1.
University of Geneva
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The University of Geneva is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin as a theological seminary and it remained focused on theology until the 17th century, when it became a center for Enlightenment scholarship. In 1873, it dropped its religious affiliations and became officially secular, today, the university is the second-largest university in Switzerland by number of students. In 2009, the University of Geneva celebrated the 450th anniversary of its founding, at least 40% of the students come from foreign countries. In 2015, it was ranked 58th worldwide by the Shanghai ranking, in 2011, it was ranked 73rd worldwide by the Academic Ranking of World Universities, and 69th in the QS World University Rankings. UNIGE is a member of the League of European Research Universities the Coimbra Group, the University of Geneva is located in several districts in the eastern part of the city and in the nearby city of Carouge, and the different buildings are sometimes very distant from each other. The oldest building is the Collège Calvin, and is not anymore a university building, built between 1868 and 1871, Uni Bastions is the symbol of Genevas academic life. It is located in the middle of a park and is host to the faculty of Protestant Theology and its architecture was inspired by Le Corbusier. It hosts the Rectorat and the administration of the University and it is Switzerlands biggest building dedicated to social sciences. It currently hosts the Faculty of Law, of Economics and Social Sciences, of Psychology and Education, the University of Geneva is structured in various faculties which are representing teaching, research and service to society in the various disciplines. Founded in 1876, ranked one of the top 100 medical schools in the world and it is one of the larger faculties of the University of Geneva in terms of budget and number of employees. Notable research areas include neuroscience, genetics, and transplantation and it is closely associated with Switzerlands largest hospital complex, the University Hospitals of Geneva. Since 1981, the Faculty of Medicine is located in the buildings of CMU in Champel, the faculty of Humanities and Arts has various departments and research centers. GSEM is a new faculty and exists since January 2014, the creation of the GSEM faculty is a result of a merger between two former departments, Economics and HEC. Students of the GSEM Faculty benefit from a degree in English. This new curriculum is in place since fall 2015, the GSEM counts more than 1.700 students and 200 lecturers. The Executive Education counts more than 1.500 participants and over 45 programs (including an Executive MBA, a number of research institutes provide avenues for graduate studies at Master’s and Doctoral levels. The Faculty Geneva School of Social Sciences, was founded on 1 January 2014, the faculty was created in 1890
2.
Versoix
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Versoix is a municipality in the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland, which sits on the right bank of Lac Léman. It is the last town of the Canton of Geneva on the road northeast towards Lausanne and it is a train stop on the Swiss Federal Railways line running between Coppet and Geneva. On the Vaud side, the village is called Mies. The distance from the centre of Geneva is about 10 km, Versoix has an area, as of 2009, of 10.51 square kilometers. Of this area,3.06 km2 or 29. 1% is used for agricultural purposes, while 4 km2 or 38. 1% is forested. Of the rest of the land,3.4 km2 or 32. 4% is settled,0.08 km2 or 0. 8% is either rivers or lakes and 0.01 km2 or 0. 1% is unproductive land. Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 19. 4%, while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 2. 8%. Out of the land,36. 1% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2. 0% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land,23. 1% is used for growing crops and 3. 5% is pastures, of the water in the municipality,0. 4% is in lakes and 0. 4% is in rivers and streams. Versoix has a population of 13,263, as of 2008,41. 7% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has changed at a rate of 23. 3% and it has changed at a rate of 19% due to migration and at a rate of 5. 8% due to births and deaths. Most of the population speaks French, with English being second most common, There are 281 people who speak Italian and 3 people who speak Romansh. As of 2008, the distribution of the population was 48. 3% male and 51. 7% female. The population was made up of 3,465 Swiss men and 2,831 non-Swiss men, There were 4,013 Swiss women and 2,713 non-Swiss women. Of the population in the municipality 1,979 or about 19. 2% were born in Versoix and lived there in 2000. There were 1,978 or 19. 2% who were born in the canton, while 1,603 or 15. 5% were born somewhere else in Switzerland. In 2008 there were 75 live births to Swiss citizens and 54 births to non-Swiss citizens, ignoring immigration and emigration, the population of Swiss citizens increased by 18 while the foreign population increased by 44. There were 39 Swiss men and 40 Swiss women who emigrated from Switzerland, at the same time, there were 124 non-Swiss men and 94 non-Swiss women who immigrated from another country to Switzerland
3.
Canton of Geneva
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The Republic and Canton of Geneva is the French-speaking westernmost canton or state of Switzerland, surrounded on almost all sides by France. As is the case in several other Swiss cantons, this canton is referred to as a republic within the Swiss Confederation, the canton of Geneva is located in the southwestern corner of Switzerland, and is considered one of the most cosmopolitan areas of the country. As a center of the Calvinist Reformation, the city of Geneva has had a influence on the canton. The Republic of Geneva was proclaimed in 1541, under John Calvin, the Republic of Geneva reinforced its alliance to the Protestant cantons of the Swiss Confederacy, becoming an everlasting ally in 1584. The French Revolution reached Geneva in 1792, and in February 1794, after the death of Robespierre in July of the same year, there was a counter-revolution, which gained the upper hand by 1796. This prompted the French invasion of 1798, and the annexation of Geneva as part of the French département du Léman, Geneva finally joined the Swiss Confederation in 1815 as the 22nd canton, having been enlarged by French and Savoyard territories at the Vienna Congress. The area of the canton of Geneva is 282 square kilometers, the canton is surrounded on almost all sides by France and bordered by the Swiss canton of Vaud on northeast. The adjoining French départements are Ain and Haute-Savoie, the current boundaries of the canton were established in 1815. There are 45 municipalities in the canton, Geneva does not have any administrative districts. There are 10 cities with a population of over 10,000 as of 2007, Genève, Vernier, Lancy, Meyrin, Carouge, Onex, Thônex, Versoix, Grand-Saconnex, Chêne-Bougeries. The constitution of the canton was established in 1847, and has, the cantonal government has seven members who are elected for four years. The legislature, the Grand Council, has 100 seats, with deputies elected for four years at a time, the last elecation was held on 7 October 2013. In a similar way to what happens at the Federal level, in addition, any law can be subject to a referendum if it is demanded by 7,000 persons entitled to vote, and 10,000 persons may also propose a new law. The republique and canton of Geneva has 11 seats in the National Council, on 18 October 2015, in the federal election the most popular party was the The Liberals which received three seats with 20. 5% of the votes. In the federal election, a total of 106,852 votes were cast, and she is part of the Council of States since 2007. Councilor Robert Cramer, member of the Green Party, was re-elected in the round with a majority of 42,075 votes. He is part of the Council of States since 2007, ^a FDP before 2009, FDP. The Liberals after 2009 ^b * indicates that the party was not on the ballot in this canton. ^c Part of the FDP for this election ^d Part of the SD for this election The population of the canton is 484,736, as of 2013, the population included 194,623 foreigners from 187 different nations, or about 40. 1% of the total population
4.
Switzerland
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Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic in Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western-Central Europe, and is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km2. The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The country has a history of armed neutrality going back to the Reformation, it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815, nevertheless, it pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. In addition to being the birthplace of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to international organisations. On the European level, it is a member of the European Free Trade Association. However, it participates in the Schengen Area and the European Single Market through bilateral treaties, spanning the intersection of Germanic and Romance Europe, Switzerland comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions, German, French, Italian and Romansh. Due to its diversity, Switzerland is known by a variety of native names, Schweiz, Suisse, Svizzera. On coins and stamps, Latin is used instead of the four living languages, Switzerland is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal wealth per adult and the eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product according to the IMF. Zürich and Geneva have each been ranked among the top cities in the world in terms of quality of life, with the former ranked second globally, according to Mercer. The English name Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, a term for the Swiss. The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse, also in use since the 16th century. The name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer, in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, the Swiss began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for Confederates, Eidgenossen, used since the 14th century. The data code for Switzerland, CH, is derived from Latin Confoederatio Helvetica. The toponym Schwyz itself was first attested in 972, as Old High German Suittes, ultimately related to swedan ‘to burn’
5.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
6.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
7.
German language
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German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and it is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other members of the West Germanic language branch, such as Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Luxembourgish and it is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English. One of the languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide. The German speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of publication of new books. German derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, a portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. With slightly different standardized variants, German is a pluricentric language, like English, German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, when Martin Luther translated the Bible, he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony, also known as Meißner Deutsch. Copies of Luthers Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luthers translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language – the difference in relation to Protestant German was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language, in urban northern Germany, the local Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides though, however, German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire and its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Some cities, such as Prague and Budapest, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain, others, such as Pozsony, were originally settled during the Habsburg period, and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava as well as cities like Zagreb, the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860, in 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a standardization of the German language in its written form
8.
Observatory
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An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geology, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed, historically, observatories were as simple as containing an astronomical sextant or Stonehenge. Astronomical observatories are mainly divided into four categories, space based, airborne, ground based, ground-based observatories, located on the surface of Earth, are used to make observations in the radio and visible light portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Most optical telescopes are housed within a dome or similar structure, Telescope domes have a slit or other opening in the roof that can be opened during observing, and closed when the telescope is not in use. In most cases, the upper portion of the telescope dome can be rotated to allow the instrument to observe different sections of the night sky. Radio telescopes usually do not have domes, for optical telescopes, most ground-based observatories are located far from major centers of population, to avoid the effects of light pollution. The ideal locations for modern observatories are sites that have dark skies, a percentage of clear nights per year, dry air. At high elevations, the Earths atmosphere is thinner, thereby minimizing the effects of atmospheric turbulence, sites that meet the above criteria for modern observatories include the southwestern United States, Hawaii, Canary Islands, the Andes, and high mountains in Mexico such as Sierra Negra. Major optical observatories include Mauna Kea Observatory and Kitt Peak National Observatory in the USA, Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in Spain, and Paranal Observatory in Chile. Specific research study performed in 2009 shows that the best possible location for ground-based observatory on Earth is Ridge A — a place in the part of Eastern Antarctica. This location provides the least atmospheric disturbances and best visibility, beginning in 1930s, radio telescopes have been built for use in the field of radio astronomy to observe the Universe in the radio portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Since the mid-20th century, a number of observatories have been constructed at very high altitudes, above 4. The largest and most notable of these is the Mauna Kea Observatory, the Chacaltaya Astrophysical Observatory in Bolivia, at 5,230 m, was the worlds highest permanent astronomical observatory from the time of its construction during the 1940s until 2009. It has now surpassed by the new University of Tokyo Atacama Observatory. As a result, the resolution of space telescopes such as the Hubble Space Telescope is often much smaller than a ground-based telescope with a similar aperture. However, all these advantages do come with a price, Space telescopes are much more expensive to build than ground-based telescopes. Due to their location, space telescopes are also difficult to maintain. The Hubble Space Telescope was serviced by the Space Shuttle while many other space telescopes cannot be serviced at all, Airborne observatories have the advantage of height over ground installations, putting them above most of the Earths atmosphere
9.
Exoplanet
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An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet that orbits a star other than the Sun. The first scientific detection of an exoplanet was in 1988, HARPS has discovered about a hundred exoplanets while the Kepler space telescope has found more than two thousand. Kepler has also detected a few thousand candidate planets, of which about 11% may be false positives, on average, there is at least one planet per star, with a percentage having multiple planets. About 1 in 5 Sun-like stars have an Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone, the least massive planet known is Draugr, which is about twice the mass of the Moon. There are planets that are so near to their star that they take only a few hours to orbit, some are so far out that it is difficult to tell whether they are gravitationally bound to the star. Almost all of the planets detected so far are within the Milky Way, the nearest exoplanet is Proxima Centauri b, located 4.2 light-years from Earth and orbiting Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun. The discovery of exoplanets has intensified interest in the search for extraterrestrial life, there is special interest in planets that orbit in a stars habitable zone, where it is possible for liquid water, a prerequisite for life on Earth, to exist on the surface. The study of planetary habitability also considers a range of other factors in determining the suitability of a planet for hosting life. The rogue planets in the Milky Way possibly number in the billions, the convention for designating exoplanets is an extension of the system used for designating multiple-star systems as adopted by the International Astronomical Union. For exoplanets orbiting a star, the designation is normally formed by taking the name or, more commonly, designation of its parent star. The first planet discovered in a system is given the designation b, if several planets in the same system are discovered at the same time, the closest one to the star gets the next letter, followed by the other planets in order of orbital size. A provisional IAU-sanctioned standard exists to accommodate the designation of circumbinary planets, a limited number of exoplanets have IAU-sanctioned proper names. Various detection claims made in the century were rejected by astronomers. The first scientific detection of an exoplanet began in 1988, However, the first confirmed detection came in 1992, with the discovery of several terrestrial-mass planets orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12. The first confirmation of an exoplanet orbiting a star was made in 1995. Some exoplanets have been imaged directly by telescopes, but the vast majority have been detected through indirect methods, such as the transit method, in the eighteenth century the same possibility was mentioned by Isaac Newton in the General Scholium that concludes his Principia. Claims of exoplanet detections have been made since the nineteenth century, some of the earliest involve the binary star 70 Ophiuchi. In 1855 William Stephen Jacob at the East India Companys Madras Observatory reported that orbital anomalies made it highly probable that there was a body in this system
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