Business cycle
The business cycle known as the economic cycle or trade cycle, is the downward and upward movement of gross domestic product around its long-term growth trend. The length of a business cycle is the period of time containing a single boom and contraction in sequence; these fluctuations involve shifts over time between periods of rapid economic growth and periods of relative stagnation or decline. Business cycles are measured by considering the growth rate of real gross domestic product. Despite the often-applied term cycles, these fluctuations in economic activity do not exhibit uniform or predictable periodicity; the common or popular usage boom-and-bust cycle refers to fluctuations in which the expansion is rapid and the contraction severe. The first systematic exposition of economic crises, in opposition to the existing theory of economic equilibrium, was the 1819 Nouveaux Principes d'économie politique by Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi. Prior to that point classical economics had either denied the existence of business cycles, blamed them on external factors, notably war, or only studied the long term.
Sismondi found vindication in the Panic of 1825, the first unarguably international economic crisis, occurring in peacetime. Sismondi and his contemporary Robert Owen, who expressed similar but less systematic thoughts in 1817 Report to the Committee of the Association for the Relief of the Manufacturing Poor, both identified the cause of economic cycles as overproduction and underconsumption, caused in particular by wealth inequality, they advocated government intervention and socialism as the solution. This work did not generate interest among classical economists, though underconsumption theory developed as a heterodox branch in economics until being systematized in Keynesian economics in the 1930s. Sismondi's theory of periodic crises was developed into a theory of alternating cycles by Charles Dunoyer, similar theories, showing signs of influence by Sismondi, were developed by Johann Karl Rodbertus. Periodic crises in capitalism formed the basis of the theory of Karl Marx, who further claimed that these crises were increasing in severity and, on the basis of which, he predicted a communist revolution.
Though only passing references in Das Kapital refer to crises, they were extensively discussed in Marx's posthumously published books in Theories of Surplus Value. In Progress and Poverty, Henry George focused on land's role in crises – land speculation – and proposed a single tax on land as a solution. In 1860 French economist Clément Juglar first identified economic cycles 7 to 11 years long, although he cautiously did not claim any rigid regularity. Economist Joseph Schumpeter argued that a Juglar cycle has four stages: Expansion Crisis Recession Recovery Schumpeter's Juglar model associates recovery and prosperity with increases in productivity, consumer confidence, aggregate demand, prices. In the 20th century and others proposed a typology of business cycles according to their periodicity, so that a number of particular cycles were named after their discoverers or proposers: The Kitchin inventory cycle of 3 to 5 years The Juglar fixed-investment cycle of 7 to 11 years (often identified as "the" business cycle The Kuznets infrastructural investment cycle of 15 to 25 years (after Simon Kuznets – called "building cycle" The Kondratiev wave or long technological cycle of 45 to 60 years Some say interest in the different typologies of cycles has waned since the development of modern macroeconomics, which gives little support to the idea of regular periodic cycles.
Others realize. Since 1960, World GDP has increased by fifty-nine times, these multiples have not kept up with annual inflation over the same period. Social Contract collapses for nations when incomes are not kept in balance with cost-of-living over the timeline of the monetary system cycle - until hardships/populism/revolution are always seen in late capitalism; the Bible and Hammurabi's Code both explain economic remediations for cyclic sixty-year recurring great depressions, via fiftieth-year Jubilee debt and wealth resets. Thirty major debt forgiveness events are recorded in history including the debt forgiveness given to most european nations in the 1930s to 1954. There were great increases in productivity, industrial production and real per capita product throughout the period from 1870 to 1890 that included the Long Depression and two other recessions. There were significant increases in productivity in the years leading up to the Great Depression. Both the Long and Great Depressions were characterized by market saturation.
Over the period since the Industrial Revolution, technological progress has had a much larger effect on the economy than any fluctuations in credit or debt, the primary exception being the Great Depression, which caused a multi-year steep economic decline. The effect of technological progress can be seen by the purchasing power of an average hour's work, which has grown from $3 in 1900 to $22 in 1990, measured in 2010 dollars. There were similar increases in real wages during the 19th century. A table of innovations and long
History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)
The history of the Soviet Union between 1927 and 1953 covers the period in Soviet history from the establishment of Stalinism through victory in the Second World War and down to the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. He sought to destroy his enemies while transforming Soviet society with aggressive economic planning, in particular a sweeping collectivization of agriculture and rapid development of heavy industry. Stalin consolidated his power within the party and the state and fostered an extensive cult of personality. Soviet secret-police and the mass-mobilization Communist Party served as Stalin's major tools in molding Soviet society. Stalin's brutal methods in achieving his goals, which included party purges, political repression of the general population, forced collectivization, led to millions of deaths: in Gulag labor camps and during man-made famine. World War II, known as "the Great Patriotic War" in the Soviet Union, devastated much of the USSR, with about one out of every three World War II deaths representing a citizen of the Soviet Union.
After World War II, the Soviet Union's armies occupied Eastern Europe, where they established or supported Communist puppet governments. By 1949, the Cold War had started between the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc, with the Warsaw Pact pitched against NATO in Europe. After 1945, Stalin did not directly engage in any wars, he continued his totalitarian rule until his death in 1953. The mobilization of resources by state planning expanded the country's industrial base. From 1928 to 1932, pig iron output, necessary for further development of the industrial infrastructure rose from 3.3 million to 6.2 million tons per year. Coal production, a basic fuel of modern economies and Stalinist industrialization, rose from 35.4 million to 64 million tons, the output of iron ore rose from 5.7 million to 19 million tons. A number of industrial complexes such as Magnitogorsk and Kuznetsk, the Moscow and Gorky automobile plants, the Ural Mountains and Kramatorsk heavy machinery plants, Kharkov and Chelyabinsk tractor plants had been built or were under construction.
In real terms, the workers' standards of living tended to drop, rather than rise during the industrialization. Stalin's laws to "tighten work discipline" made the situation worse: e.g. a 1932 change to the RSFSR labor law code enabled firing workers, absent without a reason from the work place for just one day. Being fired accordingly meant losing "the right to use ration and commodity cards" as well as the "loss of the right to use an apartment″ and blacklisted for new employment which altogether meant a threat of starving; those measures, were not enforced, as managers were hard-pressed to replace these workers. In contrast, the 1938 legislation, which introduced labor books, followed by major revisions of the labor law, were enforced. For example, being absent or 20 minutes late were grounds for becoming fired; the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, 26 June 1940 "On the Transfer to the Eight-Hour Working Day, the Seven-day Work Week, on the Prohibition of Unauthorized Departure by Laborers and Office Workers from Factories and Offices" replaced the 1938 revisions with obligatory criminal penalties for quitting a job, for being late 20 minutes, etc.
Based on these figures, the Soviet government declared that Five Year Industrial Production Plan had been fulfilled by 93.7% in only four years, while parts devoted to heavy-industry part were fulfilled by 108%. Stalin in December 1932 declared the plan a success to the Central Committee, since increases in the output of coal and iron would fuel future development. During the second five-year plan, on the basis of the huge investment during the first plan, industry expanded rapidly, nearly reached the plan's targets. By 1937, coal output was 127 million tons, pig iron 14.5 million tons, there had been rapid development of the armaments industry. While making a massive leap in industrial capacity, the first Five Year Plan was harsh on industrial workers. Failure to fulfill quotas could result in treason charges. Working conditions were poor hazardous. Due to the allocation of resources for industry along with decreasing productivity since collectivization, a famine occurred. In the construction of the industrial complexes, inmates of Gulag camps were used as expendable resources.
But conditions improved during the second plan. Throughout the 1930s, industrialization was combined with a rapid expansion of technical and engineering education as well as increasing emphasis on munitions. From 1921 until 1954, the police state operated at high intensity, seeking out anyone accused of sabotaging the system; the estimated numbers vary greatly. 3.7 million people were sentenced for alleged counter-revolutionary crimes, including 600,000 sentenced to death, 2.4 million sentenced to labor camps, 700,000 sentenced to expatriation. Stalinist repression reached its peak during the Great Purge of 1937–38, which removed many skilled managers and experts and slowed industrial production in 1937 Under the NEP, Lenin had to tolerate the continued existence of owned agriculture, he decided to wait at least 20 years before attempting to place it under state control and in the meantime concentrate on industrial development. However, after Stalin's rise to power, the timetable for collectivization was shortened to just five years.
Demand for food intensified in the USSR's primary grain producing regions, wi
Weight
In science and engineering, the weight of an object is related to the amount of force acting on the object, either due to gravity or to a reaction force that holds it in place. Some standard textbooks define weight as a vector quantity, the gravitational force acting on the object. Others define weight as the magnitude of the gravitational force. Others define it as the magnitude of the reaction force exerted on a body by mechanisms that keep it in place: the weight is the quantity, measured by, for example, a spring scale. Thus, in a state of free fall, the weight would be zero. In this sense of weight, terrestrial objects can be weightless: ignoring air resistance, the famous apple falling from the tree, on its way to meet the ground near Isaac Newton, would be weightless; the unit of measurement for weight is that of force, which in the International System of Units is the newton. For example, an object with a mass of one kilogram has a weight of about 9.8 newtons on the surface of the Earth, about one-sixth as much on the Moon.
Although weight and mass are scientifically distinct quantities, the terms are confused with each other in everyday use. Further complications in elucidating the various concepts of weight have to do with the theory of relativity according to which gravity is modelled as a consequence of the curvature of spacetime. In the teaching community, a considerable debate has existed for over half a century on how to define weight for their students; the current situation is that a multiple set of concepts co-exist and find use in their various contexts. Discussion of the concepts of heaviness and lightness date back to the ancient Greek philosophers; these were viewed as inherent properties of objects. Plato described weight as the natural tendency of objects to seek their kin. To Aristotle and levity represented the tendency to restore the natural order of the basic elements: air, earth and water, he ascribed absolute weight to earth and absolute levity to fire. Archimedes saw weight as a quality opposed to buoyancy, with the conflict between the two determining if an object sinks or floats.
The first operational definition of weight was given by Euclid, who defined weight as: "weight is the heaviness or lightness of one thing, compared to another, as measured by a balance." Operational balances had, been around much longer. According to Aristotle, weight was the direct cause of the falling motion of an object, the speed of the falling object was supposed to be directly proportionate to the weight of the object; as medieval scholars discovered that in practice the speed of a falling object increased with time, this prompted a change to the concept of weight to maintain this cause effect relationship. Weight was split into a "still weight" or pondus, which remained constant, the actual gravity or gravitas, which changed as the object fell; the concept of gravitas was replaced by Jean Buridan's impetus, a precursor to momentum. The rise of the Copernican view of the world led to the resurgence of the Platonic idea that like objects attract but in the context of heavenly bodies. In the 17th century, Galileo made significant advances in the concept of weight.
He proposed a way to measure the difference between the weight of a moving object and an object at rest. He concluded weight was proportionate to the amount of matter of an object, not the speed of motion as supposed by the Aristotelean view of physics; the introduction of Newton's laws of motion and the development of Newton's law of universal gravitation led to considerable further development of the concept of weight. Weight became fundamentally separate from mass. Mass was identified as a fundamental property of objects connected to their inertia, while weight became identified with the force of gravity on an object and therefore dependent on the context of the object. In particular, Newton considered weight to be relative to another object causing the gravitational pull, e.g. the weight of the Earth towards the Sun. Newton considered space to be absolute; this allowed him to consider concepts as true velocity. Newton recognized that weight as measured by the action of weighing was affected by environmental factors such as buoyancy.
He considered this a false weight induced by imperfect measurement conditions, for which he introduced the term apparent weight as compared to the true weight defined by gravity. Although Newtonian physics made a clear distinction between weight and mass, the term weight continued to be used when people meant mass; this led the 3rd General Conference on Weights and Measures of 1901 to declare "The word weight denotes a quantity of the same nature as a force: the weight of a body is the product of its mass and the acceleration due to gravity", thus distinguishing it from mass for official usage. In the 20th century, the Newtonian concepts of absolute time and space were challenged by relativity. Einstein's equivalence principle put all observers, accelerating, on the same footing; this led to an ambiguity as to what is meant by the force of gravity and weight. A scale in an accelerating elevator cannot be distinguished from a scale in a gravitational field. Gravitational force and weight thereby became frame-dependent quantities.
This prompted the abandonment of the concept as superfluous in the fundamental sciences such as physics and chemistry. Nonetheless, the concept remained important in the teaching of physics; the ambiguities introduced by relativity led, starting in the 1960s, to considerable debate in the teaching community as how to define weight for their s
Great power
A great power is a sovereign state, recognized as having the ability and expertise to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power influence, which may cause middle or small powers to consider the great powers' opinions before taking actions of their own. International relations theorists have posited that great power status can be characterized into power capabilities, spatial aspects, status dimensions. While some nations are considered to be great powers, there is no definitive list of them. Sometimes the status of great powers is formally recognized in conferences such as the Congress of Vienna or the United Nations Security Council. Accordingly, the status of great powers has been formally and informally recognized in forums such as the Group of Seven; the term "great power" was first used to represent the most important powers in Europe during the post-Napoleonic era. The "Great Powers" constituted the "Concert of Europe" and claimed the right to joint enforcement of the postwar treaties.
The formalization of the division between small powers and great powers came about with the signing of the Treaty of Chaumont in 1814. Since the international balance of power has shifted numerous times, most during World War I and World War II. In literature, alternative terms for great power are world power or major power, but these terms can be interchangeable with superpower. There are no set or defined characteristics of a great power; these characteristics have been treated as empirical, self-evident to the assessor. However, this approach has the disadvantage of subjectivity; as a result, there have been attempts to derive some common criteria and to treat these as essential elements of great power status. Danilovic highlights three central characteristics, which she terms as "power and status dimensions," that distinguish major powers from other states; the following section is extracted from her discussion of these three dimensions, including all of the citations. Early writings on the subject tended to judge states by the realist criterion, as expressed by the historian A. J. P. Taylor when he noted that "The test of a great power is the test of strength for war."
Writers have expanded this test, attempting to define power in terms of overall military and political capacity. Kenneth Waltz, the founder of the neorealist theory of international relations, uses a set of five criteria to determine great power: population and territory; these expanded criteria can be divided into three heads: power capabilities, spatial aspects, status. As noted above, for many, power capabilities were the sole criterion; however under the more expansive tests, power retains a vital place. This aspect has received mixed treatment, with some confusion as to the degree of power required. Writers have approached the concept of great power with differing conceptualizations of the world situation, from multi-polarity to overwhelming hegemony. In his essay,'French Diplomacy in the Postwar Period', the French historian Jean-Baptiste Duroselle spoke of the concept of multi-polarity: "A Great power is one, capable of preserving its own independence against any other single power."This differed from earlier writers, notably from Leopold von Ranke, who had a different idea of the world situation.
In his essay'The Great Powers', written in 1833, von Ranke wrote: "If one could establish as a definition of a Great power that it must be able to maintain itself against all others when they are united Frederick has raised Prussia to that position." These positions have been the subject of criticism. All states have actions, or projected power; this is a crucial factor in distinguishing a great power from a regional power. It has been suggested that a great power should be possessed of actual influence throughout the scope of the prevailing international system. Arnold J. Toynbee, for example, observes that "Great power may be defined as a political force exerting an effect co-extensive with the widest range of the society in which it operates; the Great powers of 1914 were'world-powers' because Western society had become'world-wide'."Other suggestions have been made that a great power should have the capacity to engage in extra-regional affairs and that a great power ought to be possessed of extra-regional interests, two propositions which are closely connected.
Formal or informal acknowledgment of a nation's great power status has been a criterion for being a great power. As political scientist George Modelski notes, "The status of Great power is sometimes confused with the condition of being powerful; the office, as it is known, did in fact evolve from the role played by the great military states in earlier periods... But the Great power system institutionalizes the position of the powerful state in a web of rights and obligations."This approach restricts analysis to the epoch following the Congress of Vienna at which great powers were first formally recognized. In the absence of such a formal act of recognition it has been suggested that great power status can arise by implication by judging the nature of a state's relations with other great powers. A further option is to examine a state's willingness to act as a great power; as a nation will declare that it is acting as such, this entails a retrospective examination of state conduct. As a result, this is of limited use in establishing the nature of contemporary powers, at least no
Automotive industry
The automotive industry is a wide range of companies and organizations involved in the design, manufacturing and selling of motor vehicles. It is one of the world's largest economic sectors by revenue; the automotive industry does not include industries dedicated to the maintenance of automobiles following delivery to the end-user, such as automobile repair shops and motor fuel filling stations. The word automotive is from the Greek autos, Latin motivus to refer to any form of self-powered vehicle; this term, as proposed by Elmer Sperry, first came into use with reference to automobiles in 1898. The automotive industry began in the 1860s with hundreds of manufacturers that pioneered the horseless carriage. For many decades, the United States led the world in total automobile production. In 1929, before the Great Depression, the world had 32,028,500 automobiles in use, the U. S. automobile industry produced over 90% of them. At that time the U. S. had one car per 4.87 persons. After World War II, the U.
S. produced about 75 percent of world's auto production. In 1980, the U. S. was overtaken by Japan and became world's leader again in 1994. In 2006, Japan narrowly passed the U. S. in production and held this rank until 2009, when China took the top spot with 13.8 million units. With 19.3 million units manufactured in 2012, China doubled the U. S. production, with 10.3 million units, while Japan was in third place with 9.9 million units. From 1970 over 1998 to 2012, the number of automobile models in the U. S. has grown exponentially. Safety is a state that implies to be protected from any risk, damage or cause of injury. In the automotive industry, safety means that users, operators or manufacturers do not face any risk or danger coming from the motor vehicle or its spare parts. Safety for the automobiles themselves, implies that there is no risk of damage. Safety in the automotive industry is important and therefore regulated. Automobiles and other motor vehicles have to comply with a certain number of norms and regulations, whether local or international, in order to be accepted on the market.
The standard ISO 26262, is considered as one of the best practice framework for achieving automotive functional safety. In case of safety issues, product defect or faulty procedure during the manufacturing of the motor vehicle, the maker can request to return either a batch or the entire production run; this procedure is called product recall. Product recalls happen in every industry and can be production-related or stem from the raw material. Product and operation tests and inspections at different stages of the value chain are made to avoid these product recalls by ensuring end-user security and safety and compliance with the automotive industry requirements. However, the automotive industry is still concerned about product recalls, which cause considerable financial consequences. Around the world, there were about 806 million cars and light trucks on the road in 2007, consuming over 980 billion litres of gasoline and diesel fuel yearly; the automobile is a primary mode of transportation for many developed economies.
The Detroit branch of Boston Consulting Group predicts that, by 2014, one-third of world demand will be in the four BRIC markets. Meanwhile, in the developed countries, the automotive industry has slowed down, it is expected that this trend will continue as the younger generations of people no longer want to own a car anymore, prefer other modes of transport. Other powerful automotive markets are Iran and Indonesia. Emerging auto markets buy more cars than established markets. According to a J. D. Power study, emerging markets accounted for 51 percent of the global light-vehicle sales in 2010; the study, performed in 2010 expected this trend to accelerate. However, more recent reports confirmed the opposite. In the United States, vehicle sales peaked in 2000, at 17.8 million units. The OICA counts over 50 countries which assemble, manufacture or disseminate automobiles. Of that figure, only 13, boldfaced in the list below, possess the capability to design automobiles from the ground up; this is a list of the 15 largest manufacturers by production in 2016.
It is common for automobile manufacturers to hold stakes in other automobile manufacturers. These ownerships can be explored under the detail for the individual companies. Notable current relationships include: Daimler AG holds a 10.0% stake in KAMAZ. Daimler AG holds an 89.29% stake in Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation. Daimler AG holds a 3.1% in the Renault-Nissan Alliance. Daimler AG holds a 12% stake in Beijing Automotive Group, Daimler AG holds an 85% stake in Master Motors. Dongfeng Motor holds a 12.23% stake and a 19.94% exercisable voting rights in PSA Groupe. FAW Group owns 49% of Haima Automobile. FCA holds a 10% stake in Ferrari. FCA holds a 67% stake in Fiat Automobili Srbija. FCA holds 37.8% of Tofaş with another 37.8% owned by Koç Holding. Fiat Automobili Srbija owns a 54% stake in Zastava Trucks. Fiat Industrial owns a 46% stake in Zastava Trucks. Fujian Motors Group holds a 15% stake in King Long. FMG, Beijing Automotive Group, China Motor, Daimler has a joint venture called Fujian Benz.
FMG, China Motor, Mitsubishi Motors has a joint venture called Soueast, FMG holds a 50% stake, both China Motor and Mitsubishi Motors holds an equal 25% stake. Geely Automobile holds a 23% stake in The London Taxi Company. Geely Automobile holds a 49.9% stake in PROTON Holdings and a 51% stake in Lotus Cars. Geely Holding Group holds a 9.69% stake in Daimle
Skyscraper
A skyscraper is a continuously habitable high-rise building that has over 40 floors and is taller than 150 m. The term first referred to buildings with 10 to 20 floors in the 1880s; the definition shifted with advancing construction technology during the 20th century. Skyscrapers may host both. For buildings above a height of 300 m, the term "supertall" can be used, while skyscrapers reaching beyond 600 m are classified as "megatall". One common feature of skyscrapers is having a steel framework; these curtain walls either bear on the framework below or are suspended from the framework above, rather than resting on load-bearing walls of conventional construction. Some early skyscrapers have a steel frame that enables the construction of load-bearing walls taller than of those made of reinforced concrete. Modern skyscrapers' walls are not load-bearing, most skyscrapers are characterized by large surface areas of windows made possible by steel frames and curtain walls. However, skyscrapers can have curtain walls that mimic conventional walls with a small surface area of windows.
Modern skyscrapers have a tubular structure, are designed to act like a hollow cylinder to resist wind and other lateral loads. To appear more slender, allow less wind exposure, transmit more daylight to the ground, many skyscrapers have a design with setbacks, which are sometimes structurally required; the term "skyscraper" was first applied to buildings of steel framed construction of at least 10 stories in the late 19th century, a result of public amazement at the tall buildings being built in major American cities like Chicago, New York City, Detroit, St. Louis; the first steel-frame skyscraper was the Home Insurance Building in Chicago, Illinois in 1885. Some point to Philadelphia's 10-story Jayne Building as a proto-skyscraper, or to New York's seven-floor Equitable Life Building, built in 1870, for its innovative use of a kind of skeletal frame, but such designation depends on what factors are chosen; the scholars making the argument find it to be purely academic. The structural definition of the word skyscraper was refined by architectural historians, based on engineering developments of the 1880s that had enabled construction of tall multi-story buildings.
This definition was based on the steel skeleton—as opposed to constructions of load-bearing masonry, which passed their practical limit in 1891 with Chicago's Monadnock Building. What is the chief characteristic of the tall office building? It is lofty, it must be tall. The force and power of altitude must be in it, the glory and pride of exaltation must be in it, it must be every inch a proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exaltation that from bottom to top it is a unit without a single dissenting line. — Louis Sullivan's The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat defines skyscrapers as those buildings which reach or exceed 150 m in height. Others in the United States and Europe draw the lower limit of a skyscraper at 150 m; the Emporis Standards Committee defines a high-rise building as "a multi-story structure between 35–100 meters tall, or a building of unknown height from 12–39 floors" and a skyscraper as "a multi-story building whose architectural height is at least 100 m or 330 ft."
Some structural engineers define a highrise as any vertical construction for which wind is a more significant load factor than earthquake or weight. Note that this criterion fits not only high-rises but some other tall structures, such as towers; the word skyscraper carries a connotation of pride and achievement. The skyscraper, in name and social function, is a modern expression of the age-old symbol of the world center or axis mundi: a pillar that connects earth to heaven and the four compass directions to one another; the tallest building in ancient times was the 146 m Great Pyramid of Giza in ancient Egypt, built in the 26th century BC. It was not surpassed in height for thousands of years, the 160 m Lincoln Cathedral having exceeded it in 1311–1549, before its central spire collapsed; the latter in turn was not surpassed until the 555-foot Washington Monument in 1884. However, being uninhabited, none of these structures comply with the modern definition of a skyscraper. High-rise apartments flourished in classical antiquity.
Ancient Roman insulae in imperial cities reached 10 and more stories. Beginning with Augustus, several emperors attempted to establish limits of 20–25 m for multi-story buildings, but met with only limited success. Lower floors were occupied by shops or wealthy families, the upper rented to the lower classes. Surviving Oxyrhynchus Papyri indicate that seven-story buildings existed in provincial towns such as in 3rd century AD Hermopolis in Roman Egypt; the skylines of many important medieval cities had large numbers of high-rise urban towers, built by the wealthy for defense and status. The residential Towers of 12th century Bologna numbered between 80 and 100 at a time, the tallest of, the 97.2 m high Asinelli Tower. A Florentine law of 1251 decreed that all urban buildings be reduced to less than 26 m. Medium-sized towns of the era are known to have proliferations of towers, such as the 72 up to 51 m height in San Gimignano; the medieval Egyptian city of Fustat housed many high-rise residential buildings, which Al-Muqaddasi in the 10th century described as resembling minarets.
Nasir Khusraw in the early 11th century described some of them rising up to 14 stories, with roof gardens on t
Construction
Construction is the process of constructing a building or infrastructure. Construction differs from manufacturing in that manufacturing involves mass production of similar items without a designated purchaser, while construction takes place on location for a known client. Construction as an industry comprises six to nine percent of the gross domestic product of developed countries. Construction starts with planning and financing. Large-scale construction requires collaboration across multiple disciplines. A project manager manages the job, a construction manager, design engineer, construction engineer or architect supervises it; those involved with the design and execution must consider zoning requirements, environmental impact of the job, budgeting, construction-site safety and transportation of building materials, inconvenience to the public caused by construction delays and bidding. Large construction projects are sometimes referred to as megaprojects. Construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form objects, systems, or organizations, comes from Latin constructio and Old French construction.
To construct is the verb: the act of building, the noun construction: how a building was built, the nature of its structure. In general, there are three sectors of construction: buildings and industrial. Building construction is further divided into residential and non-residential. Infrastructure is called heavy civil or heavy engineering that includes large public works, bridges, railways, water or wastewater and utility distribution. Industrial construction includes refineries, process chemical, power generation and manufacturing plants. There are other ways to break the industry into sectors or markets. Engineering News-Record, a trade magazine for the construction industry, each year compiles and reports data about the size of design and construction companies. In 2014, ENR compiled the data in nine market segments divided as transportation, buildings, industrial, manufacturing, sewer/waste, hazardous waste and a tenth category for other projects. In their reporting, they used data on transportation, hazardous waste and water to rank firms as heavy contractors.
The Standard Industrial Classification and the newer North American Industry Classification System have a classification system for companies that perform or engage in construction. To recognize the differences of companies in this sector, it is divided into three subsectors: building construction and civil engineering construction, specialty trade contractors. There are 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. The owner of the property acts as laborer and design team for the entire project. Although building construction projects consist of common elements such as design, financial and legal considerations, projects of varying sizes may reach undesirable end results, such as structural collapse, cost overruns, and/or litigation. For this reason, those with experience in the field make detailed plans and maintain careful oversight during the project to ensure a positive outcome.
Commercial building construction is procured or publicly utilizing various delivery methodologies, including cost estimating, hard bid, negotiated price, management contracting, construction management-at-risk, design & build and design-build bridging. Residential construction practices and resources must conform to local building authority regulations and codes of practice. Materials available in the area dictate the construction materials used. Cost of construction on a per square meter basis for houses can vary based on site conditions, local regulations, economies of scale and the availability of skilled tradesmen. Residential construction as well as other types of construction can generate waste such that planning is required. According to McKinsey research, productivity growth per worker in construction has lagged behind many other industries across different countries including in the United States and in European countries. In the United States, construction productivity per worker has declined by half since the 1960s.
The most popular method of residential construction in North America is wood-framed construction. Typical construction steps for a single-family or small multi-family house are: Obtain an engineered soil test of lot where construction is planned. From an engineer or company specializing in soil testing. Develop floor plans and obtain a materials list for estimations Obtain structural engineered plans for foundation and structure. To be completed by either a licensed engineer or architect. To include both a foundation and framing plan. Obtain lot survey Obtain government building approval if necessary If required obtain approval from HOA or ARC Clear the building site Survey to stake out for the foun
