1.
Dubai
–
Dubai is the largest and most populous city in the United Arab Emirates. It is located on the southeast coast of the Persian Gulf and is the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Dubai are the only two emirates to have veto power over critical matters of national importance in the countrys legislature. The city of Dubai is located on the northern coastline. Dubai will host World Expo 2020, Dubai has emerged as a global city and business hub of the Middle East. It is also a transport hub for passengers and cargo. By the 1960s, Dubais economy was based on revenues from trade and, to an extent, oil exploration concessions. Oil revenue first started to flow in 1969, Dubais oil revenue helped accelerate the early development of the city, but its reserves are limited and production levels are low, today, less than 5% of the emirates revenue comes from oil. The emirates Western-style model of business drives its economy with the main revenues now coming from tourism, aviation, real estate, Dubai was recently named the best destination for Muslim travellers by Salam Standard. Dubai has recently attracted attention through many innovative large construction projects and sports events. The city has become iconic for its skyscrapers and high-rise buildings, in particular the worlds tallest building, Dubai has been criticised for human rights violations concerning the citys largely South Asian and Filipino workforce. As of 2012, Dubai was the 22nd most expensive city in the world, in 2014, Dubais hotel rooms were rated as the second most expensive in the world, after Geneva. Dubai was rated as one of the best places to live in the Middle East by U. S. global consulting firm Mercer, Many theories have been proposed as to the origin of the word Dubai. One theory suggests the word was used to describe the souq, another theory states that the name came from a word meaning money, as people from Dubai were commonly believed to be rich due to the thriving trading centre of the location. An Arabic proverb says Daba Dubai, meaning They came with a lot of money, according to Fedel Handhal, a scholar on the UAEs history and culture, the word Dubai may have come from the word daba, referring to the slow flow of Dubai Creek inland. The poet and scholar Ahmad Mohammad Obaid traces it to the same word, an inhabitant or native of the city is a Dubaian. Although stone tools have been found at archaeological sites, little is known about the UAEs early inhabitants as only a few settlements have been found. Many ancient towns in the area were trading centres between the Eastern and Western worlds, the remnants of an ancient mangrove swamp, dated at 7000 BC, were discovered during the construction of sewer lines near Dubai Internet City. The area was covered with sand about 5,000 years ago as the coast retreated inland, pre-Islamic ceramics have been found from the 3rd and 4th centuries
Dubai
–
Clockwise from the top: skyline with
Burj Khalifa;
Burj Al Arab; satellite image showing
Palm Jumeirah and
The World Islands;
Dubai Marina; and
Sheikh Zayed road.
Dubai
–
Al Bastakiya, Dubai
Dubai
–
The
Al Ras district in
Deira, Dubai in the 1960s
Dubai
–
The
Dubai-Sharjah-Ajman metropolitan area at night
2.
OPEC
–
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is an intergovernmental organization of 13 nations, founded in 1960 in Baghdad by the first five members, and headquartered since 1965 in Vienna. The organization is also a significant provider of information about the oil market. As of January 2017, OPECs members are Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. Two-thirds of OPECs oil production and reserves are in its six Middle Eastern countries that surround the oil-rich Persian Gulf, the effect can be particularly strong when wars or civil disorders lead to extended interruptions in supply. In the 1970s, restrictions in oil production led to a rise in oil prices and OPECs revenue. In December 2014, OPEC and the oil men ranked as #3 on Lloyds list of the top 100 most influential people in the shipping industry. As of January 2017, OPEC has 13 member countries, six in the Middle East, five in Africa, in October 2015, Sudan formally submitted an application to join, but it is not yet a member. Similar concerns prompted Gabon to suspend membership in January 1995, it rejoined in July 2016. In May 2008, Indonesia announced that it would leave OPEC when its membership expired at the end of year, having become a net importer of oil. It rejoined the organization in January 2016, but announced another suspension of its membership at year-end. Some commentators consider that the United States was a de facto member of OPEC during its occupation of Iraq. But this is not borne out by the minutes of OPEC meetings, since the 1980s, representatives from Egypt, Mexico, Norway, Oman, Russia, and other oil-exporting nations have attended many OPEC meetings as observers. This arrangement serves as a mechanism for coordinating policies. The OPEC Conference is the authority of the organization. The chief executive of the organization is the OPEC Secretary General, the Conference ordinarily meets at the Vienna headquarters, at least twice a year and in additional extraordinary sessions when necessary. It generally operates on the principles of unanimity and one member, one vote, at various times, OPEC members have displayed apparent anti-competitive cartel behavior through the organizations agreements about oil production and price levels. OPEC members strongly prefer to describe their organization as a modest force for market stabilization, despite popular sentiment against OPEC, legislative proposals to limit the organizations sovereign immunity, such as the NOPEC Act, have so far been unsuccessful. Indeed, over the course of market cycles, oil reserves can themselves become a source of conflict and instability
OPEC
–
Abdalla Salem El-Badri, Secretary General, OPEC
OPEC
–
Flag
OPEC
–
The OPEC headquarters in Vienna
OPEC
–
OPEC Swissotel,
Quito,
Ecuador December 2010
3.
WTO
–
The World Trade Organization is an intergovernmental organization which regulates international trade. The WTO officially commenced on 1 January 1995 under the Marrakesh Agreement, signed by 123 nations on 15 April 1994, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, most of the issues that the WTO focuses on derive from previous trade negotiations, especially from the Uruguay Round. The WTO is attempting to complete negotiations on the Doha Development Round, as of June 2012, the future of the Doha Round remained uncertain, the work programme lists 21 subjects in which the original deadline of 1 January 2005 was missed, and the round is still incomplete. This impasse has made it impossible to launch new WTO negotiations beyond the Doha Development Round, as a result, there have been an increasing number of bilateral free trade agreements between governments. As of July 2012, there were various groups in the WTO system for the current agricultural trade negotiation which is in the condition of stalemate. The WTOs current Director-General is Roberto Azevêdo, who leads a staff of over 600 people in Geneva, a trade facilitation agreement, part of the Bali Package of decisions, was agreed by all members on 7 December 2013, the first comprehensive agreement in the organizations history. Seven rounds of negotiations occurred under GATT, the first real GATT trade rounds concentrated on further reducing tariffs. Then, the Kennedy Round in the mid-sixties brought about a GATT anti-dumping Agreement, because these plurilateral agreements were not accepted by the full GATT membership, they were often informally called codes. Several of these codes were amended in the Uruguay Round, only four remained plurilateral, but in 1997 WTO members agreed to terminate the bovine meat and dairy agreements, leaving only two. Well before GATTs 40th anniversary, its members concluded that the GATT system was straining to adapt to a new globalizing world economy. In response to the problems identified in the 1982 Ministerial Declaration, the GATT still exists as the WTOs umbrella treaty for trade in goods, updated as a result of the Uruguay Round negotiations. GATT1994 is not however the only legally binding agreement included via the Final Act at Marrakesh, the highest decision-making body of the WTO is the Ministerial Conference, which usually meets every two years. It brings together all members of the WTO, all of which are countries or customs unions, the Ministerial Conference can take decisions on all matters under any of the multilateral trade agreements. When agricultural export subsidies were agreed to be phased out and adoption of the European Unions Everything, the WTO launched the current round of negotiations, the Doha Development Round, at the fourth ministerial conference in Doha, Qatar in November 2001. This was to be an effort to make globalization more inclusive and help the worlds poor, particularly by slashing barriers. The initial agenda comprised both further trade liberalization and new rule-making, underpinned by commitments to strengthen substantial assistance to developing countries. Among the various functions of the WTO, these are regarded by analysts as the most important and it provides a forum for negotiations and for settling disputes. Another priority of the WTO is the assistance of developing, least-developed and low-income countries in transition to adjust to WTO rules and disciplines through technical cooperation and training
WTO
–
The economists
Harry White (left) and
John Maynard Keynes at the
Bretton Woods Conference. Both had been strong advocates of a central-controlled international trade environment and recommended the establishment of three institutions: the
IMF (for fiscal and monetary issues); the
World Bank (for financial and structural issues); and the
ITO (for international economic cooperation).
WTO
–
Official logo of WTO
WTO
–
During the
Doha Round, the
US government blamed
Brazil and
India for being inflexible and the EU for impeding agricultural imports. The then-
President of Brazil,
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (above right), responded to the criticisms by arguing that progress would only be achieved if the richest countries (especially the US and countries in the EU) made deeper cuts in
agricultural subsidies and further opened their markets for agricultural goods.
WTO
–
The
World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference of 1998, in the
Palace of Nations (
Geneva,
Switzerland).
4.
Gross domestic product
–
Gross Domestic Product is a monetary measure of the market value of all final goods and services produced in a period. Nominal GDP estimates are used to determine the economic performance of a whole country or region. The OECD defines GDP as a measure of production equal to the sum of the gross values added of all resident and institutional units engaged in production. ”An IMF publication states that GDP measures the monetary value of final goods and services - that is. Total GDP can also be broken down into the contribution of industry or sector of the economy. The ratio of GDP to the population of the region is the per capita GDP. William Petty came up with a concept of GDP to defend landlords against unfair taxation during warfare between the Dutch and the English between 1652 and 1674. Charles Davenant developed the method further in 1695, the modern concept of GDP was first developed by Simon Kuznets for a US Congress report in 1934. In this report, Kuznets warned against its use as a measure of welfare, after the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, GDP became the main tool for measuring a countrys economy. The switch from GNP to GDP in the US was in 1991, the history of the concept of GDP should be distinguished from the history of changes in ways of estimating it. The value added by firms is relatively easy to calculate from their accounts, but the value added by the sector, by financial industries. GDP can be determined in three ways, all of which should, in principle, give the same result and they are the production approach, the income approach, or the expenditure approach. The most direct of the three is the approach, which sums the outputs of every class of enterprise to arrive at the total. The income approach works on the principle that the incomes of the factors must be equal to the value of their product. This approach mirrors the OECD definition given above, deduct intermediate consumption from gross value to obtain the gross value added. Gross value added = gross value of output – value of intermediate consumption, value of output = value of the total sales of goods and services plus value of changes in the inventories. The sum of the value added in the various economic activities is known as GDP at factor cost. GDP at factor cost plus indirect taxes less subsidies on products = GDP at producer price, for measuring output of domestic product, economic activities are classified into various sectors. Subtracting each sectors intermediate consumption from gross output gives the GDP at factor cost, adding indirect tax minus subsidies in GDP at factor cost gives the GDP at producer prices
Gross domestic product
–
Selection of GDP PPP data (top 10 countries and blocks) in no particular order
5.
Inflation
–
In economics, inflation is a sustained increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy over a period of time resulting in a loss of value of currency. When the price rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods. Consequently, inflation reflects a reduction in the power per unit of money – a loss of real value in the medium of exchange. A chief measure of inflation is the inflation rate, the annualized percentage change in a general price index, usually the consumer price index. The opposite of inflation is deflation, Inflation affects economies in various positive and negative ways. Economists generally believe that high rates of inflation and hyperinflation are caused by a growth of the money supply. However, money supply growth does not necessarily cause inflation, some economists maintain that under the conditions of a liquidity trap, large monetary injections are like pushing on a string. Views on which factors determine low to moderate rates of inflation are more varied, low or moderate inflation may be attributed to fluctuations in real demand for goods and services, or changes in available supplies such as during scarcities. However, the view is that a long sustained period of inflation is caused by money supply growing faster than the rate of economic growth. Today, most economists favor a low and steady rate of inflation, the task of keeping the rate of inflation low and stable is usually given to monetary authorities. Rapid increases in quantity of the money or in the money supply have occurred in many different societies throughout history. By diluting the gold with other metals, the government could issue more coins without also needing to increase the amount of used to make them. When the cost of each coin is lowered in this way and this practice would increase the money supply but at the same time the relative value of each coin would be lowered. As the relative value of the coins becomes lower, consumers would need to give more coins in exchange for the same goods and these goods and services would experience a price increase as the value of each coin is reduced. Song Dynasty China introduced the practice of printing paper money in order to create fiat currency, during the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, the government spent a great deal of money fighting costly wars, and reacted by printing more money, leading to inflation. Fearing the inflation that plagued the Yuan dynasty, the Ming Dynasty initially rejected the use of paper money, historically, large infusions of gold or silver into an economy also led to inflation. This was largely caused by the influx of gold and silver from the New World into Habsburg Spain. The silver spread throughout a previously cash-starved Europe and caused widespread inflation, demographic factors also contributed to upward pressure on prices, with European population growth after depopulation caused by the Black Death pandemic
Inflation
–
Two 20 kr gold coins from the
Scandinavian Monetary Union, a historical example of an international gold standard.
Inflation
–
Annual inflation rates in the United States from 1666 to 2004.
6.
Consumer price index
–
A consumer price index measures changes in the price level of market basket of consumer goods and services purchased by households. The CPI is a statistical estimate constructed using the prices of a sample of items whose prices are collected periodically. It is one of several price indices calculated by most national statistical agencies, the annual percentage change in a CPI is used as a measure of inflation. A CPI can be used to index the real value of wages, salaries, pensions, for regulating prices, in most countries, the CPI is, along with the population census one of the most closely watched national economic statistics. Basic types of data that are needed to construct the CPI, price data, the price data are collected for a sample of goods and services from a sample of sales outlets in a sample of locations for a sample of times. The weighting data are estimates of the shares of the different types of expenditure in the total expenditure covered by the index, therefore, the sampling variance cannot be calculated. In any case, an estimate is required in most of the purposes for which the index is used. These indices compare prices each month with prices in the price-reference month and it takes time to assemble and process the information used for weighting which, in addition to household expenditure surveys, may include trade and tax data. Ideally, the weights would relate to the composition of expenditure during the time between the month and the current month. There is a large technical economics literature on index formulae which would approximate this, such an index would show how consumer expenditure would have to move to compensate for price changes so as to allow consumers to maintain a constant standard of living. Approximations can only be computed retrospectively, whereas the index has to appear monthly and, preferably, the coverage of the index may be limited. Saving and investment are always excluded, though the prices paid for services provided by financial intermediaries may be included along with insurance. The index reference period, usually called the year, often differs both from the weight-reference period and the price reference period. This is just a matter of rescaling the whole time-series to make the value for the index reference-period equal to 100. Current Item Price = Base Year Price × Current CPI Base Year CPI or CPI2 CPI1 = Price 2 Price 1 Where 1 is usually the comparison year, alternatively, the CPI can be performed as CPI = updated cost base period cost ×100. The updated cost is divided by that of the initial year, many but not all price indices are weighted averages using weights that sum to 1 or 100. Example, The prices of 85,000 items from 22,000 stores, and 35,000 rental units are added together and averaged. They are weighted this way, Housing,41. 4%, Food and Beverage,17. 4%, Transport,17. 0%, Medical Care,6. 9%, Other,6. 9%, Apparel,6. 0%, Entertainment,4. 4%
Consumer price index
–
A graph of the
US CPI from 1913 to 2014 (in blue), and its percentage annual change (in red)
7.
Poverty threshold
–
The poverty threshold, poverty limit or poverty line is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. In practice, like the definition of poverty, the official or common understanding of the poverty line is higher in developed countries than in developing countries. In 2008, the World Bank came out with a figure of $1.25 at 2005 purchasing-power parity, the new IPL replaces the $1.25 per day figure, which used 2005 data. Most scholars agree that it better reflects todays reality, particularly new price levels in developing countries, the common international poverty line has in the past been roughly $1 a day. At present the percentage of the population living under extreme poverty is likely to fall below 10% according to the World Bank projections released in 2015. Determining the poverty line is usually done by finding the total cost of all the resources that an average human adult consumes in one year. Individual factors are used to account for various circumstances, such as whether one is a parent, elderly. The poverty threshold may be adjusted annually, charles Booth, a pioneering investigator of poverty in London at the turn of the 20th century, popularised the idea of a poverty line, a concept originally conceived by the London School Board. Booth set the line at 10 to 20 shillings per week, to secure the necessaries of a healthy life, which included fuel and light, rent, food, clothing, and household and personal items. Based on data from leading nutritionists of the period, he calculated the cheapest price for the minimum calorific intake and nutritional balance necessary and he considered this amount to set his poverty line and concluded that 27. 84% of the total population of York lived below this poverty line. Rowntree distinguished between primary poverty, those lacking in income and secondary poverty, those who had enough income, Absolute poverty is the level of poverty as defined in terms of the minimal requirements necessary to afford minimal standards of food, clothing, health care and shelter. For the measure to be absolute, the line must be the same in different countries, cultures, such an absolute measure should look only at the individuals power to consume and it should be independent of any changes in income distribution. Notice that if real income in an economy increases. Measuring poverty by a threshold has the advantage of applying the same standard across different locations and time periods. For example, a living in far northern Scandinavia requires a source of heat during colder months. The term absolute poverty is sometimes used as a synonym for extreme poverty. Absolute poverty is the absence of resources to secure basic life necessities. It depends not only on income but also on access to services, safe drinking water, Water must not come solely from rivers and ponds, and must be available nearby
Poverty threshold
–
Percentage of population living on less than
$ 1.25 per day.
UN estimates 2000–2007.
8.
Petroleum
–
Petroleum is a naturally occurring, yellow-to-black liquid found in geological formations beneath the Earths surface, which is commonly refined into various types of fuels. Components of petroleum are separated using a technique called fractional distillation and it consists of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other organic compounds. The name petroleum covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crude oil and petroleum products that are made up of refined crude oil. A fossil fuel, petroleum is formed when large quantities of dead organisms, usually zooplankton and algae, are buried underneath sedimentary rock, Petroleum has mostly been recovered by oil drilling. Drilling is carried out studies of structural geology, sedimentary basin analysis. Petroleum is used in manufacturing a variety of materials. Concern over the depletion of the earths finite reserves of oil, the burning of fossil fuels plays the major role in the current episode of global warming. The word petroleum comes from Greek, πέτρα for rocks and Greek, the term was found in 10th-century Old English sources. It was used in the treatise De Natura Fossilium, published in 1546 by the German mineralogist Georg Bauer, Petroleum, in one form or another, has been used since ancient times, and is now important across society, including in economy, politics and technology. Great quantities of it were found on the banks of the river Issus, ancient Persian tablets indicate the medicinal and lighting uses of petroleum in the upper levels of their society. By 347 AD, oil was produced from bamboo-drilled wells in China, early British explorers to Myanmar documented a flourishing oil extraction industry based in Yenangyaung that, in 1795, had hundreds of hand-dug wells under production. The mythological origins of the oil fields at Yenangyaung, and its hereditary monopoly control by 24 families, Pechelbronn is said to be the first European site where petroleum has been explored and used. The still active Erdpechquelle, a spring where petroleum appears mixed with water has been used since 1498, Oil sands have been mined since the 18th century. In Wietze in lower Saxony, natural asphalt/bitumen has been explored since the 18th century, both in Pechelbronn as in Wietze, the coal industry dominated the petroleum technologies. In 1848 Young set up a small business refining the crude oil, Young eventually succeeded, by distilling cannel coal at a low heat, in creating a fluid resembling petroleum, which when treated in the same way as the seep oil gave similar products. The production of oils and solid paraffin wax from coal formed the subject of his patent dated 17 October 1850. In 1850 Young & Meldrum and Edward William Binney entered into partnership under the title of E. W. Binney & Co. at Bathgate in West Lothian, the worlds first oil refinery was built in 1856 by Ignacy Łukasiewicz. The demand for petroleum as a fuel for lighting in North America, edwin Drakes 1859 well near Titusville, Pennsylvania, is popularly considered the first modern well
Petroleum
–
Pumpjack pumping an oil well near
Lubbock, Texas
Petroleum
–
An oil refinery in Mina-Al-Ahmadi, Kuwait
Petroleum
–
Natural petroleum spring in
Korňa, Slovakia
Petroleum
–
Oil derrick in
Okemah, Oklahoma, 1922
9.
Petrochemicals
–
Petrochemicals, also called petroleum distillates, are chemical products derived from petroleum. Some chemical compounds made from petroleum are also obtained from fossil fuels, such as coal or natural gas. The two most common classes are olefins and aromatics. Oil refineries produce olefins and aromatics by fluid catalytic cracking of petroleum fractions, chemical plants produce olefins by steam cracking of natural gas liquids like ethane and propane. Aromatics are produced by catalytic reforming of naphtha, Olefins and aromatics are the building-blocks for a wide range of materials such as solvents, detergents, and adhesives. Olefins are the basis for polymers and oligomers used in plastics, resins, fibers, elastomers, lubricants, global ethylene and propylene production are about 115 million tonnes and 70 million tonnes per annum, respectively. Aromatics production is approximately 70 million tonnes, the largest petrochemical industries are located in the USA and Western Europe, however, major growth in new production capacity is in the Middle East and Asia. There is substantial inter-regional petrochemical trade, primary petrochemicals are divided into three groups depending on their chemical structure, Olefins includes ethylene, propylene, and butadiene. Ethylene and propylene are important sources of chemicals and plastics products. Butadiene is used in making synthetic rubber, aromatics includes benzene, toluene, and xylenes. Benzene is a raw material for dyes and synthetic detergents, manufacturers use xylenes to produce plastics and synthetic fibers. Synthesis gas is a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen used to make ammonia, ammonia is used to make the fertilizer urea and methanol is used as a solvent and chemical intermediate. The prefix petro- is an abbreviation of the word petroleum, since petro- is Ancient Greek for rock. Therefore, the correct term would be oleochemicals. However, the term oleochemical is used to describe chemicals derived from plant, benzene, toluene and xylenes, as a whole referred to as BTX and primarily obtained from petroleum refineries by extraction from the reformate produced in catalytic reformers. Methane and BTX are used directly as feedstocks for producing petrochemicals, the output ethylene capacity of large steam crackers ranged up to as much as 1.0 –1.5 Mt per year. Steam crackers are not to be confused with steam reforming plants used to produce hydrogen, like commodity chemicals, petrochemicals are made on a very large scale. Petrochemical manufacturing units differ from commodity chemical plants in that often produce a number of related products
Petrochemicals
–
Petrochemical plant in the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
10.
Fishing
–
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild, techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping. Fishing may include catching aquatic animals other than fish, such as molluscs, cephalopods, crustaceans, the term is not normally applied to catching farmed fish, or to aquatic mammals, such as whales where the term whaling is more appropriate. According to United Nations FAO statistics, the number of commercial fishermen. Fisheries and aquaculture provide direct and indirect employment to over 500 million people in developing countries, in 2005, the worldwide per capita consumption of fish captured from wild fisheries was 14.4 kilograms, with an additional 7.4 kilograms harvested from fish farms. In addition to providing food, modern fishing is also a recreational pastime, Fishing is an ancient practice that dates back to at least the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic period about 40,000 years ago. Isotopic analysis of the remains of Tianyuan man, a 40. Archaeology features such as middens, discarded fish bones, and cave paintings show that sea foods were important for survival. During this period, most people lived a lifestyle and were, of necessity. However, where there are examples of permanent settlements such as those at Lepenski Vir. The British dogger was a type of sailing trawler from the 17th century. The Brixham trawler that evolved there was of a build and had a tall gaff rig. They were also sufficiently robust to be able to tow large trawls in deep water, the great trawling fleet that built up at Brixham, earned the village the title of Mother of Deep-Sea Fisheries. The small village of Grimsby grew to become the largest fishing port in the world by the mid 19th century, an Act of Parliament was first obtained in 1796, which authorised the construction of new quays and dredging of the Haven to make it deeper. It was only in the 1846, with the expansion in the fishing industry. The foundation stone for the Royal Dock was laid by Albert the Prince consort in 1849, the dock covered 25 acres and was formally opened by Queen Victoria in 1854 as the first modern fishing port. The elegant Brixham trawler spread across the world, influencing fishing fleets everywhere, by the end of the 19th century, there were over 3,000 fishing trawlers in commission in Britain, with almost 1,000 at Grimsby. These trawlers were sold to fishermen around Europe, including from the Netherlands, twelve trawlers went on to form the nucleus of the German fishing fleet
Fishing
–
Stilts fishermen, Sri Lanka
Fishing
–
Fishing with nets, Mexico
Fishing
–
Stone Age
fish hook made from bone
Fishing
–
Painting of A Brixham trawler by
William Adolphus Knell. The painting is now in the
National Maritime Museum.
11.
Aluminum
–
Aluminium or aluminum is a chemical element in the boron group with symbol Al and atomic number 13. It is a silvery-white, soft, nonmagnetic, ductile metal, Aluminium metal is so chemically reactive that native specimens are rare and limited to extreme reducing environments. Instead, it is combined in over 270 different minerals. The chief ore of aluminium is bauxite, Aluminium is remarkable for the metals low density and its ability to resist corrosion through the phenomenon of passivation. Aluminium and its alloys are vital to the industry and important in transportation and structures, such as building facades. The oxides and sulfates are the most useful compounds of aluminium, despite its prevalence in the environment, no known form of life uses aluminium salts metabolically, but aluminium is well tolerated by plants and animals. Because of these salts abundance, the potential for a role for them is of continuing interest. Aluminium is a soft, durable, lightweight, ductile. It is nonmagnetic and does not easily ignite, a fresh film of aluminium serves as a good reflector of visible light and an excellent reflector of medium and far infrared radiation. The yield strength of aluminium is 7–11 MPa, while aluminium alloys have yield strengths ranging from 200 MPa to 600 MPa. Aluminium has about one-third the density and stiffness of steel and it is easily machined, cast, drawn and extruded. Aluminium atoms are arranged in a cubic structure. Aluminium has an energy of approximately 200 mJ/m2. Aluminium is a thermal and electrical conductor, having 59% the conductivity of copper. Aluminium is capable of superconductivity, with a critical temperature of 1.2 kelvin. Aluminium is the most common material for the fabrication of superconducting qubits, the strongest aluminium alloys are less corrosion resistant due to galvanic reactions with alloyed copper. This corrosion resistance is reduced by aqueous salts, particularly in the presence of dissimilar metals. In highly acidic solutions, aluminium reacts with water to form hydrogen, primarily because it is corroded by dissolved chlorides, such as common sodium chloride, household plumbing is never made from aluminium
Aluminum
–
Aluminium, 13 Al
Aluminum
–
Spectral lines of aluminium
Aluminum
–
"
Red mud " storage facility in
Stade,
Germany. The aluminium industry generates about 70 million tons of this waste annually.
Aluminum
–
Bauxite, a major aluminium ore. The red-brown color is due to the presence of
iron minerals.
12.
Cement
–
A cement is a binder, a substance used in construction that sets, hardens and adheres to other materials, binding them together. Cement is seldom used solely, but is used to bind sand, Cement is used with fine aggregate to produce mortar for masonry, or with sand and gravel aggregates to produce concrete. Non-hydraulic cement will not set in wet conditions or underwater, rather, it sets as it dries and it is resistant to attack by chemicals after setting. Hydraulic cements set and become adhesive due to a reaction between the dry ingredients and water. The chemical reaction results in mineral hydrates that are not very water-soluble and so are quite durable in water and this allows setting in wet condition or underwater and further protects the hardened material from chemical attack. The chemical process for hydraulic cement found by ancient Romans used volcanic ash with added lime, the word cement can be traced back to the Roman term opus caementicium, used to describe masonry resembling modern concrete that was made from crushed rock with burnt lime as binder. The volcanic ash and pulverized brick supplements that were added to the burnt lime, to obtain a hydraulic binder, were referred to as cementum, cimentum, cäment. In modern times, organic polymers are used as cements in concrete. Non-hydraulic cement, such as slaked lime, hardens by carbonation in the presence of carbon dioxide which is present in the air. The carbonation reaction requires the dry cement to be exposed to air and this whole process is called the lime cycle. Conversely, hydraulic cement hardens by hydration when water is added, Hydraulic cements are made of a mixture of silicates and oxides, the four main components being, Belite, Alite, Tricalcium aluminate, Brownmillerite. The chemistry of the above listed reactions is not completely clear and is still the object of research, Cement, chemically speaking, is a product that includes lime as the primary curing ingredient, but is far from the first material used for cementation. The Babylonians and Assyrians used bitumen to bind together burnt brick or alabaster slabs, in Egypt stone blocks were cemented together with a mortar made of sand and roughly burnt gypsum, which often contained calcium carbonate. Lime was used on Crete and by the ancient Greeks, there is evidence that the Minoans of Crete used crushed potshards as an artificial pozzolan for hydraulic cement. A kind of powder which from natural causes produces astonishing results and it is found in the neighborhood of Baiae and in the country belonging to the towns round about Mt. Vesuvius. This substance when mixed with lime and rubble not only lends strength to buildings of other kinds, the Greeks used volcanic tuff from the island of Thera as their pozzolan and the Romans used crushed volcanic ash with lime. This mixture was able to set under water increasing its resistance, the material was called pozzolana from the town of Pozzuoli, west of Naples where volcanic ash was extracted. In the absence of ash, the Romans used powdered brick or pottery as a substitute
Cement
–
Cement is usually a grey powder before being mixed with other materials and water. Typically, cement powder causes allergic reactions at skin contact and is irritating to skin, eyes, and lungs, so handlers should wear a
dust mask,
goggles, and protective
gloves
Cement
–
The National Cement Share Company of
Ethiopia 's new plant in
Dire Dawa.
13.
Fertilizer
–
A fertilizer or fertiliser is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soils or to plant tissues to supply one or more plant nutrients essential to the growth of plants. Fertilizers enhance the growth of plants and this goal is met in two ways, the traditional one being additives that provide nutrients. The second mode by which some fertilizers act is to enhance the effectiveness of the soil by modifying its water retention and aeration and this article, like many on fertilizers, emphasises the nutritional aspect. The nutrients required for plant life are classified according to the elements. Instead compounds containing these elements are the basis of fertilizers, the macronutrients are consumed in larger quantities and are present in plant tissue in quantities from 0. 15% to 6. 0% on a dry matter basis. Plants are made up of four elements, hydrogen, oxygen, carbon. Carbon, hydrogen and oxygen are widely available as water and carbon dioxide, although nitrogen makes up most of the atmosphere, it is in a form that is unavailable to plants. Nitrogen is the most important fertilizer since nitrogen is present in proteins, DNA, to be nutritious to plants, nitrogen must be made available in a fixed form. Only some bacteria and their host plants can fix atmospheric nitrogen by converting it to ammonia, phosphate is required for the production of DNA and ATP, the main energy carrier in cells, as well as certain lipids. Micronutrients are consumed in quantities and are present in plant tissue on the order of parts-per-million, ranging from 0.15 to 400 ppm DM. These elements are present at the active sites of enzymes that carry out the plants metabolism. Because these elements enable catalysts their impact far exceeds their weight percentage, Fertilizers are classified in several ways. They are classified according to whether they provide a single nutrient, multinutrient fertilizers provide two or more nutrients, for example N and P. Fertilizers are also sometimes classified as inorganic versus organic. Inorganic fertilizers exclude carbon-containing materials except ureas, organic fertilizers are usually plant- or animal-derived matter. Inorganic are sometimes called synthetic fertilizers since various chemical treatments are required for their manufacture, the main nitrogen-based straight fertilizer is ammonia or its solutions. Ammonium nitrate is widely used. Urea is another source of nitrogen, having the advantage that it is solid and non-explosive, unlike ammonia and ammonium nitrate. A few percent of the fertilizer market has been met by calcium ammonium nitrate
Fertilizer
–
A large, modern fertilizer spreader
Fertilizer
–
A
Lite-Trac Agri-Spread
lime and fertilizer spreader at an agricultural show
Fertilizer
–
Compost bin for small-scale production of organic fertilizer
Fertilizer
–
A large commercial compost operation
14.
Ship repair
–
Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. It normally takes place in a facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to before recorded history, Shipbuilding and ship repairs, both commercial and military, are referred to as naval engineering. The construction of boats is an activity called boat building. The dismantling of ships is called ship breaking, the ancestors of Australian Aborigines and New Guineans also went across the Lombok Strait to Sahul by boat over 50,000 years ago. Evidence from Ancient Egypt shows that the early Egyptians knew how to assemble planks of wood into a ship hull as early as 3000 BC, the Archaeological Institute of America reports that some of the oldest ships yet unearthed are known as the Abydos boats. These are a group of 14 ships discovered in Abydos that were constructed of wooden planks which were sewn together, the ship dating to 3000 BC was about 25 m,75 feet long and is now thought to perhaps have belonged to an earlier pharaoh. According to professor OConnor, the 5, 000-year-old ship may have belonged to Pharaoh Aha. Early Egyptians also knew how to assemble planks of wood with treenails to fasten them together, early Egyptians also knew how to fasten the planks of this ship together with mortise and tenon joints. The oldest known tidal dock in the world was built around 2500 BC during the Harappan civilisation at Lothal near the present day Mangrol harbour on the Gujarat coast in India, other ports were probably at Balakot and Dwarka. However, it is probable that many small-scale ports, and not massive ports, were used for the Harappan maritime trade, ships from the harbour at these ancient port cities established trade with Mesopotamia. Shipbuilding and boatmaking may have been prosperous industries in ancient India, native labourers may have manufactured the flotilla of boats used by Alexander the Great to navigate across the Hydaspes and even the Indus, under Nearchos. The Indians also exported teak for shipbuilding to ancient Persia, other references to Indian timber used for shipbuilding is noted in the works of Ibn Jubayr. The ships of Ancient Egypts Eighteenth Dynasty were typically about 25 meters in length and they mounted a single square sail on a yard, with an additional spar along the bottom of the sail. These ships could also be oar propelled, the ocean and sea going ships of Ancient Egypt were constructed with cedar wood, most likely hailing from Lebanon. The ships of Phoenicia seem to have been of a similar design, the naval history of China stems back to the Spring and Autumn period of the ancient Chinese Zhou Dynasty. The Chinese built large rectangular barges known as ships, which were essentially floating fortresses complete with multiple decks with guarded ramparts. There is considerable knowledge regarding shipbuilding and seafaring in the ancient Mediterranean and this was dually met with the introduction of the Han Dynasty junk ship design in the same century
Ship repair
–
An expedition's shipwrights building a
brigantine, 1541
Ship repair
–
A two-masted Chinese junk, from the Tiangong Kaiwu of
Song Yingxing, published in 1637
Ship repair
–
Illustration of some shipbuilding methods in England, 1858
Ship repair
–
Babbitt's
rotary engine
15.
Construction
–
Construction is the process of constructing a building or infrastructure. Construction as an industry comprises six to nine percent of the domestic product of developed countries. Construction starts with planning, design, and financing, and continues until the project is built, large-scale construction requires collaboration across multiple disciplines. An architect normally manages the job, and a manager, design engineer. For the successful execution of a project, effective planning is essential, the largest construction projects are referred to as megaprojects. Construction is a term meaning the art and science to form objects, systems, or organizations. Construction is used as a verb, the act of building, and a noun, how a building was built, in general, there are three sectors of construction, buildings, infrastructure and industrial. Building construction is further divided into residential and non-residential. Infrastructure is often called heavy/highway, heavy civil or heavy engineering and it includes large public works, dams, bridges, highways, water/wastewater and utility distribution. Industrial includes refineries, process chemical, power generation, mills, there are other ways to break the industry into sectors or markets. Engineering News-Record is a magazine for the construction industry. Each year, ENR compiles and reports on data about the size of design and they publish a list of the largest companies in the United States and also a list the largest global firms. In 2014, ENR compiled the data in nine market segments and it was divided as transportation, petroleum, buildings, power, industrial, water, manufacturing, sewer/waste, telecom, hazardous waste plus a tenth category for other projects. In their reporting on the Top 400, they used data on transportation, sewer, hazardous waste, the Standard Industrial Classification and the newer North American Industry Classification System have a classification system for companies that perform or otherwise engage in construction. To recognize the differences of companies in this sector, it is divided into three subsectors, building construction, heavy and civil engineering construction, and specialty trade contractors, there are also categories for construction service firms and construction managers. Building construction is the process of adding structure to real property or construction of buildings, the majority of building construction jobs are small renovations, such as addition of a room, or renovation of a bathroom. Often, the owner of the property acts as laborer, paymaster, for this reason, those with experience in the field make detailed plans and maintain careful oversight during the project to ensure a positive outcome. Residential construction practices, technologies, and resources must conform to local building authority regulations, materials readily available in the area generally dictate the construction materials used
Construction
–
In large construction projects, such as this
skyscraper in
Melbourne,
Australia,
cranes are essential.
Construction
–
Military residential unit construction by U.S. Navy personnel in Afghanistan
Construction
–
The National Cement Share Company of
Ethiopia 's new plant in
Dire Dawa.
Construction
–
Framing
16.
Handicrafts
–
One of the worlds oldest handicraft is Dhokra, this is a sort of metal casting has been used in India for over 4,000 years and is still used. Collective terms for handicrafts include artisanry, handicrafting, crafting, many handicrafters use natural, even entirely indigenous, materials while others may prefer modern, non-traditional materials, and even upcycle industrial materials. The individual artisanship of an item is the paramount criterion. Most crafts require the development of skill and the application of patience, like folk art, handicraft output often has cultural and/or religious significance, and increasingly may have a political message as well, as in craftivism. The Arts and Crafts movement originated as a late 19th-century design reform and social movement principally in Europe, North America and Australia and this was held up in contrast to what was perceived to be the alienating effects of industrial labor. These activities were called crafts because originally many of them were professions under the guild system, adolescents were apprenticed to a master craftsman, and refined their skills over a period of years in exchange for low wages. Simple arts and crafts projects are an elementary and middle school activity in both mainstream and alternative education systems around the world. e. The use of traditional handicrafting techniques by professional fine artists, many community centers and schools run evening or day classes and workshops, for adults and children, offering to teach basic craft skills in a short period of time. If sold, they are sold in Direct sales, Gift shops, Public markets, in developing countries, handicrafts are sold to locals and as Souvenirs to tourists. Sellers tend to speak at least a few words of common tourist languages
Handicrafts
–
A handicraft Selling-Factory shop,
Isfahan -
Iran
Handicrafts
–
Typical Filipino handmade brooms in a restaurant of Banaue Municipal Town.
Handicrafts
–
At the
Buell Children's Museum in
Pueblo, Colorado, children and their guardians partake in "arts and crafts" (i.e. handicrafts).
Handicrafts
–
Handcrafted shoes from bamboo made by artists of West Bengal, India, at a fair in Kolkata
17.
Textiles
–
A textile or cloth is a flexible material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, hemp, Textiles are formed by weaving, knitting, crocheting, knotting, or felting. The words fabric and cloth are used in textile assembly trades as synonyms for textile, however, there are subtle differences in these terms in specialized usage. Textile refers to any material made of interlacing fibres, a fabric is a material made through weaving, knitting, spreading, crocheting, or bonding that may be used in production of further goods. Cloth may be used synonymously with fabric but is often a piece of fabric used for a specific purpose. The word textile is from Latin, from the adjective textilis, meaning woven, from textus, the word cloth derives from the Old English clað, meaning a cloth, woven or felted material to wrap around one, from Proto-Germanic kalithaz. The discovery of dyed flax fibres in a cave in the Republic of Georgia dated to 34,000 BCE suggests textile-like materials were made even in prehistoric times. The production of textiles is a craft whose speed and scale of production has been altered almost beyond recognition by industrialization, however, for the main types of textiles, plain weave, twill, or satin weave, there is little difference between the ancient and modern methods. Textiles have an assortment of uses, the most common of which are for clothing and for such as bags. In the household they are used in carpeting, upholstered furnishings, window shades, towels, coverings for tables, beds, and other flat surfaces, in the workplace they are used in industrial and scientific processes such as filtering. Textiles are used in traditional crafts such as sewing, quilting. Textiles for industrial purposes, and chosen for other than their appearance, are commonly referred to as technical textiles. Technical textiles include textile structures for applications, medical textiles, geotextiles, agrotextiles. In all these applications stringent performance requirements must be met, woven of threads coated with zinc oxide nanowires, laboratory fabric has been shown capable of self-powering nanosystems using vibrations created by everyday actions like wind or body movements. Fashion designers commonly rely on textile designs to set their fashion collections apart from others, armani, the late Gianni Versace, and Emilio Pucci can be easily recognized by their signature print driven designs. Textiles can be made from many materials and these materials come from four main sources, animal, plant, mineral, and synthetic. In the past, all textiles were made from natural fibres, including plant, animal, in the 20th century, these were supplemented by artificial fibres made from petroleum. Textiles are made in various strengths and degrees of durability, from the finest gossamer to the sturdiest canvas, microfibre refers to fibres made of strands thinner than one denier
Textiles
–
Sunday textile market on the sidewalks of
Karachi, Pakistan
Textiles
–
Simple textile (magnified)
Textiles
–
A small fabric shop in
Al-Mukalla, Yemen
Textiles
–
Late antique textile,
Egyptian, now in the
Dumbarton Oaks collection
18.
Crude oil
–
Petroleum is a naturally occurring, yellow-to-black liquid found in geological formations beneath the Earths surface, which is commonly refined into various types of fuels. Components of petroleum are separated using a technique called fractional distillation and it consists of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other organic compounds. The name petroleum covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crude oil and petroleum products that are made up of refined crude oil. A fossil fuel, petroleum is formed when large quantities of dead organisms, usually zooplankton and algae, are buried underneath sedimentary rock, Petroleum has mostly been recovered by oil drilling. Drilling is carried out studies of structural geology, sedimentary basin analysis. Petroleum is used in manufacturing a variety of materials. Concern over the depletion of the earths finite reserves of oil, the burning of fossil fuels plays the major role in the current episode of global warming. The word petroleum comes from Greek, πέτρα for rocks and Greek, the term was found in 10th-century Old English sources. It was used in the treatise De Natura Fossilium, published in 1546 by the German mineralogist Georg Bauer, Petroleum, in one form or another, has been used since ancient times, and is now important across society, including in economy, politics and technology. Great quantities of it were found on the banks of the river Issus, ancient Persian tablets indicate the medicinal and lighting uses of petroleum in the upper levels of their society. By 347 AD, oil was produced from bamboo-drilled wells in China, early British explorers to Myanmar documented a flourishing oil extraction industry based in Yenangyaung that, in 1795, had hundreds of hand-dug wells under production. The mythological origins of the oil fields at Yenangyaung, and its hereditary monopoly control by 24 families, Pechelbronn is said to be the first European site where petroleum has been explored and used. The still active Erdpechquelle, a spring where petroleum appears mixed with water has been used since 1498, Oil sands have been mined since the 18th century. In Wietze in lower Saxony, natural asphalt/bitumen has been explored since the 18th century, both in Pechelbronn as in Wietze, the coal industry dominated the petroleum technologies. In 1848 Young set up a small business refining the crude oil, Young eventually succeeded, by distilling cannel coal at a low heat, in creating a fluid resembling petroleum, which when treated in the same way as the seep oil gave similar products. The production of oils and solid paraffin wax from coal formed the subject of his patent dated 17 October 1850. In 1850 Young & Meldrum and Edward William Binney entered into partnership under the title of E. W. Binney & Co. at Bathgate in West Lothian, the worlds first oil refinery was built in 1856 by Ignacy Łukasiewicz. The demand for petroleum as a fuel for lighting in North America, edwin Drakes 1859 well near Titusville, Pennsylvania, is popularly considered the first modern well
Crude oil
–
Pumpjack pumping an oil well near
Lubbock, Texas
Crude oil
–
Proven world
oil reserves, 2013. Unconventional reservoirs such as natural heavy oil and
oil sands are included.
Crude oil
–
An oil refinery in Mina-Al-Ahmadi, Kuwait
Crude oil
–
Natural petroleum spring in
Korňa, Slovakia
19.
Natural gas
–
It is formed when layers of decomposing plant and animal matter are exposed to intense heat and pressure under the surface of the Earth over millions of years. The energy that the plants originally obtained from the sun is stored in the form of bonds in the gas. Natural gas is a fuel used as a source of energy for heating, cooking. It is also used as fuel for vehicles and as a feedstock in the manufacture of plastics. Natural gas is found in underground rock formations or associated with other hydrocarbon reservoirs in coal beds. Petroleum is another resource and fossil fuel found in proximity to. Most natural gas was created over time by two mechanisms, biogenic and thermogenic, biogenic gas is created by methanogenic organisms in marshes, bogs, landfills, and shallow sediments. Deeper in the earth, at temperature and pressure, thermogenic gas is created from buried organic material. In petroleum production gas is burnt as flare gas. The World Bank estimates that over 150 cubic kilometers of gas are flared or vented annually. Before natural gas can be used as a fuel, most, Natural gas is often informally referred to simply as gas, especially when compared to other energy sources such as oil or coal. However, it is not to be confused with gasoline, especially in North America, Natural gas was used by the Chinese in about 500 BCE. They discovered a way to transport gas seeping from the ground in crude pipelines of bamboo to where it was used to salt water to extract the salt. The worlds first industrial extraction of gas started at Fredonia, New York. By 2009,66000 km³ had been used out of the total 850000 km³ of estimated remaining reserves of natural gas. An annual increase in usage of 2–3% could result in currently recoverable reserves lasting significantly less, unwanted natural gas was a disposal problem in the active oil fields. If there was not a market for natural gas near the wellhead it was expensive to pipe to the end user. In the 19th century and early 20th century, unwanted gas was burned off at oil fields
Natural gas
–
Natural gas coming out of the ground in Taiwan.
Natural gas
–
The global
Natural Gas Trade in 2013, numbers are in billion cubic meters per year.
Natural gas
–
Natural gas
drilling rig in Texas.
Natural gas
–
The location of
shale gas compared to other types of gas deposits.
20.
Dried fish
–
Fresh fish rapidly deteriorates unless some way can be found to preserve it. Drying is a method of preservation that works by removing water from the food. Open air drying using sun and wind has been practiced since ancient times to preserve food, water is usually removed by evaporation but, in the case of freeze-drying, food is first frozen and then the water is removed by sublimation. Bacteria, yeasts and molds need the water in the food to grow, Fish are preserved through such traditional methods as drying, smoking and salting. The oldest traditional way of preserving fish was to let the wind, drying food is the worlds oldest known preservation method, and dried fish has a storage life of several years. The method is cheap and effective in climates, the work can be done by the fisherman and family. Stockfish is unsalted fish, especially cod, dried by cold air, the drying racks are known as fish flakes. Cod is the most common used in stockfish production, though other whitefish, such as pollock, haddock, ling. Over the centuries, several variants of dried fish have evolved, stockfish, dried as fresh fish and not salted, is often confused with clipfish, where the fish is salted before drying. After 2–3 weeks in salt the fish has saltmatured, and is transformed from wet salted fish to Clipfish through a drying process, the salted fish was earlier dried on rocks on the foreshore. The production method of Clipfish was developed by the Portuguese who first mined salt near the water of Aveiro. Salting was not economically feasible until the 17th century, when salt from southern Europe became available to the maritime nations of northern Europe. Stockfish is cured in a process called fermentation where cold adapted bacteria matures the fish, Clipfish is processed in a chemically curing process called saltmaturing, similar to the maturing processes of other saltmatured products like the Parma ham. Bacalhau is the Portuguese word for codfish and in a culinary context refers to dried and salted codfish, fresh cod is referred to as bacalhau fresco. Bacalhau dishes are common in Portugal and Galicia, in the northwest of Spain, and to an extent in former Portuguese colonies like Angola, Macau. There are said to be over 1000 recipes in Portugal alone and it is often cooked on social occasions and is the Portuguese traditional Christmas dinner in some parts of Portugal. Baccalà is sun-dried stockfish, rather than salt cod, in other parts of Italy dishes made with salt cod are given the same name. Baccalà dishes made with stockfish are soaked for several days to soften the fish, salt cod, which is already soft, is also soaked to remove excess salt
Dried fish
–
Fish barn with fish drying in the sun –
Van Gogh 1882
Dried fish
–
A
fish flake, such as this one in Norway, is a rack used for drying cod
Dried fish
–
Flattened
fish drying in the sun in
Madagascar
Dried fish
–
Assorted dried
fish in
Imphal,
Manipur
21.
Date (fruit)
–
Phoenix dactylifera, commonly known as date or date palm, is a flowering plant species in the palm family, Arecaceae, cultivated for its edible sweet fruit. Although its place of origin is unknown because of long cultivation, the species is widely cultivated and is naturalized in many tropical and subtropical regions worldwide. Date trees typically reach about 21–23 metres in height, growing singly or forming a clump with stems from a single root system. The leaves are 4–6 metres long, with spines on the petiole, the leaflets are 30 cm long and 2 cm wide. The full span of the ranges from 6–10 m. The species name dactylifera date-bearing comes from the Greek words daktylos, which date, and fero. Dates have been a food of the Middle East and the Indus Valley for thousands of years. There is archaeological evidence of cultivation in eastern Arabia between 5530 and 5320 calBC. They are believed to have originated around what is now Iraq, the Ancient Egyptians used the fruits to make date wine, and ate them at harvest. There is also evidence of date cultivation in Mehrgarh around 7000 BCE. Evidence of cultivation is found throughout later civilizations in the Indus Valley. In later times, traders spread dates around South West Asia, northern Africa, dates were introduced into Mexico and California by the Spaniards in 1765, around Mission San Ignacio. A date palm cultivar, known as Judean date palm is renowned for its long-lived orthodox seed and this particular seed is presently reputed to be the oldest viable seed, but the upper survival time limit of properly stored seeds remains unknown. Fossil records show that the palm has existed for at least 50 million years. The fruit is known as a date, the fruits English name, as well as the Latin species name dactylifera, both come from the Greek word for finger, dáktulos, because of the fruits elongated shape. Dates are oval-cylindrical, 3–7 cm long, and 2–3 cm diameter, dates contain a single stone about 2–2.5 cm long and 6–8 mm thick. Three main cultivar groups of date exist, soft, semi-dry, the type of fruit depends on the glucose, fructose, and sucrose content. The date palm is dioecious, having male and female plants
Date (fruit)
–
Date palm
Date (fruit)
–
Dates
Date (fruit)
–
Young date palm
Date (fruit)
–
Fresh dates, clockwise from top right: crunchy, crunchy opened, soft out of skin, soft.
22.
Iran
–
Iran, also known as Persia, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, is a sovereign state in Western Asia. Comprising a land area of 1,648,195 km2, it is the second-largest country in the Middle East, with 82.8 million inhabitants, Iran is the worlds 17th-most-populous country. It is the country with both a Caspian Sea and an Indian Ocean coastline. The countrys central location in Eurasia and Western Asia, and its proximity to the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran is the countrys capital and largest city, as well as its leading economic and cultural center. Iran is the site of to one of the worlds oldest civilizations, the area was first unified by the Iranian Medes in 625 BC, who became the dominant cultural and political power in the region. The empire collapsed in 330 BC following the conquests of Alexander the Great, under the Sassanid Dynasty, Iran again became one of the leading powers in the world for the next four centuries. Beginning in 633 AD, Arabs conquered Iran and largely displaced the indigenous faiths of Manichaeism and Zoroastrianism by Islam, Iran became a major contributor to the Islamic Golden Age that followed, producing many influential scientists, scholars, artists, and thinkers. During the 18th century, Iran reached its greatest territorial extent since the Sassanid Empire, through the late 18th and 19th centuries, a series of conflicts with Russia led to significant territorial losses and the erosion of sovereignty. Popular unrest culminated in the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1906, which established a monarchy and the countrys first legislative body. Following a coup instigated by the U. K. Growing dissent against foreign influence and political repression led to the 1979 Revolution, Irans rich cultural legacy is reflected in part by its 21 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the third-largest number in Asia and 11th-largest in the world. Iran is a member of the UN, ECO, NAM, OIC. Its political system is based on the 1979 Constitution which combines elements of a democracy with a theocracy governed by Islamic jurists under the concept of a Supreme Leadership. A multicultural country comprising numerous ethnic and linguistic groups, most inhabitants are Shia Muslims, the largest ethnic groups in Iran are the Persians, Azeris, Kurds and Lurs. Historically, Iran has been referred to as Persia by the West, due mainly to the writings of Greek historians who called Iran Persis, meaning land of the Persians. As the most extensive interactions the Ancient Greeks had with any outsider was with the Persians, however, Persis was originally referred to a region settled by Persians in the west shore of Lake Urmia, in the 9th century BC. The settlement was then shifted to the end of the Zagros Mountains. In 1935, Reza Shah requested the international community to refer to the country by its native name, opposition to the name change led to the reversal of the decision, and Professor Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, propagated a move to use Persia and Iran interchangeably
Iran
–
Cave painting in Doushe cave,
Lorestan, Iran,
8th millennium BC
Iran
–
Flag
Iran
–
A depiction of the united
Medes and
Persians in
Apadana,
Persepolis
Iran
–
Ruins of the
Gate of All Nations,
Persepolis
23.
Japan
–
Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
Japan
–
The
Golden Hall and
five-storey pagoda of
Hōryū-ji, among the oldest wooden buildings in the world,
National Treasures, and a
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Japan
Japan
–
Samurai warriors face Mongols, during the
Mongol invasions of Japan. The
Kamikaze, two storms, are said to have saved Japan from Mongol fleets.
Japan
–
Samurai could
kill a commoner for the slightest insult and were widely feared by the Japanese population.
Edo period, 1798
24.
India
–
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, in the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a border with Thailand. The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE, in the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, early political consolidations took place under the Maurya and Gupta empires, the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, much of the north fell to the Delhi sultanate, the south was united under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal empire, in the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance, in 2015, the Indian economy was the worlds seventh largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the third largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society and is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu, the latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as The people of the Indus, the geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B. C. E and it is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Gaṇarājya is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for republic dating back to the ancient times, hindustan is a Persian name for India dating back to the 3rd century B. C. E. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety
India
–
Flag
India
–
The granite
tower of
Brihadeeswarar Temple in
Thanjavur was completed in 1010 CE by
Raja Raja Chola I.
India
–
Writing the will and testament of the Mughal king court in Persian, 1590–1595
25.
China
–
China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
China
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Yinxu, ruins of an ancient
palace dating from the
Shang Dynasty (14th century BCE)
China
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Flag
China
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Some of the thousands of life-size
Terracotta Warriors of the
Qin Dynasty, c. 210 BCE
China
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The
Great Wall of China was built by several dynasties over two thousand years to protect the sedentary agricultural regions of the
Chinese interior from incursions by
nomadic pastoralists of the northern
steppes.
26.
Oman
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Oman, officially the Sultanate of Oman, is an Arab country on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula. The coast is formed by the Arabian Sea on the southeast, the Madha and Musandam exclaves are surrounded by the UAE on their land borders, with the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman forming Musandams coastal boundaries. From the late 17th century, the Omani Sultanate was an empire, vying with Portugal and Britain for influence in the Persian Gulf. At its peak in the 19th century, Omani influence or control extended across the Strait of Hormuz to modern-day Iran and Pakistan, as its power declined in the 20th century, the sultanate came under the influence of the United Kingdom. Historically, Muscat was the trading port of the Persian Gulf region. Muscat was also among the most important trading ports of the Indian Ocean, the Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said has been the hereditary leader of the country since 1970. Sultan Qaboos is the current ruler in the Middle East. Oman has modest oil reserves, ranking 25th globally, nevertheless, in 2010 the UNDP ranked Oman as the most improved nation in the world in terms of development during the preceding 40 years. A significant portion of its economy is tourism and trade of fish, dates and this sets it apart from its neighbors solely oil-dependent economies. Oman is categorized as an economy and ranks as the 74th most peaceful country in the world according to the Global Peace Index. Two optically stimulated luminescence age estimates place the Arabian Nubian Complex at 106,000 years old and this supports the proposition that early human populations moved from Africa into Arabia during the Late Pleistocene. Dereaze, located in the city of Ibri, is the oldest known settlement in the area. Archaeological remains have been discovered here from the Stone Age and the Bronze Age, findings have included stone implements, animal bones, shells and fire hearths, with the latter dating back to 7615 BC as the oldest signs of human settlement in the area. Other discoveries include hand-molded pottery bearing distinguishing pre-Bronze Age marks, heavy flint implements, pointed tools, sumerian tablets refer to a country called Magan or Makan, a name believed to refer to Omans ancient copper mines. Mazoon, another used for the region, is derived from the word muzn. The present-day name of the country, Oman, is believed to originate from the Arab tribes who migrated to its territory from the Uman region of Yemen. Many such tribes settled in Oman, making a living by fishing, herding or stock breeding, from the 6th century BC to the arrival of Islam in the 7th century AD, Oman was controlled and/or influenced by three Persian dynasties, the Achaemenids, Parthians and Sassanids. A few scholars believe that in the 6th century BC, the Achaemenids exerted a strong degree of control over the Omani peninsula, Central Oman has its own indigenous so-called Late Iron Age cultural assemblage, the Samad al-Shan
Oman
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A grave at
Al Ayn, Oman, a World Heritage site.
Oman
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Flag
Oman
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The
Sultan's Palace in
Zanzibar, which was once Oman's capital and residence of its Sultans.
Oman
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The coast of
Sur, Oman.
27.
Chemicals
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A chemical substance is a form of matter that has constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. It cannot be separated into components by physical methods, i. e. without breaking chemical bonds. Chemical substances can be chemical elements, chemical compounds, ions or alloys, Chemical substances are often called pure to set them apart from mixtures. A common example of a substance is pure water, it has the same properties. Other chemical substances commonly encountered in pure form are diamond, gold, table salt, however, in practice, no substance is entirely pure, and chemical purity is specified according to the intended use of the chemical. Chemical substances exist as solids, liquids, gases, or plasma, Chemical substances may be combined or converted to others by means of chemical reactions. Forms of energy, such as light and heat, are not matter, a chemical substance may well be defined as any material with a definite chemical composition in an introductory general chemistry textbook. According to this definition a chemical substance can either be a chemical element or a pure chemical compound. But, there are exceptions to this definition, a substance can also be defined as a form of matter that has both definite composition and distinct properties. The chemical substance index published by CAS also includes several alloys of uncertain composition, in geology, substances of uniform composition are called minerals, while physical mixtures of several minerals are defined as rocks. Many minerals, however, mutually dissolve into solid solutions, such that a rock is a uniform substance despite being a mixture in stoichiometric terms. Feldspars are an example, anorthoclase is an alkali aluminium silicate. In law, chemical substances may include both pure substances and mixtures with a composition or manufacturing process. For example, the EU regulation REACH defines monoconstituent substances, multiconstituent substances and substances of unknown or variable composition, the latter two consist of multiple chemical substances, however, their identity can be established either by direct chemical analysis or reference to a single manufacturing process. For example, charcoal is a complex, partially polymeric mixture that can be defined by its manufacturing process. Therefore, although the chemical identity is unknown, identification can be made to a sufficient accuracy. The CAS index also includes mixtures, polymers almost always appear as mixtures of molecules of multiple molar masses, each of which could be considered a separate chemical substance. However, the polymer may be defined by a precursor or reaction
Chemicals
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Steam and liquid water are two different forms of the same chemical substance, water.
Chemicals
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Colors of a single chemical (
Nile red) in different solvents, under visible and UV light, showing how the chemical interacts dynamically with its solvent environment.
Chemicals
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Native sulfur crystals. Sulfur occurs naturally as elemental sulfur, in
sulfide and
sulfate minerals and in
hydrogen sulfide.
Chemicals
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Potassium ferricyanide is a compound of potassium, iron, carbon and nitrogen; although it contains cyanide anions, it does not release them and is nontoxic.
28.
Food
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Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for an organism. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, the substance is ingested by an organism and assimilated by the organisms cells to provide energy, maintain life, or stimulate growth. Historically, humans secured food through two methods, hunting and gathering and agriculture, today, the majority of the food energy required by the ever increasing population of the world is supplied by the food industry. They address issues such as sustainability, biological diversity, climate change, nutritional economics, population growth, water supply, most food has its origin in plants. Some food is obtained directly from plants, but even animals that are used as sources are raised by feeding them food derived from plants. Cereal grain is a food that provides more food energy worldwide than any other type of crop. Corn, wheat, and rice – in all of their varieties – account for 87% of all grain production worldwide, most of the grain that is produced worldwide is fed to livestock. Some foods not from animal or plant sources include various edible fungi, fungi and ambient bacteria are used in the preparation of fermented and pickled foods like leavened bread, alcoholic drinks, cheese, pickles, kombucha, and yogurt. Another example is blue-green algae such as Spirulina, inorganic substances such as salt, baking soda and cream of tartar are used to preserve or chemically alter an ingredient. Many plants and plant parts are eaten as food and around 2,000 plant species are cultivated for food, many of these plant species have several distinct cultivars. Seeds of plants are a source of food for animals, including humans, because they contain the nutrients necessary for the plants initial growth, including many healthful fats. In fact, the majority of food consumed by human beings are seed-based foods, edible seeds include cereals, legumes, and nuts. Oilseeds are often pressed to produce rich oils - sunflower, flaxseed, rapeseed, sesame, seeds are typically high in unsaturated fats and, in moderation, are considered a health food, although not all seeds are edible. Large seeds, such as those from a lemon, pose a choking hazard, fruits are the ripened ovaries of plants, including the seeds within. Many plants and animals have coevolved such that the fruits of the former are a food source to the latter. Fruits, therefore, make up a significant part of the diets of most cultures, some botanical fruits, such as tomatoes, pumpkins, and eggplants, are eaten as vegetables. Vegetables are a type of plant matter that is commonly eaten as food. These include root vegetables, bulbs, leaf vegetables, stem vegetables, animals are used as food either directly or indirectly by the products they produce
Food
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Various foods
Food
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Foods from plant sources
Food
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Various raw
meats
Food
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Tractor and
Chaser bin
29.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
United States
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Native Americans meeting with Europeans, 1764
United States
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Flag
United States
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The signing of the
Mayflower Compact, 1620.
United States
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The
Declaration of Independence: the
Committee of Five presenting their draft to the
Second Continental Congress in 1776
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Iran 14.5%
Japan 9.8%
India 9.2%
China 4.7%
Oman 4.3% (2015)[8]
United States 9.6%
Germany 6.8%
United Kingdom 4.3% (2015)[9]
