1.
University of Iowa
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The University of Iowa is a flagship public research university in Iowa City, Iowa. Founded in 1847, Iowa is the oldest university in the state, the University of Iowa is organized into eleven colleges offering more than 200 areas of study and seven professional degrees. The university was the developer of the Master of Fine Arts degree. The Iowa alumni network exceeds 250,000, and the university budgeted revenues and expenses of $3.513 billion for 2015, the University of Iowas athletic teams, the Hawkeyes, compete in Division I of the NCAA and are members of the Big Ten Conference. The Hawkeyes field 24 varsity teams and have won 27 national championships, the University of Iowa was founded on February 25,1847, just 59 days after Iowa was admitted to the Union. The Constitution of the State of Iowa refers to a State University to be established in Iowa City without branches at any other place. The legal name of the university is the State University of Iowa, the first faculty offered instruction at the university beginning in March 1855 to students in the Old Mechanics Building, located where Seashore Hall is now. In September 1855, there were 124 students, of whom forty-one were women, the first president of the university was Amos Dean. The original campus consisted of the Iowa Old Capitol Building and the 10 acres of land on which it stood, until that date, it had been the third capitol of the Territory of Iowa. When the capitol of Iowa was moved to Des Moines in 1857, in 1855, Iowa became the first public university in the United States to admit men and women on an equal basis. The university offered its first doctorate in 1898, the university was the first state university to recognize the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Allied Union. Also, the University of Iowa was the first Big Ten institution to promote an African American to the position of vice president. A shooting took place on campus on November 1,1991, in the summer of 2008, flood waters breached the Coralville Reservoir spillway, damaging more than 20 major campus buildings. Several weeks after the waters receded university officials placed a preliminary estimate on flood damage at $231.75 million. Later, the university estimated that repairs would cost about $743 million, later in 2008, UNESCO designated Iowa City the worlds third City of Literature, making it part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network. Iowa legislators ultimately did not support the plan, in 2015, the Iowa Board of Regents selected Bruce Harreld, a business consultant with limited experience in academic administration, to succeed Sally Mason as president. In July 2016, the university took over the former AIB College of Business in Des Moines, Four bachelors programs are offered in Des Moines, an additional four masters-level programs are offered in Des Moines at the universitys site in the citys Western Gateway Park. The University of Iowas main campus, located in Iowa City, was designed by architect D. Elwood Cook
2.
Columbia University
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Columbia University is a private Ivy League research university in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It was established in 1754 as Kings College by royal charter of George II of Great Britain, after the American Revolutionary War, Kings College briefly became a state entity, and was renamed Columbia College in 1784. Columbia is one of the fourteen founding members of the Association of American Universities and was the first school in the United States to grant the M. D. degree. The university also has global research outposts in Amman, Beijing, Istanbul, Paris, Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago, Asunción, Columbia administers annually the Pulitzer Prize. Additionally,100 Nobel laureates have been affiliated with Columbia as students, researchers, faculty, Columbia is second only to Harvard University in the number of Nobel Prize-winning affiliates, with over 100 recipients of the award as of 2016. In 1746 an act was passed by the assembly of New York to raise funds for the foundation of a new college. Classes were initially held in July 1754 and were presided over by the colleges first president, Dr. Johnson was the only instructor of the colleges first class, which consisted of a mere eight students. Instruction was held in a new schoolhouse adjoining Trinity Church, located on what is now lower Broadway in Manhattan, in 1763, Dr. Johnson was succeeded in the presidency by Myles Cooper, a graduate of The Queens College, Oxford, and an ardent Tory. In the charged political climate of the American Revolution, his opponent in discussions at the college was an undergraduate of the class of 1777. The suspension continued through the occupation of New York City by British troops until their departure in 1783. The colleges library was looted and its sole building requisitioned for use as a hospital first by American. Loyalists were forced to abandon their Kings College in New York, the Loyalists, led by Bishop Charles Inglis fled to Windsor, Nova Scotia, where they founded Kings Collegiate School. After the Revolution, the college turned to the State of New York in order to restore its vitality, the Legislature agreed to assist the college, and on May 1,1784, it passed an Act for granting certain privileges to the College heretofore called Kings College. The Regents finally became aware of the colleges defective constitution in February 1787 and appointed a revision committee, in April of that same year, a new charter was adopted for the college, still in use today, granting power to a private board of 24 Trustees. On May 21,1787, William Samuel Johnson, the son of Dr. Samuel Johnson, was unanimously elected President of Columbia College, prior to serving at the university, Johnson had participated in the First Continental Congress and been chosen as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. The colleges enrollment, structure, and academics stagnated for the majority of the 19th century, with many of the college presidents doing little to change the way that the college functioned. In 1857, the college moved from the Kings College campus at Park Place to a primarily Gothic Revival campus on 49th Street and Madison Avenue, during the last half of the 19th century, under the leadership of President F. A. P. Barnard, the institution assumed the shape of a modern university
3.
Geology
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Geology is an earth science concerned with the solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Geology can also refer generally to the study of the features of any terrestrial planet. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth by providing the evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life. Geology also plays a role in engineering and is a major academic discipline. The majority of data comes from research on solid Earth materials. These typically fall into one of two categories, rock and unconsolidated material, the majority of research in geology is associated with the study of rock, as rock provides the primary record of the majority of the geologic history of the Earth. There are three types of rock, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. The rock cycle is an important concept in geology which illustrates the relationships between three types of rock, and magma. When a rock crystallizes from melt, it is an igneous rock, the sedimentary rock can then be subsequently turned into a metamorphic rock due to heat and pressure and is then weathered, eroded, deposited, and lithified, ultimately becoming a sedimentary rock. Sedimentary rock may also be re-eroded and redeposited, and metamorphic rock may also undergo additional metamorphism, all three types of rocks may be re-melted, when this happens, a new magma is formed, from which an igneous rock may once again crystallize. Geologists also study unlithified material which typically comes from more recent deposits and these materials are superficial deposits which lie above the bedrock. Because of this, the study of material is often known as Quaternary geology. This includes the study of sediment and soils, including studies in geomorphology, sedimentology and this theory is supported by several types of observations, including seafloor spreading, and the global distribution of mountain terrain and seismicity. This coupling between rigid plates moving on the surface of the Earth and the mantle is called plate tectonics. The development of plate tectonics provided a basis for many observations of the solid Earth. Long linear regions of geologic features could be explained as plate boundaries, mid-ocean ridges, high regions on the seafloor where hydrothermal vents and volcanoes exist, were explained as divergent boundaries, where two plates move apart. Arcs of volcanoes and earthquakes were explained as convergent boundaries, where one plate subducts under another, transform boundaries, such as the San Andreas Fault system, resulted in widespread powerful earthquakes. Plate tectonics also provided a mechanism for Alfred Wegeners theory of continental drift and they also provided a driving force for crustal deformation, and a new setting for the observations of structural geology
4.
Muscatine, Iowa
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Muscatine is a city in Muscatine County, Iowa, United States. The population was estimated at 23,968 in 2015, an increase from 22,697 in the 2000 census and it is the county seat of Muscatine County. The name Muscatine is unique in that it is not used by any city in the United States. The European-American city of Muscatine began as a trading post founded by representatives of Colonel George Davenport in 1833, Muscatine was incorporated as Bloomington in 1839, the name was changed to reduce mail delivery confusion, as there were several Bloomingtons in the Midwest. Before that, Muscatine had also known as Newburg. The name Muscatine is believed by some to have derived from the Mascouten Native American tribe. In 1819 Muscatine Island was known as Mascoutin Island, an alternative theory is that the name is derived from a Siouan-language term meaning Fire Island. Major William Williams, who was visiting when the changed its name in 1849, wrote in his journal, Muscatine in English is Fire Island. One of the most prominent community leaders was Alexander Clark Sr. a Pennsylvania native, barber and eventually a wealthy timber salesman and he was among the founders of the local AME Church, assisted fugitive slaves, and petitioned the state government to overturn racist laws before the war. In 1863, Clark helped organize Iowas black regiment, the 60th United States Colored Infantry, in 1868, he successfully desegregated Iowas public schools by suing the Muscatine board after his daughter Susan was turned away from her neighborhood school. Eleven years later, his son Alexander Jr. became the first black graduate of the University of Iowa College of Law and its first black graduate from any department. Clark Sr. went to the college and became its second black graduate five years later, despite being 58 years old, saying that he wanted to serve “as an example to men of his own race. ”Clark rose to prominence in the Republican Party, serving as a delegate to state. In 1890, Clark was appointed ambassador to Liberia by President Benjamin Harrison, mahin represented his country in Reichenberg, Austria in 1900. Less than a year after arriving in Liberia, Clark died of fever and his body was returned to the US, where he was buried in Muscatines Greenwood Cemetery. In 1975 the city moved his house about 200 feet, to make room for a low-income apartment complex for senior citizens. The writer Sam Clemens lived in the city briefly during the summer of 1855 while working at the newspaper, the Muscatine Journal. He noted some recollections of Muscatine in his book Life on the Mississippi, In 1884 J. F. Boepple and he produced buttons that looked like pearls by machine-punching them out of freshwater mussel shells harvested from the Mississippi River. Muscatines slogan, Pearl of the Mississippi, refers to the days when pearl button manufacturing by the McKee Button Company was a significant economic contributor, in 1915, Weber & Sons Button Co. Inc. was the worlds largest producer of fancy freshwater pearl buttons
5.
Iceland
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Iceland is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean. It has a population of 332,529 and an area of 103,000 km2, the capital and largest city is Reykjavík. Reykjavík and the areas in the southwest of the country are home to over two-thirds of the population. Iceland is volcanically and geologically active, the interior consists of a plateau characterised by sand and lava fields, mountains and glaciers, while many glacial rivers flow to the sea through the lowlands. Iceland is warmed by the Gulf Stream and has a climate, despite a high latitude just outside the Arctic Circle. Its high latitude and marine influence still keeps summers chilly, with most of the archipelago having a tundra climate. According to the ancient manuscript Landnámabók, the settlement of Iceland began in the year 874 AD when the Norwegian chieftain Ingólfr Arnarson became the first permanent settler on the island. In the following centuries, Norwegians, and to a lesser extent other Scandinavians, emigrated to Iceland, the island was governed as an independent commonwealth under the Althing, one of the worlds oldest functioning legislative assemblies. Following a period of strife, Iceland acceded to Norwegian rule in the 13th century. The establishment of the Kalmar Union in 1397 united the kingdoms of Norway, Denmark, Iceland thus followed Norways integration to that Union and came under Danish rule after Swedens secession from that union in 1523. In the wake of the French revolution and the Napoleonic wars, Icelands struggle for independence took form and culminated in independence in 1918, until the 20th century, Iceland relied largely on subsistence fishing and agriculture, and was among the poorest in Europe. Industrialisation of the fisheries and Marshall Plan aid following World War II brought prosperity, in 1994, it became a part of the European Economic Area, which further diversified the economy into sectors such as finance, biotechnology, and manufacturing. Iceland has an economy with relatively low taxes compared to other OECD countries. It maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides health care. Iceland ranks high in economic, political and social stability and equality, in 2013, it was ranked as the 13th most-developed country in the world by the United Nations Human Development Index. Iceland runs almost completely on renewable energy, some bankers were jailed, and the economy has made a significant recovery, in large part due to a surge in tourism. Icelandic culture is founded upon the nations Scandinavian heritage, most Icelanders are descendants of Germanic and Gaelic settlers. Icelandic, a North Germanic language, is descended from Old Norse and is related to Faroese
6.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
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Established in 1930 in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, it is the largest independent oceanographic research institution in the U. S. with staff and students numbering about 1,000. Its shore-based facilities are located in the village of Woods Hole, Massachusetts, United States and a mile, the bulk of the Institutions funding comes from grants and contracts from the National Science Foundation and other government agencies, augmented by foundations and private donations. WHOI scientists, engineers, and students collaborate to develop theories, test ideas, build seagoing instruments, ships operated by WHOI carry research scientists throughout the world’s oceans. A new ship, Neil Armstrong was delivered to the Navy on September 23,2015, the RV Neil Armstrong will also replace the R/V Knorr, which had previously been used by WHOI since 1970 and was transferred to the Mexican Navy in March 2016. WHOI offers graduate and post-graduate studies in marine science, there are several fellowship and trainee-ship programs, and graduate degrees are awarded through a joint program with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or by the Institution itself. WHOI also offers outreach programs and informal public education through its Exhibit Center and summer tours. The Institution has a program and a membership program, WHOI Associate. In 1927, a National Academy of Sciences committee concluded that it was time to consider the share of the United States of America in a program of oceanographic research. WHOI grew substantially to support significant defense-related research during World War II, and later began a growth in staff, research fleet. Over the years, WHOI scientists have made discoveries about the ocean that have contributed to improving US commerce, health, national security. In 1977 the institute appointed the influential oceanographer John Steele as director, in February 2008, Dr. Susan K. Avery became the new president and director of the institution, avery, an atmospheric physicist, is the ninth director in WHOIs 77-year history, and the first woman to hold the position. The B H Ketchum award, established in 1983, is presented for innovative research and is named in honor of oceanographer Bostwick H. Buck Ketchum. The first recipient was Edward D. Goldberg in 1984, the Henry Bryant Bigelow Medal in Oceanography was established in 1960 in honor of the first Director, biologist Henry Bryant Bigelow. 1974 Henry M. Stommel 1970 Frederick J. Vine – In recognition of his “imaginative, all are owned by the Institution itself
7.
Antarctica
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It contains the geographic South Pole and is situated in the Antarctic region of the Southern Hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean. At 14,000,000 square kilometres, it is the fifth-largest continent, for comparison, Antarctica is nearly twice the size of Australia. About 98% of Antarctica is covered by ice that averages 1.9 km in thickness, Antarctica, on average, is the coldest, driest, and windiest continent, and has the highest average elevation of all the continents. Antarctica is a desert, with precipitation of only 200 mm along the coast. The temperature in Antarctica has reached −89.2 °C, though the average for the quarter is −63 °C. Anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 people reside throughout the year at the research stations scattered across the continent. Organisms native to Antarctica include many types of algae, bacteria, fungi, plants, protista, vegetation, where it occurs, is tundra. The continent, however, remained neglected for the rest of the 19th century because of its hostile environment, lack of easily accessible resources. In 1895, the first confirmed landing was conducted by a team of Norwegians, Antarctica is a de facto condominium, governed by parties to the Antarctic Treaty System that have consulting status. Twelve countries signed the Antarctic Treaty in 1959, and thirty-eight have signed it since then, the treaty prohibits military activities and mineral mining, prohibits nuclear explosions and nuclear waste disposal, supports scientific research, and protects the continents ecozone. Ongoing experiments are conducted by more than 4,000 scientists from many nations, the name Antarctica is the romanised version of the Greek compound word ἀνταρκτική, feminine of ἀνταρκτικός, meaning opposite to the Arctic, opposite to the north. Aristotle wrote in his book Meteorology about an Antarctic region in c.350 B. C, marinus of Tyre reportedly used the name in his unpreserved world map from the 2nd century A. D. Before acquiring its present geographical connotations, the term was used for locations that could be defined as opposite to the north. For example, the short-lived French colony established in Brazil in the 16th century was called France Antarctique, the first formal use of the name Antarctica as a continental name in the 1890s is attributed to the Scottish cartographer John George Bartholomew. Antarctica has no population and there is no evidence that it was seen by humans until the 19th century. Explorer Matthew Flinders, in particular, has credited with popularising the transfer of the name Terra Australis to Australia. Cook came within about 120 km of the Antarctic coast before retreating in the face of ice in January 1773. The first confirmed sighting of Antarctica can be narrowed down to the crews of ships captained by three individuals, according to various organisations, ships captained by three men sighted Antarctica or its ice shelf in 1820, von Bellingshausen, Edward Bransfield, and Nathaniel Palmer
8.
YouTube
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YouTube is an American video-sharing website headquartered in San Bruno, California. The service was created by three former PayPal employees—Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim—in February 2005, Google bought the site in November 2006 for US$1.65 billion, YouTube now operates as one of Googles subsidiaries. Unregistered users can watch videos on the site, while registered users are permitted to upload an unlimited number of videos. Videos deemed potentially offensive are available only to registered users affirming themselves to be at least 18 years old, YouTube earns advertising revenue from Google AdSense, a program which targets ads according to site content and audience. YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, Hurley had studied design at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and Chen and Karim studied computer science together at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Karim could not easily find video clips of either event online, Hurley and Chen said that the original idea for YouTube was a video version of an online dating service, and had been influenced by the website Hot or Not. YouTube began as a venture capital-funded technology startup, primarily from an $11.5 million investment by Sequoia Capital between November 2005 and April 2006, YouTubes early headquarters were situated above a pizzeria and Japanese restaurant in San Mateo, California. The domain name www. youtube. com was activated on February 14,2005, the first YouTube video, titled Me at the zoo, shows co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo. The video was uploaded on April 23,2005, and can still be viewed on the site, YouTube offered the public a beta test of the site in May 2005. The first video to reach one million views was a Nike advertisement featuring Ronaldinho in November 2005. Following a $3.5 million investment from Sequoia Capital in November, the site grew rapidly, and in July 2006 the company announced that more than 65,000 new videos were being uploaded every day, and that the site was receiving 100 million video views per day. The site has 800 million unique users a month and it is estimated that in 2007 YouTube consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet in 2000. The choice of the name www. youtube. com led to problems for a similarly named website, the sites owner, Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment, filed a lawsuit against YouTube in November 2006 after being regularly overloaded by people looking for YouTube. Universal Tube has since changed the name of its website to www. utubeonline. com, in October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in Google stock, and the deal was finalized on November 13,2006. In March 2010, YouTube began free streaming of certain content, according to YouTube, this was the first worldwide free online broadcast of a major sporting event. On March 31,2010, the YouTube website launched a new design, with the aim of simplifying the interface, Google product manager Shiva Rajaraman commented, We really felt like we needed to step back and remove the clutter. In May 2010, YouTube videos were watched more than two times per day. This increased to three billion in May 2011, and four billion in January 2012, in February 2017, one billion hours of YouTube was watched every day
9.
Oceanography
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Oceanography, also known as oceanology, is the study of the physical and the biological aspects of the ocean. Paleoceanography studies the history of the oceans in the geologic past, humans first acquired knowledge of the waves and currents of the seas and oceans in pre-historic times. Observations on tides were recorded by Aristotle and Strabo, early exploration of the oceans was primarily for cartography and mainly limited to its surfaces and of the animals that fishermen brought up in nets, though depth soundings by lead line were taken. Although Juan Ponce de León in 1513 first identified the Gulf Stream, Franklin measured water temperatures during several Atlantic crossings and correctly explained the Gulf Streams cause. Franklin and Timothy Folger printed the first map of the Gulf Stream in 1769-1770, information on the currents of the Pacific Ocean was gathered by explorers of the late 18th century, including James Cook and Louis Antoine de Bougainville. James Rennell wrote the first scientific textbooks on oceanography, detailing the current flows of the Atlantic, during a voyage around the Cape of Good Hope in 1777, he mapped the banks and currents at the Lagullas. He was also the first to understand the nature of the intermittent current near the Isles of Scilly, Robert FitzRoy published a four-volume report of the Beagles three voyages. In 1841–1842 Edward Forbes undertook dredging in the Aegean Sea that founded marine ecology, the first superintendent of the United States Naval Observatory, Matthew Fontaine Maury devoted his time to the study of marine meteorology, navigation, and charting prevailing winds and currents. His 1855 textbook Physical Geography of the Sea was one of the first comprehensive oceanography studies, many nations sent oceanographic observations to Maury at the Naval Observatory, where he and his colleagues evaluated the information and distributed the results worldwide. Despite all this, human knowledge of the oceans remained confined to the topmost few fathoms of the water, almost nothing was known of the ocean depths. The Royal Navys efforts to all of the worlds coastlines in the mid-19th century reinforced the vague idea that most of the ocean was very deep. As exploration ignited both popular and scientific interest in the regions and Africa, so too did the mysteries of the unexplored oceans. The seminal event in the founding of the science of oceanography was the 1872-76 Challenger expedition. As the first true oceanographic cruise, this laid the groundwork for an entire academic. In response to a recommendation from the Royal Society, The British Government announced in 1871 an expedition to explore worlds oceans, charles Wyville Thompson and Sir John Murray launched the Challenger expedition. The Challenger, leased from the Royal Navy, was modified for scientific work, under the scientific supervision of Thomson, Challenger travelled nearly 70,000 nautical miles surveying and exploring. On her journey circumnavigating the globe,492 deep sea soundings,133 bottom dredges,151 open water trawls and 263 serial water temperature observations were taken, around 4,700 new species of marine life were discovered. The result was the Report Of The Scientific Results of the Exploring Voyage of H. M. S, Murray, who supervised the publication, described the report as the greatest advance in the knowledge of our planet since the celebrated discoveries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
10.
American submarine NR-1
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Deep Submergence Vessel NR-1 was a unique United States Navy nuclear-powered ocean engineering and research submarine, built by the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics at Groton, Connecticut. NR-1 was launched on 25 January 1969, completed sea trials 19 August 1969. NR-1 was the smallest nuclear submarine ever put into operation, the vessel was casually known as Nerwin and was never officially named or commissioned. The U. S. Navy is allocated a number of warships by the U. S. Congress. Admiral Hyman Rickover avoided using one of those allocations, and he wanted to avoid the oversight that a warship receives from various bureaus. NR-1s missions included search, object recovery, geological survey, oceanographic research, NR-1 had the unique capability to remain at one site and completely map or search an area with a high degree of accuracy, and this was a valuable asset on several occasions. Through the 1970s and 1980s, NR-1 conducted numerous classified missions involving recovery of objects from the floor of the deep sea and these missions remain classified and few details have been made public. One publicly acknowledged mission in 1976 was to recover parts of an F-14 that was lost from the deck of an aircraft carrier, the secrecy normal to USN submarine operations was heightened by Rickovers personal involvement, and he shared details of NR-1 operations on a need-to-know basis. Rickover envisioned building a fleet of NR-1 type submarines. Following the loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986, NR-1 was used to search for, identify and it could remain on the sea floor without resurfacing frequently, and was a major tool for searching deep waters. NR-1 remained submerged and on even when heavy weather and rough seas hit the area and forced all other search. On November 13,2013, the U. S. Navy announced that salvaged pieces of the sub would be put on display at the Submarine Force Library and Museum in Groton. NR-1 performed underwater search and recovery, oceanographic research missions, and installation, surface vision was provided by a television periscope permanently installed on a fixed mast in her sail area. NR-1 had sophisticated electronics, computers, and sonar systems that aided in navigation, communications and it could maneuver or hold a steady position on or close to the seabed or underwater ridges, detect and identify objects at a considerable distance, and lift objects off the ocean floor. NR-1 was equipped with two electric-motor driven propellers and its maneuverability was enhanced by four ducted thrusters, two forward and two aft, the vehicle had diving planes mounted on the sail, and a conventional rudder. NR-1 could travel submerged at approximately 4 knots for long periods and it could study and map the ocean bottom, including temperature, currents, and other information for military, commercial, and scientific uses. Its nuclear propulsion provided independence from support ships and essentially unlimited endurance. NR-1s size limited its crew comforts, the crew of about 10 men could stay at sea for as long as a month, but had no kitchen or bathing facilities
11.
Topography
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Topography is the study of the shape and features of the surface of the Earth and other observable astronomical objects including planets, moons, and asteroids. The topography of an area could refer to the shapes and features themselves. This field of geoscience and planetary science is concerned with detail in general, including not only relief but also natural and artificial features. This meaning is common in the United States, where topographic maps with elevation contours have made topography synonymous with relief. The older sense of topography as the study of place still has currency in Europe, topography in a narrow sense involves the recording of relief or terrain, the three-dimensional quality of the surface, and the identification of specific landforms. This is also known as geomorphometry, in modern usage, this involves generation of elevation data in digital form. It is often considered to include the representation of the landform on a map by a variety of techniques, including contour lines, hypsometric tints. The term topography originated in ancient Greece and continued in ancient Rome, the word comes from the Greek τόπος and -γραφία. In classical literature this refers to writing about a place or places, in Britain and in Europe in general, the word topography is still sometimes used in its original sense. Detailed military surveys in Britain were called Ordnance Surveys, and this term was used into the 20th century as generic for topographic surveys, the earliest scientific surveys in France were called the Cassini maps after the family who produced them over four generations. The term topographic surveys appears to be American in origin, the earliest detailed surveys in the United States were made by the “Topographical Bureau of the Army, ” formed during the War of 1812, which became the Corps of Topographical Engineers in 1838. In the 20th century, the term started to be used to describe surface description in other fields where mapping in a broader sense is used. An objective of topography is to determine the position of any feature or more generally any point in terms of both a horizontal coordinate system such as latitude, longitude, and altitude, identifying features, and recognizing typical landform patterns are also part of the field. There are a variety of approaches to studying topography, which method to use depend on the scale and size of the area under study, its accessibility, and the quality of existing surveys. Work on one of the first topographic maps was begun in France by Giovanni Domenico Cassini, in areas where there has been an extensive direct survey and mapping program, the compiled data forms the basis of basic digital elevation datasets such as USGS DEM data. This data must often be cleaned to eliminate discrepancies between surveys, but it forms a valuable set of information for large-scale analysis. The original American topographic surveys involved not only recording of relief, remote sensing is a general term for geodata collection at a distance from the subject area. Besides their role in photogrammetry, aerial and satellite imagery can be used to identify and delineate terrain features, certainly they have become more and more a part of geovisualization, whether maps or GIS systems
