1.
Amsterdam
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Amsterdam is the capital and most populous municipality of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Its status as the capital is mandated by the Constitution of the Netherlands, although it is not the seat of the government, which is The Hague. Amsterdam has a population of 851,373 within the city proper,1,351,587 in the urban area, the city is located in the province of North Holland in the west of the country. The metropolitan area comprises much of the part of the Randstad, one of the larger conurbations in Europe. Amsterdams name derives from Amstelredamme, indicative of the citys origin around a dam in the river Amstel, during that time, the city was the leading centre for finance and diamonds. In the 19th and 20th centuries the city expanded, and many new neighborhoods and suburbs were planned, the 17th-century canals of Amsterdam and the 19–20th century Defence Line of Amsterdam are on the UNESCO World Heritage List. As the commercial capital of the Netherlands and one of the top financial centres in Europe, Amsterdam is considered a world city by the Globalization. The city is also the capital of the Netherlands. Many large Dutch institutions have their headquarters there, and seven of the worlds 500 largest companies, including Philips and ING, are based in the city. In 2012, Amsterdam was ranked the second best city to live in by the Economist Intelligence Unit and 12th globally on quality of living for environment, the city was ranked 3rd in innovation by Australian innovation agency 2thinknow in their Innovation Cities Index 2009. The Amsterdam seaport to this day remains the second in the country, famous Amsterdam residents include the diarist Anne Frank, artists Rembrandt van Rijn and Vincent van Gogh, and philosopher Baruch Spinoza. The Amsterdam Stock Exchange, the oldest stock exchange in the world, is located in the city center. After the floods of 1170 and 1173, locals near the river Amstel built a bridge over the river, the earliest recorded use of that name is in a document dated October 27,1275, which exempted inhabitants of the village from paying bridge tolls to Count Floris V. This allowed the inhabitants of the village of Aemstelredamme to travel freely through the County of Holland, paying no tolls at bridges, locks, the certificate describes the inhabitants as homines manentes apud Amestelledamme. By 1327, the name had developed into Aemsterdam, Amsterdam is much younger than Dutch cities such as Nijmegen, Rotterdam, and Utrecht. In October 2008, historical geographer Chris de Bont suggested that the land around Amsterdam was being reclaimed as early as the late 10th century. This does not necessarily mean there was already a settlement then, since reclamation of land may not have been for farming—it may have been for peat. Amsterdam was granted city rights in either 1300 or 1306, from the 14th century on, Amsterdam flourished, largely from trade with the Hanseatic League
2.
Netherlands
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The Netherlands, also informally known as Holland is the main constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a densely populated country located in Western Europe with three territories in the Caribbean. The European part of the Netherlands borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, sharing borders with Belgium, the United Kingdom. The three largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, Amsterdam is the countrys capital, while The Hague holds the Dutch seat of parliament and government. The port of Rotterdam is the worlds largest port outside East-Asia, the name Holland is used informally to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. Netherlands literally means lower countries, influenced by its low land and flat geography, most of the areas below sea level are artificial. Since the late 16th century, large areas have been reclaimed from the sea and lakes, with a population density of 412 people per km2 –507 if water is excluded – the Netherlands is classified as a very densely populated country. Only Bangladesh, South Korea, and Taiwan have both a population and higher population density. Nevertheless, the Netherlands is the worlds second-largest exporter of food and agricultural products and this is partly due to the fertility of the soil and the mild climate. In 2001, it became the worlds first country to legalise same-sex marriage, the Netherlands is a founding member of the EU, Eurozone, G-10, NATO, OECD and WTO, as well as being a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. The first four are situated in The Hague, as is the EUs criminal intelligence agency Europol and this has led to the city being dubbed the worlds legal capital. The country also ranks second highest in the worlds 2016 Press Freedom Index, the Netherlands has a market-based mixed economy, ranking 17th of 177 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom. It had the thirteenth-highest per capita income in the world in 2013 according to the International Monetary Fund, in 2013, the United Nations World Happiness Report ranked the Netherlands as the seventh-happiest country in the world, reflecting its high quality of life. The Netherlands also ranks joint second highest in the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, the region called Low Countries and the country of the Netherlands have the same toponymy. Place names with Neder, Nieder, Nether and Nedre and Bas or Inferior are in use in all over Europe. They are sometimes used in a relation to a higher ground that consecutively is indicated as Upper, Boven, Oben. In the case of the Low Countries / the Netherlands the geographical location of the region has been more or less downstream. The geographical location of the region, however, changed over time tremendously
3.
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
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Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam is a university in Amsterdam, Netherlands, founded in 1880. VU is one of two large, publicly funded universities in the city, the other being the University of Amsterdam. The literal translation of the Dutch name Vrije Universiteit is Free University. Free refers to independence of the university from both the State and Church, both within and outside the university, the institution is commonly referred to as the VU. Although founded as an institution, VU has received government funding on a parity basis with public universities since 1970. Over the past decades, VU has transformed from an institution into a broad. While the Netherlands does not have a ranking system, according to the CWTS Leiden Ranking. The university is located on an urban campus in the southern Buitenveldert neighbourhood of Amsterdam. In 2014, VU had 23,656 registered students, most of whom were full-time students and that year, the university had 2,263 faculty members and researchers, and 1,410 administrative, clerical and technical employees, based on FTE units. The universitys annual endowment for 2014 was circa €480 million, about three quarters of this endowment is government funding, the remainder is made up of tuition fees, research grants, and private funding. The official university seal is entitled The Virgin in the Garden, in 1990, the university adopted the mythical griffin as its common emblem. The position of its wings symbolizes the freedom in the name from both the State and Church. The bright and blue postmodern symbol has been the point of the universitys Main Building ever since. The VU was founded in 1880 by a group of orthodox-Protestant Christians led by Abraham Kuyper as the first orthodox-Protestant university in the Netherlands, Kuyper was a theologian, journalist, politician, and prime minister of the Netherlands from 1901 to 1905. He was a professor of theology at VU as well as the universitys first rector magnificus, kuypers worldview and philosophy is referred to as Neo-Calvinism. As a reflection of his beliefs, Vrije Universiteit literally means Free University to signify independence from government and church. Teaching at the Vrije Universiteit started in 1880 in a few rooms rented at the Scottish Missionary Church, here, Kuyper and four fellow professors began lecturing in three faculties, theology, law, and the arts. By the turn of the 20th century, the Scottish Missionary Church became too small for the number of students. In the following years, the university acquired more buildings throughout the city, in 1905, VU was formally accredited and granted the legal right to award academic degrees
4.
University of Oxford
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The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university located in Oxford, England. It grew rapidly from 1167 when Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris, after disputes between students and Oxford townsfolk in 1209, some academics fled north-east to Cambridge where they established what became the University of Cambridge. The two ancient universities are frequently referred to as Oxbridge. The university is made up of a variety of institutions, including 38 constituent colleges, All the colleges are self-governing institutions within the university, each controlling its own membership and with its own internal structure and activities. Being a city university, it not have a main campus, instead, its buildings. Oxford is the home of the Rhodes Scholarship, one of the worlds oldest and most prestigious scholarships, the university operates the worlds oldest university museum, as well as the largest university press in the world and the largest academic library system in Britain. Oxford has educated many notable alumni, including 28 Nobel laureates,27 Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom, the University of Oxford has no known foundation date. Teaching at Oxford existed in form as early as 1096. It grew quickly in 1167 when English students returned from the University of Paris, the historian Gerald of Wales lectured to such scholars in 1188 and the first known foreign scholar, Emo of Friesland, arrived in 1190. The head of the university had the title of chancellor from at least 1201, the university was granted a royal charter in 1248 during the reign of King Henry III. After disputes between students and Oxford townsfolk in 1209, some academics fled from the violence to Cambridge, the students associated together on the basis of geographical origins, into two nations, representing the North and the South. In later centuries, geographical origins continued to many students affiliations when membership of a college or hall became customary in Oxford. At about the time, private benefactors established colleges as self-contained scholarly communities. Among the earliest such founders were William of Durham, who in 1249 endowed University College, thereafter, an increasing number of students lived in colleges rather than in halls and religious houses. In 1333–34, an attempt by some dissatisfied Oxford scholars to found a new university at Stamford, Lincolnshire was blocked by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge petitioning King Edward III. Thereafter, until the 1820s, no new universities were allowed to be founded in England, even in London, thus, Oxford and Cambridge had a duopoly, the new learning of the Renaissance greatly influenced Oxford from the late 15th century onwards. Among university scholars of the period were William Grocyn, who contributed to the revival of Greek language studies, and John Colet, the noted biblical scholar. With the English Reformation and the breaking of communion with the Roman Catholic Church, recusant scholars from Oxford fled to continental Europe, as a centre of learning and scholarship, Oxfords reputation declined in the Age of Enlightenment, enrolments fell and teaching was neglected
5.
University of Groningen
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The University of Groningen is a public research university in the city of Groningen in the Netherlands. The university was founded in 1614 and is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands as well as one of its largest, since its inception more than 200,000 students have graduated. It is a member of the distinguished international Coimbra Group of European universities, in April 2013, according to the results of the International Student Barometer, the University of Groningen, for the third time in a row, has been voted the best university of the Netherlands. In 2014 the university celebrated its 400th anniversary, the University of Groningen has ten faculties, nine graduate schools,27 research centres and institutes, and more than 175 degree programmes. There were four faculties – Theology, Law, Medicine, the coat of arms of the university was confirmed by the States of the City and County of Groningen in 1615. It consists of the arms, charged with an open book inscribed with the abbreviated words VER/BVM/DNI LV/CER/NA. The shield is surmounted by a crown of five leaves. The first 75 years of its existence were very fruitful for the University with about 100 students enrolling every year, on average two to three hundred students were registered with the University at any one time during this period. Opportunities and threats followed on each other’s heels during the nineteenth century, in 1815, at the same time as Leiden and Utrecht, the University gained recognition as a national college of higher education, but this was followed by discussions about closure. The situation improved markedly when a new university building, the Academiegebouw, was constructed in 1850. This made the fire completely destroyed this building in 1906 even more poignant. In the meantime, the Higher Education Act of 1876 had radically improved the position of the University, teaching now took place in Dutch as well as in Latin and the University was given a research as well as an educational duty. This laid the foundations for the present research university, the University of Groningen developed apace during the first decades of the twentieth century. The number of faculties and courses grew steadily while the number of students showed an explosive growth, when the University celebrated its first 300 years in 1914 there were 611 registered students, this had already grown to 1000 by 1924. After a drop back during the Depression, and in particular during the Second World War, in 2016 the Dutch chemist Ben Feringa, who worked most of his career at the university, won the Nobel prize for his work on molecular motors. Other strong research groups are in, Nanoscience, Physics, Molecular Biology, Microbiology, Medical Sciences, Neurosciences, Sociology, Philosophy, Theology, Archaeology and Arts. Every year more than 5,000 research publications go to print, the University of Groningen is a member of the so-called Excellence Group of the best universities in Europe. The Excellence Group has 56 members, which is 1.3 percent of the approximately 4,500 European institutions of higher education, the University of Groningen belongs to the top 100 large comprehensive research universities in the world
6.
Sustainability
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In ecology, sustainability is the property of biological systems to remain diverse and productive indefinitely. Long-lived and healthy wetlands and forests are examples of biological systems. In more general terms, sustainability is the endurance of systems, the organizing principle for sustainability is sustainable development, which includes the four interconnected domains, ecology, economics, politics and culture. Sustainability science is the study of development and environmental science. Sustainability can also be defined as a process characterized by the pursuit of a common ideal. An ideal is by definition unattainable in a time and space. However, by persistently and dynamically approaching it, the results in a sustainable system. Healthy ecosystems and environments are necessary to the survival of humans, ways of reducing negative human impact are environmentally-friendly chemical engineering, environmental resources management and environmental protection. Information is gained from green chemistry, earth science, environmental science, Ecological economics studies the fields of academic research that aim to address human economies and natural ecosystems. Moving towards sustainability is also a challenge that entails international and national law, urban planning and transport, local and individual lifestyles. The name sustainability is derived from the Latin sustinere, sustain can mean “maintain, support, or endure”. ”The 2005 World Summit on Social Development identified sustainable development goals, such as economic development, social development and environmental protection. This view has been expressed as an illustration using three overlapping ellipses indicating that the three pillars of sustainability are not mutually exclusive and can be mutually reinforcing, in fact, the three pillars are interdependent, and in the long run none can exist without the others. The three pillars have served as a ground for numerous sustainability standards and certification systems in recent years. Standards which today explicitly refer to the bottom line include Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade. Some sustainability experts and practitioners have illustrated four pillars of sustainability, one such pillar is future generations, which emphasizes the long-term thinking associated with sustainability. There is also an opinion that considers resource use and financial sustainability as two pillars of sustainability. Sustainable development consists of balancing local and global efforts to meet human needs without destroying or degrading the natural environment. The question then becomes how to represent the relationship between those needs and the environment, a study from 2005 pointed out that environmental justice is as important as sustainable development
7.
Doctor of Philosophy
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A Doctor of Philosophy is a type of doctoral degree awarded by universities in many countries. Ph. D. s are awarded for a range of programs in the sciences, engineering. The Ph. D. is a degree in many fields. The completion of a Ph. D. is often a requirement for employment as a university professor, researcher, individuals with an earned doctorate can use the title of Doctor with their name and use the post-nominal letters Ph. D. The requirements to earn a Ph. D. degree vary considerably according to the country, institution, a person who attains a doctorate of philosophy is automatically awarded the academic title of doctor. A student attaining this level may be granted a Candidate of Philosophy degree at some institutions. A Ph. D. candidate must submit a project, thesis or dissertation often consisting of a body of academic research. In many countries, a candidate must defend this work before a panel of examiners appointed by the university. Universities award other types of doctorates besides the Ph. D. such as the Doctor of Musical Arts, a degree for music performers and the Doctor of Education, in 2016, ELIA launched The Florence Principles on the Doctorate in the Arts. The Florence Principles have been endorsed are supported also by AEC, CILECT, CUMULUS, the degree is abbreviated PhD, from the Latin Philosophiae Doctor, pronounced as three separate letters. In the universities of Medieval Europe, study was organized in four faculties, the faculty of arts. All of these faculties awarded intermediate degrees and final degrees, the doctorates in the higher faculties were quite different from the current Ph. D. degree in that they were awarded for advanced scholarship, not original research. No dissertation or original work was required, only lengthy residency requirements, besides these degrees, there was the licentiate. According to Keith Allan Noble, the first doctoral degree was awarded in medieval Paris around 1150, the doctorate of philosophy developed in Germany as the terminal Teachers credential in the 17th century. Typically, upon completion, the candidate undergoes an oral examination, always public, starting in 2016, in Ukraine Doctor of Philosophy is the highest education level and the first science degree. PhD is awarded in recognition of a contribution to scientific knowledge. A PhD degree is a prerequisite for heading a university department in Ukraine, upon completion of a PhD, a PhD holder can elect to continue his studies and get a post-doctoral degree called Doctor of Sciences, which is the second and the highest science degree in Ukraine. Scandinavian countries were among the early adopters of a known as a doctorate of philosophy
8.
University of Southampton
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The University of Southampton is a public research university located in Southampton, England. The origins of the university back to the founding of the Hartley Institution in 1862 following a legacy to the Corporation of Southampton by Henry Robinson Hartley. In 1902, the Institution developed into the Hartley University College awarding degrees from the University of London, on 29 April 1952, the institution was granted a Royal Charter to give the University of Southampton full university status, allowing it to award its own degrees. The university has seven teaching campuses, in addition, the university operates a School of Art based in nearby Winchester and an international branch in Malaysia offering courses in Engineering. Each campus is equipped with its own library facilities, the University of Southampton currently has 17,485 undergraduate and 7,390 postgraduate students, making it the largest university by higher education students in the South East region. The university owns and operates a sports ground at nearby Wide Lane for use by students, besides being recognised as one of the leading research universities in the UK, Southampton has also achieved consistently high scores for its teaching and learning activities. It additionally has one of the highest proportions of income derived from activities in Britain. As of 2015, Southampton is one of the few universities to achieve a top 20 UK position in the most established national and international rankings, in the 2016 edition of U. S. News & World Report, Southampton is placed in the top 10 of British Universities. Southampton is a member of the European University Association, the Association of Commonwealth Universities and is an institution of the Worldwide Universities Network. The university consistently ranks in the top 5 in Engineering programs in England, the University of Southampton has its origin as the Hartley Institution which was formed in 1862 from a benefaction by Henry Robinson Hartley. Hartley had inherited a fortune from two generations of successful wine merchants, at his death in 1850, he left a bequest of £103,000 to the Southampton Corporation for the study and advancement of the sciences in his property on Southamptons High Street, in the city centre. Hartley was a straggler, who had little liking of the new age docks. He did not desire to create a college for many but a centre for Southamptons intellectual elite. After lengthy legal challenges to the Bequest, and a debate as to how best interpret the language of his Will. On 15 October 1862, the Hartley Institute was opened by the Prime Minister Lord Palmerston in a civic occasion which exceeded in splendor anything that anyone in the town could remember. After initial years of struggle, the Hartley Institute became the Hartley College in 1883. This move was followed by increasing numbers of students, teaching staff, in 1902, the Hartley College became the Hartley University college, a degree awarding branch of the University of London. This was after inspection of the teaching and finances by the University College Grants Committee, an increase in student numbers in the following years motivated fund raising efforts to move the college to greenfield land around Back Lane in the Highfield area of Southampton
9.
Psychology
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Psychology is the science of behavior and mind, embracing all aspects of conscious and unconscious experience as well as thought. It is a discipline and a social science which seeks to understand individuals and groups by establishing general principles. In this field, a professional practitioner or researcher is called a psychologist and can be classified as a social, behavioral, Psychologists explore behavior and mental processes, including perception, cognition, attention, emotion, intelligence, phenomenology, motivation, brain functioning, and personality. This extends to interaction between people, such as relationships, including psychological resilience, family resilience, and other areas. Psychologists of diverse orientations also consider the unconscious mind, Psychologists employ empirical methods to infer causal and correlational relationships between psychosocial variables. Psychology has been described as a hub science, with psychological findings linking to research and perspectives from the sciences, natural sciences, medicine, humanities. By many accounts psychology ultimately aims to benefit society, the majority of psychologists are involved in some kind of therapeutic role, practicing in clinical, counseling, or school settings. Many do scientific research on a range of topics related to mental processes and behavior. The word psychology derives from Greek roots meaning study of the psyche, the Latin word psychologia was first used by the Croatian humanist and Latinist Marko Marulić in his book, Psichiologia de ratione animae humanae in the late 15th century or early 16th century. In 1890, William James defined psychology as the science of mental life and this definition enjoyed widespread currency for decades. Also since James defined it, the more strongly connotes techniques of scientific experimentation. Folk psychology refers to the understanding of people, as contrasted with that of psychology professionals. The ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, China, India, historians note that Greek philosophers, including Thales, Plato, and Aristotle, addressed the workings of the mind. As early as the 4th century BC, Greek physician Hippocrates theorized that mental disorders had physical rather than supernatural causes, in China, psychological understanding grew from the philosophical works of Laozi and Confucius, and later from the doctrines of Buddhism. This body of knowledge involves insights drawn from introspection and observation and it frames the universe as a division of, and interaction between, physical reality and mental reality, with an emphasis on purifying the mind in order to increase virtue and power. Chinese scholarship focused on the advanced in the Qing Dynasty with the work of Western-educated Fang Yizhi, Liu Zhi. Distinctions in types of awareness appear in the ancient thought of India, a central idea of the Upanishads is the distinction between a persons transient mundane self and their eternal unchanging soul. Divergent Hindu doctrines, and Buddhism, have challenged this hierarchy of selves, yoga is a range of techniques used in pursuit of this goal
10.
Altruism
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Altruism or selflessness is the principle or practice of concern for the welfare of others. Altruism or selflessness is the opposite of selfishness, the word was coined by the French philosopher Auguste Comte in French, as altruisme, for an antonym of egoism. He derived it from the Italian altrui, which in turn was derived from Latin alteri, Altruism can be distinguished from feelings of loyalty, in that whilst the latter is predicated upon social relationships, altruism does not consider relationships. Much debate exists as to whether true altruism is possible in human psychology, the validity of this argument depends on whether intrinsic rewards qualify as benefits. The actor also may not be expecting a reward, the term altruism may also refer to an ethical doctrine that claims that individuals are morally obliged to benefit others. Used in this sense, it is contrasted with egoism. The concept has a history in philosophical and ethical thought. Whilst ideas about altruism from one field can affect the other fields, in simple terms, altruism is caring about the welfare of other people and acting to help them. Marcel Mausss book The Gift contains a passage, Note on alms and this note describes the evolution of the notion of alms from the notion of sacrifice. In it, he writes, Alms are the fruits of a notion of the gift and of fortune on the one hand. Generosity is an obligation, because Nemesis avenges the poor and the gods for the superabundance of happiness and this is the ancient morality of the gift, which has become a principle of justice. The gods and the spirits accept that the share of wealth and happiness that has offered to them and had been hitherto destroyed in useless sacrifices should serve the poor. Compare Altruism – perception of altruism as self-sacrifice, compare explanation of alms in various scriptures. Theories of apparently altruistic behavior were accelerated by the need to produce theories compatible with evolutionary origins, two related strands of research on altruism have emerged from traditional evolutionary analyses and from evolutionary game theory a mathematical model and analysis of behavioural strategies. Some of the mechanisms are, Kin selection. That animals and humans are more altruistic towards close kin than to distant kin and non-kin has been confirmed in numerous studies across many different cultures, even subtle cues indicating kinship may unconsciously increase altruistic behavior. One kinship cue is facial resemblance, one study found that slightly altering photographs so that they more closely resembled the faces of study participants increased the trust the participants expressed regarding depicted persons. Another cue is having the family name, especially if rare
11.
Environmental protection
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Environmental protection is a practice of protecting the natural environment on individual, organisation controlled or governmental levels, for the benefit of both the environment and humans. Due to the pressures of over consumption, population and technology and this has been recognized, and governments have begun placing restraints on activities that cause environmental degradation. Since the 1960s, activity of environmental movements has created awareness of the environmental issues. There is no agreement on the extent of the impact of human activity and even scientific dishonesty occurs. For instance, in India, Environment Improvement Trust has been working for environment & forest protection since 1998, a group of Green Volunteers get a goal of Green India Clean India concept. CA Gajendra Kumar Jain an Chartered Accountant is founder of Environment Improvement Trust in Sojat city a small village of State of Rajasthan in India, in developing countries, such as throughout Latin America, these agreements are more commonly used to remedy significant levels of non-compliance with mandatory regulation. The challenges that exist with these agreements lie in establishing baseline data, targets, due to the difficulties inherent in evaluating effectiveness, their use is often questioned and, indeed, the whole environment may well be adversely affected as a result. The key advantage of their use in developing countries is that their use helps to build environmental management capacity and this approach ideally supports a better exchange of information, development of conflict-resolution strategies and improved regional conservation. Many of the resources are especially vulnerable because they are influenced by human impacts across many countries. As a result of this, many attempts are made by countries to develop agreements that are signed by multiple governments to prevent damage or manage the impacts of human activity on natural resources. This can include agreements that impact factors such as climate, oceans, rivers and these agreements have a long history with some multinational agreements being in place from as early as 1910 in Europe, America and Africa. Some of the most well-known international agreements include the Kyoto Protocol, discussion concerning environmental protection often focuses on the role of government, legislation, and law enforcement. However, in its broadest sense, environmental protection may be seen to be the responsibility of all the people, decisions that impact the environment will ideally involve a broad range of stakeholders including industry, indigenous groups, environmental group and community representatives. Gradually, environmental decision-making processes are evolving to reflect this broad base of stakeholders and are becoming more collaborative in many countries, many constitutions acknowledge the fundamental right to environmental protection and many international treaties acknowledge the right to live in a healthy environment. Also, many countries have organizations and agencies devoted to environmental protection, there are international environmental protection organizations, such as the United Nations Environment Programme. Tanzania is recognised as having some of the greatest biodiversity of any African country, almost 40% of the land has been established into a network of protected areas, including several national parks. In year 1948, Serengeti was officially established as the first national park for wild cats in East Africa, in 1998 Environment Improvement Trust start working for environment & forest protection in India from a small city Sojat. Founder of Environment Improvement Trust is CA Gajendra Kumar Jain working with volunteers, division of the biosphere is the main government body that oversees protection
12.
Evolution
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Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. Evolutionary processes give rise to biodiversity at every level of organisation, including the levels of species, individual organisms. In July 2016, scientists reported identifying a set of 355 genes from the LUCA of all living on Earth. The fossil record includes a progression from early biogenic graphite, to microbial mat fossils, existing patterns of biodiversity have been shaped both by speciation and by extinction. More than 99 percent of all species that lived on Earth are estimated to be extinct. Estimates of Earths current species range from 10 to 14 million, more recently, in May 2016, scientists reported that 1 trillion species are estimated to be on Earth currently with only one-thousandth of one percent described. In the mid-19th century, Charles Darwin formulated the theory of evolution by natural selection. This teleonomy is the quality whereby the process of natural selection creates and preserves traits that are fitted for the functional roles they perform. The processes by which the changes occur, from one generation to another, are called evolutionary processes or mechanisms, the four most widely recognized evolutionary processes are natural selection, genetic drift, mutation and gene migration. Natural selection and genetic drift sort variation, mutation and gene migration create variation, consequences of selection can include meiotic drive, nonrandom mating and genetic hitchhiking. In the early 20th century the modern evolutionary synthesis integrated classical genetics with Darwins theory of evolution by natural selection through the discipline of population genetics, the importance of natural selection as a cause of evolution was accepted into other branches of biology. Moreover, previously held notions about evolution, such as orthogenesis, evolutionism, evolutionary computation, a sub-field of artificial intelligence, involves the application of Darwinian principles to problems in computer science. The proposal that one type of organism could descend from another type goes back to some of the first pre-Socratic Greek philosophers, such as Anaximander, such proposals survived into Roman times. The poet and philosopher Lucretius followed Empedocles in his masterwork De rerum natura, in contrast to these materialistic views, Aristotelianism considered all natural things as actualisations of fixed natural possibilities, known as forms. This was part of a teleological understanding of nature in which all things have an intended role to play in a divine cosmic order. In the 17th century, the new method of modern science rejected the Aristotelian approach, however, this new approach was slow to take root in the biological sciences, the last bastion of the concept of fixed natural types. The biological classification introduced by Carl Linnaeus in 1735 explicitly recognized the nature of species relationships. Other naturalists of this time speculated on the change of species over time according to natural laws
