1.
Measurement
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Measurement is the assignment of a number to a characteristic of an object or event, which can be compared with other objects or events. The scope and application of a measurement is dependent on the context, however, in other fields such as statistics as well as the social and behavioral sciences, measurements can have multiple levels, which would include nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio scales. Measurement is a cornerstone of trade, science, technology, historically, many measurement systems existed for the varied fields of human existence to facilitate comparisons in these fields. Often these were achieved by local agreements between trading partners or collaborators, since the 18th century, developments progressed towards unifying, widely accepted standards that resulted in the modern International System of Units. This system reduces all physical measurements to a combination of seven base units. The science of measurement is pursued in the field of metrology, the measurement of a property may be categorized by the following criteria, type, magnitude, unit, and uncertainty. They enable unambiguous comparisons between measurements, the type or level of measurement is a taxonomy for the methodological character of a comparison. For example, two states of a property may be compared by ratio, difference, or ordinal preference, the type is commonly not explicitly expressed, but implicit in the definition of a measurement procedure. The magnitude is the value of the characterization, usually obtained with a suitably chosen measuring instrument. A unit assigns a mathematical weighting factor to the magnitude that is derived as a ratio to the property of a used as standard or a natural physical quantity. An uncertainty represents the random and systemic errors of the measurement procedure, errors are evaluated by methodically repeating measurements and considering the accuracy and precision of the measuring instrument. Measurements most commonly use the International System of Units as a comparison framework, the system defines seven fundamental units, kilogram, metre, candela, second, ampere, kelvin, and mole. Instead, the measurement unit can only ever change through increased accuracy in determining the value of the constant it is tied to and this directly influenced the Michelson–Morley experiment, Michelson and Morley cite Peirce, and improve on his method. With the exception of a few fundamental quantum constants, units of measurement are derived from historical agreements, nothing inherent in nature dictates that an inch has to be a certain length, nor that a mile is a better measure of distance than a kilometre. Over the course of history, however, first for convenience and then for necessity. Laws regulating measurement were originally developed to prevent fraud in commerce.9144 metres, in the United States, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a division of the United States Department of Commerce, regulates commercial measurements. Before SI units were adopted around the world, the British systems of English units and later imperial units were used in Britain, the Commonwealth. The system came to be known as U. S. customary units in the United States and is still in use there and in a few Caribbean countries. S
2.
Death
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Death is the cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death, other concerns include fear of death, necrophobia, anxiety, sorrow, grief, emotional pain, depression, sympathy, compassion, solitude, or saudade. The potential for an afterlife is of concern for some humans, the word death comes from Old English deað, which in turn comes from Proto-Germanic *dauthuz. This comes from the Proto-Indo-European stem *dheu- meaning the Process, act, when a person has died, it is also said they have passed away, passed on, expired, or are gone, among numerous other socially accepted, religiously specific, slang, and irreverent terms. Bereft of life, the person is then a corpse, cadaver, a body, a set of remains, and when all flesh has rotted away. The terms carrion and carcass can also be used, though more often connote the remains of non-human animals. As a polite reference to a person, it has become common practice to use the participle form of decease, as in the deceased. The ashes left after a cremation are sometimes referred to by the neologism cremains, senescence refers to a scenario when a living being is able to survive all calamities, but eventually dies due to causes relating to old age. Almost all animals who survive external hazards to their biological functioning eventually die from biological aging, some organisms experience negligible senescence, even exhibiting biological immortality. These include the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii, the hydra, and the planarian, unnatural causes of death include suicide and homicide. From all causes, roughly 150,000 people die around the world each day, physiological death is now seen as a process, more than an event, conditions once considered indicative of death are now reversible. Where in the process a dividing line is drawn between life and death depends on factors beyond the presence or absence of vital signs, in general, clinical death is neither necessary nor sufficient for a determination of legal death. A patient with working heart and lungs determined to be dead can be pronounced legally dead without clinical death occurring. As scientific knowledge and medicine advance, formulating a precise definition of death becomes more difficult. The concept of death is a key to understanding of the phenomenon. There are many approaches to the concept. For example, brain death, as practiced in medical science, One of the challenges in defining death is in distinguishing it from life. As a point in time, death would seem to refer to the moment at which life ends, determining when death has occurred requires drawing precise conceptual boundaries between life and death
3.
Morbidity
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A disease is a particular abnormal condition, a disorder of a structure or function, that affects part or all of an organism. The study of disease is called pathology which includes the study of cause, Disease is often construed as a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs. When caused by pathogens, even in the literature, the term disease is often misleadingly used in the place of its causal agent. This language habitat can cause confusion in the communication of the principle in epidemiology. Diseases can affect not only physically, but also emotionally. Death due to disease is called death by natural causes, there are four main types of disease, infectious diseases, deficiency diseases, genetic diseases, and physiological diseases. Diseases can also be classified as communicable and non-communicable, the deadliest diseases in humans are coronary artery disease, followed by cerebrovascular disease and lower respiratory infections. In many cases, terms such as disease, disorder, morbidity, there are situations, however, when specific terms are considered preferable. Disease The term disease broadly refers to any condition that impairs the normal functioning of the body, for this reason, diseases are associated with dysfunctioning of the bodys normal homeostatic processes. The term disease has both a count sense and a noncount sense, by contrast, an infection that is asymptomatic during its incubation period, but expected to produce symptoms later, is usually considered a disease. Non-infectious diseases are all other diseases, including most forms of cancer, heart disease, acquired disease disease that began at some point during ones lifetime, as opposed to disease that was already present at birth, which is congenital disease. Acquired sounds like it could mean caught via contagion, but it simply means acquired sometime after birth and it also sounds like it could imply secondary disease, but acquired disease can be primary disease. It is often, genetic and can be inherited and it can also be the result of a vertically transmitted infection from the mother such as HIV/AIDS. Genetic disease disease that is caused by genetic mutation and it is often inherited, but some mutations are random and de novo. Hereditary or inherited disease a type of disease caused by mutation that is hereditary Iatrogenic disease A disease condition caused by medical intervention. Idiopathic disease disease whose cause is unknown, as medical science has advanced, many diseases whose causes were formerly complete mysteries have been somewhat explained or even extensively explained. Bacterial infections can be primary or secondary to a viral infection or burn. Terminal disease disease with death as an inevitable result Illness Illness is generally used as a synonym for disease, however, this term is occasionally used to refer specifically to the patients personal experience of his or her disease
4.
Incidence (epidemiology)
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Incidence in epidemiology is a measure of the probability of occurrence of a given medical condition in a population within a specified period of time. Although sometimes loosely expressed simply as the number of new cases during some time period, incidence proportion is the number of new cases within a specified time period divided by the size of the population initially at risk. e. The incidence rate is the number of new cases per population at risk in a time period. When the denominator is the sum of the person-time of the at risk population, in the same example as above, the incidence rate is 14 cases per 1000 person-years, because the incidence proportion is divided by the number of years. Using person-time rather than just time handles situations where the amount of time differs between people, or when the population at risk varies with time. These people are not counted as they cannot develop HIV a second time, a follow-up at 5 years finds 20 new cases of HIV. A second follow-up at the end of the study and find 30 new cases, if you were to measure prevalence you would simply take the total number of cases and divide by your sample population. So prevalence would be 75/225 =0.33 or 33% and this tells you how widespread HIV is in your sample population, but little about the actual risk of developing HIV for any person over a coming year. To measure incidence you must take into account how many years each person contributed to the study, and when they developed HIV. When it is not known exactly when a person develops the disease in question, epidemiologists frequently use the actuarial method, and assume it was developed at a half-way point between follow-ups. In this calculation, At 5 yrs you found 20 new cases, so you assume they developed HIV at 2.5 years, at 10 years you found 30 new cases. These people did not have HIV at 5 years, but did at 10, so you assume they were infected at 7.5 years and that is a total of =275 person years so far. You also want to account for the 150 people who never had or developed HIV over the 10-year period and that is a total of =1775 person-years of life. Now take the 50 new cases of HIV, and divide by 1775 to get 0.028, or 28 cases of HIV per 1000 population, in other words, if you were to follow 1000 people for one year, you would see 28 new cases of HIV. This is a more accurate measure of risk than prevalence. Incidence should not be confused with prevalence, which is the proportion of cases in the population at a time rather than rate of occurrence of new cases. Thus, incidence conveys information about the risk of contracting the disease, prevalence can also be measured with respect to a specific subgroup of a population. For example, consider a disease that takes a time to cure and was widespread in 2002
5.
Infant mortality
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Infant mortality refers to deaths of young children, typically those less than one year of age. It is measured by the infant mortality rate, which is the number of deaths of children one year of age per 1000 live births. The Under-Five Mortality Rate is also an important statistic considering the Infant Mortality Rate has a limit on focusing on children only under one year of age. Premature birth is the biggest contributor to the IMR, one of the most common preventable causes of infant mortality is smoking during pregnancy. Many factors contribute to infant mortality, such as the level of education, environmental conditions. Improving sanitation, access to drinking water, immunization against infectious diseases. Child mortality is the death of a child before the fifth birthday. National statistics sometimes group these two mortality rates together, Infant mortality rate was an indicator used to monitor progress towards the Fourth Goal of the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations for the year 2015. It is now a target in the Sustainable Development Goals for Goal Number 3, throughout the world, Infant Mortality Rate fluctuates drastically, and according to Biotechnology and Health Sciences, education and life expectancy in the country is the leading indicator of IMR. This study was conducted across 135 countries over the course of 11 years with Africa having the highest Infant Mortality Rate of any other region studied with 68 deaths per 1,000 live births. Infant mortality rate is the number of deaths per 1,000 live births of children one year of age. The rate for a region is the number of children dying under one year of age, divided by the number of live births during the year. Forms of infant mortality, Perinatal mortality is late fetal death, Neonatal mortality is newborn death occurring within 28 days postpartum. Neonatal death is attributed to inadequate access to basic medical care, during pregnancy. This accounts for 40–60% of infant mortality in developing countries, postneonatal mortality is the death of children aged 29 days to one year. The major contributors to postneonatal death are malnutrition, infectious disease, troubled pregnancy, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, causes of infant mortality directly lead to the death. Greatest percentage reduction of infant mortality occurs in countries already have low rates of infant mortality. Common causes are preventable with low-cost measures, in the United States, a primary determinant of infant mortality risk is infant birth weight with lower birth weights increasing the risk of infant mortality
6.
Child mortality
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A childs death is emotionally and physically hard on the parents. Many deaths in the majority of the world go unreported since many poor families cannot afford to register their babies in the government registry, the same causes and preventative measures that apply to infant mortality also apply to understanding child mortality. Reduction of child mortality is the fourth of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, while in 1990,12.7 million children under age five died, in 2013 that number fell to 6.3 million children. However, despite advances, at the current pace the world will not meet the MDG target until 2026, globally in 2013,3.7 million children aged one month to 4 years of age died, down from 7.6 million in 1990. About half of deaths occur in Sub-Saharan Africa. Reduction of child mortality is the fourth of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals which were replaced in 2015 by the Sustainable Development Goals, in 2015 an estimated 5.9 million children died before their fifth birthday, 45% of them during the first 28 days of life. Child survival is a field of public health concerned with reducing child mortality, Child survival interventions are designed to address the most common causes of child deaths that occur, which include diarrhea, pneumonia, malaria, and neonatal conditions. Of the portion of children under the age of 5 alone, according to an estimate by UNICEF in 2008, one million child deaths could be prevented annually at a cost of $US1 billion per year. The child survival strategies and interventions are in line with the fourth Millennium Development Goal which focused on reducing child mortality by 2/3 of children under five before the year 2015, many countries are now devoted to the child survival interventions as a way of reducing the child mortality. The overall aim of the project is to reduce the impact, two-thirds of child deaths are preventable. In developing countries, child mortality rates related to respiratory and diarrheal diseases can be reduced by introducing simple behavioral changes and this simple action can reduce the rate of mortality from these diseases by almost 50 per cent. Proven, cost-effective interventions can save the lives of millions of children per year, immunization interventions still do not reach 30 million children, despite success in immunizations in reducing polio, tetanus, and measles. Measles and tetanus still kill more than 1 million children under 5 each year, vitamin A supplementation costs only $0.02 cents for each capsule and given 2-3 times a year will prevent blindness and death. Although vitamin A supplementation saved an estimated 2.3 million lives between 1999 and 2004, only half of children in poor countries receive these treatments. Between 250,000 and 500,000 children become blind every year, oral rehydration therapy has helped to reduce diarrhea deaths by half, saving an estimated 1 million lives annually, yet more than 2 million children still die from diarrhea-related causes each year. Improved sanitation and access to drinking water can reduce childhood infections. Over 40 percent of the population does not have access to basic sanitation. The under-5 mortality rate is the number of children who die by the age of five, in 2015, the world average was 43, down from 91 in 1990
7.
Standardized mortality ratio
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The standardized mortality ratio is the ratio of observed deaths in the study group to expected deaths in the general population. This ratio can be expressed as a simply by multiplying by 100. The SMR may be quoted as either a ratio or a percentage, if the SMR is quoted as a ratio and is equal to 1.0, then this means the number of observed deaths equals that of expected cases. If higher than 1.0, then there is a number of deaths than is expected. SMR constitutes a form of standardization. The study groups are weighted based on their distribution, as opposed to the general populationss distribution. This is a distinction between and indirect method of standardization like SMR from direct standardization techniques. An SMR for bladder cancer of 1.70 in the group would mean that there is 70% more cases of death due to bladder cancer in the cohort than in the reference population. Standardized mortality rate tells how many persons, per thousand of the population, will die in a given year, such statistics have many uses, Life insurance companies periodically update their premiums based on the mortality rate, adjusted for age. Medical researchers can track disease-related deaths and shift focus and funding to increasing or decreasing risks. Organizations, both non- and for-profit, can utilize such statistics to justify their missions, regarding occupational uses, Mortality tables are also often used when numbers of deaths for each age-specific stratum are not available. Is an additional risk associated with that occupation and this will yield the number of deaths expected in each age group in the population of interest, if this population had had the mortality experience of the known population. Thus, for age group, the number of deaths expected is calculated. The numbers of deaths that were observed in that population are also calculated and totaled. This ratio is called the standardized mortality ratio, the SMR is defined as follows, SMR = /. Age-specific mortality rate Crude death rate Vulnerability index PAMCOMP Person-Years Analysis and Computation Program for calculating SMRs
8.
Proportionality (mathematics)
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In mathematics, two variables are proportional if a change in one is always accompanied by a change in the other, and if the changes are always related by use of a constant multiplier. The constant is called the coefficient of proportionality or proportionality constant, if one variable is always the product of the other and a constant, the two are said to be directly proportional. X and y are directly proportional if the ratio y/x is constant, if the product of the two variables is always a constant, the two are said to be inversely proportional. X and y are inversely proportional if the product xy is constant, to express the statement y is directly proportional to x mathematically, we write an equation y = cx, where c is the proportionality constant. Symbolically, this is written as y ∝ x, to express the statement y is inversely proportional to x mathematically, we write an equation y = c/x. We can equivalently write y is proportional to 1/x. An equality of two ratios is called a proportion, for example, a/c = b/d, where no term is zero. Given two variables x and y, y is proportional to x if there is a non-zero constant k such that y = k x. The relation is denoted, using the ∝ or ~ symbol, as y ∝ x. If an object travels at a constant speed, then the distance traveled is directly proportional to the time spent traveling, the circumference of a circle is directly proportional to its diameter, with the constant of proportionality equal to π. Since y = k x is equivalent to x = y, it follows that if y is proportional to x, with proportionality constant k. The concept of inverse proportionality can be contrasted against direct proportionality, consider two variables said to be inversely proportional to each other. If all other variables are constant, the magnitude or absolute value of one inversely proportional variable decreases if the other variable increases. Formally, two variables are proportional if each of the variables is directly proportional to the multiplicative inverse of the other. As an example, the time taken for a journey is inversely proportional to the speed of travel, the graph of two variables varying inversely on the Cartesian coordinate plane is a rectangular hyperbola. The product of the x and y values of each point on the curve equals the constant of proportionality, since neither x nor y can equal zero, the graph never crosses either axis. A variable y is proportional to a variable x, if y is directly proportional to the exponential function of x, that is if there exist non-zero constants k. Likewise, a y is logarithmically proportional to a variable x, if y is directly proportional to the logarithm of x, that is if there exist non-zero constants k
9.
Life table
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In actuarial science and demography, a life table is a table which shows, for each age, what the probability is that a person of that age will die before his or her next birthday. In other words, it represents the survivorship of people from a certain population, there are two types of life tables used in actuarial science. The period life table represents mortality rates during a time period of a certain population. A cohort life table, often referred to as a life table, is used to represent the overall mortality rates of a certain populations entire lifetime. They must have had to be born during the specific time interval. A cohort life table is more frequently used because it is able to make a prediction of any expected changes in mortality rates of a population in the future and this type of table also analyzes patterns in mortality rates that can be observed over time. Both of these types of tables are created based on an actual population from the present. From this starting point, a number of inferences can be derived, the probability of surviving any particular year of age The remaining life expectancy for people at different ages Life tables are also used extensively in biology and epidemiology. An area that uses this tool is Social Security and it examines the mortality rates of all the people who have Social Security to decide which actions to take. The concept is also of importance in life cycle management. Static life tables sample individuals assuming a stationary population with overlapping generations, static Life tables and cohort life tables will be identical if population is in equilibrium and environment does not change. If a population were to have a constant number of each year it would mean that the probabilities of death from the life table were completely accurate. Also, a number of 100,000 people were born each year with no immigration or emigration involved. Life table primarily refers to period life tables, as cohort life tables can only be constructed using data up to the current point, a life table is created by mortality rates and census figures from a certain population, ideally under a closed demographic system. This means that immigration and emigration do not exist when analyzing a cohort, another benefit from mortality tables is that they can be used to make predictions on demographics or different populations. The life table observes the mortality experience of a generation, consisting of 100,000 births. Life tables are usually constructed separately for men and for women because of their substantially different mortality rates, other characteristics can also be used to distinguish different risks, such as smoking status, occupation, and socioeconomic class. Life tables can be extended to other information in addition to mortality
10.
Censoring (statistics)
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In statistics, engineering, economics, and medical research, censoring is a condition in which the value of a measurement or observation is only partially known. For example, suppose a study is conducted to measure the impact of a drug on mortality rate, in such a study, it may be known that an individuals age at death is at least 75 years. Such a situation could occur if the individual withdrew from the study at age 75, censoring also occurs when a value occurs outside the range of a measuring instrument. For example, a bathroom scale might only measure up to 300 pounds, if a 350 lb individual is weighed using the scale, the observer would only know that the individuals weight is at least 300 pounds. The problem of censored data, in which the value of some variable is partially known, is related to the problem of missing data. Censoring should not be confused with the related idea truncation, with censoring, observations result either in knowing the exact value that applies, or in knowing that the value lies within an interval. With truncation, observations never result in values outside a given range, note that in statistics, truncation is not the same as rounding. Left censoring – a data point is below a certain value, interval censoring – a data point is somewhere on an interval between two values. Right censoring – a data point is above a certain value, type I censoring occurs if an experiment has a set number of subjects or items and stops the experiment at a predetermined time, at which point any subjects remaining are right-censored. Random censoring is when each subject has a time that is statistically independent of their failure time. The observed value is the minimum of the censoring and failure times, interval censoring can occur when observing a value requires follow-ups or inspections. Left and right censoring are special cases of interval censoring, with the beginning of the interval at zero or the end at infinity, respectively. Estimation methods for using left-censored data vary, and not all methods of estimation may be applicable to, or the most reliable, a common misconception with time interval data is to class as left censored intervals where the start time is unknown. In these cases we have a bound on the time interval. Special techniques may be used to handle censored data, Tests with specific failure times are coded as actual failures, censored data are coded for the type of censoring and the known interval or limit. Special software programs can conduct a maximum likelihood estimation for summary statistics, confidence intervals, Reliability testing often consists of conducting a test on an item to determine the time it takes for a failure to occur. Sometimes a failure is planned and expected but does not occur, operator error, equipment malfunction, test anomaly, the test result was not the desired time-to-failure but can be used as a time-to-termination. The use of censored data is unintentional but necessary, sometimes engineers plan a test program so that, after a certain time limit or number of failures, all other tests will be terminated
11.
Medical condition
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A disease is a particular abnormal condition, a disorder of a structure or function, that affects part or all of an organism. The study of disease is called pathology which includes the study of cause, Disease is often construed as a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs. When caused by pathogens, even in the literature, the term disease is often misleadingly used in the place of its causal agent. This language habitat can cause confusion in the communication of the principle in epidemiology. Diseases can affect not only physically, but also emotionally. Death due to disease is called death by natural causes, there are four main types of disease, infectious diseases, deficiency diseases, genetic diseases, and physiological diseases. Diseases can also be classified as communicable and non-communicable, the deadliest diseases in humans are coronary artery disease, followed by cerebrovascular disease and lower respiratory infections. In many cases, terms such as disease, disorder, morbidity, there are situations, however, when specific terms are considered preferable. Disease The term disease broadly refers to any condition that impairs the normal functioning of the body, for this reason, diseases are associated with dysfunctioning of the bodys normal homeostatic processes. The term disease has both a count sense and a noncount sense, by contrast, an infection that is asymptomatic during its incubation period, but expected to produce symptoms later, is usually considered a disease. Non-infectious diseases are all other diseases, including most forms of cancer, heart disease, acquired disease disease that began at some point during ones lifetime, as opposed to disease that was already present at birth, which is congenital disease. Acquired sounds like it could mean caught via contagion, but it simply means acquired sometime after birth and it also sounds like it could imply secondary disease, but acquired disease can be primary disease. It is often, genetic and can be inherited and it can also be the result of a vertically transmitted infection from the mother such as HIV/AIDS. Genetic disease disease that is caused by genetic mutation and it is often inherited, but some mutations are random and de novo. Hereditary or inherited disease a type of disease caused by mutation that is hereditary Iatrogenic disease A disease condition caused by medical intervention. Idiopathic disease disease whose cause is unknown, as medical science has advanced, many diseases whose causes were formerly complete mysteries have been somewhat explained or even extensively explained. Bacterial infections can be primary or secondary to a viral infection or burn. Terminal disease disease with death as an inevitable result Illness Illness is generally used as a synonym for disease, however, this term is occasionally used to refer specifically to the patients personal experience of his or her disease
12.
The World Factbook
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The World Factbook is a reference resource produced by the Central Intelligence Agency with almanac-style information about the countries of the world. The official print version is available from the National Technical Information Service, Other companies—such as Skyhorse Publishing—also print a paper edition. The Factbook is available in the form of a website that is updated every week. It is also available for download for use off-line, the World Factbook is prepared by the CIA for the use of U. S. Government officials, and its style, format, coverage, and content are primarily designed to meet their requirements. However, it is used as a resource for academic research papers. As a work of the U. S. Government, it is in the domain in the United States. In researching the Factbook, the CIA uses the sources listed below, Other public and private sources are also consulted. However, the CIA requests that it be cited when the Factbook is used, copying the official seal of the CIA without permission is prohibited by U. S. federal law—specifically, the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949. Before November 2001 The World Factbook website was updated yearly, from 2004 to 2010 it was updated every two weeks, since 2010 it has been updated weekly, generally, information currently available as of January 1 of the current year is used in preparing the Factbook. The first, classified, edition of Factbook was published in August 1962, the World Factbook was first available to the public in print in 1975. In 2008 the CIA discontinued printing the Factbook themselves, instead turning printing responsibilities over to the Government Printing Office and this happened due to a CIA decision to focus Factbook resources on the online edition. The Factbook has been on the World Wide Web since October 1994, the web version gets an average of 6 million visits per month, it can also be downloaded. The official printed version is sold by the Government Printing Office, in past years, the Factbook was available on CD-ROM, microfiche, magnetic tape, and floppy disk. Many Internet sites use information and images from the CIA World Factbook, several publishers, including Grand River Books, Potomac Books, and Skyhorse Publishing have re-published the Factbook in recent years. As of July 2011, The World Factbook consists of 267 entities and these entities can be divided into categories. They are, Independent countries This category has independent countries, which the CIA defines as people politically organized into a state with a definite territory. In this category, there are 195 entities, others The Other category is a list of other places set apart from the list of independent countries. Currently there are two, Taiwan and the European Union, dependencies and Areas of Special Sovereignty This category is a list of places affiliated with another country
13.
Lesotho
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Lesotho, officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is an enclaved, landlocked country in southern Africa completely surrounded by South Africa. It is just over 30,000 km2 in size and has a slightly over two million. Its capital and largest city is Maseru, previously known as Basutoland, Lesotho declared independence from the United Kingdom on 4 October 1966. It is a member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, the name Lesotho translates roughly into the land of the people who speak Sesotho. About 40% of the population lives below the poverty line of US$1.25 a day. The original inhabitants of the now known as Lesotho were the San people. Examples of their art can be found in the mountains throughout the area. The present Lesotho, then called Basutoland, emerged as a single polity under King Moshoeshoe I in 1822, Moshoeshoe, a son of Mokhachane, a minor chief of the Bakoteli lineage, formed his own clan and became a chief around 1804. Casalis, acting as translator and providing advice on foreign affairs, helped to set up diplomatic channels and acquire guns for use against the encroaching Europeans and the Griqua people. Trekboers from the Cape Colony showed up on the borders of Basutoland and claimed land rights, beginning with Jan de Winnaar. As more Boers were moving into the area tried to colonise the land between the two rivers, even north of the Caledon, claiming that it had been abandoned by the Sotho people. Moshoeshoe subsequently signed a treaty with the British Governor of the Cape Colony, Sir George Thomas Napier and these outraged Boers were suppressed in a brief skirmish in 1848. In 1851 a British force was defeated by the Basotho army at Kolonyama, after repelling another British attack in 1852, Moshoeshoe sent an appeal to the British commander that settled the dispute diplomatically, then defeated the Batlokoa in 1853. In 1854 the British pulled out of the region, and in 1858 Moshoeshoe fought a series of wars with the Boers in the Free State–Basotho War, the last war in 1867 ended when Moshoeshoe appealed to Queen Victoria, who agreed to make Basutoland a British protectorate in 1868. Moshoeshoe died on 11 March 1870, marking the end of the traditional era and he was buried at Thaba Bosiu. In the early years of British rule between 1871 and 1884, Basutoland was treated similarly to territories that had been forcefully annexed. This led to the Gun War in 1881, Basutoland gained its independence from Britain and became the Kingdom of Lesotho in 1966. In January 1970, the ruling Basotho National Party lost the first post-independence general elections, Prime Minister Leabua Jonathan refused to cede power to the Basotho Congress Party, declared himself Tona Kholo, and imprisoned the BCP leadership
14.
Bulgaria
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Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in southeastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, with a territory of 110,994 square kilometres, Bulgaria is Europes 16th-largest country. Organised prehistoric cultures began developing on current Bulgarian lands during the Neolithic period and its ancient history saw the presence of the Thracians, Greeks, Persians, Celts, Romans, Goths, Alans and Huns. With the downfall of the Second Bulgarian Empire in 1396, its territories came under Ottoman rule for five centuries. The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78 led to the formation of the Third Bulgarian State, the following years saw several conflicts with its neighbours, which prompted Bulgaria to align with Germany in both world wars. In 1946 it became a one-party socialist state as part of the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc, in December 1989 the ruling Communist Party allowed multi-party elections, which subsequently led to Bulgarias transition into a democracy and a market-based economy. Bulgarias population of 7.2 million people is predominantly urbanised, most commercial and cultural activities are centred on the capital and largest city, Sofia. The strongest sectors of the economy are industry, power engineering. The countrys current political structure dates to the adoption of a constitution in 1991. Bulgaria is a parliamentary republic with a high degree of political, administrative. Human activity in the lands of modern Bulgaria can be traced back to the Paleolithic, animal bones incised with man-made markings from Kozarnika cave are assumed to be the earliest examples of symbolic behaviour in humans. Organised prehistoric societies in Bulgarian lands include the Neolithic Hamangia culture, Vinča culture, the latter is credited with inventing gold working and exploitation. Some of these first gold smelters produced the coins, weapons and jewellery of the Varna Necropolis treasure and this site also offers insights for understanding the social hierarchy of the earliest European societies. Thracians, one of the three primary groups of modern Bulgarians, began appearing in the region during the Iron Age. In the late 6th century BC, the Persians conquered most of present-day Bulgaria, and kept it until 479 BC. After the division of the Roman Empire in the 5th century the area fell under Byzantine control, by this time, Christianity had already spread in the region. A small Gothic community in Nicopolis ad Istrum produced the first Germanic language book in the 4th century, the first Christian monastery in Europe was established around the same time by Saint Athanasius in central Bulgaria. From the 6th century the easternmost South Slavs gradually settled in the region, in 680 Bulgar tribes under the leadership of Asparukh moved south across the Danube and settled in the area between the lower Danube and the Balkan, establishing their capital at Pliska
15.
Lithuania
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Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in Northern Europe. One of the three Baltic states, it is situated along the shore of the Baltic Sea, to the east of Sweden. It is bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, Lithuania has an estimated population of 2.9 million people as of 2015, and its capital and largest city is Vilnius. The official language, Lithuanian, along with Latvian, is one of two living languages in the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family. For centuries, the shores of the Baltic Sea were inhabited by various Baltic tribes. In the 1230s, the Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas, the King of Lithuania, and the first unified Lithuanian state, with the Lublin Union of 1569, Lithuania and Poland formed a voluntary two-state union, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth lasted more than two centuries, until neighboring countries systematically dismantled it from 1772–95, with the Russian Empire annexing most of Lithuanias territory. As World War I neared its end, Lithuanias Act of Independence was signed on 16 February 1918, in the midst of the Second World War, Lithuania was first occupied by the Soviet Union and then by Nazi Germany. As World War II neared its end and the Germans retreated, Lithuania is a member of the European Union, the Council of Europe, a full member of the Eurozone, Schengen Agreement and NATO. It is also a member of the Nordic Investment Bank, the United Nations Human Development Index lists Lithuania as a very high human development country. Lithuania has been among the fastest growing economies in the European Union and is ranked 21st in the world in the Ease of Doing Business Index, the first people settled in the territory of Lithuania after the last glacial period in the 10th millennium BC. Over a millennium, the Indo-Europeans, who arrived in the 3rd – 2nd millennium BC, mixed with the local population, the first written mention of Lithuania is found in a medieval German manuscript, the Annals of Quedlinburg, in an entry dated 9 March 1009. Initially inhabited by fragmented Baltic tribes, in the 1230s the Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas, after his assassination in 1263, pagan Lithuania was a target of the Christian crusades of the Teutonic Knights and the Livonian Order. Despite the devastating century-long struggle with the Orders, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania expanded rapidly, by the end of the 14th century, Lithuania was one of the largest countries in Europe and included present-day Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Russia. The geopolitical situation between the west and the east determined the multicultural and multi-confessional character of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the ruling elite practised religious tolerance and Chancery Slavonic language was used as an auxiliary language to the Latin for official documents. In 1385, the Grand Duke Jogaila accepted Polands offer to become its king, Jogaila embarked on gradual Christianization of Lithuania and established a personal union between Poland and Lithuania. It implied that Lithuania, the fiercely independent land, was one of the last pagan areas of Europe to adopt Christianity, after two civil wars, Vytautas the Great became the Grand Duke of Lithuania in 1392. During his reign, Lithuania reached the peak of its expansion, centralization of the state began
16.
Ukraine
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Ukraine is currently in territorial dispute with Russia over the Crimean Peninsula which Russia annexed in 2014 but which Ukraine and most of the international community recognise as Ukrainian. Including Crimea, Ukraine has an area of 603,628 km2, making it the largest country entirely within Europe and it has a population of about 42.5 million, making it the 32nd most populous country in the world. The territory of modern Ukraine has been inhabited since 32,000 BC, during the Middle Ages, the area was a key centre of East Slavic culture, with the powerful state of Kievan Rus forming the basis of Ukrainian identity. Following its fragmentation in the 13th century, the territory was contested, ruled and divided by a variety of powers, including Lithuania, Poland, the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. A Cossack republic emerged and prospered during the 17th and 18th centuries, two brief periods of independence occurred during the 20th century, once near the end of World War I and another during World War II. Before its independence, Ukraine was typically referred to in English as The Ukraine, following independence, Ukraine declared itself a neutral state. Nonetheless it formed a limited partnership with the Russian Federation and other CIS countries. In the 2000s, the government began leaning towards NATO, and it was later agreed that the question of joining NATO should be answered by a national referendum at some point in the future. Former President Viktor Yanukovych considered the current level of co-operation between Ukraine and NATO sufficient, and was against Ukraine joining NATO and these events formed the background for the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, and the War in Donbass in April 2014. On 1 January 2016, Ukraine applied the economic part of the Deep, Ukraine has long been a global breadbasket because of its extensive, fertile farmlands and is one of the worlds largest grain exporters. The diversified economy of Ukraine includes a heavy industry sector, particularly in aerospace. Ukraine is a republic under a semi-presidential system with separate powers, legislative, executive. Its capital and largest city is Kiev, taking into account reserves and paramilitary personnel, Ukraine maintains the second-largest military in Europe after that of Russia. Ukrainian is the language and its alphabet is Cyrillic. The dominant religion in the country is Eastern Orthodoxy, which has strongly influenced Ukrainian architecture, literature, there are different hypotheses as to the etymology of the name Ukraine. According to the older and most widespread hypothesis, it means borderland, while more recently some studies claim a different meaning, homeland or region. The Ukraine now implies disregard for the sovereignty, according to U. S. ambassador William Taylor. Neanderthal settlement in Ukraine is seen in the Molodova archaeological sites include a mammoth bone dwelling
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Latvia
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Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe, one of the three Baltic states. It is bordered by Estonia to the north, Lithuania to the south, Russia to the east, Latvia has 1,957,200 inhabitants and a territory of 64,589 km2. The country has a seasonal climate. Latvia is a parliamentary republic established in 1918. The capital city is Riga, the European Capital of Culture 2014, Latvia is a unitary state, divided into 119 administrative divisions, of which 110 are municipalities and 9 are cities. Latvians and Livs are the people of Latvia. Latvian and Lithuanian are the two surviving Baltic languages. Despite foreign rule from the 13th to 20th centuries, the Latvian nation maintained its identity throughout the generations via the language, Latvia and Estonia share a long common history. Until World War II, Latvia also had significant minorities of ethnic Germans, Latvia is historically predominantly Protestant Lutheran, except for the Latgale region in the southeast, which has historically been predominantly Roman Catholic. The Russian population has brought a significant portion of Eastern Orthodox Christians. The Republic of Latvia was founded on 18 November 1918, however, its de facto independence was interrupted at the outset of World War II. The peaceful Singing Revolution, starting in 1987, called for Baltic emancipation of Soviet rule and it ended with the Declaration on the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia on 4 May 1990, and restoring de facto independence on 21 August 1991. Latvia is a democratic and developed country and member of the European Union, NATO, the Council of Europe, the United Nations, CBSS, the IMF, NB8, NIB, OECD, OSCE, and WTO. For 2014, Latvia was listed 46th on the Human Development Index and it used the Latvian lats as its currency until it was replaced by the euro on 1 January 2014. The name Latvija is derived from the name of the ancient Latgalians, one of four Indo-European Baltic tribes, henry of Latvia coined the Latinisations of the countrys name, Lettigallia and Lethia, both derived from the Latgalians. The terms inspired the variations on the name in Romance languages from Letonia. Around 3000 BC, the ancestors of the Latvian people settled on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. The Balts established trade routes to Rome and Byzantium, trading local amber for precious metals, by 900 AD, four distinct Baltic tribes inhabited Latvia, Curonians, Latgalians, Selonians, Semigallians, as well as the Livonians speaking a Finnic language
18.
Guinea-Bissau
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Guinea-Bissau, officially the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, is a country in West Africa. It covers 36,125 square kilometres with a population of 1,704,000. Guinea-Bissau was once part of the kingdom of Gabu, as well as part of the Mali Empire, parts of this kingdom persisted until the 18th century, while a few others were under some rule by the Portuguese Empire since the 16th century. In the 19th century, it was colonized as Portuguese Guinea, upon independence, declared in 1973 and recognised in 1974, the name of its capital, Bissau, was added to the countrys name to prevent confusion with Guinea. Guinea-Bissau has a history of instability since independence, and no elected president has successfully served a full five-year term. Only 14% of the population speaks Portuguese, established as the language in the colonial period. Almost half the population speaks Crioulo, a Portuguese-based creole language, the main religions are African traditional religions and Islam, there is a Christian minority. The countrys per-capita gross domestic product is one of the lowest in the world, Guinea-Bissau was once part of the kingdom of Gabu, part of the Mali Empire, parts of this kingdom persisted until the 18th century. Other parts of the territory in the current country were considered by the Portuguese as part of their empire, Portuguese Guinea was known as the Slave Coast, as it was a major area for the exportation of African slaves by Europeans to the western hemisphere. Early reports of Europeans reaching this area include those of the Venetian Alvise Cadamostos voyage of 1455, the 1479–1480 voyage by Flemish-French trader Eustache de la Fosse, and Diogo Cão. In the 1480s this Portuguese explorer reached the Congo River and the lands of Bakongo, setting up the foundations of modern Angola, some 4200 km down the African coast from Guinea-Bissau. The local African rulers in Guinea, some of whom prospered greatly from the trade, controlled the inland trade. They kept them in the coastal settlements where the trading took place. African communities that fought back against slave traders also distrusted European adventurers, the Portuguese in Guinea were largely restricted to the port of Bissau and Cacheu. A small number of European settlers established isolated farms along Bissaus inland rivers, for a brief period in the 1790s, the British tried to establish a rival foothold on an offshore island, at Bolama. But by the 19th century the Portuguese were sufficiently secure in Bissau to regard the neighbouring coastline as their own special territory, cuba also agreed to supply artillery experts, doctors, and technicians. The PAIGC even managed to acquire a significant anti-aircraft capability in order to defend itself against aerial attack, by 1973, the PAIGC was in control of many parts of Guinea, although the movement suffered a setback in January 1973 when Cabral was assassinated. Independence was unilaterally declared on 24 September 1973, recognition became universal following 25 April 1974 socialist-inspired military coup in Portugal, which overthrew Lisbons Estado Novo regime
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Chad
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Chad, officially the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east and it is the fifth largest country in Africa in terms of area. Chad has several regions, a zone in the north, an arid Sahelian belt in the centre. Lake Chad, after which the country is named, is the largest wetland in Chad, the capital NDjamena is the largest city. Chads official languages are Arabic and French, Chad is home to over 200 different ethnic and linguistic groups. The religions of Chad are Islam, followed by Christianity, beginning in the 7th millennium BC, human populations moved into the Chadian basin in great numbers. France conquered the territory by 1920 and incorporated it as part of French Equatorial Africa, in 1960, Chad obtained independence under the leadership of François Tombalbaye. Resentment towards his policies in the Muslim north culminated in the eruption of a civil war in 1965. In 1979 the rebels conquered the capital and put an end to the souths hegemony, however, the rebel commanders fought amongst themselves until Hissène Habré defeated his rivals. He was overthrown in 1990 by his general Idriss Déby, since 2003 the Darfur crisis in Sudan has spilt over the border and destabilised the nation, with hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees living in and around camps in eastern Chad. Unsustainable high birth rates and a lack of agriculture let the country persist in poverty, while many political parties are active, power lies firmly in the hands of President Déby and his political party, the Patriotic Salvation Movement. Chad remains plagued by violence and recurrent attempted coups détat. Chad is one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in the world, since 2003 crude oil has become the countrys primary source of export earnings, superseding the traditional cotton industry. In the 7th millennium BC, ecological conditions in the half of Chadian territory favored human settlement. Some of the most important African archaeological sites are found in Chad, mainly in the Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti Region, for more than 2,000 years, the Chadian Basin has been inhabited by agricultural and sedentary people. The region became a crossroads of civilizations, the earliest of these were the legendary Sao, known from artifacts and oral histories. The Sao fell to the Kanem Empire, the first and longest-lasting of the empires that developed in Chads Sahelian strip by the end of the 1st millennium AD, two other states in the region, Baguirmi and Wadai Empire emerged in the 16th and 17th centuries. The power of Kanem and its successors was based on control of the trade routes that passed through the region
20.
Afghanistan
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Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located within South Asia and Central Asia. It has a population of approximately 32 million, making it the 42nd most populous country in the world. It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in the north and its territory covers 652,000 km2, making it the 41st largest country in the world. The land also served as the source from which the Kushans, Hephthalites, Samanids, Saffarids, Ghaznavids, Ghorids, Khiljis, Mughals, Hotaks, Durranis, the political history of the modern state of Afghanistan began with the Hotak and Durrani dynasties in the 18th century. In the late 19th century, Afghanistan became a state in the Great Game between British India and the Russian Empire. Following the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919, King Amanullah unsuccessfully attempted to modernize the country and it remained peaceful during Zahir Shahs forty years of monarchy. A series of coups in the 1970s was followed by a series of wars that devastated much of Afghanistan. The name Afghānistān is believed to be as old as the ethnonym Afghan, the root name Afghan was used historically in reference to a member of the ethnic Pashtuns, and the suffix -stan means place of in Persian. Therefore, Afghanistan translates to land of the Afghans or, more specifically in a historical sense, however, the modern Constitution of Afghanistan states that he word Afghan shall apply to every citizen of Afghanistan. An important site of historical activities, many believe that Afghanistan compares to Egypt in terms of the historical value of its archaeological sites. The country sits at a unique nexus point where numerous civilizations have interacted and it has been home to various peoples through the ages, among them the ancient Iranian peoples who established the dominant role of Indo-Iranian languages in the region. At multiple points, the land has been incorporated within large regional empires, among them the Achaemenid Empire, the Macedonian Empire, the Indian Maurya Empire, and the Islamic Empire. Archaeological exploration done in the 20th century suggests that the area of Afghanistan has been closely connected by culture and trade with its neighbors to the east, west. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, urban civilization is believed to have begun as early as 3000 BCE, and the early city of Mundigak may have been a colony of the nearby Indus Valley Civilization. More recent findings established that the Indus Valley Civilisation stretched up towards modern-day Afghanistan, making the ancient civilisation today part of Pakistan, Afghanistan, in more detail, it extended from what today is northwest Pakistan to northwest India and northeast Afghanistan. An Indus Valley site has found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan. There are several smaller IVC colonies to be found in Afghanistan as well, after 2000 BCE, successive waves of semi-nomadic people from Central Asia began moving south into Afghanistan, among them were many Indo-European-speaking Indo-Iranians. These tribes later migrated further into South Asia, Western Asia, the region at the time was referred to as Ariana
21.
Serbia
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Serbia, officially the Republic of Serbia, is a sovereign state situated at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Pannonian Plain and the central Balkans. Relative to its territory, it is a diverse country distinguished by a transitional character, situated along cultural, geographic, climatic. Serbia numbers around 7 million residents, and its capital, Belgrade, following the Slavic migrations to the Balkans from the 6th century onwards, Serbs established several states in the early Middle Ages. The Serbian Kingdom obtained recognition by Rome and the Byzantine Empire in 1217, in the early 19th century, the Serbian Revolution established the nation-state as the regions first constitutional monarchy, which subsequently expanded its territory. During the breakup of Yugoslavia, Serbia formed a union with Montenegro which dissolved peacefully in 2006, in 2008 the parliament of the province of Kosovo unilaterally declared independence, with mixed responses from the international community. Serbia is a member of organizations such as the UN, CoE, OSCE, PfP, BSEC. An EU membership candidate since 2012, Serbia has been negotiating its EU accession since January 2014, the country is acceding to the WTO and is a militarily neutral state. Serbia is an income economy with dominant service sector, followed by the industrial sector. The country ranks high on the Social Progress Index as well as the Global Peace Index, relatively high on the Human Development Index, located at the crossroads between Central and Southern Europe, Serbia is found in the Balkan peninsula and the Pannonian Plain. Serbia lies between latitudes 41° and 47° N, and longitudes 18° and 23° E. The country covers a total of 88,361 km2, which places it at 113th place in the world, with Kosovo excluded, the area is 77,474 km2. Its total border length amounts to 2,027 km, all of Kosovos border with Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro are under control of the Kosovo border police. The Pannonian Plain covers the third of the country while the easternmost tip of Serbia extends into the Wallachian Plain. The terrain of the part of the country, with the region of Šumadija at its heart. Mountains dominate the third of Serbia. Dinaric Alps stretch in the west and the southwest, following the flow of the rivers Drina, the Carpathian Mountains and Balkan Mountains stretch in a north–south direction in eastern Serbia. Ancient mountains in the southeast corner of the country belong to the Rilo-Rhodope Mountain system, elevation ranges from the Midžor peak of the Balkan Mountains at 2,169 metres to the lowest point of just 17 metres near the Danube river at Prahovo. The largest lake is Đerdap Lake and the longest river passing through Serbia is the Danube, the climate of Serbia is under the influences of the landmass of Eurasia and the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea
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Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
23.
World Health Organization
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The World Health Organization is a specialised agency of the United Nations that is concerned with international public health. It was established on 7 April 1948, headquartered in Geneva, the WHO is a member of the United Nations Development Group. Its predecessor, the Health Organization, was an agency of the League of Nations, the constitution of the World Health Organization had been signed by 61 countries on 22 July 1946, with the first meeting of the World Health Assembly finishing on 24 July 1948. It incorporated the Office international dhygiène publique and the League of Nations Health Organization, since its creation, it has played a leading role in the eradication of smallpox. The WHO is responsible for the World Health Report, an international publication on health, the worldwide World Health Survey. The head of WHO is Margaret Chan, the 2014/2015 proposed budget of the WHO is about US$4 billion. About US$930 million are to be provided by member states with a further US$3 billion to be from voluntary contributions, after failing to get a resolution passed on the subject, Alger Hiss, the Secretary General of the conference, recommended using a declaration to establish such an organisation. Dr. Sze and other delegates lobbied and a declaration passed calling for a conference on health. The use of the world, rather than international, emphasised the truly global nature of what the organisation was seeking to achieve. The constitution of the World Health Organization was signed by all 51 countries of the United Nations and it thus became the first specialised agency of the United Nations to which every member subscribed. Its constitution formally came into force on the first World Health Day on 7 April 1948, the first meeting of the World Health Assembly finished on 24 July 1948, having secured a budget of US$5 million for the 1949 year. Andrija Stampar was the Assemblys first president, and G. Brock Chisholm was appointed Director-General of WHO and its first priorities were to control the spread of malaria, tuberculosis and sexually transmitted infections, and to improve maternal and child health, nutrition and environmental hygiene. Its first legislative act was concerning the compilation of statistics on the spread. The logo of the World Health Organization features the Rod of Asclepius as a symbol for healing, in 1947 the WHO established an epidemiological information service via telex, and by 1950 a mass tuberculosis inoculation drive using the BCG vaccine was under way. In 1955, the eradication programme was launched, although it was later altered in objective. 1965 saw the first report on diabetes mellitus and the creation of the International Agency for Research on Cancer. In 1958, Viktor Zhdanov, Deputy Minister of Health for the USSR, called on the World Health Assembly to undertake an initiative to eradicate smallpox. At this point,2 million people were dying from smallpox every year, in 1966, WHO moved into its headquarters building
24.
Developed country
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Which criteria are to be used and which countries can be classified as being developed are subjects of debate. Developed countries have post-industrial economies, meaning the sector provides more wealth than the industrial sector. They are contrasted with developing countries, which are in the process of industrialization, or undeveloped countries, which are pre-industrial and almost entirely agrarian. As of 2015, advanced economies comprise 60. 8% of global GDP based on values and 42. 9% of global GDP based on purchasing-power parity according to the International Monetary Fund. In 2015, the ten largest advanced economies by GDP in both nominal and PPP terms were Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The term industrialized country may be ambiguous, as industrialization is an ongoing process that is hard to define. The first industrialized country was the United Kingdom, followed by Belgium, later it spread further to Germany, United States, France and other Western European countries. According to some such as Jeffrey Sachs, however, the current divide between the developed and developing world is largely a phenomenon of the 20th century. Economic criteria have tended to dominate discussions, one such criterion is income per capita, countries with high gross domestic product per capita would thus be described as developed countries. Another economic criterion is industrialization, countries in which the tertiary and quaternary sectors of industry dominate would thus be described as developed. More recently another measure, the Human Development Index, which combines an economic measure, national income, with other measures, indices for life expectancy and this criterion would define developed countries as those with a very high rating. According to the United Nations Statistics Division, There is no established convention for the designation of developed, the UN HDI is a statistical measure that gauges a countrys level of human development. While there is a correlation between having a high HDI score and a prosperous economy, the UN points out that the HDI accounts for more than income or productivity. Unlike GDP per capita or per capita income, the HDI takes into account how income is turned into education and health opportunities, since 1990, Norway, Japan, Canada and Iceland have had the highest HDI score. The top 47 countries have scores ranging from 0.793 in Barbados to 0.955 in Norway, many countries listed by IMF or CIA as advanced, possess an HDI over 0.788. Many countries possessing an HDI of 0.788 and over are also listed by IMF or CIA as advanced, thus, many advanced economies are characterized by an HDI score of 0.9 or higher. Since April 2016, the IMF classifies Macau as an advanced economy, the latest index was released on 14 December 2015 and covers the period up to 2014. The following are the 49 countries in the top quartile - having an HDI above 0.8, = Increase = No increase or decrease = Decrease The number in parentheses represents the number of ranks the country has climbed relative to the ranking in 2014 report
25.
Natural logarithm
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The natural logarithm of a number is its logarithm to the base of the mathematical constant e, where e is an irrational and transcendental number approximately equal to 2.718281828459. The natural logarithm of x is written as ln x, loge x, or sometimes, if the base e is implicit. Parentheses are sometimes added for clarity, giving ln, loge or log and this is done in particular when the argument to the logarithm is not a single symbol, to prevent ambiguity. The natural logarithm of x is the power to which e would have to be raised to equal x. The natural log of e itself, ln, is 1, because e1 = e, while the natural logarithm of 1, ln, is 0, since e0 =1. The natural logarithm can be defined for any real number a as the area under the curve y = 1/x from 1 to a. The simplicity of this definition, which is matched in many other formulas involving the natural logarithm, like all logarithms, the natural logarithm maps multiplication into addition, ln = ln + ln . However, logarithms in other bases differ only by a constant multiplier from the natural logarithm, for instance, the binary logarithm is the natural logarithm divided by ln, the natural logarithm of 2. Logarithms are useful for solving equations in which the unknown appears as the exponent of some other quantity, for example, logarithms are used to solve for the half-life, decay constant, or unknown time in exponential decay problems. They are important in many branches of mathematics and the sciences and are used in finance to solve problems involving compound interest, by Lindemann–Weierstrass theorem, the natural logarithm of any positive algebraic number other than 1 is a transcendental number. The concept of the natural logarithm was worked out by Gregoire de Saint-Vincent and their work involved quadrature of the hyperbola xy =1 by determination of the area of hyperbolic sectors. Their solution generated the requisite hyperbolic logarithm function having properties now associated with the natural logarithm, the notations ln x and loge x both refer unambiguously to the natural logarithm of x. log x without an explicit base may also refer to the natural logarithm. This usage is common in mathematics and some scientific contexts as well as in many programming languages, in some other contexts, however, log x can be used to denote the common logarithm. Historically, the notations l. and l were in use at least since the 1730s, finally, in the twentieth century, the notations Log and logh are attested. The graph of the logarithm function shown earlier on the right side of the page enables one to glean some of the basic characteristics that logarithms to any base have in common. Chief among them are, the logarithm of the one is zero. What makes natural logarithms unique is to be found at the point where all logarithms are zero. At that specific point the slope of the curve of the graph of the logarithm is also precisely one
26.
Jean Ziegler
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Jean Ziegler is a former professor of sociology at the University of Geneva and the Sorbonne, Paris. Currently member of the Advisory Committee to the United Nations Human Rights Council and he was a Member of Parliament for the Social Democrats in the Federal Assembly of Switzerland from 1981 to 1999. Jean Ziegler has authored works, is a lecturer, and is well known for this sentence. Jean Ziegler was born on April 19,1934 in Thun and his father was the president of the town’s court and a reserve artillery colonel. Ziegler married and had one son and he studied at the universities of Bern and Geneva and has doctorates in Law and Sociology. He also earned his barrister brevet at the bar association of Geneva, in 1952, he met Abbé Pierre in Paris, and became the first director of the Emmaus charitable community of Geneva. In 1964, Ziegler admired the Cuban rebels, and was Che Guevaras chauffeur in Geneva, Ziegler was professor at the University of Grenoble and until 2002 at the University of Geneva and at the Graduate Institute of Development Studies, where he taught sociology. He also held the position of professor at the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1963 Jean Ziegler was elected at the council of Geneva as a social democrat. From 1967 to 1983 and from 1987 to 1999 he held a seat at the Swiss National Council, while there he was the president of the “Swiss-Third World” parliamentary group. He joined the commissions for foreign affairs, science and international trade, nominated by Switzerland, he was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food from 2000 to 2008. He concluded his second term 30 September 2012, but was reelected on 26 September 2013 with a term lasting until September 30,2016 and he is also a member of the advisory board of the non-profit organization Business Crime Control which targets white-collar crime. Jean Ziegler was made knight of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1994 and he has an honorary degree at the University of Mons in Belgium. He was awarded the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic, the Republic of Cape Verde awarded him the National Order of Amílcar Cabral, first degree. He received the Gaddafi Human Rights Prize in 2002, on January 17,2009 he received an honorary degree from the University of Paris VIII. He was honored with ethecons 2012 Blue Planet Award for his efforts towards humanitarian ethics. As a United Nations official, Ziegler has dealt with both general worldwide issues such as the use of biofuels, as well as country-specific issues, regarding the former, Ziegler has criticised the uptake of biofuels because their production can come at the expense of growing food. On 26 October 2007 Ziegler told a conference at the UN that its a crime against humanity to convert agricultural productive soil into soil
Lesotho
Bulgaria
Lithuania
Ukraine
Latvia
Guinea-Bissau
Chad
Afghanistan
Serbia
Russia
. PMID 28888247.
