropus") is a small wader (shorebird) of the Old World. The genus name "Tringa" is the New Latin name given to the green sandpiper by Aldrovandus in 1599 based on Ancient Greek "trungas", a thrush-sized, white-rumped, tail-bobbing wading bird mentioned by Aristotle. The specific "ochropus" is from Ancient Greek "okhros", "ochre", and "pous", "foot".

Le Chevalier culblanc ou cul-blanc (Tringa ochropus) est une espèce d'oiseaux appartenant au groupe des limicoles et à la famille des Scolopacidae.


Biography.

Claude was born in Fontainebleau, but as she was believed to have been conceived at Chateau d'Anet, she was nicknamed as 'Mademoiselle d'Anet' at court, a nickname that displeased her mother.  Claude was raised alongside her sister Elisabeth, and her future sister-in-law, Mary, Queen of Scots. The royal children were raised under the supervision of the governor and governess of the royal children, Jean d'Humières and his wife Françoise d'Humières, under the orders of Diane de Poitiers.  Claude was victim of the unhealthy traits that Catherine appeared to pass on to all her children with the exception of Marguerite, and suffered from a hunchback and a club foot, and during her childhood she was frequently vulnerable to various child diseases.  On 19 January 1559, at the age of 11, she married Charles III, Duke of Lorraine in the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. The marriage was arranged as a symbolic union of peace between France and Lorraine, after Charles III had spent his childhood as a hostage at the French royal court, and completed after the Treaty of Chateau-Cambresis. Claude departed to Lorraine with her spouse in late 1559, shortly before the departure of her sister Elisabeth to Spain and her aunt Marguerite to Savoy.

Duchess of Lorraine.

The relationship between Claude and Charles III was described as a happy one. Claude was a favorite of her mother, who occasionally visited her in Lorraine, visits described as rare occasions of private family gatherings in the life of Catherine de Medici, who enjoyed to see her grandchildren by Claude and also liked her son-in-law Charles very much. Catherine de Medici was, for example, present in Bar-le-Duc for the baptism of Claude's firstborn son Henry.  Claude attended the wedding between Henry of Navarre and her sister Margaret of Valois in Paris in August 1572. On her way there, she had been ill and cared for by her mother in Chalons, which was the reason why Catherine de Medici had been absent from the royal court during the border attack of Jean de Genlis near the Spanish Netherlands in July, which was used by Admiral Coligny to attempt to convince Charles IX to declare war on Spain.  On evening of the Massacre, Claude was evidently informed that a massacre was to take place against the groom of her sister and his followers, and Margaret of Valois described how Claude had tears in her eyes and tried to stop her from leaving their mother's chamber, when Margaret was about to retire to the chamber of her spouse. Claude took Margaret's arm and begged her not to leave: she was contradicted by their mother, who warned Claude not to tell Margaret anything. Claude told their mother that it was not right to send Margaret to be "sacrificed", as she would risk becoming a target, but Catherine de Medici replied to Claude that Margaret would be safe if God wished it, that it would arouse suspicion if she did not go, and then told Margaret to leave, upon which Claude cried. After the massacre started, one of the courtiers of Navarre, de Leran, broke into the bedchamber of Margaret and begged her to save him from the captain of the Guards, M. de Nancay, who gave her the man's life, and then escorted her to the chamber of Claude, where she was given refuge during the massacre.  During the last of her frequent visits to the French court, her brother the king gave her the gift of "the ransoms of Guyenne, which came from the confiscations that took place there", and in turn gave one of the ransoms to Jeanne de Dampierre when asked.  Brantôme gave the following description of her:  Claude died in childbirth in 1575 at the age of 27. Brantôme wrote that she "died in child-bed, through the appetite of an old midwife of Paris, a drunkard, in whom she had more faith than in any other."

Children.

Claude and her husband had nine children:

Claude of France (12 November 1547, in Fontainebleau – 21 February 1575, in Nancy) was a French princess as the second daughter of King Henry II of France and Catherine de' Medici, and Duchess of Lorraine by marriage to Charles III, Duke of Lorraine.

Claude de France (Fontainebleau, 1547 - Nancy, 1575) est une princesse de la maison royale de France ; elle est la deuxième fille d'Henri II, roi de France, et de Catherine de Médicis.


Operation.

The Doppler data is displayed graphically using spectral Doppler, or as an image using color Doppler (directional Doppler) or power Doppler (non directional Doppler). This Doppler shift falls in the audible range and is often presented audibly using stereo speakers: this produces a very distinctive, although synthetic, pulsating sound.  All modern ultrasound scanners use pulsed Doppler to measure velocity. Pulsed wave instruments transmit and receive series of pulses. The frequency shift of each pulse is ignored, however the relative phase changes of the pulses are used to obtain the frequency shift (since frequency is the rate of change of phase). The major advantage of pulsed wave Doppler (PW Doppler) over continuous wave (CW Doppler) is that distance information is obtained (time between transmitted and received pulses multiplied by sound velocity equals distance) and gain correction is applied. The disadvantage of pulsed Doppler is that the measurements can suffer from aliasing. The terms "Doppler ultrasound" and "Doppler sonography" have been accepted to apply to both pulsed and continuous Doppler systems, despite the different mechanisms by which the velocity is measured.  There are no standards for displaying color Doppler. Some laboratories show arteries as red and veins as blue, as medical illustrators usually show them, even though some vessels may have portions flowing toward and portions flowing away from the transducer. This results in the illogical appearance of a vessel being partly a vein and partly an artery. Other laboratories use red to indicate flow toward the transducer and blue away from the transducer. Still other laboratories display the Doppler color map in accordance with published data, with red shift representing longer wavelengths (scattered) from blood flowing away from the transducer and blue representing the shorter wavelengths from blood flowing toward the transducer. Because of this confusion and lack of standards, the sonographer must understand the underlying physics of color Doppler and the physiology of normal and abnormal blood flow in the human body (see Red shift).

Uses.

Transcranial.

"Transcranial Doppler" ("TCD") and "transcranial color Doppler" ("TCCD") measure the velocity of blood flow through the brain's blood vessels transcranially (through the cranium). These modes of medical imaging conduct a spectral analysis of the acoustic signals they receive and can therefore be classified as methods of active acoustocerebrography. They are used as tests to help diagnose emboli, stenosis, vasospasm from a subarachnoid hemorrhage (bleeding from a ruptured aneurysm), and other problems. These relatively quick and inexpensive tests are growing in popularity. The tests are effective for detecting sickle cell disease, ischemic cerebrovascular disease, subarachnoid hemorrhage, arteriovenous malformations, and cerebral circulatory arrest. The tests are possibly useful for perioperative monitoring and meningeal infection. The equipment used for these tests is becoming increasingly portable, making it possible for a clinician to travel to a hospital, to a doctor's office, or to a nursing home for both inpatient and outpatient studies. The tests are often used in conjunction with other tests such as MRI, MRA, carotid duplex ultrasound and CT scans. The tests are also used for research in cognitive neuroscience.

Blood vessels.

Vascular ultrasonography helps determine multiple factors within the circulatory system. It can evaluate central (abdominal) and peripheral arteries and veins, it helps determine the amount of vascular stenosis (narrowing) or occlusion (complete blockage) within an artery, it assists in ruling out aneurysmal disease, and it is the main aid to rule out thrombotic events. Duplex is an inexpensive, non-invasive way to determine pathology. It is used in for example:  Duplex evaluation is usually done prior to any invasive testing or surgical procedure. Ultrasound duplex scanning can provide additional information that may guide therapeutic decisions. The location and severity of arterial narrowings and occlusions can be identified. The vascular sonographer can map disease in lower-extremity segments with great accuracy, though duplex scanning is more time-consuming than other lower-extremity arterial studies.  An alternative to Doppler to visualize vessels is B-flow, which digitally highlights weak flow reflectors (mainly red blood cells) while suppressing the signals from the surrounding stationary tissue. It can visualize flowing blood and surrounding stationary tissues simultaneously.  In addition to visualization, ultrasound can also be used in doppler auscultation (without visual), similar to using an ultrasound baby monitor, to locate clots or other vascular obstructions or collapse by tracing a blood vessel until sound is no longer heard. It is also used to conrfirm patency of Dorsalis Pedis arteries when edema or other conditions make manual palpation impractical.

Kidneys.

Doppler ultrasonography is widely used in renal ultrasonography. Renal vessels are easily depicted by the color Doppler technique in order to evaluate perfusion. Applying spectral Doppler to the renal artery and selected interlobular arteries, peak systolic velocities, resistive index, and acceleration curves can be estimated (Figure 4) (e.g., peak systolic velocity of the renal artery above 180 cm/s is a predictor of renal artery stenosis of more than 60%, and a resistive index, which is a calculated from peak systolic and end systolic velocity, above 0.70 is indicative of abnormal renovascular resistance).

Heart.

Doppler echocardiography is the use of Doppler ultrasonography to examine the heart. An echocardiogram can, within certain limits, produce an accurate assessment of the direction of blood flow and the velocity of blood and cardiac tissue at any arbitrary point using the Doppler effect. One of the limitations is that the ultrasound beam should be as parallel to the blood flow as possible. Velocity measurements allow assessment of cardiac valve areas and function, any abnormal communications between the left and right side of the heart, any leaking of blood through the valves (valvular regurgitation), calculation of the cardiac output and calculation of E/A ratio (a measure of diastolic dysfunction). Contrast-enhanced ultrasound using gas-filled microbubble contrast media can be used to improve velocity or other flow-related medical measurements.

Doppler fetal monitor.

Doppler fetal monitors, although usually not technically -graphy but rather sound-generating, use the Doppler effect to detect the fetal heartbeat for prenatal care. These are hand-held, and some models also display the heart rate in beats per minute (BPM). Use of this monitor is sometimes known as "Doppler auscultation". The Doppler fetal monitor is commonly referred to simply as a "Doppler" or "fetal Doppler". Doppler fetal monitors provide information about the fetus similar to that provided by a fetal stethoscope.

Superficial soft tissues.

Doppler ultrasonography can help distinguishing benign from malignant soft tissue lumps.

Doppler ultrasonography is medical ultrasonography that employs the Doppler effect to generate imaging of the movement of tissues and body fluids (usually blood), and their relative velocity to the probe. By calculating the frequency shift of a particular sample volume, for example, flow in an artery or a jet of blood flow over a heart valve, its speed and direction can be determined and visualized. Color Doppler or color flow Doppler is the presentation of the velocity by color scale. Color Doppler images are generally combined with grayscale (B-mode) images to display duplex ultrasonography images, allowing for simultaneous visualization of the anatomy of the area.

L'échographie Doppler est un examen médical échographique en deux dimensions non invasif qui permet d'explorer les flux sanguins intracardiaques et intravasculaires. Elle est basée sur un phénomène physique des ultrasons : l'effet Doppler. Elle est souvent surnommée écho Doppler.


History.

When the first Spaniards arrived in the Philippines in the 16th century, they found well-organized independent villages called "barangays". The name "barangay" originated from "balangay", a Malay word meaning "sailboat".  All information regarding pre-colonial barangay leads to a single source, Juan de Plascencia's 1589 report "Las costumbres de los indios Tagalos de Filipinas." However, historian Damon Woods challenges the concept of "barangay" as an indigineous political organization primarily due to lack of linguistic evidence. Instead, "barangay" is argued as a Spanish invention from an attempt by the Spaniards in reconstructing pre-conquest Tagalog society.  The first barangays started as relatively small communities of around 50 to 100 families. By the time of contact with Spaniards, many barangays have developed into large communities. The "encomienda" of 1604 shows that many affluent and powerful coastal barangays in Sulu, Butuan, Panay, Leyte and Cebu, Pampanga, Pangasinan, Pasig, Laguna, and Cagayan River were flourishing trading centers. Some of these barangays had large populations. In Panay, some barangays had 20,000 inhabitants; in Leyte (Baybay), 15,000 inhabitants; in Cebu, 3,500 residents; in Vitis (Pampanga), 7,000 inhabitants; Pangasinan, 4,000 residents. There were smaller barangays with fewer number of people. But these were generally inland communities; or if they were coastal, they were not located in areas which were good for business pursuits. These smaller barangays had around thirty to one hundred houses only, and the population varied from one hundred to five hundred persons. According to Legazpi, he founded communities with only twenty to thirty people.  Traditionally, the original “barangays” were coastal settlements of the migration of these Malayo-Polynesian people (who came to the archipelago) from other places in Southeast Asia ("see chiefdom"). Most of the ancient barangays were coastal or riverine. This is because most of the people were relying on fishing for their supply of protein and their livelihood. They also traveled mostly by water up and down rivers, and along the coasts. Trails always followed river systems, which were also a major source of water for bathing, washing, and drinking.  The coastal barangays were more accessible to trade with foreigners. These were ideal places for economic activity to develop. Business with traders from other countries also meant contact with other cultures and civilizations, such as those of Japan, Han Chinese, Indian people, and Arab people. These coastal communities acquired more cosmopolitan cultures, with developed social structures (sovereign principalities), ruled by established royalties and nobilities.  During the Spanish rule, through a resettlement policy called the "Reducción", smaller scattered barangays were consolidated (and thus, "reduced") to form compact towns. Each barangay was headed by the "cabeza de barangay" (barangay chief), who formed part of the "Principalía" – the elite ruling class of the municipalities of the Spanish Philippines. This position was inherited from the first "datu"s, and came to be known as such during the Spanish regime. The Spanish Monarch ruled each barangay through the Cabeza, who also collected taxes (called tribute) from the residents for the Spanish Crown.  When the Americans arrived, "slight changes in the structure of local government was effected". Later, "Rural Councils" with four councilors were created to assist, now renamed "Barrio Lieutenant"; it was later renamed "Barrio Council", and then "Barangay Council".  The Spanish term barrio (abbv. "Bo.") was used for much of the 20th century. Mayor Ramon Bagatsing of the City of Manila established the first "Barangay" Bureau in the Philippines, creating the blueprint for the barangay system as the basic socio-political unit for the city in the early 70s. This was quickly replicated by the national government, and in 1974 President Ferdinand Marcos ordered the renaming of barrios to "barangay"s. The name survived the 1986 EDSA Revolution, though older people would still use the term "barrio". The "Municipal Council" was abolished upon transfer of powers to the barangay system. Marcos used to call the barangay part of Philippine participatory democracy, and most of his writings involving the New Society praised the role of "baranganic democracy" in nation-building.  After the 1986 EDSA Revolution and the drafting of the 1987 Constitution, the Municipal Council was restored, making the barangay the smallest unit of Philippine government. The first barangay elections held under the new constitution was held on March 28, 1989, under Republic Act number 6679.  The last barangay elections were held in October 2013. Barangay elections scheduled in October 2017 were postponed following the signing of Republic Act number 10952. The postponement has been criticized by election watchdogs and in both the Philippine Congress and Senate. The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting considers the postponement a move that would "only deny the people their rights to choose their leaders."

Organization.

The modern barangay is headed by elected officials, the topmost being the "Punong Barangay" or the Barangay Chairperson (addressed as "Kapitan"; also known as the Barangay Captain). The "Kapitan" is aided by the "Sangguniang Barangay" (Barangay Council) whose members, called "Barangay Kagawad" ("Councilors"), are also elected.  The council is considered to be a Local Government Unit (LGU), similar to the Provincial and the Municipal Government. The officials that make up the council are the "Punong Barangay", seven Barangay Councilors, and the chairman of Youth Council or "Sangguniang Kabataan" (SK). Thus, there are eight (8) members of the Legislative Council in a barangay.  The council is in session for a new solution or a resolution of bill votes, and if the counsels and the SK are at tie decision, the Captain uses his/her vote. This only happens when the SK which is sometimes stopped and continued. In absence of an SK, the council votes for a nominated Barrio Council President, this president is not like the League of the Barangay Councilors which composes of barangay Captains of a municipality.  The Barangay Justice System or "Katarungang Pambarangay" is composed of members commonly known as "Lupon Tagapamayapa" (Justice of the peace). Their function is to conciliate and mediate disputes at the Barangay level to avoid legal action and relieve the courts of docket congestion.  Barangay elections are non-partisan and are typically hotly contested. Barangay Captain are elected by first-past-the-post plurality (no runoff voting). Councilors are elected by plurality-at-large voting with the entire barangay as a single at-large district. Each voter can vote up to seven candidates for councilor, with the winners being the seven candidates with the most votes. Typically, a ticket usually consists of one candidate for Barangay Captain and seven candidates for the Councilors. Elections for the post of "Punong Barangay" and "barangay kagawads" are usually held every three years starting from 2007.  The barangay is often governed from its seat of local government, the barangay hall.  A "tanod", or barangay police officer, is an unarmed watchman who fulfills policing functions within the barangay. The number of barangay tanods differs from one barangay to another; they help maintain law and order in the neighborhoods throughout the Philippines.  Funding for the barangay comes from their share of the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) with a portion of the allotment set aside for the "Sangguniang Kabataan". The exact amount of money is determined by a formula combining the barangay's population and land area.

A barangay (; abbreviated as Brgy. or Bgy.), sometimes referred to its archaic name barrio (abbreviated as Bo.), is the smallest administrative division in the Philippines and is the native Filipino term for a village, district or ward. In metropolitan areas, the term often refers to an inner city neighbourhood, a suburb, or a suburban neighborhood. The word "barangay" originated from "balangay", a kind of boat used by a group of Austronesian peoples when they migrated to the Philippines.

Un barangay (en filipino : "baranggay", prononcé « Ba-rang-gaï », pouvant être abrégé en « Brgy » ou « Bgy ») est l'unité administrative la plus petite aux Philippines. La réalité est variable, le terme s'appliquant aussi bien à un village, un district ou un quartier. Les municipalités et les villes (cités indépendantes) sont composées de barangays. Historiquement, un barangay est une communauté composée de 50 à 100 familles.


Parchment paper.

Modern parchment paper is made by running sheets of paper pulp through a bath of sulfuric acid (a method similar to the way tracing paper is made) or sometimes zinc chloride. This process partially dissolves or gelatinizes the paper. This treatment forms a sulfurized cross-linked material, with high density, stability, and heat resistance, as well as low surface energy — thereby imparting good non-stick or release properties. The treated paper has an appearance similar to that of parchment and, because of its strength, is sometimes used in legal documents for which parchment was traditionally used. (However, parchment paper is manufactured with acid, and has a low pH, making it inappropriate for archival documents where acid-free paper is the better choice.)

Bakery release paper.

The non-stick properties can be also achieved by employing a coated paper, for which a suitable release agent—a coating with a low surface energy and capability to withstand the temperatures involved in the baking or roasting process—is deposited onto the paper's surface; silicone (cured with a suitable catalyst) is frequently used.

Applications.

A common use is to eliminate the need to grease sheet pans and the like, allowing very rapid turn-around of batches of baked goods. Parchment paper is also used to cook "en papillote", a technique where food is steamed or cooked within closed pouches made from parchment paper.  Bakery paper can be used in most applications that call for wax paper as a non-stick surface. The reverse is not true, as using wax paper will cause smoke in the oven and affect taste.

Parchment paper, baking paper, or bakery release paper is cellulose-based paper that has been treated or coated to make it non-stick. It is used in baking as a disposable non-stick surface. It should not be confused with wax paper or waxed paper, which is paper that has been coated in wax.

Le papier sulfurisé est un papier traité de manière à être imperméable et à résister aux hautes températures. Il est parfois aussi appelé papier tartines. Au Québec, on l'appelle généralement papier parchemin.


Industrial relevance.

The study of fermentation in the 19th century was of interest not only to basic science but also as applied science funded by companies in certain industries, principally winemaking and brewing, as a means to reduce risk of bad batches through greater understanding and control of the process. Thus early microbiologists such as Louis Pasteur were funded in their research into microbial metabolism and biochemistry. Such research led to the first understanding of anaerobic metabolism, and butyric acid fermentation was humans' initial window into that world. In this connection it was circa 1880 when a scientist surnamed Prazmowski first assigned a name to "Clostridium butyricum".

Therapeutic uses.

The first "C. butyricum" MIYAIRI strain was isolated from the feces of Dr. Chikaji Miyairi in Japan in 1933, and CBM 588 is the 588th MIYAIRI strain, isolated from a soil sample in Nagano, Japan, in 1963. Preparations based on CBM 588 have a long history of safe use in human populations in Asia, especially Japan, where such products are variously classed as pharmaceutical drugs, "quasi drugs", and OTC (Over The Counter) probiotics. The safe history of CBM 588 in human Asian populations is supported by various peer-reviewed publications and case studies dating back to 1963, including reports of CBM 588 use in severely-ill, immune-compromised and hospitalized patients, whose ages range from infants to elderly people, and include pregnant women.  Its usefulness stems primarily from its ability to interfere with the growth of highly pathogenic "Clostridium difficile" by antagonizing its multiplication. It is often used in Japanese hospitals for "C. difficile" prophylaxis among in-patients and, particularly, during administration of certain powerful antibiotics (i.e.: Levofloxacin) associated with opportunistic "C. difficile" infection.  CBM 588 was approved for clinical use in humans by the Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare in 1970. The standard preparation as marketed by Miyarisan Pharmaceutical (Tokyo, Japan) consists of white, marked tablets each containing 0.35 × 10 colony forming units (CFU) of "C. butyricum" MIYAIRI 588 (as active agent). CBM 588 does not establish permanently in the gut, in common with other orally administered probiotic bacteria. CBM 588 for clinical use is produced by submerged anaerobic fermentation followed by centrifugation, drying, blending and packaging.  The MIYAIRI 588 strain of "C. butyricum" does not carry any genes encoding any toxins and virulence factors associated with "Clostridium" or other enteropathogens. Absence of neurotoxin production has been demonstrated by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and Southern blot hybridisation for type E botulinum toxin gene. The absence of genes encoding botulinum neurotoxin A,B,F and genes encoding non-toxic haemagglutinin (NTNH) and genes encoding "Clostridium perfringens" toxins (alpha, beta, epsilon and iota) has been demonstrated by PCR assay.  This strain is deposited at the Fermentation Research Institute, Agency of Industrial Science and Technology, Japan under the strain name "Clostridium butyricum" MIYAIRI 588 strain, deposit number FERM BP-2789. Recent European Food Safety Authority opinions confirm the official strain nomenclature as "Clostridium butyricum" FERM BP-2789.

Clostridium butyricum is a strictly anaerobic endospore-forming Gram-positive butyric acid–producing bacillus subsisting by means of fermentation using an intracellularly accumulated amylopectin-like α-polyglucan (granulose) as a substrate. It is uncommonly reported as a human pathogen and is widely used as a probiotic in Asia (particularly in Japan, Korea and China). "C. butyricum" is a soil inhabitant in various parts of the world, has been cultured from the stool of healthy children and adults, and is common in soured milk and cheeses. The connection with dairy products is shown by the name: the "butyr-" in "butyricum" reflects the relevance of butyric acid in the bacteria's metabolism and the connection with Latin "butyrum" and Greek "βούτυρον", with word roots pertaining to butter and cheese.

Clostridium butyricum est une espèce de bactéries en forme de bâtonnet droit ou légèrement incurvé, gram positif, avec une endospore subterminale.


History.

Founding and early years.

Barrick Gold Corporation evolved from a privately held North American oil and gas company, Barrick Resources. After suffering financial losses in oil and gas, founder Peter Munk (1927–2018) decided to refocus the company on gold. Barrick Resources Corporation became a publicly traded company on May 2, 1983, listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

1986 to 2005.

Reflecting its identity as a North American producer, distinct from its South African competitors, the company's name was changed to American Barrick Resources in 1986. It was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in February 1987. Its name was changed to Barrick Gold Corporation in 1995.  American Barrick became the third-largest gold mining company in the world when it acquired Lac Minerals in 1994, which owned mining properties in North and South America. Two years later, in 1996, Arequipa Resources, owner of properties including the Pierina mine in Peru, accepted a takeover offer from the renamed Barrick Gold Corporation. A third acquisition followed in early 1999, when Barrick Gold acquired Sutton Resources Ltd., assuming ownership of properties in Tanzania. In 2001, Barrick acquired Homestake Mining Company for $2.3 billion in stock, then one of the oldest mining companies in the United States. The purchase made Barrick the second-largest gold producer in the world.

Placer Dome acquisition.

On December 2005, Barrick launched a hostile takeover bid valued at US$9.2 billion for rival Canadian gold miner Placer Dome. The $10.4 billion transaction closed in December 2006.

2006 to present.

Barrick mines have spurred violent conflict around the world. The BBC reported in September 2012 that one person was killed and at least four more were injured at a Barrick mine in the northern Ancash region of Peru in clashes between police and members of a neighboring community who were protesting the mine's alleged over-consumption and contamination of local water sources. Two people were killed and 20 were injured in similar events at the same mine in 2006. Between 2010 and 2013, three people were killed and 50 were injured at Barrick's Pueblo Viejo mine in the Dominican Republic. At Barrick's Pascua Lama mine in Chile, 40 people were arrested following a demonstration against Barrick's alleged pollution of local glaciers.  In February 2010, Barrick Gold announced plans to create a separate company to hold its assets in Tanzania, called African Barrick Gold. Barrick Gold would retain majority ownership in the new company, after its listing on the London Stock Exchange. African Barrick Gold was listed on the London Stock Exchange in mid-March 2010, with an IPO valuation at US$3.6 billion. The shares offered on the LSE raised just more than 500 million pounds. In June the company was admitted to the FTSE 100 Index.  In April 2011, Barrick beat a takeover offer for Equinox Minerals by China Minmetals.  In 2018, John L. Thornton orchestrated a strategic “trust-based relationship” between Barrick Gold and Shandong Gold Group, a Chinese state-owned enterprise, establishing joint ownership of the Veladero mine to capitalize on Shandong's investor base, capital suppliers, political connections and regional influence. In the press release announcing the partnership, Thornton said that Barrick and Shandong were looking forward to “sharing... capital in ways that will create added value for our respective owners, and our government and community partners in San Juan province”.  In February 2019, Barrick Gold announced a hostile $19 billion bid to acquire Newmont Mining Corporation, an American company based in Denver, Colorado. Newmont's board immediately and unanimously rejected the offer, describing Barrick's “egocentric proposal” as “designed to transfer value from Newmont shareholders to Barrick’s”. Newmont also said that Barrick has “a comparatively ineffective operating model, a poor track record on delivering shareholder returns and unfavourable jurisdictional risk”. Barrick's third-quarter 2019 investor presentation cites Barrick's risks of negative reputational and financial impact from Barrick's “failure to comply with environmental and health and safety regulations”, “lack of certainty with regard to foreign legal systems, corruption” and negative “dealings with community groups”. Newmont CEO Gary Goldberg said, “[O]ne of the major factors that hindered Barrick’s ability to create value in the past remains the same... John Thornton is still firmly in control.”  In September 2018, Barrick Gold announced an all-stock merger with Randgold Resources in a deal valued at $6.5 billion. Former RandGold CEO Mark Bristow became CEO of Barrick Gold with the merger, after his forced resignation from the board of Panthera, a wildlife conservation organization focused on protecting big cats. The Daily Mail revealed he was a trophy hunter, publishing photos of him posing next to animals he had shot, including elephants, an antelope, a gazelle, a lion, a hippo, a buffalo, a zebra and a leopard.  On July 1, 2019, Barrick and Newmont Corporation launch Nevada Gold Mines.

Mining practices.

Barrick Gold's business activities have generated significant controversy around the world, including allegations of mass rape and other violent abuses, hundreds of murders, forcible eviction and mass arson. Barrick and certain of its executives have been charged at various times and in various jurisdictions with bribery, conspiracy, forgery, money-laundering, tax-evasion, and incalculable environmental damage.

Papua New Guinea.

In 2011, Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a report alleging that the private security force at Barrick's Porgera mine in Papua New Guinea had carried out "gang rapes and other violent abuses", which include repeated acts of mass rape and other sexual abuse, murder, arson, forcible eviction and other forms of violence against community members near the Porgera Joint Venture mine over a period of several years. The tension between Barrick and the local community stems from impoverished locals illegally trespassing on Barrick property to scavenge for bits of gold in the mine's waste dumps. Barrick employs the local police to keep community members off company-owned land. Numerous community members, men and women, said they were raped, beaten or otherwise assaulted on Barrick property when they were caught trespassing. Human Rights Watch said Barrick should have "acted long before Human Rights Watch conducted its research and prompted them into action". Barrick Gold revealed in 2013 that, after an independent investigation, the company was paying indemnities to 14 women raped by mine security guards in Tanzania. In addition to cash, the women were also receiving therapy, job training, relocation, and child education expenses.  Sarah Knuckey, human rights lawyer and Director of the Columbia Law School Human Rights Clinic, described the rapes as “some of the most vicious assaults [she’s] investigated anywhere in the world”. A joint report by Harvard University and Columbia University revealed that Barrick offered the women less than $6,000.00 each. A group of 11 rape survivors rejected Barrick's initial offer and received significantly larger settlements after they obtained legal representation in the United States.  In June 2014, Amnesty International reported that Barrick Gold's security guards from the Porgera mine burned more than 200 homes in a raid on June 6, 2014. A police officer involved in the raid said that Barrick had ordered police to burn the houses.

Tanzania.

Barrick subsidiary Acacia Mining was fined $2.4 million in May 2019 for alleged pollution at its North Mara mine in Tanzania. Tanzania's National Environment Management Council issued an environmental protection order relating to pollution from the mine's tailings dam.

Human Rights Violations.

Security guards hired by Acacia Mining, a subsidiary of Barrick Gold, have shot and killed 22 people at the North Mara gold mine since 2014, and injured 69 others. Tanzanian human rights groups estimate as many as 300 mine-related civilian deaths since the mine's opening in 1999. Acacia included only 17 civilian deaths at North Mara in their annual report in 2014, and six civilian deaths in the 2016 report. No Acacia security guards have been killed on duty. The Financial Times reported, “In 2015, without admitting liability, Acacia settled out of court for an undisclosed sum after a case was brought against it in the London High Court following an incident in which six people were allegedly killed by police hired by Acacia. The company admits to providing per diem expenses for the police at its mine”. The International Council of Jurists said, after a September 2017 visit to the North Mara mine, that they were “deeply concerned about the gravity of many of [the] allegations and the difficulties [victims] experienced in accessing any adequate remedy and reparation”.  Multiple women claim to have been raped at the North Mara gold mine. In July 2018, a 9-year-old girl was crushed and killed by a mine vehicle driven by the police as the driver took a short-cut. Afterward, four women who came to sit by the girl's body were injured by teargas canisters as the police sought to disperse the crowd. In June 2019, Acacia's grievance process at the North Mara mine was found to not comply with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the international standard for corporations.

Corruption.

Beginning in 2013, Barrick-controlled Acacia Mining reportedly bribed Tanzanian government officials, Adam Yusuf and Jerry Minja, and others responsible for valuing land near the North Mara gold mine that it wanted to buy. The alleged bribes totaled more than $400,000.00 and were paid in cash. Jerry Minja, a district land officer who received cash payment, stated that his agreement with Barrick prevents him from commenting on the details of the arrangement. The Wall Street Journal reported that the original whistleblower intended to report the payments to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act units of the United States Justice Department and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Tanzanian authorities charged three Barrick affiliates with conspiracy, organized crime, forgery, money laundering and corruption. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2018 that the British Serious Fraud Office had opened an investigation into Barrick's business in Tanzania, despite Barrick's insistence that the payments were legal.

Tax Evasion.

In 2016, a Tanzanian government tribunal ruled that Barrick Gold had organized a “sophisticated scheme of tax evasion” in Tanzania and fined Acacia Mining, as reported by Bloomberg, for under-declaring export revenues from the Bulyanhulu and Buzwagi mines since 2000. Barrick Chairman John L. Thornton told The Globe and Mail that “Acacia never paid a dime of income tax” to the Tanzanian government.  In May 2017, the government of Tanzania accused a Barrick Gold subsidiary (Acacia Mining of “underreporting its gold exports by a factor of ten”. The investigation revealed that Acacia declared the presence of gold, copper and silver in its mineral sand exports, but did not declare other precious metals. The committee found that the exports included amounts of undeclared sulfur, iron, iridium, titanium and zinc. The report stated that Acacia declared 1.1 tons of gold in a container that actually contained up to 15 tons of gold. The Tanzanian government then imposed a ban on the export of gold and copper concentrates. The accusation and ban halved Acacia's market value. In October 2017, Thornton met with John Magufuli, the president of Tanzania, for six hours, and negotiated a deal that included a $300 million payout from Acacia to the Tanzanian government, as well as the Tanzanian government taking a 16% stake in Acacia's mines. Thornton reportedly did not tell Acacia the terms of the settlement until after the deal was announced, even though Acacia would be responsible for the payment. Shortly after Thornton's deal with Magufuli was announced, Acacia's top executives – CEO Brad Gordon, CFO Andrew Wray and COO Mark Morcombe – resigned.  In 2017, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression reported that journalists in Tanzania had been threatened and persecuted for reporting on Barrick and Acacia mines by agencies working for Barrick Gold.

United States.

Through 2009 and into 2010 Barrick Gold's Cortez Hills project was the subject of litigation in Nevada, seeking to block the project. Opponents appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, challenging a ruling in the United States District Court for the District of Nevada, which denied the bid to block the project. The Appeals Court "upheld a federal judge's finding that opponents of the mine failed to prove they were likely to prevail on claims the mine would cause visual harm to Mount Tenabo and create a substantial burden on the tribes' ability to exercise their religion" but ruled the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's previous environmental review of water and air pollution impacts "was inadequate under the National Environmental Policy Act" and ordered the District Court to provide "appropriate" injunctive relief while the Bureau of Land Management conducted further study. In March 2011 the Bureau of Land Management approved a subsequent study on environmental impacts, allowing the mine to operate as originally proposed.  In 2008, the company negotiated an agreement with four of five regional Western Shoshone tribes, providing financial resources for education and wellness initiatives, including a long-term scholarship program, allocated at the Tribes' discretion. A former tribal chairman of the Duck Valley Shoshone spoke of the company as "a pretty progressive entity." In British Columbia the Tahltan Nation has thanked the company for encouraging local sustainable development while operating the Eskay Creek mine from 2001 to 2008.  In 2010, Barrick Gold Corporation became the 18th company to join the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights which provides "guidance to extractives companies on maintaining the security of their operations in a manner that respects human rights and fundamental freedoms." Admission follows an eight step process that requires approval by the Voluntary Principles plenary, the main decision-making body, consisting of all active members, drawn from participating governments, companies and non-governmental organizations. Barrick Gold participates in a number of corporate social responsibility programs, such as the United Nations Global Compact. The company is a signatory to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. It also participates in The Global Reporting Initiative, Business for Social Responsibility and The Global Business Coalition on HIV/Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria. On September 7, 2007, Barrick was added to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. The company is a member of The International Leadership Council (ILC) of The Nature Conservancy. In Papua New Guinea, the Porgera Joint Venture participated in the development of a wildlife conservation area in the Kaijende Highlands.

Argentina.

In March 2014, Barrick Gold spilled over one million liters of cyanide solution into five rivers near Barrick's Veladero site in the San Juan province of Argentina. Barrick waited six days to report the spill and initially neglected to identify the leaked chemical solution as containing cyanide, but eventually connected the million-liter spill to “a frozen valve and a sluice gate that was left open at the time of the valve failure.” Some Argentine provinces ban mining processes that involve cyanide.  Raman Autar, a former senior manager of global maintenance for Barrick Gold in 2013 and 2014, was abruptly dismissed from his role in March 2014 after raising concerns about maintenance and safety risks at the Veladero mine. He alleged that he was fired for being a whistleblower. Numerous organizations – including Friends of the Earth International, Chile's National Water Commission, Argentina's Center for Human Rights and Environment and the National Environment Management Council – have demanded Barrick stop environmentally destructive mining practices, citing noncompliance with environmental laws resulting in contaminated water and other environmental devastation.  In March 2016, Barrick shareholders brought a class-action lawsuit against Barrick Gold, accusing the company of distorting facts and knowingly misleading shareholders regarding the company's compliance with environmental regulations in Argentina and Chile. There was another cyanide spill in March 2017, as Barrick had failed to complete improvements to the mine that could have prevented the spill. Operations were partially suspended for the third time in 18 months and local regulators opened an investigation into past negligence and demanded that Barrick overhaul its environmental and operating processes. Barrick Chairman John L. Thornton flew to Argentina to meet with the Minister of Energy, Juan José Aranguen, who demanded that Barrick put in place a new strategy for the mine or else its license would be rescinded. The Argentine government demanded the closure of the original project site. This coincided with the sale of 50% of the Veladero mine for $960 million to Shandong Gold Group, a Chinese mining company. Thornton was reported to have been the principal negotiator in the deal.

Canada.

In February 2010, lawyers for Barrick Gold threatened to sue the Canadian publisher Talonbooks for defamation if it proceeded with plans to publish the book "Imperial Canada Inc.: Legal Haven of Choice for the World's Mining Industries" by Alain Deneault. Publisher Karl Siegler described this as "libel chill," pointing out that since the book had not yet been published, Barrick Gold could not know whether or not its contents actually constituted defamation. Subsequently, Talon decided to publish the work () and "issued a statement saying they 'intend to show the complete manuscript to Barrick prior to the book's release, to allow Barrick the opportunity to "correct" any "falsehoods" about how they conduct their business affairs, worldwide, that they feel it may contain.'"  A 2011 decision in Quebec Superior Court had ruled that Barrick Gold had to pay $143,000 to authors Alain Deneault, Delphine Abadie, William Sacher and publisher Les Éditions Écosociété Inc, to prepare their defense in a "seemingly abusive" strategic lawsuit against public participation. Despite the Québec ruling, a book "Noir Canada" documenting the relationship between Canadian mining corporations, armed conflict and political actors in Africa was never published as part of a settlement which, according to the authors, was only made for the sole purpose of resolving the three-and-a-half year legal battle.

Barrick Gold Corporation is the second-largest gold mining company in the world, with its headquarters in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The company has mining operations in Argentina, Canada, Chile, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominican Republic, Mali, Papua New Guinea, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, the United States and Zambia. In 2019, it produced 5.5 million ounces of gold at all-in sustaining costs of $894/ounce and 432 million pounds of copper at all-in sustaining costs of $2.52/pound. As of December 31, 2019, the company had 71 million ounces of proven and probable gold reserves.

Société aurifère Barrick ("Barrick Gold Corporation" en anglais) est une entreprise canadienne dont le siège social est situé à Toronto, Ontario. La société occupait en 2005 la place de numéro un mondial dans l'extraction minière de l'or, devant l'américaine Newmont Mining et les sud-africaines Goldfields et AngloGold Ashanti. L'entreprise exploite différents sites aux États-Unis, au Canada, en Australie, au Pérou, au Chili, en Argentine et en Tanzanie.